Chapter 17
Hunter finally emerged from his study after making a list of all he needed to do before he returned to London, which must, he determined, be in the next few days. Before New Year’s, that was for certain, despite how disappointed Lavinia would be at the news.
First, however, he needed a moment alone with his wife, he thought as he strode down the corridor of the hall, which felt empty and hollow in the absence of all of his staff.
Finally, he heard voices in one of the far drawing rooms, just beyond the library.
Who would she be talking to? Lavinia must have come to visit, he thought ruefully.
Ah well, a quick visit with his sister wouldn’t be so bad, and then she would be gone by after dinner at the very latest, and they would have utmost privacy.
His pulse began to quicken as he imagined all the places they could make love in a completely empty house, without the risk of a servant finding them.
Stone Hall, to be certain. And the library — absolutely the library, where they had first encountered one another upon his return visit.
If it was summer, he would have insisted they take things outdoors to the grotto, the jewel of Wintervale, tucked away in his magnificent gardens.
That certainly wouldn’t do at Christmas, however.
His thoughts came to a halt when he opened the door of the drawing room.
“Hunter!” Scarlett said excitedly as she rose to greet him at the door. “My mother has come to visit!”
“Oh.” Hunter stood there in shock, his previous visions of a passionate day and night with his wife evaporating. He knew how much Scarlett loved her mother and was happy she had the opportunity to visit but … why did it have to be now?
At Scarlett’s probing look, he collected himself and entered the room, walking over to the woman, who looked much like Scarlett, but a little older and slightly more … drawn, he thought. Scarlett had life and vitality — when she chose to share it. Her mother seemed to have given up hope.
“Lady Halifax,” he said, bending over her hand. “How lovely to see you again. I apologize that we do not have the proper staff to care for you. We have provided them with a day off for Boxing Day.”
“Of course!” she said with a wave of her hand, looking fondly at her daughter, and Hunter could sense the love between the two of them.
“I completely understand. I had been worried about Scarlett, you see, as I had thought she was to visit me for Christmas, and with the roads as buried as they were, it wasn’t even possible for us to send any correspondence.
I was going to write to her, and then I thought, oh Virginia, you are but a few hours away, you might as well go see her yourself. ”
Lady Halifax smiled at Scarlett, but when she returned her gaze to Hunter, the edges of it dipped, her pleasure no longer quite making it to her eyes.
“I am surprised to see you here, Lord Oxford.”
“I was snowed in as well,” he responded, his eyes flicking over to Scarlett to determine her reaction, but her face remained stoic. “Although it has turned out to be fortunate, as it has provided me the opportunity to better get to know my lovely wife.”
“I see,” Lady Halifax said, nodding her head, looking between the two of them. Scarlett had begun to wind a strand of hair around her finger, chewing her lip as she looked slightly uncomfortable. What was it, exactly, that Lady Halifax saw?
“I believe there is a scullery maid still in the kitchens for the day,” Hunter finally said to break the silence. “Why don’t I go see if I can have her provide some tea and pastries for you?”
“Very good,” said Lady Halifax, apparently finally pleased with him. “I would like that very much.”
As Hunter walked out of the room, however, he couldn’t help the sense of foreboding that descended upon him. Lady Halifax was a perfectly lovely woman, he told himself. Whatever could be amiss?
“You’ve fallen in love with him.”
“What?”
Scarlett looked at her mother in shock. The three of them had been in the room together for all of five minutes — how could she come to recognize Scarlett’s feelings in such a short time?
Virginia Nicholas smiled sadly at her daughter, reaching over to cup her face in her hands.
Scarlett thought, as she always did when she saw her mother, it was like looking into a mirror of her future.
The same hazel eyes reflected back toward her, the same freckles over the nose — even her lips were the same shape.
But over the years, her mother had developed many lines on her face.
Some were from the laughter she and her daughter had shared together, true, but so many were from the dismay she felt upon seeing her husband leave her behind every time he came to visit.
“Oh Scarlett,” her mother sighed, stroking her cheek as though she were a young child. “He’s a beautiful man to look at, that much is true. But what happened? I thought you were adamant in your decision to keep your distance.”
“I was,” Scarlett said, choosing her words carefully. “But Mother, over these past few days I have come to know him. He is actually quite … wonderful. He is considerate, and once he begins to focus on something, he is the most determined man I have ever met.”
“When did you marry?”
Scarlett looked at her mother quizzically.
“August, as you well know.”
“And how long did it take for him to visit you?’
Scarlett sighed.
“I pushed him away after our wedding. I hadn’t expected him to be so …
attractive. And charming, when he puts his mind to it.
I was scared by all you had told me. I built up walls around myself so that he couldn’t find his way in, couldn’t cause me to care for him, to hurt me as Father hurt you.
But … but Mother, not all men are like father. ”
Her mother began to wring her hands together in her lap.
“I understand that, Scarlett, but look around at the couples of the ton . How many are happy — truly happy? There are far more men with mistresses than there are men without.” She tilted her head to the side, a sad expression on her face.
“You had to be married, of course, and Lord Oxford seemed as good a man as any. I simply hoped you would understand, would have more sense than I did as a newly married woman. I had so much hope, Scarlett, so much love, and your father … well, it seemed he did at first too. But then.…”
She shook her head sadly, and Scarlett’s heart broke at the fluid in her mother’s eyes.
“I so badly tried not to love him anymore, Scarlett, truly I did, but I just couldn’t help myself.
He used that love against me, to keep me with him, to keep me hopeful.
Only with age and wisdom did I finally come to understand that it was never to be.
I don’t want you to have to go through what I did. ”
Scarlett took both her mother’s hands in hers, clasping them tightly as she tried to impart the strength her mother needed so badly.
