Chapter 8 #2
Lucy gave him a small smile that brimmed with empathy. “You loved her when you married, didn’t you? There must have been some emotion there for you both to wed.” The low, dulcet tone of her voice wrapped around him, and he calmed somewhat.
“I was… fond of her.” The more he spoke, the more of himself he laid bare at her feet, and the more she’d grow horrified of his behavior.
“I married her out of obligation due to her carrying Ellen. My father and hers demanded it.” Colin rubbed his eyes, suddenly exhausted.
“I thought Adelaide and I would grow into romance, that we could have the idyllic love as my parents and yours enjoyed.”
Over the course of his marriage, he’d hoped his union would have that deep and abiding affection, but it had never developed. He’d not felt the things he had when he’d been with Lucy all those years ago.
“You worked at it, though.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. She became my goal for a time.” Colin leaned forward in his chair, resting his arms on his knees. “With Adelaide I wanted to succeed, to show her I wasn’t the man she’d met when she was my mistress.” To amend the fact that he had failed where Lucy was concerned.
I tried to be a better man, but it hadn’t worked.
“I remember that about you, that determination.” Lucy smiled again, but it wasn’t full and it didn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing would stop you once you had your mind set on something.”
Except winning you. I never could manage to see that to the end.
He forced a swallow into his dry throat.
“The second pregnancy was an effort to bring us closer. We thought the addition of another child was what we needed to finally have things feel like a family.” But nothing he or his wife had done mended the rifts between them…
for there was no love at the foundation.
“It was my second chance to make things right.”
Lucy’s eyes went limpid with understanding. “But she didn’t survive.”
“No.” Unshed tears crowded his throat, and he swallowed to alleviate the excess of feeling.
Colin didn’t win that battle. Instead, he let the tears fall, regardless that it revealed his weakness.
For so long he’d had no choice except to remain strong for Ellen, to keep up appearances for the sake of his reputation, to deny his feelings to himself.
Now, with this woman, it felt natural to show his real self, to finally mourn, because she would understand.
“I wanted that child, Lucy,” he said in a frantic whisper.
“That son.” He swiped halfheartedly at the moisture on his cheeks as he held her gaze.
“Perhaps my children were the only thing I did right… and I’m ruining the chance with Ellen. ”
“Oh, Colin.” Lucy’s eyes swam with tears of her own. The compassion in those ice-blue depths became his undoing.
At the other side of the room, his daughter had gained her feet. “Papa, are you quite well?” Concern threaded through her voice.
The “papa” broke him. No. I haven’t been well for some time.
Desperate for direction, for help, Colin threw himself to the floor, knelt at Lucy’s feet.
He had no idea how to answer Ellen. “I’ve destroyed everything that ever meant something to me.
” Every relationship he’d entered into had fallen beneath his ennui and his quest to forget since that long-ago Christmas when he’d tumbled into a perpetual free-fall. “I don’t know what to do now.”
“It’s never too late to change,” Lucy choked out, and when he laid his head in her lap and sobbed, she didn’t dissuade him.
She let him cry while she stroked her fingers through his hair.
“Ellen, please order a fresh pot of tea. Your father needs a moment to gather himself,” she said, and her voice rang with the gentle command of a woman used to restoring order.
“Right away, Lucy,” Ellen said. Her footsteps pounded on the worn hardwood as she ran from the room.
Once they were alone, Lucy whispered, “It’s all right, Colin.
You needed to let your emotions come out.
” Each stroke of her fingers through his hair, glancing along his forehead and nape, brought a fair measure of calm.
Oh, how he’d missed that. “Time eventually heals all wounds.” Her breath warmed his cheek as she bent close to him.
“You have a chance to be a better person.”
Perhaps stupidly, hope rose in his chest. “A chance to win you back after I’ve been such an arse all these years?
” he asked quietly, and though his tears had stemmed, he held his position, enjoying too much her nearness, the warmth of her.
The subtle scent of daisies teased his nose and he smiled, for she’d favored that perfume in her youth.
The slight inhalation of her surprise rang in the heavy silence. “I’m not certain such a thing is possible. We are not the same people we were all those years ago.”
“Perhaps that’s the point.” Colin finally raised his head. He caught the confusion in her gaze, the banked heat of something buried deep in those depths, and the silly, foolish hope bloomed brighter. “We are both at a place in our lives that anything is possible once more.”
“I… we…” She floundered, and then her cheeks held a hint of a blush when he grabbed one of her hands and placed a kiss upon the back. “Too much history between us is, well… too much. It would always stand as a specter of the past.”
“Or serve as a warning of what not to do in the future.” When his daughter came back into the room, Colin stood. He wiped the remains of the tears from his cheeks. “Ellen, my girl, I think I’ve turned a corner.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.” She ran lightly over to him and threw herself into his arms. “It will be lovely to have a real Christmas this year.” The girl hugged him tight, and his heart squeezed.
“Don’t expect great miracles straight off. I’m not such a hero as all of that.” He set her away from him in order to look at Lucy. “Thank you.”
“You’re more than welcome.” When he grinned, feeling decidedly wicked, another swath of color flooded her cheeks. “I should…” Lucy shot to her feet while fluttering a hand, presumably to encompass the detritus of their earlier repast.
He nodded, choosing to keep his own counsel for the moment, but his mind whirled. From that moment, he vowed to stop making her miserable for the hurts of their shared past. He would start helping her rediscover Christmas magic—for them both.