Chapter Two
Mrs Fitzjames looked up from her invalid’s bowl of blandly nourishing porridge, towards where her son was seated opposite her across the breakfast table.
‘I’ve decided to ask Miss Stockwell to come here for Christmas,’ she informed him.
‘From what you told me yesterday, it seems she’ll have a lonely time otherwise.
It’s the least I can do, given how long Deborah and I were friends.
Will you please call to tell her once you’ve finished eating? ’
Duncan choked on his coffee. ‘What? You want to invite—?’
‘Miss Stockwell. Yes. It’s only charitable, and besides, you may need the help.’
Blotting spilled coffee from his lap with his napkin, he stared at his mother. ‘Help? With what?’
‘Looking after the children.’ Mrs Fitzjames pushed aside her bowl with an unenthusiastic glance at its contents.
‘I’m still too exhausted to run around after them and their nurse has recently been ill herself.
The poor creature is only just returned to her post and can hardly keep up with them.
My servants are busy with the extra work Christmas brings, so I’m afraid any additional entertaining must fall to you…
and perhaps, if she’s willing, Miss Stockwell. ’
She gazed at him expectantly, but Duncan didn’t speak.
He didn’t trust himself to. If he opened his mouth, his mother would hear the horror in his voice, and that would prompt questions he didn’t want to answer.
There was no way on earth he could go back to Maybury Place to see Jane again, he thought with absolute certainty. He hadn’t meant to encounter her once during his brief visit, let alone spend an entire week in her presence, a thought so wildly tempting he didn’t dare consider it.
One encounter had been enough to bring the full might of his weakness for her roaring up from the depths to which he had pushed it, and if he let himself go to her a second time there was no guarantee he wouldn’t make a fool of himself.
He hadn’t slept all night for thinking of her, her sad, black-draped figure ceaselessly invading his mind, and eating was out of the question, the coffee he’d just spluttered over the tablecloth the only thing he’d managed to force down since he’d found himself face to face—or at least, face to veil—with the woman he still considered the love of his life.
‘She’s grieving,’ he muttered, concentrating on his stained napkin rather than his mother. ‘Doubtless she would much rather be alone than here with us.’
‘You could be right. On the other hand, a distraction might be just what she wants. Do you have any idea what she’s likely to prefer?’
Duncan stiffened slightly. ‘Why would I know that?’
Mrs Fitzjames spread her hands. ‘I thought I recalled the two of you were friends during the time you spent here previously. What was it—two years ago?’
‘Three.’
‘Oh, yes. I remember now.’
Duncan twisted the napkin between his fingers, immediately regretting correcting her so quickly. There was something in her tone he didn’t quite like; it was a little too knowing, and if there was one thing he wanted to avoid it was his mother getting ideas about things he had no desire to discuss.
‘You have no objection to my asking Miss Stockwell, then? Other than suspecting she might not accept?’
Very carefully, Duncan poured himself another cup of coffee, buying a moment in which to think.
Of course he had objections, he thought distractedly.
He had almost nothing else! To have Jane in the same house as him, sitting in the same rooms and breathing the same air, would be torture he didn’t know if he could withstand.
For a full week he’d have to see her without touching, hear her speak without being able to kiss her petal-soft lips, forcing himself to keep his distance while wanting to get closer with every beat of his heart.
It was a hopeless situation every instinct told him he had to avoid… and yet something inside him held back.
She’s so unhappy.
His stomach clenched. As much as he wanted to spare himself the suffering he’d have to endure if she came to stay with them, abandoning her to a Christmas of lonely grief was far worse.
Even now, long years since she had rejected his proposal and unwittingly sentenced him to a life spent alone, he still valued her wellbeing above his own, and to cut her off to spare his unrequited feelings wasn’t something he could bring himself to do.
He realised he was frowning and stopped quickly before his mother could notice.
It would be selfish for him not to ask Jane to join them…
but would it also be selfish if he wanted her to accept, which some masochistic but undeniable part of him certainly did?
