Page 49 of What Lies Beneath

“No, you said that,” Emmeline replied, quite unimpressed by her husband’s formidable scowl. “I said I would never speak to you again if you did not give her Ashburton’s letter at once.”

“A letter?” Genevieve stood so quickly she almost upset the little side table with her teacup on. “What letter? Where is it? Give it to me at once!” she cried.

“There, see. Didn’t I tell you?” Emmeline said, sounding smug. “I’ll fetch it for you, don’t fret,” she added kindly, and hurried from the room.

There was a taut silence in her absence until Rex spoke again. “Is she right?”

Genevieve hesitated, not wanting to admit her feelings if the letter turned out to me nothing more than a politely worded farewell and good wishes for her future. Yet the emotion that boiled inside her needed a release, and there had been no one she could tell, no one she could talk to about the feelings that had grown over the past years, so very discreetly and yet with such devastating force.

“Yes,” she admitted, relieved to say it out loud and praying she would not look a fool once she had read the earl’s words to her.

Emmeline barged back into the room and presented the letter with a flourish. “There you are, my dear.”

Rex sighed, looking resigned. “I suppose I must leave her to read the blasted thing in private?”

“An excellent suggestion, love,” Emmeline agreed.

“As if you would not have chased me from the room if I had refused to budge,” he remarked, though he looked amused rather than irritated. “Come along, then, Miss Milly. I see I am in the wrong, just for a change.”

“Pooh, you make me sound like a dreadful harpy,” Emmeline scolded. “What will poor Genevieve think of me if you speak so?”

“That my own dear wife treats me abominably,” Rex said, sounding far more cheerful as he went out of the room, bickering happily with the woman he clearly adored, and who obviously had his measure.

Genevieve sat staring at the letter until their voices faded, and then broke the seal with trembling hands, and read the words Lord Ashburton had given her.

Chapter 14

“Mrs Merriam! Merry, darling? Are you hurt?”

Georgette looked up from her position beneath the carriage, to see Viscount Amberson gazing down at her. She blinked up at him, wondering if she had hit her head as well as every other part of her when she had fallen to the ground. Surely she was imagining things, for he could not have just called her darling!

―Excerpt of His Grace and Disfavour, by an anonymous author.

14th December 1850, Goshen Court, Monmouthshire.

Pip stared out of his study window as more snow fell, fragile and silent, making the entire world seem quiet. Certainly, the house was quiet, as was his daughter. Though he had sworn to Tilly he had not reneged on his promise, that he would still bring Harry home to her again in the New Year, he wondered now if he ought to have made such a rash promise. He could not know what was in Genevieve Hamilton’s heart or, if now she had been restored to her family, she wished to put the past behind her. He thought she might at least have written to Tilly, but then the snow had caused such havoc with the post and just getting into the village was difficult, so perhaps he was being too hard on her. Yet his own heart felt raw and vulnerable, and how could he help but wonder if he had been a fool to reveal so much of what he felt in a letter?

As it was, he had not told her all of it, yet he had shared enough that he could not bear the idea she might pity him now for feelings she did not, could not, reciprocate.

He turned at the sound of his study door opening to see his mother’s lovely face smiling at him. He had returned home, weary and heartsick, and woken the next morning to her arrival in a carriage filled with Christmas presents, bearing all the seasonal cheer he’d been lacking. She and his father seemed determined that Pip and Tilly would not endure the coming holiday alone. His father would not tell him precisely what had become of Wendover, suffice to say that he was taking an extended voyage overseas and would not be seen in the country again if he knew what was good for him. Pip did not know whether to wish the bastard drowned or succumbed to some fatal disease during the journey, or if he ought to thank the devil for his villainy. Without Wendover, Pip might never have known the woman whom he now understood was the one he had been searching for all along. What a damned fool he was, and what a waste of bloody time. All these years they could have been happy, they could have been a family, had he only realised what was right beneath his nose. And yet that wasn’t true, was it? For he did not know if that was what she would have wanted, or if it was what she wanted now.

“We’re having tea and Welsh cakes,” his mother exclaimed cheerfully. “Mrs Morgan taught Tilly how to make them, so you must come and exclaim over how they are the best ones you’ve ever tasted, for she has sworn her pops to secrecy, and she thinks I don’t know.”

Pip smiled and nodded. “Of course I shall come,” he said, walking to where she stood.

She stopped him when he would have moved past her, however, and reached up to press her palm against his cheek.

“She’ll come back,” she said, and with such confidence he wanted to rage her. She could not possibly know that! Instead, his jaw tightened, and she smiled at him, giving a little sigh. “She will, though I know you will not believe me. But I am right, because I always am, and because she is in love with you. I know I am your mother, and quite biased, but I also know a little something about being a woman in love, and one who must hide her feelings from the world, and most especially from the object of her devotion.”

Pip shook his head. “Then why have I heard nothing? Surely she could have written a note, a letter—”

“Love, look at the weather out there,” she said reasonably. “If I had not arrived when I did, I dread to think what might have happened, but I doubt I would have made it here at all.”

“Yes, fine, I suppose you’re right,” he said, though he could not fill the words with the certainty his mother wanted to hear. “I just—”

“Yes?”

“I wish I had stayed, that I had demanded to see her there and then. I could have forced my way upstairs and—”