Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
The days following the ball were some of the most confusing and frustrating of Violet’s life.
She had woken the morning after the ball in a state of unexpected bliss…
no, not unexpected. That was not correct.
When she went to bed that night, she had never been so happy.
Finally, she was willing to admit that she had real feelings for Rhys, and he was finally willing to admit the same.
No more lies. No more denying what she knew.
She trusted him completely, she wanted him in her life, and he wanted her too.
She had set her head down on the pillow and her smile held as she slept the night away. It was a dreamless sleep that found her, a comfort never before known because all her worries and those doubts she had carried with her for years had been washed away.
So, when she woke, the happiness she found was very much expected. Rhys’ kiss was still felt on her lips, her heart literally hurt from how much it raced, and she simply could not wait to start the day and her new life afresh.
That was my first mistake… trusting someone when I ought to have known better.
In hindsight, she supposed that Rhys’ actions should not have surprised her. Had he not warned her? Had he not told her already who he was and why he was alone? But she had ignored them, and now she was paying the price.
Consequently, Rhys spent the next few days avoiding her completely, and while Violet thought about going to him and forcing him to admit how she knew he felt, Violet was stubborn. Worse still, her walls had rebuilt themselves, and she remembered why she never trusted anyone.
“I still think you should speak to him,” Rose said on the third day. They walked the garden together as Lucy ran ahead.
“I will do no such thing,” Violet told her.
“Then you are a fool.”
Violet scowled at her sister. “What sort of advice is that?”
“The type that you need to hear.”
“Were you not the one who warned me about him in the first place? Who mocked me for how I felt? What happened? Why the change of heart?”
Rose sighed and looked sadly at Violet. “I never warned you against him, Violet. I might have doubted the type of man that he was—doubts that at the time felt justified. But I did not hate him.”
Violet scoffed. “You certainly did not encourage me either.”
“I was wrong,” Rose admitted. “As for my mockery? That was… it was done in fun, because it is so rare to see you fall for someone as you were doing.”
“I was not falling for —”
“All I have ever wanted, Violet, is for you to be happy,” she cut over Violet. “Since father died, that has been my charge. You worked so hard to protect me, nearly killing yourself, and I would watch on, hating that there was nothing I could do to help.”
“There was nothing to be done,” Violet assured her. “Your job was not to protect me or worry about me, Rose. That was my charge for you.”
“Then who would look out for you, Violet?”
“Nobody!” Violet cried. “And that is the point.”
“No, Violet…” Rose stopped walking, and when Violet turned to look at her, she winced as if she had been slapped.
Her sister was always one who wore a smile, who found cheer in the most dreadful places.
But her eyes watered and never had Violet seen her look so distressed.
“I know you love that I relied on you, that others do too. I know how much you rely on your independence like a shield to protect yourself with, but it does not have to be that way. To have someone else to look out for you, to love you? There is nothing wrong with that.”
Violet wanted to scowl angrily at Rose. She, more than anyone, should have understood why Violet was this way. What was more, she ought to have appreciated it!
And yet… I know she loves me, and all she wants is what is best for me. How can I possibly blame her for that?
“I am not going to argue with you, Rose,” Violet said. “Not about this.”
“Does that mean you will talk to him?” Rose pushed. “If what you told me about the night of the ball is true, I do not believe that His Grace means to avoid you. I refuse to believe that he wants such a thing.”
“Perhaps…” Violet turned and looked upon the manor; her eyes lifted to where his office was, which was likely where Rhys was currently hiding. “And maybe what he told me was true? Maybe he really does care for me?”
“I know he does,” Rose said. “I have seen with my own eyes how he treated you. That was not an act. It was real.”
“I will not beg him,” Violet said. “Nor will I force him to change if he does not want it. I…” Her throat tightened. “I do care for him. That has not changed. But until he is ready to change himself, I doubt that anything I say will make a difference.”
“It might?”
“No,” Violet sighed. “It will not.”
That was a truth that Violet had long since come to accept.
After Rhys had cut her off so coldly, she had wanted to refute those feelings shared, and those words exchanged between them. She tried to convince herself that they were lies, and that they meant nothing. Sadly, even stubborn Violet was not that misguided.
She knew that he cared for her, but she knew too the reason that he ran. He was terrified of hurting her, of doing to her what he had done to his sister, and she doubted that anything she said would make a difference.
My walls came down but Rhys refused to step over their wreckage. It is up to him to change… if he even wants to.
So, those days dragged on. Slowly. Painfully.
With a sense that things were moving backwards.
Violet stayed close with Lucy, and their relationship continued to grow in leaps and bounds.
Rose was there too, and the three of them made a little family that was heartwarming and not to be ignored. But it was missing something.
Without Rhys, this house would never be a home, their family would never be whole, and always Violet would wonder what might have been…
Would things change? Did she think that Rhys might wake up one day and realize his mistake? She looked once more to the manor; she imagined him bent over his desk in the dark, working away as he forced himself to forget, and she knew the answer.
This was as good as things would get. Good, yes, but not perfect by any measure. And that was the greatest shame of all.
It was late in the evening, and Violet sat alone in the library.
Rose had been feeling tired all day, so she went to bed early. Lucy, only three, had been put to bed hours earlier. That left Violet on her own, and while she liked to tell herself that she was perfectly fine with such a state of being, never before had she felt so lonely as then.
She sat before the hearth, letting the flames warm her face and body.
She had a book resting on her knees, but she had no desire to read.
She simply stared into those flames, trying desperately to hang onto the threads of happiness that she wanted so much to feel…
that she wanted to believe she not only deserved but had finally found.
Do you not have everything you ever wished for? A home. Rose’s future secured. Lucy taken care of. What more could you possibly need?
