Chapter 29
Leopold was mulling over the latest gossip from the servants, about his mother going to the nursery on her own the night before and asking to hold Cecily, when Honora knocked on the open study door.
He straightened his posture, trying to hide his delight at seeing her. But his excitement was tempered as she stepped into the room. Her face was pale and her eyes were red. She was holding a yellowed piece of paper in her hand.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, rising to approach her.
Honora nodded quickly. “Yes. Your mother just seems to be full of surprises lately.”
Leopold frowned. “What do you mean?”
Honora held out the paper to him. “This.”
Leopold glanced at the page, noticing it was a long letter, and who she wrote it to. “A letter to Celestine?”
Honora nodded. “She gave it to me this morning.”
“Did you read it?” Leopold asked, glancing at the handwriting on the front, then back at her.
“Yes, I did. I assumed she meant for you to read it, as well.”
Leopold nodded, taking a deep breath. Full of surprises, indeed, he thought.
“Very well,” he said.
Honora gave him a sad smile.
“I will give you some privacy. I suspect you may need it.”
With that, and before he could stop her, Honora left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
Leopold remained still for several seconds before he finally opened the letter. It was very similar to the one his father had written, explaining the decision to send her to the Bellamy family and the reason they chose to do so.
It even detailed the night Celestine was born, and the days after her birth, before the late duke had taken her to the family who would raise her.
Then came the section that differed from his father’s letter; the one that was hardest of all to read. Near the very end, the handwriting became noticeably less even.
I did not write this to be forgiven, she had written. Only because I could not carry it silently any longer, and putting it on paper was the closest I could come to saying it aloud to you.
I think of you often, and wonder whether you were happy. Whether you knew, in whatever way children know such things, that I loved you, even though you never knew me as your mother. I hope you did. What I am sorry for is that I did not have the courage to love you openly.
He folded and unfolded the letter, returned to the first page, and read it a second time before he finally rose from the desk and made his way through the house.
His mother was sitting in the drawing room when he found her. She looked up as he entered, and her eyes went immediately to the letter in his hand.
“You read it,” she said.
“I did,” Leopold answered, crossing the room to sit opposite her, putting the letter on the table between them.
“Did Honora read it as well?” she asked, looking at the folded pages.
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly, and for several seconds neither of them said anything more.
“Can you ever forgive me?” she finally asked.
Leopold studied his mother thoughtfully, thinking of how Honora had chosen to forgive him, even after his careless dismissal of her had nearly cost Cecily’s and her lives.
“I am not yet capable of forgiveness, but I can remain in my chair. Honora showed me what courage looks like when she held her place. Now, I am attempting the same.”
The dowager duchess smiled sadly, nodding only once. Leopold gave his mother a nod in return. Then, leaving the letter with his mother, he went back to his study.
***
That afternoon, Barnaby barged into the study unannounced and uninvited.
“The magistrate has filed the charges,” Barnaby said, without any preamble at all.
“Against Isolde?” Leopold asked, looking up.
“For the kidnapping,” Barnaby confirmed, nodding.
“And Lord Penmere?”
“He has written a formal apology on his daughter’s behalf.” Barnaby set a page down on the desk. “It is a good deal more contrite than I expected it to be, honestly.”
“And Isolde herself?”
“Sent to a relative in Hertfordshire.”
“That was quick,” Leopold said, raising an eyebrow.
“Her father probably decided distance was preferable to a prison cell,” Barnaby said dryly.
Leopold gave him a look for that.
“I am not criticizing his instincts,” Barnaby said, shrugging. “Merely observing them.”
“And the newspaper?” Leopold asked, glancing at the next paper in the stack.
“The Morning Post story is losing traction,” Barnaby said.
“It was that simple?”
“Because a birth record is difficult to argue with,” Barnaby said, laying another sheet on the desk.
“The solicitor’s statement helped considerably.
” He set down a third paper. “And three families in the county have publicly vouched for the Bellamys, as well. It seems their letters were published this morning.”
“The families published their letters?” Leopold asked, looking at him. “I thought they would simply write to the magistrate, or perhaps to the authorities.”
“Sabina organized most of it,” Barnaby said, and his mouth curved slightly as he said her name.
