Chapter 17 #3
“Of course, as did I. But you see why we would not suit? You are a peer. You will vote your seat, and that means biding in London. I dare not return there. For that reason at least, you must give up any notion of a match between us. I should never have allowed matters to progress between us as far as they did, but I was being selfish, and Orla would tell you that is typical of me.”
“You are determined to believe Orla’s nonsense, and I will grant you that determination figures prominently among your gifts. We suit admirably, Amabel Fielding. What does not suit me at all is letting the past come between us—yours, mine, my mother’s, anybody’s.” And oddly enough, he meant that.
She took his arm from her shoulders. “I refuse to burden you with my scandal in addition to your mother’s. People will say terrible things if my past is known and you are associated with me.”
“What people? A lot of gossips swilling tea in Mayfair, the most ridiculous corner of the realm? I assure you, the local folk here in Yorkshire will be more concerned with whether the Glen deals decently with the tenant farmers than with Mayfair scandals from years ago. Please forgive yourself for youthful ignorance or a misplaced yearning for some cad’s regard.
You were burdened by innocence, and we can blame others for that. ”
It’s not your fault. Rather than bellow the words repeatedly, Richard settled for silence. He had learned patience while in Portugal, and he was prepared to be very patient—and very persistent—with the woman he loved.
Amabel hunched forward, gaze intent on nothing in particular that Richard could see.
“I detest the sampler in Orla’s sitting room.” The air of pique had left her words, replaced by a thread of sadness. “She asked me specifically to embroider that passage.”
Who can find a virtuous woman, for her price is far above rubies.
“Orla was being vicious.”
Amabel’s brows knitted. “I excused her meanness because she was disappointed in me and she did not know how bitterly I would resent that particular passage. She was tacitly lecturing me, and I deserved it more than she knew, but…”
“But she had already stolen your birthright, so who was she to lecture anybody?”
Amabel nodded. “I was also disappointed in myself, though. I deserved for somebody to wield the lash on my conscience.”
She tucked her feet up and curled against Richard’s side. When his arm came around her this time, she snuggled closer.
“You did not deserve a perpetual scold, Amabel. You did not deserve to be put at daggers drawn with your step-cousin. You did not deserve to become the castle drudge and penniless into the bargain.”
“You did not deserve to be told you were illegitimate.”
A gratifying flicker of her usual starch infused that observation. Richard nuzzled her temple and contemplated consigning Orla to the Outer Hebrides, except that the Outer Hebrides—utterly gorgeous in a windswept, timeless way—did not deserve such a burden.
“You won’t argue with me?” Amabel asked, her arm around his waist. “You admit your mother should not have lied to you?”
I thought we were forgetting Marie for the nonce. Instead of dodging Amabel’s questions, Richard honestly considered them.
“Mama was wrong to lie to me. Perhaps when I was a small boy, she might have shaded the truth in this or that direction, but when she fell ill, she knew she was bequeathing me a life built on falsehoods, and she should have told me the truth.”
This admission felt to Richard more like forgiveness than accusation. Forgiveness for whom, Richard wasn’t sure. He rose to feed the fire and, when he had the flames roaring gently, returned to the love seat.
“What can I do to help, Amabel?” To help you. Every particle of his soul was certain that marrying him would sort out her situation to a nicety, but he dared not say as much lest she start up with her scandals and ruins and whatnot again.
“Nobody asks me if I need help,” Amabel said. “You assume I do, and you are correct.”
“They don’t ask me either,” Richard replied. “I would have told you I prefer it that way. But since coming to Yorkshire, I have needed somebody—the local elders, the village drunk, my only maternal auntie to aid my cause and…”
And perhaps with their silences, they had been trying to help him, or at least spare him from more sorrow. Novel notion. Not quite the same as self-serving reticence.
“And?” Amabel prompted.
“And what do you want, Amabel? What do you want for yourself?”
She pursed her lips, putting him in mind of Her Grace of Chanderton in a displeased mood. “Honestly?”
“With me, always honestly, Amabel. I will return the compliment.”
“I would like…” She squared her shoulders. “I like it very much when you hold me.”
“I like it even more when we hold each other.”
Richard took her in his arms, and while Amabel sniffled a bit and held him a lot, he had an extraordinary thought: Perhaps solo combat wasn’t a universally brilliant plan for a happy, meaningful life. Not for him, not for Amabel.
Before he could propose that notion to her—along with matrimony—he had some affairs to put in order.