Chapter Ten #2
“Were he still around, the old man would likely have blamed me for Alice’s death as well,” he commented sardonically, a bitter smile tilting the corner of his mouth.
He resorted to inappropriate humor, as was his way when the subject grew too uncomfortable, and he nearly squirmed out of his skin when Victoria’s eyes shut and a single tear slid free down the curve of her cheek.
He forced himself to continue. “The will stated I was first in line as guardian for their three children; they would be deposited into my care or else fall into the hands of a great aunt whom I knew would stifle them. She and I were the only choices—the only family Alice and her husband had remaining, once her husband’s mother died as well.
There was only one option as far as I could see. ”
“You took them in,” Victoria whispered, though there was no censure in the words. If anything, Rafe might have detected a note of respect there. He refused to place too much hope in the four words, though.
“I had to. They are my family.” He cleared his throat and extracted a handkerchief from the inner pocket of his coat, handing it to his wife.
Victoria accepted it and dabbed at the single mutinous tear that had managed to escape.
“The adjustment hasn’t been easy. For any of us.
Dominic has struggled with his lessons and has been acting out.
May is sometimes lost, begging for her mother and father.
Faith, the infant, is, perhaps, the worst off, despite being too young to know what she will never have.
Her health is frail, and she cries…” He sighed tremulously.
“She cries so much. The physician calls weekly to check on her progress, but, even with the best care money can buy, the prognosis is not optimistic. Not when she refuses food and sleeps in only fitful bouts. None of us is unscathed by the change, but all of us are doing what we must.”
Rafe held his shoulders impossibly tense.
He was so immobile that Victoria might have thought him a statue had the muscle in his jaw not flexed so rhythmically.
He was like a man on the scaffold waiting for the floor to drop from beneath his feet, and she had the distinct impression that she was the hangman, holding his fate in her hands.
Would she sentence him for his sins, or would she forgive him for the reasons behind his actions?
She certainly would have thought less of him had he turned away the children, but if he had only told her the truth of it all—about the children and about his financial concerns—could she say with honesty that she wouldn’t have hesitated to move forward with the marriage?
This entire situation was far more pressure than she cared to weather, but there was no shying away from it now.
This man was her husband. His wards were hers, as far as she was concerned.
The care and well-being of these three small children became as much her responsibility as his once the ink dried upon their marriage documents. Her fate was sealed.
She took her time examining all he’d revealed to her as they sat within the weighty silence of that room.
Much as she wanted to, she was no saint who could absolve her husband of all his ills because his heart was in the right place.
He’d hidden the children’s existence. Not once had he broached the subject of dropping her into a mothering role immediately after upending her life with a move from America to London and marriage into a Society whose customs and rituals were all still new to her.
She wouldn’t be herself without at least broaching her feelings on this.
“So…” she began, “you married me to have a replacement mother for them? Did you ever stop to think that my gender does not inherently mean I know anything about children?” Her tone was slightly snippier than she’d intended, but she was exhausted at that point.
Emotionally depleted. She’d so believed this marriage had gotten off on the right foot, but now…
Rafe held his hands out to her, palm up in a beseeching manner. “Anything has to be better than the last few months.”
Surrounded, as they were, by the worn elegance of the house, Victoria experienced another gradual realization she’d been attempting to ward off—a reality she’d understood was a likelihood, but it seemed hadn’t been entirely prepared to feel a pang of disappointment for.
With some difficulty, she spoke through the tightness that had gathered in her throat.
“It is quite a lifestyle change for a bachelor to take on three small children; quite expensive as well, I suspect, to fund it all from what you have admitted is a poorly managed estate. Now you must consider hiring staff to care for them, clothing them, feeding them, educating them, eventually helping to launch May and Faith into Society.” Rafe saw instantly where her thoughts were headed, and he had the good grace to allow a flicker of guilt past his careful mask.
Victoria felt the dregs of her optimism retreat inwardly.
“Why would you wait this long to mention the children? And you clearly intended to wait even longer if we were to travel away from England for several weeks.”
He shook his head helplessly, a lock of his dark hair falling over his forehead. “I thought it would be easier.”
“Easier? For whom?” She stood once again.
“Certainly not me—not when we had months of ‘friendship’ during which this detail might have been revealed.” Victoria paused to bite the inside of her lip in an attempt to regain control over her emotions.