He was torn: there was no good outcome whichever way he turned; no way in which he could entirely stop the past from following him into the present, and as he was doomed, no matter what he did, he supposed he ought to do what was right.
‘I’ve no objection, Mother. This is your house. Who you invite into it is entirely up to you.’
‘Excellent.’ Mrs Fitzjames nodded briskly, still pale beneath her cap but a little of her usual animation returned. ‘If you’ve finished spilling coffee all over my tablecloth, perhaps you’d be good enough to call on Miss Stockwell.’
‘Of course.’ Duncan tried to smile, although he feared his face was too rigid for it to be particularly convincing. ‘Being your errand boy was something I enjoyed so much the first time. Why not again?’
A criss-cross trail of footprints followed Jane as she walked another lap of Maybury Place’s snow-covered garden. Her feet were beginning to get damp but she hardly noticed, too distracted to pay attention to anything so trivial.
His hair’s longer now. There are a couple more lines on his forehead, and he didn’t look quite so careworn last time we met.
A wet branch brushed her bare cheek, making her shiver.
She wasn’t wearing a veil in the privacy of the garden and under other circumstances she might have enjoyed feeling the cold air on her skin.
Today, however, she had far more important things to think about: every tiny detail of Duncan’s appearance was seared into her brain, flickering through it as she walked, and although the first flush of shock had subsided, that didn’t mean her mind was at ease as it replayed the moment of finding him standing on her doorstep once again.
He was as handsome as ever, she’d noted the first instant she’d realised it was him on the other side of the door, her mute amazement mingling with an instinctive thrill.
No other man had such broad shoulders or intelligent brown eyes, or a mouth that was so expressive even when closed.
The years had only changed him the smallest degree—which was more than she could say for herself.
A familiar sense of shame curdled within her.
What must he have thought when she’d opened the door with her face enveloped in black lace?
He must have known why she was veiled—probably his mother had mentioned it, she and Great-Aunt Deborah having been such friends—and she shrank from the knowledge that he would have wondered what lay beneath.
Her ruined countenance was no longer the one he’d professed such admiration for, or even loved, before she’d been forced to turn him away…
‘Don’t think about that,’ she rebuked herself harshly, her voice as sharp as the icicles that hung from the windowsills, but it was already too late.
She could still remember every moment of their first meeting—one far more magical and filled with hope than their last—and although it made her mouth twist with pain, she couldn’t help but recall how butterflies had erupted in her stomach when he had smiled at her from across his mother’s parlour.
He’d asked to be introduced and she had been delighted to spend the rest of the card party at the same table as the dashing lieutenant, her heart beating so quickly she’d half expected to faint.
Duncan had been so interested in everything she’d had to say, asking questions and making her laugh until she was sure she’d never encountered a more charming man in her life, an opinion that had deepened over the next six months into a love she’d fully expected to take to her grave.
‘But I couldn’t marry him.’ This time her voice was quieter, much of its strength lost to unhappiness and regret.
‘I couldn’t leave Auntie all alone. She was already so unwell, and if I’d gone to Southampton with Duncan instead of staying here to ensure she was looked after, Cousin Franklin would have deliberately let her fade away. ’
Her numb hands curled into fists, anger suddenly licking at her like an open flame.
Franklin hadn’t even tried to hide his disdain that day she’d met him, quite by chance, as she’d returned from walking in the park.
Deborah had been having one of the bad spells that so often plagued her and so opted to stay at home, and her son’s reaction upon being told of his mother’s current discomfort had sickened Jane to her core.
‘Ill, but still persevering, I see. I can’t help but think your company must be the only thing keeping her alive.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘It’s hardly a compliment. I can’t say I approve of the older generations insisting on lingering over their fortunes while others are waiting to inherit. There’s something so undignified about making themselves a constant nuisance when they ought to stand aside.’
‘By stand aside…you can’t mean die? You wouldn’t wish for your own mother…?’
‘It’s the way of the world, Jane. She’s had a good life. It’s about time I had my turn, rather than this continuous throwing away of money on doctors that only keep her clinging on. I’ve half a mind to put a stop to her seeing them altogether.’