Chapter Nineteen #2
His own self-loathing was put aside, just for a moment, as Montague stared in horror through the gloom. ‘What do you mean, when you were hungry?’
‘I was often hungry. If I was naughty, I… I wasn’t allowed my meals.’
Dear God, just when he thought the poor lad had at least been loved as a true son of the Trefusis household…
‘Come on in and eat,’ Montague said steadily, pulling out the chair beside him at the head of the table. ‘Come on. There’s chicken.’
The boy raced over the kitchen flagstones and dropped heavily onto the chair. The chicken leg that had looked so unappetising to the master of the house was quickly devoured.
‘You were hungry,’ said Montague quietly. Were they not feeding him enough? How much food did a child need, after all? Surely Cook would know.
John put the remnants of the chicken leg down on Montague’s plate and looked up at the older man guiltily. Now he was closer, Montague’s night vision allowed him to see the puckering concern in the boy’s brow.
‘I wasn’t actually that hungry,’ he admitted in a small voice. ‘I just…one day I will be punished again and I will be hungry then.’
It was a good thing indeed, Montague thought darkly, that his cousin was already dead, otherwise he might just have to murder him.
‘You will never be punished by going without food,’ he said aloud, conscious that perhaps a murderous rant about the boy’s late father would not be the best course of action. ‘I promise you, John. You’ll always have food. You’ll never go hungry.’
Never again. The cycle ends here.
The boy looked immediately cheerful at this pronouncement. ‘Oh. Good. When is Calliope coming back?’
And with the unerring ability of a child to say precisely what you did not want them to…
Montague tried to smile. ‘I don’t know.’
‘But I like her.’
‘I like her too,’ Montague said, trying to think about how to extricate himself from this ridiculous conversation. ‘Very much. But you cannot force a person to love you. You shouldn’t really force a person to do anything.’
The boy blinked up at him. ‘You shouldn’t?’
‘No one should.’ Christ, but he was going to have to work hard with this one. The child had seen more of the world than most adults three times his age, but he did not truly understand it, did he?
No, that would take time. If Montague was any barometer, the rest of his life.
‘But why did she go? Did she go to visit Aunt Louise?’ persisted the child, reaching forward slowly towards the apple as though, if he moved leisurely, his uncle would not notice.
Montague gave him a smile. Then he gave him the apple. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s visiting with her aunt.’
A permanent visit, he could not help but think darkly. A visit for ever.
This must happen occasionally, didn’t it? Husbands and wives separate, live apart?
The only instances Montague had ever heard of featured arranged marriages in which the required heir and spare had been provided. Then, and only then, had the wife been permitted her freedom.
But he had not caged Calliope. She had come to him freely. The trouble was, she had walked away just as freely.
‘I thought you loved her.’
If the boy had picked up a knife and casually slid it into his heart, he would have done less damage.
Montague cleared his throat. ‘I do. I do love her.’
‘And she said she loved you.’
‘I think Calliope needs some time to think,’ Montague said quietly, hoping to goodness it was true. ‘Sometimes when grown-ups have an argument, John, they…they need time apart to let their tempers cool down. To try to decide what is important.’
She was. She was important. Oh, it had been entertaining, the idea that he had somehow managed to unmask the great Glenarm…but where had that landed him?
Utterly mistaken, for a start, and ostracising the one woman in the world he truly loved.
‘And what is important?’
She is, Montague wanted to say. Calliope Oliver—Calliope Laidley, as she was now, was the most important person in the world. Save for the boy, of course, who had most inconveniently wormed his way into Montague’s heart without him really noticing.
‘You don’t look happy, Uncle Monty.’
Montague tried to smile as he ruffled the boy’s hair. Uncle Monty. That was new. ‘I’m not. I miss Calliope. I upset her and I’m very sorry about it, but she doesn’t want to accept my apology.’
‘Well then, you should make her,’ John said seriously, turning the apple around and around, as though considering the best approach to its core. ‘That’s what my father always did. He said I had to accept people’s apologies because they didn’t mean it. Whatever they did.’
The man’s death had not come soon enough.
‘Well, I don’t agree with that,’ Montague said quietly, trying to be kind.
Was it possible to unravel a child’s idea of the world?
To teach them that gentleness, and not brutality, was the way?
‘I want Calliope to truly forgive me, so she and I can be happy together again. I won’t get that if I just force her. You can’t force someone to love you.’
