“It doesn’t matter. I still caused the insurmountable riff between them. Oh, not on purpose. Not by anything I did. Simply by being what I am.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Would you care to elaborate?”
He took a deep sigh. Regretting having brought up this treacherous subject. But he had felt a strange compulsion to talk to her about it. He never talked about his parents. Not even with Wang, even though he trusted the man with his life. Yet a fortnight in her company had him unlocking his most guarded secrets.
“You might have heard of a scandal involving me at school.” She nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“I...” how could he talk of his deepest shame to this woman? Of being mocked and treated like a freak? Of being unable to defend himself? It was so pathetic. He didn’t want to see pity in her eyes. He felt the odd masculine brand of pride that prevented him from showing any weakness to the woman he found attractive. “I had problems at school.” He finished lamely, skirting the issue.
“After that, I didn’t want to return. I wanted to have a tutor and continue my studies at home. My mother agreed. My father sent me back to school. Said I needed to toughen up, learn to fight, and face my problems.
“A few months later, after another fight, she removed me from school. My father went livid. Accused my mother of mollycoddling me. She accused him of being insensitive and cruel. Their fights were epic. Almost daily. Part of me wanted to go away. Even return to school, if that meant they would cease fighting. But my mother would hear none of it. One day, after one particularly vicious fight, she packed up her things and mine and said we were leaving.”
“How could she just leave?” She looked puzzled. But there was something else in her gaze, too. Empathy. It allowed him to keep talking.
“She had money of her own. My mother was not of the aristocracy. Her family were bankers and merchants. When she married the earl, her father made sure she would always control her own funds, independent of her dowry that would go to my father. That, coupled with a healthy disregard for the opinion of society, made it possible for her to leave the earl.”
“Still, it must not have been easy for her. Or for you.” She observed with an uncanny perception.
“I don’t know about her. She showed no regret about leaving my father. Me... I missed him at first. Wrote to him several times. He never replied. Nor did he ever visit me, or sought my return. I concluded he was relieved to have me out of sight. I was an embarrassment to him.”
“How? Why? I can’t believe the earl would just let his son and heir out of his life so cavalierly.” She looked so puzzled and disbelieving.
“Because of my deformity.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, hesitated, as if unsure of what to say. And he didn’t want her to say anything. He could not bear it. He had already said too much.
“Anyway. Now you know why I don’t blame the countess for my parents falling out and divorce. They did it all by themselves. And I was the cause.”
“I’m sure that is not true. But you won’t believe me, will you?”
“No. I’m afraid that these things I know to be true.”
“Were you happy at least? Where did you and your mother go?”
“Oh, yes. We were happy enough. At least the fights had ceased. And if the divorce scandal affected her, she never revealed it. We lived in Paris for a time, but moved around a lot. Whenever she found a doctor who showed promise treating my condition, we would go there. The last years of her life, we lived in New York.”
“Do you miss her?”
He closed his eyes to hide the fact that they had suddenly become moist. “Every day.”
“I’m sorry. One never gets over the loss of a parent. I lost my mother years ago, and I still miss her, too. Sometimes I feel my life would have been different, better, had she lived.”
There was so much hurt buried in her words he wondered again what her life had been like, and how she ended up as a paid companion, buried in the country. “What do you mean?”
But she shook her head, standing and walking towards the door. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter. It is getting late and tomorrow we need to ride early. Good night, my lord.”
“Colin.” He reminded her under his breath. But she had already left.