He had said it with rather more attention than the sentence strictly required, and Leopold noticed at once.
“You like her,” Leopold said.
“I did not say that,” Barnaby replied, his expression remaining perfectly calm.
“You did not need to say it.”
“The public version of events is shifting regardless,” Barnaby went on, ignoring him entirely. “People are far more interested now than ever in why your parents did what they did.”
“That is as it should be,” Leopold said, looking down at the papers spread across the desk.
“The worst of it appears to be passing,” Barnaby added.
“Good.” Leopold closed the file in front of him. “Stay for dinner.”
“I cannot,” Barnaby said, looking at him apologetically.
“Why not?”
“I have supper with the Montrose family.”
“Again?” Leopold asked, frowning.
“Yes.”
“Is that not the third time this week?”
“The fourth,” Barnaby said, picking up his gloves from the desk.
Leopold’s gaze sharpened quickly on his friend. But before he could say more, Barnaby was closing the study door behind him.
Leopold sat alone for a moment afterward.
He had never once known Barnaby to develop such enthusiasm for repeated estate business.
And he had not missed the recent instances where Barnaby had paid Sabina attention beyond what her brief visits and encounters required.
I will address this with him later, Leopold thought with a tired smile.
***
That evening, Leopold went out onto the terrace outside the library.
Honora was already there. She stood at the railing exactly where he had found her weeks earlier, the night before everything between them had changed completely.
The lamp from inside the library threw a warm strip of light across the stone beneath her feet.
“You came out,” Honora said, looking over her shoulder when she heard him approach.
“I did,” Leopold answered. “Is Cecily in bed for the night?”
“Yes.” She turned back toward the garden, and he came to stand beside her at the railing. They stood staring out into the darkness in silence for a moment.
“The garden looks better at night,” Honora said eventually.
“You said that before,” he said.
A small smile touched her mouth.
“You remember.”
“I remember a great deal.”
Honora looked away shyly, saying nothing. The house behind them was warm and lit, the gardens dark below, and for once, there was no immediate crisis waiting to interrupt them.
“How is Cecily?” Leopold asked.
“She is very pleased with herself,” Honora said. “She has decided the entire household belongs to her.”
“Martha would agree.”
“Martha has begun acting as though Cecily belongs in the kitchen as much as she does in the nursery.”
“She has been doing that for some time.”
Honora smiled. “She gives her pieces of bread.”
“Martha gives everyone pieces of bread.”
“Not like this.”
Leopold looked at her. “How is this different?”
“She watches her eat.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It is. She looks proud.”
Leopold laughed softly. “Perhaps she has finally accepted that Cecily is staying.”
“I think she has always known she was never leaving.”
Honora glanced toward the house. “Her Grace moving about the house again has caused some confusion.”
Leopold raised a brow. “They are afraid to speak to her?”
“They are afraid to even speak around her.”
“I suppose I cannot blame them.”
“I believe she is more worried about speaking around them,” Honora said. “She must be aware that they know all that has happened lately. I think they fear her unnecessarily. In fact, I think they might find her a bit more subdued than she used to be.”
Leopold nodded, thinking about how different his mother had become to him just in a few days. “I believe you are right.”
Honora laughed, and it was a more beautiful sound than any musical number Leopold had ever heard.
“I always am.”
Leopold smiled at her. “You are quite confident.”
“I am.”
The conversation moved easily between them, the way conversations used to before everything between them had broken apart entirely. Neither of them forced or steered it. That was not necessary.
That is the real difference now, Leopold realized.
There was nothing hidden underneath any of it any longer. Every previous conversation they had shared had been resting quietly on top of something neither of them had been able to say aloud.
“I have been thinking about what comes next,” Leopold said at last.
“What do you mean?” Honora asked, turning fully toward him.
“Cecily is acknowledged now. Your father knows exactly where you are, the scandal is settling, and my mother is finally beginning to reckon with what she did.” He paused before he continued. “What I have not yet addressed is what you are to me. And what I want you to be.”
She blushed. “And what is it that you want me to be?”
He had rehearsed this conversation more than once in his mind, though none of the rehearsals survived the actual moment.
“I started falling for you in the nursery, in the second week you were here,” he said.
Her eyes and mouth widened.