CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #3
“I said that none of it mattered. I said that you were worth every scandal, every whisper, every raised eyebrow and pointed snub. I said that I had spent fifteen years being a coward and that I was finished. I would sooner endure the coldest disdain of the ton with you at my side than pass another hour in this wretched masquerade of indifference. I am overcome as I hold you in my highest esteem. I cherish you deeply.”
The word landed in the silence of the entrance hall, settling over all of them like a blanket.
Affection.
“You were going to tell me this?” Mel’s voice came out steadier than she felt.
“I was coming to find you this morning. To explain about London, about Mrs. Hartington, about all of it. To tell you the truth and beg you to stay.” His eyes moved to the trunk at her feet.
“It appears I nearly waited too long.”
“You did wait too long.” Anna’s voice cut through the moment with characteristic precision. “Miss Grace had her trunk at the door, another five minutes and she would have been gone.”
“Thank you, Annabelle, your timing assessment is noted.”
“I’m just providing context.”
Rhys’s lips twitched despite the gravity of the moment. Then his attention returned to Mel, and the almost-smile faded into something more serious.
“Give me one reason,” Mel said. “One reason I should stay after everything that’s happened. After London, after what I heard you say, after all of it.”
Rhys looked at her with care. Then he looked at his daughters, at the three small figures in their nightgowns who had fought so fiercely to keep her from leaving.
“I have three,” he said quietly.
“Three reasons who are standing right here, who cherish you as much as I do, who need you in ways I am only beginning to understand.” He paused, his voice dropping lower.
“And I have a fourth reason, which is myself. Which is that I find I am no longer master of my own heart where you are concerned Mel Grace. I cherish your honesty and your steadiness and the way you see through every pretense I’ve ever constructed.
I adore that you held my daughter through her nightmares and taught my other daughter to speak and channeled my third daughter’s chaos into scientific inquiry.
I treasure and adore that you told me the truth in a moonlit garden when everyone else would have let me keep hiding. ”
Mel felt the tears she had been holding back finally escape, tracking down her cheeks in hot, unwelcome streams. She was not a woman who cried.
She had not cried when her father abandoned her, nor when her mother had passed away, she had not cried through any of the losses and disappointments that had marked her adult life.
But she was crying now, standing in a cold entrance hall with a trunk at her feet and four people watching her with desperate hope in their eyes.
“The scandal,” she said, her voice unsteady.
“Your daughters. Society will…”
“Society can go hang.” Rhys closed the remaining distance between them, stopping just short of touching her.
“My daughters need a mother who cherishes them. I need a wife who sees me clearly. And you need a family, Mel. You’ve been alone for too long, surviving when you should have been living. Let us be your family. Let us hold you with our deepest affection the way you truly deserve to be cherished.”
“Papa’s being romantic,” Thistle observed. “This is very unusual.”
“Shh,” Anna hissed.
“This is an important moment.”
Mel laughed despite herself, the sound wet and broken but genuine. She looked at the children, at their expectant faces and their barely contained excitement. She looked at Rhys, at the hope and fear warring in his expression, at the man who had finally stopped hiding behind his worst self.
She looked at the trunk, packed and ready, waiting to carry her away from everything she had found here.
And she let go of the handle.
“The shell,” she said suddenly.
“I left it on the windowsill. Viola’s shell.”
“I’ll get it!” Thistle was already running for the stairs, Brutus bouncing against her chest.
“I’ll help!” Anna followed, clearly unwilling to miss any part of the continuing drama.
Viola stayed where she was, her quiet eyes moving between Mel and her father. Then, slowly, deliberately, she crossed the entrance hall and wrapped her arms around Mel’s waist.
“I knew you’d stay,” she whispered. “I knew you wouldn’t really leave.”
Mel held her, feeling the small body pressed against hers, feeling the trust that radiated from every point of contact. This child, who had been so afraid of abandonment that she spoke only in whispers, who had watched governess after governess come and go, had believed in her.
“I’m sorry,” Mel said, the words coming out rough.
“I should not have tried to leave without saying goodbye. That was wrong.”
“You were scared.” Viola’s voice was matter-of-fact.
“People do foolish things when they’re scared. Papa taught us that.”
Mel looked up at Rhys, who was watching the embrace with an expression of such raw tenderness that it made her chest ache.
“Did you teach them that?”
“I taught them many things.” He moved closer, until he was standing beside them, until Mel could feel the warmth of his presence without touching him.
“Most of them by negative example.”
“You’re getting better at positive examples.”
“I have an excellent teacher.”
Viola released Mel and stepped back, looking between her father and her governess with an expression of satisfaction.
“Are you going to kiss her now?” she asked.
Rhys choked. Mel felt her cheeks flush crimson.
“That is not, we haven’t, there are conversations that need to happen first,” Rhys managed.
“But you cherish each other. Kissing seems like the logical next step.”
“Matrimony is the logical next step,” Mel heard herself say.
“Kissing comes after.”
“Does that mean you’ll wed Papa?”
Mel looked at Rhys, at the hope blazing in his eyes, at the man who had finally found the courage to be honest about what he wanted.
“I’ll consider it,” she said. “After we’ve had several long conversations about expectations and practicalities and the many ways this could go wrong.”
“That sounds like a yes.”
