Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
My body still ached as I descended the stairs the next morning.
I entered the kitchen where Vane sat at the table with Lily and Jack.
My stomach clenched as he turned his blue gaze on me, but he rose and left the room, Lily following.
I approached the fireplace then stopped as Jack raised his my hand.
“No, sister. You must rest. Sit.”
I obeyed and he ladled some porridge into a bowl and placed it in front of me. I picked up my spoon then startled as he took my hand.
“Are you well, sister? Lily and I heard you last night.”
“I-I am fine,” I whispered, blowing on the porridge to cool it.
“I would believe you, had I not heard screaming,” he said before withdrawing his hand.
He did not press the matter but watched while I spooned porridge into my mouth. His careful scrutiny did more to loosen my tongue than demands or coercion.
“Sometimes I have bad dreams, that is all,” I said, aware of the tremor in my voice.
“Do they include my brother?”
My stomach fluttered and I glanced up to see him watching me.
“You were crying for him,” Jack said, “and I noticed that he did not come home until morning.”
My appetite gone, I pushed the bowl away.
“Do not think badly of him, sister. He’s a good man and has a kind heart.”
“So Lily says,” I replied, “yet he cares not…”
I broke off and rose to leave but Jack caught my hand.
“Perhaps if you knew him better you’d think more kindly of him,” he said. “The events in his life have scarred his heart, and he has yet to heal.”
“Is this to do with William? The man Lily has spoken of?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed in pain. “Aye, it is all to do with our brother.”
“William was your brother? A-and he died?”
“Aye,” Jack said, “he was our younger brother. Valentine is the eldest but he was not my father’s child.”
He wiped his hand across his brow and continued.
“Our mother had lain with another man. William and I did not know that Valentine was only our half-brother and a bastard. Children don’t question why one brother has a different surname.
We loved him just the same. Father agreed to raise Valentine but never truly recognized him.
Sawford was our mother’s family name. But, when I became of age, father handed the business to me, not Valentine. ”
“Was Vane angry?”
Jack smiled, reliving the memory.
“No. He was a generous-hearted brother and loved William and me very much. We agreed to run the business together. Lily and I had recently married, and Valentine adored her, treating her as his own sister, comforting her when we were desperate for a child and our efforts were fruitless.”
Pain flashed across his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My being here, as I am, must be difficult for you.”
“Nay, we are resigned to it, Lisetta, and will share your joy when your child arrives. I am glad Valentine has married.”
“Yet you were surprised at the time? Because of William?”
“Aye.”
“What happened, Jack?” I said. “My husband will not speak of it.”
He sighed. “Valentine had always given his heart too easily. He fell in love with the daughter of a knight serving the lord here. Elizabeth was a beautiful creature and Valentine was utterly devoted to her. He offered for her and was accepted, or so we thought. However, when she discovered he was bastard born…”
“…she rejected him?”
“Nay, worse.” Jack said. “She turned her attentions to William. Valentine caught her whoring herself with William in his bed. She told him that she could never shackle herself to a bastard and that William had offered for her. That foolish young whelp also fancied himself in love, and Elizabeth had managed to persuade him that the child she carried was his, though I suspect it was Valentine’s. ”
“Dear lord—does Vane have a child?”
Jack shook his head.
“Valentine lost his temper when he saw Elizabeth with William. She’d planned it, of course, but poor, foolish William had no idea. He told Valentine he loved Elizabeth and was going to marry her and raise the child. They fought and Valentine struck a blow. William fell and hit his head.”
Jack closed his eyes as if uttering a brief, silent prayer before opening them again, moist with unshed tears.
“William never recovered.”
I let out a low cry.
“Please, Lisetta,” Jack said. “It was not Valentine’s fault.
He suffered greatly over William’s death.
Father threw him out, but what hurt him most was our mother’s rejection.
He left that night, and we did not see him for some years.
After a while we thought he was dead. When he returned he was a changed man; scarred and hardened, and grown in stature.
The brother I knew no longer existed. Lily persuaded me to take him in—she has always seen the good in him.
But he did not stay. He would disappear for months at a time.
The last time was almost three years, before he returned with you. ”
“What happened to…” I struggled to speak her name “…to Elizabeth, a-and…her child?”
