AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mrs. Westley’s eyelids drooped. She turned away to receive the glass of sherry Dragan presented to her.
She tried to smile. It was not a bad effort, but her voice was hoarse. “Merry Christmas.”
When they had all sipped, she lowered her glass and raised her gaze to Dragan’s. “You are a doctor, are you not? Do you think he was in pain?”
“At the end, yes, he must have been. But not for long.”
She looked around as if she didn’t know what to do with herself, and Griz indicated the nearest chair. They all sat.
“His name was Sebastian Cartaret,” Mrs. Westley said suddenly. “I think you already knew that.”
Griz nodded and waited, afraid almost to breathe in case it prevented the revelation she knew hovered on her guest’s lips.
“He has so long been my secret guilt,” Mrs. Westley said. “My first love, you know.” She smiled nervously at Griz. “Do you still remember yours?”
Griz smiled back. “Yes.” Hers was Dragan, of course, but it would hardly be kind to say so at this moment.
Mrs. Westley’s smile faded. “I should not have left him there at your door. I never would if I had realized you were alone in the house. It is just my husband, you see. I could not bear him to know, to think…”
When she lapsed into silence, Griz prompted her. “How did you know Mr. Cartaret?”
“I met him first when I was just seventeen years old, and he, all of five and twenty. It was my first Season, and he made everything special. He was handsome and kind and full of laughter and fun. Everyone said he was wild, but there was no malice in him. He was merely one of these people who are full of joy in life. He was…dazzling.”
A smile of memory flickered across her lips. “And I was dazzled. He proposed marriage to me, and I accepted, but we had reckoned without our families. His was an old name, but like many landed families, including my own, they had fallen on bad times. And he was a younger son. I was told he had no prospects, that he could not keep a wife, let alone keep a wife well. They told me he was a rake who would never be faithful and make my life miserable with humiliation and poverty. Instead, my father wanted me to accept a different offer. From Mr. Westley.”
“I see,” Griz murmured.
The older woman’s eyes refocused on her face briefly. “I’m not sure you do. You seem to have the courage of your convictions.” Her gaze flickered to Dragan and back. “I did not. Sebastian said we should ignore them all and marry anyway. His own father told him he was lazy and would never amount to anything good in the world. My father said William had better prospects and more character. And even though I knew Sebastian had taken a position in a bank and promised to work hard and be true… I was not. I allowed myself to be worn down, to be persuaded that William Westley was the better match.”
“Was he?” Griz asked.
“How can I compare it? To this day, I hardly know Sebastian. He is a dream of the past, an illusion. William was my reality.” She stirred uncomfortably in her chair. “I do not want you to think my life with him was difficult, for it was not. He is a good man, a lovable man, and I did grow to love him and our life together, quite sincerely. We have two beautiful daughters.” She caught Grizelda’s eye again. “You are newly wed and cannot know, but trust me when I say there is nothing,nothingthat brings you closer than the shared joy in one’s children.”
Instinctively, Griz laid her hand across her belly, feeling suddenly protective andloving. The gesture was lost on Mrs. Westley, who had clearly returned to the world of her own memory. But Dragan saw.
“And Sebastian?” Griz prompted.
“Oh, Sebastian confounded all his critics. I have no idea how hard he worked at it, but he must have had aptitude, for he quickly soared up the ranks of the bank staff until he became a partner himself, began to invest in all sorts of other successful ventures. He could easily, if he chose, buy up my father and his own, and William, too.”
“Did you ever wonder,” Dragan asked as she lapsed into silence once more, “if you had made a mistake?”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Westley replied. “I was glad for Sebastian when I learned of his success, but my life was with William and the girls.”
“And yet you talk of guilt,” Griz pointed out.
Mrs. Westley sighed and finished her sherry in one surprising gulp. Wordlessly, Dragan rose, fetched the decanter, and refilled her glass. She didn’t appear to notice.
“In the first year of my marriage, on the anniversary of the day he proposed to me—Christmas Eve—I found a single Christmas rose outside the front door of my marital home. This house. It had been built by William’s father for his widowed grandmother, and when she died, it became vacant and was a sensible place for us to live.”
Presumably rent-free, Griz thought cynically.
“I never told William, even when the second rose appeared the following year. By chance, I had caught the first one before anyone else saw it, and after that, I watched for them, brought them in, and placed them in a vase somewhere around the house. No one ever commented, and I never told William. I was afraid he would be jealous or think it improper, even confront Sebastian about it. I didn’t want that. I wanted the excitement, the proof of Sebastian’s continued devotion, even though I was happy in my marriage.”
“Thatis your guilt?” Griz said slowly. “A little selfish, harmless romance?”
“It was to me. I had no idea what it meant to Sebastian, for I never spoke to him, never even saw him from the day we parted. But William and I had never discussed him. I was never entirely sure he would understand. I’m still not. In any case, with the passage of the years, I learned that he brought the rose round about midnight, so I collected it before I went to bed, and no one was ever any the wiser. It was a simple matter while we lived here.”
“And then you moved into the bigger house,” Dragan guessed.
