Chapter Eight
REGINA DREAMT OF India and mail coaches, of Mr. Corrings and empty cradles. The thoughts swirled and burst until finally, blessedly, they calmed into the collection of memories that Regina had tried so hard not to think about all these years.
Moments she’d shared with Ross played out like a story on stage, and they felt so real that when she awoke, she did not immediately remember all that had happened in the years since those days of blissful innocence.
She blinked awake and stared at the green and gold canopy over her bed and listened to the rain upon the lightened windows, holding onto the feelings left behind from sleep until she remembered why she was waking in the middle of the day. Ross.
She jumped out of bed, then had to hold onto the bedpost to steady her dizziness before running for the door.
She stopped half way across the room and went to the bell pull instead to call her maid to help her dress.
It was bad enough she’d been in the meadow and the library in her dressing gown; she couldn’t go running through the house in her nightdress now.
“Did you find mention of the letters in Father’s journals?”
“I’m afraid I did not,” Timothy said. So quickly had he come to her that he hadn’t taken off his wet outer clothing, which he now handed to Shaw, who then quit the room.
Regina’s stomach sank as she sat onto the settee beside the fire.
“You found nothing? No mention at all?” Surely if her father had been so opposed to the match that he would destroy the letters, he would have mentioned it in his journal.
Or had he not interfered? Perhaps Ross had lied to her after all?
“I found no mention in Father’s journals.” He came to sit beside her on the settee while she puzzled what he meant. “Not in the journals, but... Shaw went by Henry then, you know. He was our first footman and was in charge of the post.”
Regina nodded, bracing herself.
“He does not know the reasons, mind you. All that Father told him was that any letters from outside the country, or any with the name Martin or his regiment, Shaw was to bring to Father, regardless of who they were addressed to. It took some time for Shaw to realize that the only correspondence fitting the parameters were addressed to you.”
Regina let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and leaned against the chair back. “He did write to me,” she said quietly, and in an instant, a different past played through her mind.
This past included letters now and again, which would have made her miss Ross each time she received one, but then her feelings would have mellowed to a contented confidence.
She would have worried over him, prayed for him, but known that he carried her in his heart.
She would have watched the papers and tracked his regiment’s movements, would scarcely have breathed when a new battle was reported, all the while continuing to hope that all would be well.
She still would not have gone to London for her season, but she would not have become a governess, either, would not have become engaged to Mr. Corrings.
Because in this past, Ross would not have gone to Spain; he’d have returned to her. And though it would have been later than expected, she would have basked in his return; they would have married in a church. By this day they could have had children of their own.
She did not realize she was crying until she saw in her mind the final scene of what might have been— her and Ross as they were now but in a home of their own, with a son who had Ross’s nose, and perhaps a daughter with Regina’s honey colored hair.
She raised a hand to her mouth to keep from sobbing, but managed to contain herself enough to remove her hand and ask one final question of her brother.
“Why? Why would Father do this to me?”
Timothy shook his head, his expression pained.
“I cannot begin to know. But I’ve the suspicion that he would have seen Mr. Martin as below your station,” he said quietly.
“I have sent word to Father’s solicitor, and I shall oversee a greater study of his records in hopes of finding an answer, but one may not be there, Regina. We may never know.”
She stood abruptly and crossed to the rain-streaked window. “I could have been so happy.” She heard her own words and turned back to her brother. “Not that I am not happy with your family Timothy, I didn’t mean that.”
“I know,” he said. “Do you not think I don’t go back in time to when Gwen was here and wish that she still were?
Perhaps we would have traveled to France when the war was over, as she’d always wanted to.
Perhaps I would not be attending our daughter’s wedding alone.
There is no sin in wishing for something to be different, Regina.
Regardless of why it happened, you were wronged. You are justified in your grief.”
His sympathy only prompted more tears to fall. “I have lost so much.”
“You have not lost your future, however,” Timothy said. “You are not seventeen, or twenty-two, or twenty-six, but is there any good reason you can think of for delaying your happiness even one more day?”
She shook her head. It all sounded so obvious when he said it, yet she thought back to last night and the way she’d left Ross. He’d been so hurt. He’d said he would not come for her again. She dropped her chin and looked into her lap. “I was cruel to him, Timothy. I told him to leave me be.”
“So you shall untell him,” Timothy said. “That is, of course, if you want him. If you don’t, then you ought to let things be.”
