Chapter Four #2
He waved away her objection with a curt motion. “It’s not that I want to marry a woman I truly don’t like,” he said. “But she must be someone I will never love.”
“Because?” Thea pressed.
“Because once I fall in love, I will die.”
It took a moment for Thea to digest exactly what he’d said. And she still didn’t understand. “Immediately, Neal? Or will you be allowed a few years of wedded bliss?”
“I thought you claimed not to scoff, Thea.”
“I was being rude,” she admitted. “Sorry,” she tossed out, without any conviction.
“It does sound fantastic, and the truth is more so. My family has been cursed for generations by a Scottish witch. Apparently, my ancestor had handfasted with her daughter. Then he betrayed her by running away and marrying an Englishwoman from a wealthy family. The daughter was distraught and took her own life. So the witch cursed us.”
The shadows of the evening were growing long. Thea sat in the swaying coach wondering if he actually believed this nonsense. “Well, one should be wary of a witch’s spawn.” His brows came together and she reminded him, “I explained I am a skeptic. So what makes you believe it is true?”
“The first Chattan,” Neal said, “the one who jilted the daughter died within months after his marriage. They said he was very pleased with his new wife. He’d fallen in love with her—and the curse took him.”
“When was this?” Thea asked. “What year?”
“It was in 1632. The witch’s name was Fenella. The daughter was called Rose.”
“Fenella? That is a witchy-sounding name, but, Neal, people died of all sorts of things back then, and at relatively young ages.”
“His wife was carrying a child, a son,” Neal continued. “He grew into manhood, married, and died once he married, also for love. Death claimed him after a year of marriage.”
“And was his wife carrying a son?”
“Yes.”
“And that son grew into manhood and married and died?”
“Yes.”
“And so on and so forth?” she asked.
“Yes,” he reiterated, his tone growing testy.
“So your family has a history of dying at a young age,” Thea concluded.
“That does not mean there is a curse. However,” she quickly added, “I have read stories about nonsense like curses that claim the strength of the curse is in how deeply one believes. Perhaps you should stop giving this curse any power over your own life.”
He made an exasperated sound. “Do you not think that one in a long line of my ancestors has not considered the same? Of course we have. We’ve tried all manner of tricks to defeat this curse.
My great-grandfather consulted witches and shamans and all sorts of mystics and religious men of every caste and creed to break the curse. ”
“What happened?”
“He fell in love with one of the witches and was dead in three months.” Neal leaned toward her.
“The only way we’ve found to hold the curse at bay is to marry out of obligation, something not unheard of for our class.
But whatever we do, we can’t allow ourselves any warm feelings toward our spouse. ”
“Which explains why your mother was such a cold woman,” she said with interest.
“And explains even more why my father stayed away and did absolutely nothing to lighten the situation. He did not want to like her, and it worked. He is the first man in generations who has sired more than one child.”
“Do your brother and sister carry this curse?”
“We don’t know. I assume Margaret is free of it, but she has her doubts.”
“And the colonel’s obvious dislike of me—?”
“Is because he hates my idea of marrying,” Neal finished. “Harry, Margaret, and I are very close. They believe the three of us should not marry at all. They want the curse to end here, with us.”
“That’s what he meant,” Thea said, half to herself. She frowned. “You obviously don’t feel that way.”
“I think the curse can be broken. After all, father lived many years and had three children.” He dropped his gaze to his gloved hand resting on his leg.
“And I want children, Thea. I want what you have. I hunger for it. I don’t know if my overwhelming desire for a child is part of the curse or what, and it has created a rift between Harry and me. ”
Thea shook her head. “Did not your father pass away only a few years ago? He must have been of a ripe age.”
“He was sixty-one.”
“That is a respectable age to die, Lyon, and I mean no disrespect to his memory,” she hastened to add lest he think her callous. “After all, your father had three children. Could it not mean that he has already defeated the demon of the curse?”
Neal lifted his head toward her, his expression bleak.
“I wish it were so. Can you not imagine the hell of living a loveless life?” He paused and then asked, “Do you not wonder why I quit meeting you so abruptly that summer? Thea, our friendship is my fondest memory. I would not have ignored you the way I did if this curse was a hoax.”
He leaned back into his corner of the coach. “My father learned of our meetings and came from London to talk to me. He explained the danger of the curse.”
