Chapter Fifteen #2
‘My mother planted it and tended it. It was her masterpiece and so the gardener here has kept it up just as it was once years ago.’
‘When she died?’
Leaning forward, he plucked a small blue cornflower from its stalk and handed it to her.
‘Everyone has good times and bad times. Everyone makes mistakes. The thing is, my mother never learned from hers and so she made them over and over again. Not so much with plants but with people.’
‘Were you one of those people?’
‘Yes.’ She saw the shock in his eyes and also the sorrow.
‘Could I hold your hand?’
He did as she asked and she cradled it in her lap, her fingers tightly wound around his as if she might keep him from all his hurt.
Their first real touch since…
Pushing that thought away, she felt the sun and his warmth and the history of Elmsworth all around her.
The world kept turning despite all that had happened and it was comforting that it did.
She hadn’t trusted him enough to help her but perhaps this small truce marked a beginning here in the garden of his mother.
Closing her eyes then, she slept.
Phillip did not move. He didn’t pull his hand away either because in all the hours of searching for her he had not thought this sort of closeness would ever be his again.
He simply watched her. He watched the way the small curls at her hairline blew in the wind and the peaceful expression on her face. He saw how the black circles under her eyes were actually a dark blue, like bruises from sickness, and that her nails, usually so short, had grown.
These weeks apart had changed them both and they were tiptoeing around one another trying to regain what they had lost. He could feel her reticence and he knew his wariness. Their balance was gone and in its place sat a carefulness that allowed nothing meaningful.
Rock the boat and you might lose everything. Yet they were losing it anyway in their refusal to discuss what had happened.
But she was sick and he was angry. For now, this was all it could be. The pounding, chaotic ecstasy was gone and in its place was uncertainty.
He tightened his grip just a little on her hand, careful not to wake her.
Oliver and Esther arrived just after five o’clock that evening and they were eager to find out just how Wilhelmina was.
‘She has been ill and she goes in and out of slumber all day and night. She has nightmares and the maid says she cries a lot.’
‘She has had a huge fright, Phillip. When I was pilloried by all of Society after the truth about my mother came out at a public ball I was just the same. I was simply too scared to do anything at all, so I cried and I slept.’
‘Did Simon St Claire hurt her?’ Oliver asked this.
‘It seems he tried to but she escaped and somehow got herself alone down to the south coast.’
‘Has she told you about her journey?’
‘She’s struggling to speak much at all and I don’t want to upset her by asking. She can barely cope with niceties.’
‘Then she needs time,’ Esther said this with certainty, ‘and she does not need to be pushed. She needs patience to learn to trust again.’
‘She’s lost a lot of weight but I think she is eating more every day.’
‘Aunt Julia sent a letter to Nettleford Park yesterday and she said that London Society was agog with the scandal of the St Claires and that many voices were not kind. I am not sure if she can ever go back to her old life, Phillip.’
‘I am not, either, but right now she just needs to get better.’
‘Has our physician been called?’ This was from Oliver.
‘Willa does not want him here. She is more than happy with how things are.’
‘I can be a chaperone if it would help silence some of the detractors, Phillip.’ Esther looked worried.
‘No. It stays as it is.’
He saw his brother and sister-in-law glance at each other.
‘There may be consequences from such an action.’
‘I will deal with those if and when they come.’
‘Then good luck to you, brother, though I doubt if you will need it. You seem to have come through a baptism of fire quite whole apart from the bruise on your chin. It suits you, such a mark. It makes you look as dangerous as I am finding out you are. America for all its faults and sadness has tempered you in steel and brought back a different man than the one who left the shores of England.’
‘I do not think it was America, Oliver.’ Phillip’s words were quiet.
‘It is Wilhelmina?’ Esther looked delighted as she clapped her hands.
But he did not answer, turning to the cabinet in the corner and pouring them all a brandy. He needed the strength of it to get through this. But most of all he needed Willa well again.
Phillip walked with Willa slowly to his stables the next day and from the moment of being in the company of his horses she looked better.
‘I think animals know when someone loves them,’ he said quietly as her hands wandered over the nose of the next horse she was entranced by, her whole body alive.
Today she did not look sleepy at all, a new energy engulfing her every movement as she asked the horses’ names and ages and background.
‘How many do you keep here at Elmsworth?’
‘Only around ten or so but I will build up that number now that I am home. My father stabled twenty or more and he won a few cups at the local competitions.’
‘How wonderful.’ She laughed and such unexpected joy had him staring at her.
‘You are sounding so much happier.’
‘That is because I am.’
‘Oliver and Esther were here at Elmsworth last evening but they did not wish to disturb you.’
‘Oh, I would like to see them next time they come.’
‘I imagine it will be soon. Esther was full of questions though, so be prepared for that.’
‘And you are not?’ Her smile was kind.
‘I was waiting until you were stronger, but I would like to know how you got down to Hastings undetected.’
‘I went south because I thought Simon St Claire would probably go north. I hitched a ride with a family who were returning to Hastings. They dropped me off in the middle of the market town, where I purchased some basic clothing and Mrs Withers was there at the same stall and approached me to ask if I needed a place to stay. When I said I did she took me on the dray from the inn with all the week’s produce and so I gained a room at Winchelsea. ’
‘I had imagined so much worse when you couldn’t be found. I thought Simon St Claire might have kidnapped you.’
‘I think he would have if I hadn’t run.’
It was the first time they had had an honest conversation since he had found her again, Phillip thought. It was the first time they had looked each other fully in the eye, too.
‘I know that I cannot return again to Society in London, so I was thinking when I feel better that I should like to rent a small house by the sea with a garden.’
He nodded and felt disappointment rise because every word precluded a future between them.
But she kept going, as he did not speak. ‘I am an outcast now and I have no fight left in me to be otherwise.’
