Though Lily knew Bradford had already survived whatever was coming, she couldn’t help the fear she felt in hearing his words. She felt as if she were standing on a shoreline, watchinga loved one’s ship sail straight toward a storm they couldn’t see, and she was too far away to warn them.
He smiled, but it was sad. “Keeping us mostly apart served two purposes, you see. My inexperience was proven—the small slivers of time I had with Francine only served to increase my suspense and therefore, my fascination. It also served to hide what her family already knew.”
“Which was what?” Lily couldn’t help but ask.
“As I’ve already said, Francine’s mind was delicate. Her temperament was fragile. The first time I truly became aware of it was on the carriage ride from our wedding luncheon to my townhome in London.”
Bradford exhaled again—something close to a laugh, but not related to true merriment in any way. “Even at the wedding luncheon, her parents had managed to keep us mostly separated. Francine needed to greet her guests, and they invented some issue with her gown—a broken lacing, I think—that needed several repairs. Her parents had told me over and over that they’d depart to their home in Falmouth from the very luncheon. I didn’t think it odd at the time—I was too excited for the privacy that Francine and I would share for the first time.”
He cleared his throat. “So by the time she and I actually did have a real conversation, we were already married. It was clear that Francine was different. Nervous. Of course, with the eyes of a new husband, I viewed her through an unclear lens. I thought that the pressure of the day had gotten to her, that it was natural for any young lady to be overwrought. Especially because at that time, I believed Francine was exceedingly shy.”
Bradford paused and frowned at the ground. Lily desperately wanted to reach over and thread her fingers with his, to offer comfort, but she didn’t dare. He seemed to be saying the words by sheer effort now, and she didn’t want to distract him from what looked to be a monumental task.
“I beg your forgiveness for what I’m about to tell you, but I want you to have the entire picture before you agree to any sort of future with me. You deserve that.” Here, he cleared his throat several times and yanked at his cravat before continuing. “I’m still uncertain whether it was by chance or by her mother’s instruction, but Francine was expecting before I realized the true scope of her issues. I won’t excuse myself for it, though I genuinely couldn’t have known at the time that it was wrong of me to…”
Here he seemed at a loss for words, gesturing haltingly at the air.
Lily took compassion on him. Among her and her sisters’ chaperones in Paris had been their dowager aunts. They were ladies of impeccable breeding but possessed a no-nonsense approach. Their aunts had taken it upon themselves to impart the wisdom regarding marriage that the Preston ladies would have received from their mother, were she still alive.
They’d even gone so far as to answerquestions.After the initial shock receded, Lily had been exceptionally grateful. It was far better, she reasoned, for her and her sisters to know what would follow if their Seasons were successful. Lily was dismayed to learn that both her aunts had gone into marriage completely unaware, for the simple fact that their own mother had been too embarrassed to broach the subject beforehand.
“I understand,” Lily said quickly. “You needn’t explain. You were married, and as long as she was willing…”
Here, he snorted, removed his hat, and ran his hand through his hair. It promptly fluffed to thrice its original height. “Thank heavens I can absolve myself of any guilt inthatquarter. But by the time I truly knew the person I had married, she was already in a family way. Not that I can bring myself to regret it, in the end. Rebecca is the one thing I don’t regret from my first marriage.”
“She’s wonderful,” Lily said stoutly.
“And not a bit like her mother, thank goodness. I’ve since communicated with several of Francine’s cousins. They all told me similar stories—that Francine hadn’t been quite right, ever since she was a child. Instead of crying for her mother, she was eerily silent, and she’d scratch and pummel anyone who tried to cuddle her. When she turned five, the other children’s parents started noticing their children would come back injured every time they played with Francine at family gatherings.” He swallowed deeply. “She was seven the first time she tried to kill someone.”
Lily went rigid; gooseflesh erupted along her bare forearms.
“Or at least, that’s the first time her cousins know of it.”
“What happened?” Lily hardly recognized her own voice—it sounded calm, even though her heart pounded in her ears.
“She pushed her youngest cousin—a boy of two—down the stairs. She didn’t realize it, but his elder siblings had come up behind her and saw the entire thing clearly. Even so, she denied it and said he tripped. He was badly bruised but healed completely. But the children’s parents never let their children near Francine again.”
“Understandably so,” Lily said with clear umbrage, her back ramrod straight.
“Even from a distance they still heard rumors. When she was ten, it’s said that she accidentally trapped the kitchen mouser behind the grate after the fire was lit. A family dog met another unexplainable end when Francine was twelve. After that, her extended family heard little about Francine from her parents.” He sounded disgusted when he added, “And then she was presented, and a foolish young boy thought she was very pretty and asked her to dance.”
Bradford stared out across the pond for long moments while Lily tried not to choke on the sheer horror of it.
“Of course, I didn’t hear any of this until after.” He tugged at his hair again.
Under any other circumstances, Lily would have teased him for the sheer volume of it, but it wasn’t the time for lightness. Not when he was confessing this darkness in his past. InRebecca’spast. And Lily knew the worst was to come. This story didn’t have a happy ending.
Bradford nodded as if hearing her unspoken thoughts. Tears shimmered in his eyes. “Heaven forgive me, but part of me hoped motherhood would settle Francine. Please remember that at that time, I didn’t know about the violence. She struck me twice in those months, but I reasoned that it was her delicate state that prompted such outbursts.”
He smiled through his tears. “And then Rebecca was born, and for a beautiful, single moment, everything seemed right in the world. Francine appeared—at least to my eyes—to be everything a mother should be. She tended Rebecca morning and night. Rebecca slept in a little cot next to her bed. It was perhaps six weeks before… Well, those were the happiest six weeks of my marriage.”
Bradford took a shuddering breath, and Lily could no longer stand it. She reached for him and held his hand. Whatever came next, they’d face it together.
He smiled down at her. “In truth, I can’t believe you’re still here.”
“I haven’t heard a single thing to change my opinion of you.”
He shook his head. “That might change, for I’m not finished.”