Much as he might wish it, in this moment.
The crunch of the apple broke the silence. ‘May I visit her?’
Montague’s stomach twisted. Did she want to see the boy again? They’d hardly had time to discuss such things.
‘She can teach me about portraitear.’
‘Portraiture,’ Montague corrected automatically.
‘And that,’ said John, his mouth full of apple. He swallowed. ‘Her painting of me was very good, wasn’t it?’
‘Very good. Much better than mine,’ Montague admitted, with a wry laugh as he leaned back in his seat.
And the foolish people of Brighton hadn’t seen it. Well, there’s no accounting for taste and it might be that in time Calliope’s talent would find an outlet. If the world could ever be persuaded a woman at an easel was just as worthy as a man.
John nodded sagely. ‘Yes, everyone thought so. Well, almost everyone. She did not win by much, but she did win. By ten, Aunt Louise told me.’
Montague smiled fondly at the memory.
‘She might never forgive you, if she found out.’
‘Then let’s ensure she never finds out. She will win—it will be close, but she will win. Are we agreed?’
‘Aunt Louise said you tried to make her change it so Calliope won, but she didn’t have to, you know,’ John added, as though what he was saying was not radically altering Montague’s understanding of reality. ‘She won, fair and square. Calliope, I mean, not Aunt Louise.’
Montague’s jaw dropped. ‘What—what did you say?’
The boy hesitated. ‘It was Calliope who won, not Aunt—’
‘About the voting,’ Montague interrupted hastily. ‘Did you say—’
‘Calliope won, Aunt Louise did not have to pretend,’ the child said matter-of-factly, clearly unaware of the importance of what he was saying. ‘But you knew that, Uncle Monty. Didn’t you?’
No. No, he had not known that and, in a strange way, it buoyed Montague’s spirits to know it.
Even when he had tried to protect Calliope from the critics of the world, she did not need his help. She was more than capable of trouncing him on her own.
He should have trusted her.
‘She did?’
John nodded, his smile bright. ‘It was awful brave of her to enter the competition, wasn’t it, Uncle Monty? I wonder if she was nervous, like you were.’
She had won and yet had most certainly lost. Lost not only the art competition, but any chance to prove to her, to himself once and for all that he did not have to hide from his emotions. That the small child who had been so neglected was worthy of love.
Of loving and being loved.
‘Uncle Monty?’
Montague’s mind whirled as the child’s calm innocence told him everything he needed to know. This was what he could have been like, had things been different—assuming the best, venturing forward, seeking connection.
He had not even known he’d craved it until… Calliope.
And even when he had introduced himself outrageously and treated her abominably—and yes, saved her from imminent death off the side of a cliff—she had seen him. Seen him and accepted him.
Seen him, accepted him and grown to love him.
She might be his wagered wife. But he was her heroic husband.
If only he could find it within himself.
‘I have made a terrible mistake,’ he muttered under his breath.
Not quietly enough, evidently. John’s eyes widened. ‘But—grown-ups don’t make mistakes!’
‘This one does,’ Montague said ruefully. ‘In fact, all grown-ups make mistake, John. Sometimes they say things that are hurtful. Things that are unkind.’
Yes, not so pleasant when one is forced to accept you are the one who has been keeping secrets here!
‘Sometimes they don’t treat others very well,’ continued Montague, his stomach twisting.
Try as you might, you cannot hide the truth. You are the mysterious artist Glenarm everyone is searching for—admit it!
‘And sometimes they do not realise how valuable, how precious something, someone, is until they are gone,’ Montague finished, blowing out a long breath.
‘I wasn’t very kind to Calliope. I did not treat her very well.
And I did not realise how precious she was until she left.
To see her Aunt Louise,’ he added hastily.
John was staring up at him with wide eyes and a worried expression. ‘That wasn’t very nice, Uncle Monty.’
‘No, it was not.’ Heavy rocks settled in Montague’s chest, churning with unpleasant memories and regret. ‘And I am sorry for it.’
‘But… She’s gone.’
She was gone. And that meant she had not heard his apology, did not know how sorry he was.
Whether she wanted to be his wife or not, she deserved that much.
‘You know—’ Montague said conversationally to the boy, a smile creasing his lips, ‘—we are going to get Calliope back.’
The child brightened. ‘We are?’
‘We are,’ Montague said, far more confidently than he felt. ‘We are indeed.’