“I want him,” she said, feeling the longing for another chance in her stomach and chest even as she wrapped her arms around herself. “I have always wanted him.”
“You told me once that you did not know whether you loved him.”
“I have tried so hard not to, but I can no longer deny it.” She lifted her fingers to her lips again and choked on a sob.
“What if he will not have me now? What if my treatment of him has destroyed every good thing we could have had? I have been so bitter— I am not the girl I was. What if he cannot love the woman I’ve become? ”
Timothy smiled, but she found no comfort in it. “I feel sure that after all he’s done to prove himself, you need not worry about his not returning your affections once you explain them.”
“I did not acknowledge his gifts to me,” she said, reviewing all of the things that had
happened. “I attacked him at the ball and said horrible things.” What if instead, she had fallen into his arms? What if she had kissed him that very night? It hurt to think of the possibilities. “I was so frightened of trusting him, but what if he cannot trust me now?”
“He is in love with you, Regina. Love is bigger than everything you have spoken of here,
and I believe he knows that; otherwise he would never have come. Yes, you are changed, as is he, but you are not so different— you are not unlovable.”
It seemed impossible. After how she’d behaved? “I did not return the affections he has shown to me, and now—”
A new voice broke the silence. “You have not forgotten our kiss already, have you?”
Her head snapped up, but she did not dare look to the doorway for several seconds. The sound of footsteps came toward her, and Timothy rose, putting his hand on her shoulder for a moment.
“I believe I shall leave you two alone.” He sounded quite pleased with himself.
Regina blinked as she put together bits of information she had ignored until now; Timothy had come in from the stables because he had been riding despite the rain.
Had he gone for Mr. Martin while Regina slept?
Had he learned the tale from Shaw and gone about repairing the mess she’d made without saying a word?
Legs clad in grey trousers entered her field of vision. She dropped her head again and raised her hands to cover her face. How long had Ross been here? How much had he heard?
She lifted her eyes to his as he smiled down at her.
“Might I sit?” he asked.
She gestured to the place beside her on the settee but kept her eyes on his as he sat beside her. When he reached for her hands, she let him take them.
“Please allow me to introduce myself.” He put a hand to his chest before he continued.
“My name is Rossen Barkley Martin. I have of late been serving in the King’s Royal Army but, thanks to Napoleon’s recent imprisonment, I am back in England and determined to make a home in Himley, a place of many happy memories for me.
I am unmarried, but hope soon to remedy that situation if I can find a woman with honey hair and bright blue eyes who will make daisy chains and waltz in meadows with me.
Do you, perchance, know where I might find such a woman? ”
Regina was laughing and crying at the same time, then took a breath so she could speak.
“I make wonderful daisy chains,” she said in a whisper; it was all she could manage for the moment.
“And the very best dances in my memory took place in a meadow not far from here.” He smiled while she took a breath.
“But I must also inform you that I am quite stubborn sometimes, and... independent— not like another girl you might have known before.”
“Ah, that is good to know,” he said with a nod.
“To be equally fair, I should warn you that I have a knee that bothers me quite a lot; sometimes it gives way completely, and I fall most awkwardly to the ground. I also have a collection of scars I may need to explain in the future, to say nothing of my poor eyesight. While it is not terrible, it is easier to find my spectacles when I need them if I simply keep them on my nose.” He tapped the spectacles for emphasis.
“I do not always sleep soundly, and I have developed a great appetite for mushrooms, though as a younger man, I hated them on principle.”
Regina laughed again, scarcely able to believe that any of this was happening. “I am quite the opposite. I once liked mushrooms, but find that of recent years, I can tolerate them only if they are chopped very fine.”
Ross pulled his eyebrows together and seemed to thoroughly contemplate the information. “How about strawberry tarts? Might they still be your favorite?”
“Indeed they are, sir.”
“Oh, you need not be so formal with me. It would make me ever so happy if you would call me Ross. And you are?”
“Regina Weathers.”
With the introduction, she was unable to resist moving in for a kiss, allowing her lips to linger on his and admit that though she might be a spinster of thirty-two years, her heart was young enough to begin again, just as he’d asked; just as she’d been sure she could not.
Fifteen years and he was here again, willing to love the woman she’d become, wanting to share a life with her.
She pulled back from the kiss enough to add, “But you may call me Reggie.”