Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The morning of the picnic dawned bright and cheery, and Frederick tried to ignore the ongoing squirming of anxiety in his gut.
Alice had been quiet and distant that morning, as she had often been for the past week.
When she came back to him, she did so with bright smiles and loving hands, but her quietness disturbed him.
By retreating into her head, she entered a place he could not follow, and he wished he knew what she was thinking.
Did she regret saying she would so publicly back him? They had made wonderful progress over the past few weeks, but that didn’t mean the past no longer existed, or that either of them no longer grieved for things that could never be.
“Alice,” he said as she powdered her face a little before the mirror. “Are you feeling all right?”
“All right?” Her eyes met his in the mirror. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“You can talk to me. If you’re having second thoughts about this outing, we don’t have to go.”
She put the pad down and turned to him, a furrow in her brow. “Why would you suppose I’d be unwilling?”
Frederick pondered for a moment. “You have looked unhappy ever since we suggested it.”
“That’s not—” She dropped her gaze and sighed. “That has nothing to do with it.”
“Then what does? Talk to me, Alice.” He felt an odd, unfamiliar frisson of fear at the idea she might step too far for him to reach her. “Please. What’s troubling you?”
“I met an old friend of mine the other day.”
“Ah.” He kept quiet, waiting for her to continue.
“It was wonderful, seeing her again. I hope to see her more. It’s not that Charlotte herself upset me in the slightest, but she reminded me that I’ve grown and changed in the time since we parted.
She seems to think for the better, and I wouldn’t want to disagree with her.
Perhaps it is for the better. Perhaps this is all for the better, but sometimes I feel… ” She hesitated.
“Go on,” he pressed softly.
“Sometimes I feel guilty for turning into a person they would no longer recognize,” she spoke in a rush. “And I wish that maybe I hadn’t changed as much. I know it sounds foolish, but how much of becoming someone new is forgetting them?”
Another wave of guilt—it would never end, this awareness of everything he had taken from her. The urge to soothe her arose, his frustration that he could never ease her pain as much as he had given it.
He placed his hands on her shoulders, kneading the tight muscles there the way he did daily to her leg. “Have you forgotten them?”
She frowned. “No.”
“Do you think they would want you to remain the same person as you were back then?”
“I—” She sucked in a breath, and he could almost see the way she thought about her answer. Careful, deliberate. “In many respects, no.”
“Do you think you have become a worse person, or do you think that time and wisdom have given you different perspectives from the ones you had as a girl?” He kept his voice low, soothing.
“Your parents loved you and thought the world of you. If they were here now, they would want the best for you—and that includes watching you grow and develop into the young woman you always had the potential to be. Growing and maturing is all part of change, and that’s not betrayal.
You haven’t let them down. They would still recognize you.
Your friend did, didn’t she? She just also acknowledged the ways in which you have grown.
” He bent to kiss her cheek. “Leave the guilt to me, my darling, or I fear it will swallow you whole.”
“What about you?” she asked, half turning so she faced him. “Will it swallow you whole?”
If he ever failed her again, it would. But this new truce—this affection—between them kept the worst of his demons at bay.
“Not with you around,” he told her, then kissed her nose. “Now, are you ready?”
She smiled, her eyes bright for once. “Let’s clear your name once and for all.”
The sun beat down on their shoulders as Frederick followed their servants through the crowd to the blanket and parasol that they had made up for them.
True to her word, Alice kept by his side, her face doused in one wide smile.
No matter how much might be going on inside her head, she showed no sign of it.
“What are you intending to do?” she murmured, one hand on the top of her bonnet as she looked at Frederick.
“I’ll fetch you some wine. The sun is hot. After you’ve rested a little, I thought we might go on the river?”
“How romantic.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him, making him laugh. “Go on, tend to me, husband.”
He sank into a low bow. “With pleasure, wife.”
Leaving her giggling behind him, he found where servants were setting up refreshments, and selected two glasses of wine. In the distance, he saw his aunt talking with her fellows, Lady Lancaster—a notable gossip—hanging on her every word.
