Chapter Fifteen #3
Yet he looked away over the sea, distant, as if that was the only way he could bear to say the words. ‘She grew thinner, sadder, almost like a ghost. She stopped coming to the nursery, and shut herself away in her chamber. I barely saw her again. And one day she was gone.’
‘She died?’ Jane whispered.
He shook his head. ‘She ran away with one of my father’s lawyers. They went to Baden, I believe. I never saw her again; she died the next year. My father destroyed all her portraits and forbade anyone to say her name.’
A heavy silence fell between them, so all she could hear was the music of the party and the crash of the sea. She reached for his hand, but he drew away, leaving her alone.
‘So you see why I can’t even attempt a true marriage, Jane,’ he said, so distant once again. ‘I could never subject my wife to what my mother suffered as a duchess. Could never watch the light go out in your eyes, as hers did.’
‘You never could!’ Jane cried. ‘You are not your father. You are kind and strong! You care about people so much. You would never treat your wife thus.’
‘But I can’t love, not anyone. And you are so much like my mother: sensitive, caring… I would never forgive myself if I hurt you.’
She suddenly realised he might truly love her.
It was all she could dream about, yet it was slipping away just as she glimpsed it.
‘I’m not like her, though. Maybe I am too sensitive, but I can be strong when I need to.
I’ve had to be, with the way I grew up. No English estate can be as bad as Five Points. ’
‘Oh, Jane, if only you could see yourself as I do. You are so beautiful, so full of kindness. If that ever ended because of me…’ He took up her gloved hand and pressed a warm, tender kiss to her fingertips.
Goodbye. The word was unspoken, but it lingered there in the air, soft, maybe even kind, but it landed like a weight on her heart.
She wanted to memorise everything about that moment: the sound of his voice, his presence that she already felt slipping away.
She wanted to reach out, but something held her back.
There were a thousand things she wanted to say, but none of them would change what was happening.
What had happened to him a long time ago.
‘You are strong too, Benedict! You are everything your father was not,’ she said. Not even in the hungry, cold days of her childhood had she ever felt so desperate. ‘If you would just let me help you.’
‘No one can help me, Jane,’ he said starkly.
‘At least let me try. Let us try.’ Jane had never begged for anything before, not even when the O’Neills hadn’t had a nickel, but now she had to. She wanted to grab his hand, to hold him with her, to beg him to show her his whole world and let her help him transform it all.
He smiled at her, but it was so sad, and quickly vanished. ‘Jane. You deserve so very much more than I can give you. I’ve never known anyone like you. You could rule the whole world. Please, my dear one, we can marry, but it can’t be real. I can only let you have room to live your dreams.’
He kissed her hand again, softly, tenderly.
She felt as if her heart was too full and too broken all at once, as if she were drowning in something that was supposed to save her.
It was too much, too raw, too loud. She couldn’t breathe under the weight of it.
She turned and ran. She felt as though staying beside him in that moment would be like standing without armour.
She needed distance from the storm inside her.
He called her name, but he was surrounded by people who appeared from the party and couldn’t follow her.
She didn’t look back, because if she did she would crack wide open. But her heart kept whispering his name, even as she left him.
Jane couldn’t believe what Benedict had told her, what he thought and felt, what held him in such a tight prison. Her own heart had long been in prison too, and she’d been too foolish to see it. Now it all felt so late—too late.
She found herself at the edge of the jagged cliffs that led down to the sea just beyond the gardens. She tore off her gloves and dashed away the tears that made everything blurry. She stared back at the house. It was all lights and music, all life and longing.
She spun round and watched the sea. The waves rushed and crashed below her, white as lace in the night, rushing over the jagged rocks.
It usually calmed her soul, yet tonight it filled her with such sadness.
Benedict—handsome, kind, strong, passionate Benedict—carried such a burden inside.
She’d been too blind to see it in him, too blinded by her own fears.
Could she find some courage somewhere deep inside? She knew she had to try somehow. All the girls at the school had overcome so much to start new lives for themselves. Connor and May had got past so many obstacles to find real love. Could she not do the same? Her head was whirling with it all.
‘Jane,’ she heard someone say, so softly.
Benedict. Her heart soared as if on feathery wings at the thought that he was there, that he had changed his mind. She dashed away her tears and turned.
But it was not Benedict. It was Paul.
‘Paul,’ she said hoarsely. He looked different now than he had last time, softer somehow, filled with longing much like she felt in her own heart. Why could she not have found love with someone like him, someone of her own world?