“It sounds like a conditional yes, pending further discussion.”
Rhys laughed, the sound breaking free of him with evident relief.
“I’ll take a conditional yes. I’ll take anything you’re willing to give me.”
The thundering of footsteps on the stairs announced the return of Thistle and Anna. Thistle held the shell aloft like a trophy, while Anna carried what appeared to be Mel’s lesson plan book, which she had apparently retrieved from the schoolroom.
“I brought your shell!” Thistle announced. “And Anna brought your lesson plans because she said you’d need them if you’re staying.”
“That was very practical of her.”
“I’m always practical.” Anna handed over the book with dignity.
“Also, I’ve already begun planning the wedding. I estimate we’ll need approximately six weeks to prepare, assuming we want proper invitations and a suitable menu.”
“Anna…”
“I’ve also started a list of potential guests. It’s quite short, given the circumstances, but I believe quality is more important than quantity in these matters.”
Mel looked at the child before her, at the fierce intelligence and the desperate need to control chaos through organisation and planning. She recognised that impulse. She had spent most of her life employing it.
“We’ll discuss the guest list later,” she said. “For now, I believe you should all go back to bed. It’s still early, and the morning has been eventful.”
“But…”
“Bed,” Rhys said, his voice carrying the particular authority of a father who expected to be obeyed.
“Miss Grace and I have things to discuss, privately.”
The children exchanged glances. Some silent communication passed between them, and then, with evident reluctance, they began moving toward the stairs.
“Can Brutus stay?” Thistle asked. “He’s very good at keeping secrets.”
“Brutus may not stay.”
“But…”
“Thistle.” Mel’s voice was gentle but firm.
“Thank you for bringing my shell. Now please go back to bed.”
Thistle sighed dramatically but complied, following her sisters up the stairs. Mel watched them go, watched until they disappeared around the corner and the sound of their footsteps faded into silence.
Then she turned back to Rhys.
They stood in the entrance hall, the trunk still at her feet, the shell in her hand, the early morning light beginning to filter through the windows. The crisis had passed, the children had intervened and the departure had been prevented.
But there was still so much to say.
“I should unpack,” Mel said.
“You should.”
“And we should talk, properly, about expectations and practicalities and all the ways this could go wrong.”
“We should.”
“But first…” She hesitated, then placed the shell carefully on the entrance hall table.
“First, I think you owe me an explanation. About London. Mrs. Hartington, about everything that happened while you were away.”
“I went home alone.” The words came out quickly, as though he had been waiting to say them.
“I know what the gossip sheets implied. I know how it looked. But I escorted her to her carriage and I went home alone, and I spent the rest of the night wishing I was here instead.”
“Why did you let it happen? The drinking, the flirting, all of it?”
“Because I was scared. Because being the rake is easier than being the man I’m trying to become. Because you saw through me in the garden and I didn’t know how to face what that meant.”
“That’s not a good enough answer.”
“No. It’s not.” He met her eyes, unflinching.
“But it’s the honest one… I failed… I went back to old habits because they were comfortable. And I am asking you to forgive me, not because I deserve it, but because I am trying to be better.”
Mel considered this, weighing his words against his actions, his promises against his history.
“I forgive you,” she said finally.
“But I don’t trust you, not yet. Trust has to be earned through consistency, through presence, through doing the right thing even when the easy thing is more comfortable.”
“I know.”
“It will take time.”
“I have time.”
“And if you relapse again? If you go back to London and find another Mrs. Hartington waiting for you?”
“Then you have my permission to pack that trunk and leave. But I don’t intend to give you reason to use it.” He paused, his expression serious.
“I should be the most miserable of creatures were I to lose your favour.”
“My affections for you have become quite insurmountable Mel. I should have told you in the garden. I should have told you before that. I’ve been a coward about many things in my life, but I have finished being a coward about this.”
Mel felt something shift inside her, some wall that had been standing for years finally beginning to crumble.
She had built those walls for good reason, had learned through hard experience that vulnerability was dangerous and hope was foolish and affection was a weapon that could be used against you.
But standing here, in the entrance hall where she had nearly made the biggest mistake of her life, she found herself willing to take the risk.
“My heart has been yours since the very first time I saw you.” she said. “Against my better judgment and all practical sense.”
Rhys’s face transformed, the anxiety and fear giving way to something that looked very much like joy.
“Viola’s going to be insufferable about this,” he said. “She predicted it weeks ago.”
“Viola is an excellent observer.”
“She learned from you.”
“She learned from both of us.” Mel looked down at the trunk, at the packed bags and the careful preparations that had nearly carried her away from everything she wanted.
“I should unpack.”
“You should.”
“And we should have breakfast. The children will be hungry.”
“They will.”
Neither of them moved. They stood there in the entrance hall, existing in the space between what had been and what would be.
“Mel,” Rhys said quietly.
“Yes?”
“Welcome home.”
The words settled over her like a benediction, like something she had been waiting to hear her whole life without knowing she was waiting.
Home, she had one now, a real one, with a family and a future and all the terrifying possibilities that implied.
She picked up her trunk and carried it back toward the stairs, toward the room that was hers, toward the life she had almost thrown away.
Behind her, she heard Rhys laugh softly, the sound full of relief and wonder and the beginning of something new.
It was, she thought, a very good sound to build a future on.