Chapter Nineteen #2
“I didn’t do anything ‘terrible,’ ” her father answered without looking at her. “We both decided his leaving was what was best for you.”
“He wouldn’t leave me,” she repeated.
“He did,” her father said.
Her heart wanted to deny the truth of his words, while her mind knew he did not lie. Her father was too calm, too satisfied. Parker was quiet, his expression unusually somber.
Lyssa’s first urge was to scream, to rant and to rave—but then she sensed they braced themselves for just that possibility.
Instead, she took pride and courage in hand. “What if I’m carrying his baby?”
“Then we shall see what could be done,” her father said.
“Dunmore,” the duchess said. “Give her something.”
Her father didn’t pretend to not understand. He pinned Lyssa with his sharp green eyes so much like her own. “He loved you,” he said.
And to Lyssa’s surprise, that was enough.
She also sensed her father was not completely pleased by his own actions. Perhaps because she did not react the way he may have anticipated. She was stronger now. More certain of herself. More of a woman.
If she did carry Ian’s child, she’d not let anyone take him from her. She would have to find a way to protect the child. After all, the world all seemed to come down to money—and what value was there to being worth one’s weight in gold if one couldn’t throw that weight around when necessary?
They were almost home when she said, “I saw Mama’s portrait. The one her father had done and had sent out to prospective suitors.”
A muscle tightened in her father’s jaw and there was a sadness in his eyes. “She was very beautiful, wasn’t she?”
Lyssa noticed he didn’t tack on a caveat such as “She was beautiful when she was young.” To her father and to herself, her mother would always be beautiful. But the freshness of youth and good health had been a wonderful thing to see upon her mother’s face.
“As lovely as my stepmother,” Lyssa agreed, the words coming from her heart, and she knew she’d surprised the duchess. Pleasantly surprised her. “But with the illness, I’d forgotten so much about Mama.”
“Yes,” her father echoed and turned his face to look out the window at the passing scenery.
She listened to the wheels turn against the cobblestones. “I won’t forget him, Father.”
“I know,” was the answer. “I know.
Lyssa’s homecoming was not comfortable. What she’d once taken for granted now seemed ostentatious. She knew she would grow accustomed to it again…she didn’t want to, but it would happen.
Her first night in a feather bed, she could not sleep. She tossed and turned, her body aching for Ian.
Finally she wrapped herself in her raggedy plaid and laid on the carpeted floor. Sleep didn’t come until she pretended she was in Ian’s arms.
For the next two days, the duchess did her best to try and distract her. Lyssa felt guilty for not having realized before how generous and kind her stepmother was.
She saw her father at midday and then for supper. They were both quiet, having little to say to each other.
After supper on the evening of the second day, he sought her out in the sunroom, where she had wandered to be alone for a moment. Night had fallen and the room was dark save for the glow of her single candle.
“Lyssa?”
She turned toward him in the chair she was sitting in. “Yes, Papa.”
“I have a gift for you.”
She unwrapped the package and found a book of poems by Lord Byron.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I know you need something to occupy your mind. After all, your other books were destroyed in that fire and Lord Byron was one of your favorites.”
She nodded without enthusiasm and opened the book. The words leapt out to her from the page and she read aloud,
I would I were a careless child
Still dwelling in my highland cave
Or roaming through the dusky wild
Or bounding o’er the dark blue wave—
Her voice broke as tears stung her eyes. She shut the book. She took a moment to compose herself before asking, “Has he left London for good yet?”
She didn’t expect him to truly answer her, so his reply caught off guard. “He left on the first tide. Parker and I didn’t give him much time.”
No, she had assumed they wouldn’t. “Parker can be very efficient. Where did you send him?”
“To a place of his choosing.”
“Maryland?” she guessed.
Her father frowned. “How did you know?”
“It is where we both would have gone.” She hugged the book to her chest.
Coming around to sit on the footstool in front of her, her father placed his hands gently on her arms. “The ship is gone, Lyssa. He can’t come back. He and I agreed.” He paused and then said, “I know I may seem harsh to you, but someday you will understand.”
“I might.” She shook her head. “Would mother have?”
“Unfair, Lyssa.”
“No, Papa, I’m being honest. At least tell me you paid him well?”
Her father snorted. “I paid him his weight in gold,” he said and for the first time since Ian’s leaving she wanted to smile.
“Good. He earned it.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Papa.” She rose, forcing him to sit back, and started for the door.
His voice stopped her. “Lyssa, I am sorry.”
“No, you aren’t,” she replied without heat. “But perhaps all parents think they know what is best.”
She didn’t wait for his response but left to go to her lonely room.
The Davidson tartan was folded neatly at the foot of the bed.
She pulled the pins from her hair to set it free and put on her nightdress.
Wrapping her plaid around her, she sat in a reading chair by the window.
Candlelight was not the best to read by, but she had no choice.
She needed to read the rest of the poem and savor its haunting words.
Someday she’d feel complete again. But right now, it was as if she’d lost half her soul, half her conscience, half her reason for being.
So she could be excused if when she saw Ian’s face framed in the branches of the tree some two feet outside her dark window, her first thought was she must be dreaming—until he reached to knock on the glass pane and almost fell out of the tree.