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Laura swallowed panic as Alice prattled happily about the shops as they passed and she contemplated the desert in front of her, the arid marriage of her own making. She had fallen in love with Piers with all the impetuosity of a girl, heedless of consequences, unknowing of what love truly meant. Now she loved Avery with a woman’s understanding and a woman’s heart. The heart that would be broken when he cast her off, for surely that would be what would happen unless somehow she found a way to reach him.
*
The realisation of what to do came to her as she helped Alice choose ribbons. ‘The blue to match your new dress and the green for the new bonnet,’ she agreed, her mind half a mile away where one tall, brown-haired gentleman dealt with his correspondence and perhaps contemplated ways of ridding himself of his untrustworthy wife.
The answer came with a jolt as she gave Alice the coins to pay for her purchases. Tell him the truth. Tell him everything, however painful it is, however it reflects on Mama and Papa. Be utterly and completely open without trying to work out whether it will make things better or worse. If he forgives me, I will tell him I love him, tell him the new secret that is still just a hope. If I tell him first he will think I am trying to wheedle him into forgiveness.
And I will forgive him, however hard it is. I will learn to understand and forgive, for Alice and because I love Avery.
*
‘Avery?’
Avery turned from the bookshelves he had been staring at for the past ten minutes. ‘Laura.’ She was the last person he wanted to see, not while he was wrestling with his conscience over what he had said to Miss Pemberton. It was probably a sensible precaution, a rational part of him said. You love her, his heart urged. Trust her.
‘You want to talk to me?’ He pulled a chair round so she could sit, but she stood in the middle of the floor, her hands clasped in front of her like a defendant in the dock.
‘Yes, I want to talk.’ She was very pale, but her voice was steady. ‘I overheard you speaking to Miss Pemberton.’
‘Hell.’ He did not try to justify himself or to touch her. There was a core of inner steel there, he realised as he met her steady gaze. It was not hostile or tearful, just…strong.
‘I had thought that we were…that things would be all right. It wouldn’t ever be perfect, but we could be a family even if you did not love me, even with everything that had happened in the past. But I did not realise until I overheard you how little you trusted me, how little you understood why I had lied to you, why I had trapped you into marriage.’
‘There are things you have not told me. There are still secrets,’ he said and Laura nodded, slowly, accepting the accusation. ‘But I should not have spoken to Miss Pemberton.’ Her eyes widened at the admission, but he pressed on. ‘I should have talked to you instead.’
‘I did not trust you with everything I need to tell you. And you do not trust me and I cannot blame you for that.’
Avery turned away sharply, one hand fisted in the silk window curtain, his back turned, unable to meet the honest pain in her face. If he touched her now he would kiss her, lose this chance of honesty in the flare of passion that overcame him whenever he felt the softness of her under his hands, caught the scent of her in his nostrils.
‘I would happily die if that would make Alice happier or safer,’ Laura said. ‘I do not know how to make you understand what I did and allow me to be a proper mother to her. I want us to be a family, a happy one,’ she added, her voice a whisper he had to strain to hear.
Avery unclenched his hand from the curtain, leaving it criss-crossed with creases like scars. ‘Tell me what happened when you knew Piers was dead.’
Behind him there was the rustle of silk as Laura crossed to the chair and sat down. ‘I told my parents I was with child. They were…aghast. Will you forgive me not repeating what they said? It is very painful.’
‘Of course.’ His voice sounded rusty.
‘We agreed that I would pretend to be ill and go to one of our country estates to recover. Luckily there were all sorts of fevers going around that year. I coughed and moped for two weeks, then apparently succumbed to the infection.
‘It was a healthy pregnancy.’ Her voice trailed away, then she said, almost angrily, ‘You want to know why I waited six years to find her, don’t you? That is what you cannot understand or forgive.’
‘I can forgive if I understand,’ he offered and turned. This was the sticking point, the thing that Laura found most difficult to tell, he realised. He took the chair opposite her and sat down, leaning forward, his forearms on his knees, just out of touching distance.
‘My parents told me she was dead,’ Laura said abruptly. ‘When my baby was born my mother took her, wrapped her. I heard her cry, once. I thought Mama would give her back to me to hold, but she gave her to the nurse and they went out of the room. Then Mama came back and said she was dead.’ She stopped and drew a deep, shuddering breath.
‘I watched her from the park the day before you found me there. That was the first time I had heard her voice from that day. They told Mab her name in the village. A shopkeeper knew my daughter’s name and I did not.’
Avery found he was on one knee in front of her chair, both her cold hands clasped in his. ‘How did you find her?’
‘I was going through papers, months after they died, because I was moving into the Dower House and I needed to make sure I was taking the personal documents and leaving all the estate papers for Cousin James. There were letters from the Brownes in a locked box. I thought she was alive and I could find her. And then they wrote to say she was dead.’
‘Oh, God. I told them to do that.’
‘I went there anyway. I wanted to see the grave. They told me everything, gave me your card.’
‘How could your parents do that?’ Avery demanded.
‘I suppose they thought it was best for me. I tell myself that. Why, after all this time, the hurt should be so sharp, I do not know. They did it for the best,’ Laura repeated on a sob, then caught herself, her hands over her mouth.