“I love how much you care for me, Mother, truly I do,” she said. “But Hunter … he loves me, Mother. He told me so.”
Virginia’s eyes roved over Scarlett’s face, and despite the gentleness of her next words, Scarlett could feel the slight rebuke in them.
“When did he tell you this?”
“Last night.”
“What were you doing?”
Scarlett’s face flushed. She certainly couldn’t answer that question, not to her mother. But Virginia smiled ruefully at her, apparently guessing the truth.
“A man will say anything in the throes of passion,” she said. “Scarlett, I am not telling you not to be a good wife, not to be with him, or have a family with him. I simply want you to be careful, all right?”
“All right, Mother,” Scarlett said in order to appease her. “I will.”
Hunter had nearly forgotten about his promise to Lavinia to attend tonight’s dinner.
Now that Lady Halifax had arrived, however, he was more than anxious to get out of the house.
Lady Halifax was polite enough to him, but she looked at him as though he were a fox in a hen house.
He had to continually remind himself that he was Scarlett’s husband , not a blighter out to deflower her and then leave her behind.
Although, he supposed, that was somewhat the truth of their situation. He would prefer not to leave her, but rather wished she would come with him. In fact, that was just what he wanted to speak with her about before they made their way to Nia and Baxter’s.
He knocked on the door to her adjoining room. At her call to come in, he cracked open the door, finding her struggling to dress.
“When you gave the staff the day off, did it not occur to you to keep more than a scullery maid in the house for tasks such as these?”
She looked at him with her eyebrows raised, and he chuckled as he walked over to her.
“Turn around,” he said, tying her stays and then helping her bring the velvet silver gown over her shoulders.
For a moment, he thought he should divest her of all her clothing entirely, but they were already running rather late and Lavinia would have his head if he put her off once more.
“Scarlett,” he said as he slowly fastened her buttons. “You know I will be returning to London shortly — likely in the next couple of days.”
She nodded but said nothing.
“I’d like you to come with me. Please.”
Her eyes flew up, meeting his in the mirror. He could sense the panic that registered there, and while he didn’t want to push her to do something she so clearly despaired of, he didn’t want to think of leaving her behind now.
“No!” she exclaimed, shaking her head wildly. “I will not go to London. I told you this months ago, and again when you arrived.”
“Yes,” he responded, needing her to understand. “I remember. But I thought things may have changed, that you may have warmed to our … situation, become more open to the possibilities that may await us there.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You mean the possibilities that await you there.”
“Things have changed,” he said, his voice low and husky.
“We have been together one night,” she said without emotion. “That doesn’t change everything.”
“It’s more than that, Scarlett,” he said, resting his chin on her shoulder as he gazed at her reflection. “I love you. You are my wife, and I want to live that way with you.”
“I know,” she whispered, though she said nothing else, and his heart rent in two. This was the second time he had told her how he felt for her, and again she stayed silent. He finished buttoning her dress and stepped back from her.
Coldness washed over him, and it had nothing to do with the freezing temperatures outside.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, hearing the anger in his voice but unable to keep from allowing his frustration to show. “What have I done to repulse you so?”
“It’s not you,” she said with a cry, turning around toward him, her silvery gown swishing like moonlight as she did. “I have no wish to return to London. It’s where … it’s where…”
“What?” he asked, desperate to know.
“It’s where my family fell apart,” she whispered, tears gathering in her eyes.
“Talk to me, Scarlett,” he pleaded, taking a hesitant step toward her, his hands coming to her arms over the white gloves she had pulled on.
“My parents … they were happy once,” she said, her eyes far away, unfocused.
“I used to think how wonderful it was that they loved one another so much when it seemed many other couples care nothing for one another. We followed my father from London to the country, as most do, as you well know. I loved the country — I still do, clearly. I could spend all day with the horses, riding the fields, traveling the countryside. I loved following the neighbor’s children around.
When we were at our country estate they would spend hours outdoors with me, but then they would go to school once we returned to London.
This one summer, when I was ten years old, my mother decided that we could take an extra few weeks at the estate before returning to London.
Instead of telling my father when we were to arrive, she thought she would surprise him.
We arrived in London later than we anticipated — we got off to a late start, and we stopped to visit a friend on the way.
It was just past dinner. We came to the front door, and the butler tried to keep us from entering, but… .”
As she told the story, a hand came to her hair, still down upon her shoulders without a lady’s maid to attend to it. She worried those strands of hair so much that he wanted to reach out and still her fingers, but he knew if he interrupted, he might never have another opportunity to hear her tale.
“My father was in the drawing room with a woman. Her breasts were practically falling out of her bodice, her skirts hiked up nearly around her waist. My father was hastily trying to rearrange his clothing but … we knew. My mother went into a fit of hysterics. She had always been under the belief that my father was true to her, that their love was pure. Her eyes were opened that day. When she began to put the pieces together, she realized that never in their marriage had he been without a mistress, never had he been faithful to her. She had been blind to it, not wanting to see it. And even worse, in her mind, was that he took hardly any effort to hide it, allowing this woman into her home — our home.”
She paused, her eyes finally focusing on his face.
“I’ve hated London since then. My mother has hardly ever been able to return to that townhouse, always remembering what she saw there.
The worst part of it all, Hunter? My father didn’t even care.
Oh, he was upset that I witnessed his exhibitions, that’s true.
But it didn’t seem to bother him that my mother knew.
And while she never forgot his blatant disregard for her feelings, to this day she continues to love him, despite how much she hates him in equal measure. ”
Hunter stood there in shock, not knowing what to say. His parents had been cold to one another, had never been loving nor kind toward him. But that was the life he had always known. Scarlett had been part of a loving family — facade that it was — until it had been ripped away from her.
“Scarlett,” he finally said, bringing her hand to his lips. “I am so very sorry.”