“But we were friends, Neal. Nothing more.”
“Do you believe that, Thea? That it was nothing more?”
She frowned. “We were so young.”
“Yes, we were.” He turned his gaze away from her. Studied the passing scenery out the window.
“And you never questioned him?” she asked, uncertain if she was glad to finally know the reason for her friend’s defection—or angry.
“I did not. Sometimes when one hears truth, one recognizes it. I knew immediately what he was saying was true.”
Anger trumped gladness.
“You tossed aside our friendship over the silliness of this curse?” She moved to reach for the coach door.
How dare he confess to her. How dare he have treated her so callously years ago.
The confines of the coach were suddenly too restrictive.
She needed space. She needed to stomp around and have a fit.
Neal grabbed her hand and brought her around before she could open the door. “I had to, Thea. It was necessary.”
“You didn’t send a word to me that you weren’t going to be there,” she said. “You just didn’t appear ever again. You could have said something. You could have sent a message or come to my father’s house and explained—”
“I could not. Thea, don’t you understand? My father feared our friendship.”
“Why? Because he thought we were going to fall in love and you would die?” she said, throwing the words at him.
“Yes. And he was right to fear it. I could have fallen in love with you. Can’t you understand that? I was in danger of doing so.”
It took several moments for the import of his words to sink into her brain.
And when they did, she was shocked.
She pulled back and he let her go. “We were just friends,” she whispered.
Neal retreated to his side of the coach. “Then why are you so angry?”
She remembered so much of that summer, but for her it had been friendship . . . or so she’d believed.
Thea looked over to him. He once again focused on the passing scenery, but she doubted if he saw anything.
What could she say after realizing how oblivious she had been? He’d been in danger of loving her. And all she’d been giddy about had been having a friend who’d understood her.
Neal broke the silence between them first. He spoke flat statements.
“My mother died seven years ago. She was a lonely woman. There is a companionship in marriage which she never had. Father refused to grow close to her. But then at the age of sixty, he decided to enjoy himself. He first saw Cassandra Sweetling on stage. Cass Sweetling, the Coquette of Covent Garden.”
“He fell in love with an opera dancer?”
“Madly. She was seventeen and happy to oblige him in every way.”
“What did you and your siblings think of this?” Thea asked.
“What we thought didn’t matter. She was everything to him. He showered her with attention. He was warm, kind and generous. He died within four months after their wedding.”
“He was over sixty,” Thea gently argued. “Men die of natural causes much younger.”
“Does it matter?” Neal countered. “The curse lives.” He curled one gloved hand into a fist. “I don’t care about love, Thea.
And I am not afraid of death. But I want a son, and I want to see him grow to manhood.
My father had that blessing that none of the others in my line enjoyed.
Find a wife for me, Thea. I dare not go looking on my own. The risk is too high.”
“Because you are afraid you will fall in love inadvertently?”
“Exactly. She must be a decent woman who will understand that I have material goods and a fortune to offer her but little else—and she must never ask for more. Ever.”
“You are condemning yourself to the selfish, the frivolous, the sort of woman who can’t make any man happy.”
“As long as she is an affectionate mother,” he answered.
“That may be hard to find,” she replied.
“I’m willing to pay handsomely. In fact, why don’t I start with an advance payment, say two hundred pounds?”
If the heavens above had opened, Thea could not have been more elated. Here was the money for Jonathan’s school, for better lodgings, for more than she would have let herself imagine. “It is too much,” she demurred.
“I’m a wealthy man. Don’t think on it.”
“I shall find you a wife,” she declared.
His gaze met hers. He smiled. “I thought you would.”
“But I don’t know if I believe in this curse yet,” she said.
“You don’t need to, Thea. You don’t need to.”
And on those words, the coach rolled to a halt, a sign they had reached the stables.
In the stables, Neal and Thea found Jonathan and Christopher working around Ajax, Harry’s huge bay, brushing away at his legs and anywhere else they could reach. They had no desire to leave, but their mother insisted.
“I hope they haven’t been too difficult for you,” Thea said to Harry.
“Not a problem.” He gave Christopher a tousle of his hair. But his eyes held no warmth for Thea, and he was absolutely cold to Neal, not that Neal minded. He could weather his brother’s wrath.
Besides, Harry would find other diversions quickly enough and forget he was even angry.