Jack’s voice hardened. “She married an acquaintance of her father’s, someone prepared to take her though she carried another’s child.
She died in childbirth and took the child with her.
The first time Valentine returned, I took him to her grave.
He stood by the headstone and spat on it, declaring all women deceitful whores and that he would never fall prey to one again. ”
He gave a mirthless laugh. “Little did that bitch know, Valentine eventually became everything she wanted. Her rejection of him was like a stone being thrown into a pond, sending out ripples of events, leading him to become the man he is.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“De Beauvane knighted him.”
My eyes widened. “Vane’s a knight? I thought him a mere servant.”
“Yet you still married him.”
“I had no choice.”
His eyes narrowed. “Would you have been more willing had you known he was a knight?”
I shook my head. “No, Jack. It would have made no difference. I have spent most of my life subject to the authority, and whims, of lords and knights. Yet only during these past sennights in your house, have I understood how a man can be kind, even when he has nothing to gain by it.”
He fixed his gaze on me and tilted his head to one side, as if in thought.
Anxious not to talk about myself I changed the subject.
“Does he still think of her…of Elizabeth?”
Jack sighed. “Nay, he does not, though it left him with a bitterness toward women.”
“All women?”
“He loves Lily as a sister. She defended him against my father, more so than I did for I was grieving for William at the time. But as for other women—he was a changed man. ’Tis a pity.”
I lowered my head, feeling the heat rise in my face.
Jack took my hand.
“Forgive me, Lisetta. He has a loving heart, but conceals it.”
He lowered his voice to a whisper while he caressed my hand. “He is much like you. I think you care—and love—a great deal more than you wish the world to know. Why is that?”
I shook my head, but he persisted.
“Do you think me blind? Your manner may be aloof but even if the tears you shed last night did not betray you, your eyes show a great deal. They contain fear but also deep sadness—and I see their expression when you look upon my brother. Do not try to convince me you are incapable of love…”
“Please, Jack, say no more.” I pulled my hand away.
“Why do you not reveal your feelings?”
I stood, but he caught my wrist where Vane had crushed it the night before.
I groaned in pain and struggled against his grip.
My body belonged to Vane as much as it had belonged to my father and Mortlock, who had abused and controlled it.
But my mind and soul—I wanted to believe they were free, still mine to control.
Yet Jack, who I had trusted, was probing my thoughts, wanting me to reveal myself to him.
“Please, let me go!”
He released me and raised his hands in a gesture of appeasement.
“I will not touch you if you don’t wish it. Sit down and finish your porridge.”
I backed away, rubbing my wrist.
“Are you so frightened to trust us?” he asked.
I continued to move, not answering.
“Who did this to you, Lisetta? Who made you so afraid to speak of your feelings that you have built such a fortress around your heart? What happened to you? I am no fool—I see your loving nature but it has been driven deep within you. You are terrified to show it.”
I smoothed my face into indifference.
“You speak nonsense. I am merely tired and wish to rest.”
He slumped his shoulders and sighed.
“As you wish. But I am your friend, Lisetta. I hope one day you will see me as such. Go and rest. I will ensure you are not disturbed, but as a friend I would ask you to do one thing.”
“What is that?”
“Give Valentine a chance. Trust him. He married you for a reason. He had a choice, and he chose to wed you.”
Unable to reply, I left the room.
The next day, my body was gripped by fatigue, and I ached everywhere. The child moved and my body began to stretch around him, tightening into spasms. It seemed as if he shared my discomfort and distress, and I stroked my belly shushing him with soft words of love.
Perhaps in time I could trust Jack. When he asked me to give Vane a chance his eyes pleaded for a brother whose heart had been broken.
If I told Vane I loved him, might Jack help him to grow to feel something for me—for our child?
Lily clearly loved Vane. Perhaps if I could convince her of my love for him she might help me, also.
What might it be like to have a loving family around me?
Was it possible? Jack’s words wove through my mind as I lay, drifting in and out of sleep, on the bed.
Perhaps I could tend to the wounds of Vane’s heart as I had healed the wounds of his body.
I had caught glimpses of empathy in his eyes.
Maybe I could nurture those tiny sparks into flames of love.
The pains in my body woke me later that night.