‘There are options…’ She didn’t let him go on.
‘All of which will keep me at the will or grace of others, don’t you see? Simon St Claire has the house and land at Belton Park and there is very little left. I now want to make my life away from rumour and censure in a smaller and quieter way.’
She looked tired and much less robust than she had a few moments ago.
Her hands twisted the material of her skirt this way and that.
Phillip wished he could have stepped forward and laid his own over them, but her words sounded final.
Once not so long ago he would have brought her up into his arms and whispered things to make it all better, but now…
Now they were two people whose path had forked and who had not pledged enough to each other before all of this had happened.
If he could go back and start again, what could he have promised? What would she have accepted? He watched her now leaning against the wall.
She had fought for him at the Kellands’ ball when the Society gossip had pointed their arrows at him. But this was another matter entirely. Here they were both vigilant and wary.
Willa had tried so hard to stay awake after the visit to the stables but she had not managed it and the second she had lain down on her bed in her room she had been asleep. Glancing at the clock in the corner, she saw it was now late afternoon, the shadows from the day sloping onto her sheets.
She had to let Phillip go and her words in the stables had allowed him an escape. He had taken it. He did not need to feel responsible for her or obliged to offer help and she hated both her weakness and her sadness.
Her hands came across her stomach and she breathed in Elmsworth.
This is your heritage, little one, she thought, your family that has inhabited this land for centuries.
Your father is the eighth Earl of Elmsworth and if you are a boy you will be the ninth.
Tears came to her eyes because a place in the world was important for everyone and as a child growing up she had seldom felt any sort of belonging.
Here the future stretched ahead and the past bolstered it up with all the portraits that marched down the main corridors. Every pale crenulated stone that made up the manor echoed of belonging as did the majestic oaks dotting the land around Elmsworth like sentinels.
This baby would be born into the lineage of men and women who had lived through the centuries as Morelands and as guardians of the earldom.
Yet she and Phillip were distant, both stung by the words she had delivered to him under the name of protection. Only an interlude. Just a dalliance. Leaving her no idea as to how she could break through the lies with truth.
She loved him.
She had always loved him.
Tears trickled down the side of her face and the sunset turned the room to the palest shade of rose.
She was surprised when a few moments later Phillip walked through the door of her bedroom and asked if he could have a few private words with her.
Without a second of hesitation she nodded.
‘I hope you were able to sleep.’
‘I was, thank you. Is everything all right?’
She sat up as he strode up and down before the window, not speaking until it seemed he had gathered his thoughts. But he did not look pleased at all.
‘I have had time to think about your words today, the ones where you said you would not be a burden on anyone and about forging your own pathway.’
She stayed quiet.
‘You see, the thing is, Wilhelmina, you have left me no room to state my case as to how I feel about this and I have been hesitant to do so because of your ill-health.’
‘I don’t expect pity.’
‘You have told me that.’
‘Or charity.’
‘That too.’
‘But I think we came into our relationship from the wrong angle. We wanted delight and we got it, but we also created a distance that left nothing else available.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I want to court you properly. I want us to get to know each other in ways different than we have. I want to find out if our compatibility is as good out of bed as it is in it.’
She bit her lip and looked at him. ‘I am a poor choice for anything permanent. I have no dowry, no lineage and a ruined reputation which can only harm yours.’
‘And I have told you that I need neither money, lineage, reputation nor protection.’
‘What is it you do need, then?’
‘I need a chance.’ This time she smiled. ‘I will take you out on day trips. I could make arrangements for a meal or a visit to friends. I would kiss your hand at the end of the day and say goodnight. I would not tumble you into my bed and promise nothing save sex as I did before.’
‘That is a large honesty.’
‘I think that we need it.’
‘I do, too.’
A great bunch of summer flowers was brought to her room the next morning and the card attached had Phillip’s name on it. When Willa was bathed and dressed he came to her door and asked if she would like to see the ballroom at Elmsworth.
‘You have one here?’
‘My great-grandfather had it added towards the back of the house because his wife loved to dance.’
‘A thoughtful husband, then.’
Without hesitating further they began down the stairs. Surprisingly it was easy and it was not long until they walked through double doors into a huge room with polished wooden floorboards and high ceilings. Light streamed in through windows down one entire and long side.
‘Did you have balls here when you were young?’
‘No. I never remember it being used even once, but then, my mother was not a woman who enjoyed frivolity or crowds.’
‘And Gretel…did she not wish to make Elmsworth come alive with the joy of it all?’
‘She didn’t. This is the first time I have been inside here for at least a decade.’
‘It’s so beautiful. I can imagine an orchestra over there and people dancing with great bunches of flowers from the Elmsworth gardens in vases around the room.
If it was summer all the windows could be open and people could spill out into the gardens through those doors. I would have loved to see that.’
‘You still could.’
‘I am an outcast, remember. No one would come.’
‘Dance with me, then. Just us.’
He offered her his hand and when she took it he began to count. On three he guided her across the floor towards the windows and then stopped.
She was glad that he did because even such a small movement had left her breathless, but she had managed it and just that thought gave her hope.
‘This room makes you a better dancer, my lord.’
He laughed at that. ‘We should practise more, then, but not today. Today there is tea and cake on the small porch off the library waiting to be eaten.’
‘You have thought of everything.’
‘I am trying, Wilhelmina.’
The blood came to her face because in truth the delight they had shared was still within her and close.
‘Thank you for showing me this. I will never forget it.’
‘Good.’
He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and led her out into the sunshine.
She dreamt of him that night, of them in bed, without clothes and with hours before them. It was the first time in weeks that she had felt true interest in anything sensual.
Tomorrow he had promised her a trip in the carriage to see a local waterfall. Closing her eyes, she made herself stay very still and then she slept.