Chapter Sixteen #3
His wife settled into it then adjusted the skirts of her dress for a good thirty seconds. Obviously, whatever was on her mind was important. He leaned against the fireplace mantel and patiently waited.
Finally, she looked at him. “I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time as I decided it best to get to know each other better before asking, and now I feel very comfortable with you.”
He smiled encouragingly. “And I feel comfortable with you.”
“That’s a relief. Then could you tell me why you don’t use the lord’s chambers at Crestfield?”
The question was so unexpected that the usual angst filled his chest before he remembered that he needed to accept it. “Actually, when we left, I told the staff to have my things moved into those chambers.”
She clasped her hands on her lap, but one thumb rubbed her other one. “Why now?”
Remembering the feeling in the modiste shop when she offered to listen, he wanted to explain, but wanting to and doing so were very different. “Partly because I married you.”
She nodded. “Yes, that makes sense. Since you have a wife, it is inconvenient to be across the corridor.”
“That’s true, but what I mean is that since I’ve married you, I feel I need to fully take my place as Lord Durham and all the responsibility that title entails.”
“Moving into your father’s rooms is a responsibility?” Her brows lowered in confusion.
“I’m perhaps not stating this correctly.
What I mean is…” What he meant was that he’d thought by marrying her, he would be punished, but now he realized that wasn’t the case, so he must atone for his past actions in some other way—such as moving into his father’s rooms. Even as he thought it, the rationale didn’t seem logical.
Georgina’s gaze softened. “Is it because of your father’s death? I have never lost someone, but I imagine it must be very difficult.” She placed her hand on her bosom as if to protect her own heart from such an event.
That simple act had his own chest contracting. “Yes. It’s difficult, made more so by my own selfishness.”
“I don’t think moving into your father’s rooms is selfish.”
He shook his head, frustrated with his inability to be clear. “No. Not that. It’s difficult because I believe that if I hadn’t been so selfish, my father might be alive today.” His heart stopped at hearing the words he’d thought for so long but had never spoken aloud. Until now.
Her eyes widened. “Did you somehow cause your father’s death?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” He rubbed the back of his neck, wishing he could make sense of it all. “I think…I think if I had come home from university when he first asked me to, he would have lived longer.”
She cocked her head. “Why?”
At the simple question, he paused to gather his thoughts.
“My father requested I come home shortly after my third term started. He wished me to take on some estate responsibilities. But I made excuses about exams, when it was simply that I was enjoying my life at Oxford very much. I did come home briefly at Christmastide. I noticed that he had aged and was coughing, but he said it was from the dust, as he’d been out when the crops were harvested and it hadn’t gone away.
I stayed only a few days before I went visiting with friends. ”
Even then he’d wondered if his father had been honest with him about why he coughed, but as it was his father, and he was told what he wished to hear, he had left.
“In the middle of my fourth term, my father wrote me again. He said he was unwell and talked about various tasks that needed to be done. Again, I wrote back that I couldn’t come, this time because I was in my final term.
My father wrote me yet again, explaining some of the changes he wished to make at Crestfield, and again I had an excuse, all the time simply enjoying my sport, my studies, and my friends.
Then I received a letter from my mother, imploring me to come home. She told me my father was dying.”
At Georgina’s gasp, he looked up from the floor where his gaze had wandered, his wife’s surprise almost equal to his own at the time.
“I finally left Oxford, that very day. The signs had all been there, but I had ignored them because I didn’t want to see. My father had done everything for me. He taught me all I needed to know to be a successful lord one day, and the one time he needed me, I failed him.”
Georgina frowned.
In that moment, he realized he should have never told her.
She now knew she had married a very selfish man.
“After his death, I continued to be selfish, loving yet hating my inheritance, gambling to see what fate had in store for me. As it happened, I lost the bet on Tamworth marrying, and only then did I realize that I’d learned nothing.
Only then did I realize I wanted to preserve my father’s legacy.
I became desperate once it looked as if I’d lost it all, which is why married you—to save it all. ”
“So you didn’t wish to move into your father’s rooms because you didn’t deserve them?”
Relieved that she understood, even if she thought him worthless, he nodded. “Yes.”
“Then why did you decide to move into them when we return to Crestfield?”
“To punish myself for what I’ve done. I arrived home in time to watch my father wither away and die in there. Those rooms will always have the memory of that. Now, you know whom you truly married.”
Georgina didn’t rush to reassure him as his mother had, nor did she condemn him as his sister did. She simply stared at him, as if he were a bird she watched in order to understand his behavior. The thought was ludicrous, yet it fit.
Finally, she rose. “I understand now. Thank you for telling me.” She moved toward his dressing room.
That was all? “Georgina.”
She stopped. “Yes?”
“Do you have any questions?”
She cocked her head. “I do. Did your father appear thinner when you saw him during Christmastide?”
Surprised by the topic she chose, he quickly searched his memory. “I suppose. Yes, I think that’s why he seemed older. There were more wrinkles. Why?”
“I guess you could say I’m curious.” And with that comment, she disappeared into his dressing room.
He stood frozen, not sure what to think.
When the door between their dressing rooms closed, he finally moved.
Not to go after her—that would be another example of his own selfishness.
No, he was going back downstairs to have a whiskey and ponder why his gut felt as if he’d just lost his home all over again.