She knew the answer to that. She knew it deep in her bones.
Yes, she finally had a house that she did not have to worry about losing.
Rose no longer had to worry about being married off by her uncle.
And Lucy would grow up never wanting for anything.
All that Violet had fought for, she had found, and that ought to have been enough.
But there was a hole inside of her.
It had not always been there, of course. Likely, she had been too busy these past few years to notice it. Now that she was no longer fighting for survival, that hole announced itself, it grew larger with each day that passed, and there was only one thing that would fill it.
Why does Rhys have to be this way? What will it take for him to change?
She still refused to go and talk to him. She would not beg and argue and prostrate herself like that. For how much Violet loved to fight for that which she felt that she deserved, this was one battle she was not willing to take on.
So, she just stared into the flames, sadness her only companion, and that vague recognition that it would always be this way…
“Your Grace,” a soft voice spoke from behind her.
Violet exhaled and looked over her shoulder; a tired smile when she saw Mr. Marrow, Rhys’ steward, standing there. “Oh, Mr. Marrow. Is something the matter?”
“Not at all, Your Grace,” he said. “I just wished to ensure that you have everything you require.”
“I am fine,” she said. “Ought you not to be looking after His Grace?”
“I am here because of him, Your Grace,” he said. “He asked that I check on you.”
“He did?” she blinked.
Mr. Marrow was somewhere in his sixties. Small of frame, bent of back, but with a kindly face that made him impossible to not trust. And while Violet had little to do with the man, he was always there, as much a part of this home as the paint on the walls and the carpet on the floor.
“His Grace is a mercurial creature, Your Grace,” Mr. Marrow said gently and with a hint of strain in his voice. “I know that sometimes he appears a little cold, but I assure you that it is all an act.”
“I am sure it is,” she said.
“Your Grace, if you will allow me…” He took a hesitant step forward, suddenly unsure and even worried.
“What is it, Mr. Marrow?” She turned further in her chair so that she could better look at him.
“I do not wish to speak out of turn, but I fear that I must,” he began, still appearing unsure.
“I have known His Grace since he was a boy, and so I have seen him grow into the man we all know. I want you to know that how he acts right now, that is not the true him. He believes it is, but deep down, he is not what he pretends.”
She laughed gently. “Oh, I know that, Mr. Marrow. And thank you for saying. You care about him, I see.”
“I always have,” he said. “And might I say that these past few weeks, I cannot remember a time I have seen him so happy. Not since Miss Eleanor and…” He took a deep breath and winced.
“Those few years were hard, and I feared that he would never recover from them. For once, I am glad to be proven wrong.”
“What was she like?” Violet found herself asking. “If you do not mind me asking?”
“She was sweet,” he said with a warm smile. “As kind a woman as you have ever known. But she was young, a little idealistic at times, the type who might lose her head in the clouds for hours and think nothing of it. But oh, she loved His Grace, as he loved her.”
Violet smiled without meaning to. “I wish I had gotten to meet her.”
“I see some of her in you,” he said with that same warm smile. “And Miss Lucy, of course. When His Grace spent those years searching, I feared we might lose him forever. But he pulled himself back, thanks to you and Miss Lucy, of course.”
Violet considered Mr. Marrow for a moment. More than that, she considered what he was saying and what it really meant.
While Violet knew the reason that Rhys was this way, she had never really thought about those years after Eleanor had died. How hard they must have been on him, and the pain he surely suffered as he tried to find a purpose… a means to ease his guilt.
Lucy was supposed to be that purpose, but even she was not able to save him completely. For that, Rhys would have needed a miracle. And when Violet considered what that miracle might be, she felt a fire suddenly light inside of her.
“Were you with him?” she asked Mr. Marrow. “When he searched for his nephew?”
“I was,” he said with obvious pain. “A most trying time. Sadly, His Grace now believes that he is dead. I think he needs to believe it; better that than admitting that he failed.”
“What of you?” she asked. “Do you believe it?”
Mr. Marrow considered the question. “I… in truth, no, I do not. We found Miss Eleanor several weeks after she had passed away. Her husband had fled, and we later learned he had left the country. We traced the vessel he took, and they assured us that he travelled alone. So, his child could only have been left behind. At an orphanage, we were told.”
“And you searched them all?”
“As many as we could,” he said. “But His Grace was suffering, desperate, and each day that nothing was found, it broke him that little bit further. I sometimes wonder…” His smile grew again as if at a memory.
“I sometimes wonder what it might have been like if we had found his nephew. What might His Grace be like now… had such a thing occurred.”
Violet found herself nodding along.
As she did, that initial idea she’d had continued to niggle at the back of her mind—one that was as hopeless as it was hopeful.
It was one that was insane and might only make things worse.
But it was also one that she seized upon, a sudden determination flaring through her the likes of which she had not felt in weeks.
Violet was the type who liked to have a task to set her mind to, as she was the type to see that task through no matter the cost.
She would not beg Rhys to change his mind. She would not wait for him to realize his mistakes. But if she could somehow prove to him that it was not wrong to care for someone, that love was a strength worth fighting for, maybe that would make the difference?
And as far as she could tell, there was only one way to do that.
“Mr. Marrow, I have changed my mind. There is something that I need.” She turned fully in her seat and fixed a look on him that gave no room for argument.
“Oh?”
“Am I correct in thinking that you have a record of all the orphanages that you and His Grace visited? Not to mention receipts of everything you learned when searching for his nephew?”
“I do, Your Grace.”
“Good,” she said with a nod. “Bring them to me at once. Oh…” She made sure to be looking right at him. “And I must insist that you not tell His Grace about this.”
To that, Mr. Marrow smiled a knowing smile. “It will be done.”