“You must think so little of me if you believed you needed to hide their existence until there was no possibility of me turning my back on this marriage. You have not learned a thing about me. You may have listened enough to ingratiate yourself, but that is no more than any swindler would. I care very little about your need for funds—I’ve never been under the illusion that it wouldn’t be an enticing factor in any union—but the omissions are insulting…
to assume that I was the kind of person who would end a courtship because you had three small wards is even more so.
” Victoria’s words rang clear and true between them.
Heart pounding in her ears hard enough to make her head ache, she knew she’d said her peace.
Finally, her husband inclined his head in understanding—a mute acceptance of her statements—and sighed resignedly.
“I apologize for any hurt my actions may have caused you; I did what I believed I had to do for the children, and for all of our futures.” Victoria resented him for that last statement.
She did not wish to feel pity and understanding; she was not yet ready to relinquish her anger, but it was so difficult when faced with his mournful expression and fathomless eyes.
The man could charm a nun to sin. “And I hope you will understand the necessity of postponing our wedding trip. Now that we will reside here in Town, I will have the housekeeper, Mrs. West, introduce you to the current staff and show you around.”
“Thank you, no,” Victoria declined coolly. “I would rather retire to my room alone to think on all that has taken place.”
“The bedchambers are likely not fully prepared since we were not scheduled to return for more than a month.”
“I am sure they are satisfactory,” she maintained.
“I do not feel up to interacting with the staff. Rest assured, I will do my duties…but it will not be today. I believe I am owed that much grace after all this. And, if you feel anything like the exhaustion I am experiencing, then you will understand and allow me this courtesy.”
Rafe watched as Mrs. West followed Victoria out of the parlor door and into the foyer.
He listened as their shoes crossed the foyer and ascended the stairs; he waited for the familiar creaky step near the top of the first landing.
Only then did he slam the side of his fist upon the marble mantle with a hissed curse.
He stepped away from the hearth, grateful that his outburst hadn’t caused the blasted thing to collapse and crush his foot.
It would be just his luck for such a thing to happen.
He should have known better than to walk into his marriage with Victoria Rockford with such naive optimism. Nothing had gone as planned—nothing ever quite did for him. While it had seemed to start off well, it was looking like his marriage would be as frustrating as the rest of his life had been.
So much of London viewed him as a carefree rakehell.
Precious few knew just how much he cared.
He did not deny that he spent a great deal of time in the presence of beautiful women; he’d never hidden his reckless behavior.
All of it, however, had been his escape and his way to explore who he was when all he’d been within these walls was a bitter disappointment.
His life had started with the worst of luck of all, causing his mother to take her last breath with his first, and it had only followed him through the years.
All the smiles, all the drunken parties, all the most beautiful women in the world could not make up for the hollowness he felt inside.
He’d been foolish to hope that marrying a respectable woman and setting both his wards and his title up for better futures would place him firmly on a better path than he’d ever taken before, but it seemed he was incapable of not making a mess of things.
When one issue was resolved by the immediate influx of Victoria’s wealth and the steady income her annual stipend of several thousand pounds would provide, he now had a wife who didn’t trust him…and he’d be damned if he knew how to fix the muddle he’d made.
Because this truly was all his own doing; there was no one else to blame for his situation but himself, and that was perhaps the most irksome of all.
In the span of only a few hours, their marriage had gone from one of optimism to one of unleashed mistrust and injured feelings.
Rafe was used to dropping women with whom he no longer saw eye-to-eye—women who were more trouble and effort than he wished to endure.
None of those women had ever been vital enough to his life for him to try to work through whatever disagreement they’d experienced.
He’d endured far too much rancor and animosity in his early years to willingly put himself through any more of it; now, however, he could not run away.
Fleeing the marriage was not an option…not if he had any hope of the future he’d set out to achieve.
He knew Victoria’s brother remained in London for the time being and, if he caught so much as a whiff of discontent in their marriage, Rafe did not doubt that he would do everything within his power to remove both Victoria and her wealth from Rafe’s reach.
He felt entirely out of his depth, and he did not care for it one bit…almost as much as he hated the fact that he’d wounded Victoria’s feelings.
A sudden screech and crash shattered his train of thought. Rather than wince, Rafe closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the ceiling as if seeking benediction.
“It wasn’t my fault!” came the immediate denial of responsibility in a young lad’s very familiar voice.
Rafe sighed and scrubbed his face before leaving the room to deal with the latest disaster.