When he reached the blanket again, he found Alice reclining on her hands, her legs in the sun and her face in the shade.
“It’s so very relaxing,” she breathed, not opening her eyes. “As though everything is right in the world presently.”
“Will some wine help with that impression?”
“It will certainly aid my peace,” she said with a smile, cracking open one eye as she accepted the glass he handed to her.
She sipped it and sighed, eyes fluttering closed again.
“I find myself quite contented here. Let me rest awhile while you discuss business with your acquaintances and let them know what an upstanding gentleman you are. I will await your return.”
“Don’t fall asleep,” he warned gently. “I’ll ask Denshire to find Helena and send her to you.”
“Whatever you like,” she said absently, waving a hand at him, and after doing as he said, he went in search of his father’s political friends. There were matters he would like to discuss with them—matters that were long overdue.
It didn’t take him long to meet with the lords in question and explaining his intentions.
For too long, he had neglected his duties as Duke, but as one of the most powerful men in the country—there were few Dukes, and most were far older than he, with limited aspirations in their dotage—he fully intended to change the country for the better as far as possible.
Not to his surprise, few were supportive of his goals, but the others at least seemed moved by his arguments, or a little, and he had the advantage of witnessing firsthand their surprise at his transformation.
This was not the man his father had groused about—not any longer.
He refused to be that man. He would step into his father’s shoes.
As the afternoon progressed, he glanced over to see Alice sitting with first Helena, and then with a blonde lady he presumed she knew, as they were speaking very animatedly.
As she had friends to entertain her, and seemed not to be looking for him, he left her to her own devices as he strove to repair the damage done to his reputation by his careless actions half a decade ago.
“So you mean you married him with the intention of ruining him?” Charlotte asked, her eyes wide. “He forced you into marriage and you determined to destroy his reputation entirely?”
Alice nodded. “That was my plan, but that was before I knew him. Truly knew him.” She ran through her initial resolutions and the actions she had taken toward that end.
Her behavior at the first ball they held, her deliberate and malicious drinking, the rumors she spread about how much she disliked him.
“But then,” she continued, recalling the opera and the way he had touched her.
Then the way he had gifted her Fortuna and made her comfort one of his greatest priorities.
Since their marriage, she had not doubted his devotion to that duty once.
“Then he impressed upon me the depths of his regret. He hurt me dearly, and I can’t merely forget that, but I can forgive. ”
Charlotte’s eyes widened. “Forgive him? Surely not!”
“Is that so very strange?” Alice asked, hugging her knees to her chest as she looked out across the grassy bank to the river glinting in the light.
Frederick was still talking politics, engaging a rather dull-looking collection of gentlemen, but she rather hoped he would come and find her so they could take a boat out on the water soon.
She was tired of this discussion with Charlotte.
Much as she respected and liked her friend, there was more to her life now than her past.
“It seems strange to me,” Charlotte asserted. “Perhaps you do not remember, but I saw you after the accident, and—”
“I remember, Charlotte. Of course I do. I’m not dead. My memory has not failed me in this.” She raised one shoulder. “I was broken then, when you saw me after the accident. The only thing I knew then was pain and loss. But I’ve come so far since then.”
“And you hold no resentment toward him?” Charlotte pushed, a line appearing between her brows. Her mouth turned down. “Despite everything?”
“Despite everything,” Alice nodded. “I felt a great deal of resentment when he first married me, but I didn’t understand then as I do now that he did so for my sake.
Everything he has done has been for me. Should I hold him accountable for a mistake when I know he would never do such a thing maliciously?
It was tragic, yes, but it was an accident. ”
“He ruined your life!”
“And now he is repairing the damage. I am whole again now.” Alice smiled.
“And we are discovering how to be happy together. This morning, we even—” She paused, considering her words carefully.
“This morning, we spoke about the ways I have changed, and he reminded me that my parents would not want me to stay still. I am older now, and wiser, and I have a great deal more life experience than I did then. When he first hurt me, I thought I could never forgive him, but that was because I didn’t understand human nature as well as I do now. ”