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“’Convenient,’ they said. ‘A title for you, and a fortune for him. How convenient,’” His mother explained.
“It was anything but convenient,” John interrupted thinking of their wild escape from war-torn France. He had been a terrified youth and rebelled against their situation. His father was supposed to be with them. Instead, he got himself killed. He had once said that in anger to his mother, and she had touched his face. She held him as his anger had turned to tears and he finally mourned his father’s passing, months after it had occurred.
“Oh,mon Cheri. He did protect us,” she had said. “He did.”
Later, John realized, what he did not know as a boy. His father had protected them unto his own death, and he had charged his son with the same duty, for his mother.
“When I told those miserable women at Almack’s that I loved yourPère, they scoffed. They were always so cynical. Collette shook her head sadly. “They could not understand.”
John knew his mother never wanted to leave France. Perhaps if his father had lived his golden memory would be tarnished, but his mother spoke of nothing but love for his father. She still had stars in her eyes after all these years. John supposed such a dramatic gesture as dying had that effect.
“I wonder sometimes if real love exists at all,” John admitted, bracing for the rap on the head that he was certain his comment would elicit.
Collette sighed softly instead of chastising her son. “I shall not insult the love I hold for yourPèreby attempting to prove it to you, any more than I would have had us prove it to society. But I will say that if you doubt the existence of love altogether then not only should younotmarry whatever heiress you are thinking of, but perhaps I have failed as yourMaman.”
“Do not say that, of course you have not failed in any way,” John protested, ashamed of himself. “You have always given me everything. It is only the idea of romantic love that I doubt, not love itself. I have never doubted that you love me,Maman, nor my love for you.”
“Bon,mon Cheri, for I love you more than words can possibly say, but still, it pains me to hear that you doubt romantic love. It is a miracle, of course, but very real.”
“If you say it is so, I shall not argue with you,” John soothed. He hated to see her look distressed. “It was unforgivably selfish of me to come here and burden you with my confusion when I only want you to be resting and regaining your health.”
“Nonsense. What mother would not want her child to confide in her? Your silenceshould burden me far worse, but if you wish a penance, you might sit for Madeleine and I. We have taken each other’s likenesses a dozen times and are longing for someone else to draw.”
“Gladly, but only if you let me fetch you a warmer wrap. I do not want you to take a chill, and this sunlight is deceptive.”
“Oh, by all means, bundle me up like an old woman.” Collette laughed gaily, waving away her son’s concern.
He smiled. She was an old woman, but she would never seem so to him.
Sir John sat dutifully while his mother and her companion painstakingly sketched, scolding him every few minutes to stop frowning. It proved challenging, considering the weight of his thoughts. He wished, almost desperately, for the chance to speak to his father one more time. To ask if he had truly married his wealthy Parisienne bride for love or for money. Sir John would believe his father’s accounting over anyone else’s. It was not that he doubted his mother, but she did tend to romanticize. She was not only female, she was French.
He could recall his parents showing one another affection, treating each other with fondness, but he had always assumed, nonetheless, that the marriage was one of convenience. Regardless to the trouble that followed, his mother benefited from marrying a respectable English gentleman, and his father had been able to refill the family coffers with her fortune. Surely it was a bit too fantastical to think that they had been granted love as well, Sir John mused.
Besides, the inconvenience of having a French wife could not have been outweighed by love, only duty. A man had a duty to his wife; a woman to her children. Love was a fragile thing without responsibility bolstering it. It did not withstand such tests as in the stories. And if it did, it only ended in tragedy and heartbreak; as it had with his parents.
John very much doubted that love could withstand the judgment, the criticism and the hardship that came with such situations. After all, he himself had struggled mightily to balance the mockery and derision of his peers with his love for his mother and his foolish infatuation with Delia.
Delia, whose family had snubbed him for being French and nearly penniless. When he had been young and foolish, believing himself invulnerable to censure, John begged her to run away with him. She had refused, disillusioned by the hardship they would face. Over the years John realized they never could have truly loved each other. Not for things to have turned as sour as they had.
He learned that love was a pleasant yet fleeting sensation rather like being drunk. Once desire cooled, practical concerns took the place of passion. His masculine pride was wounded by Delia’s rejection, but he counted himself as fortunate that they had both come to their senses. Certainly, they would have made each other miserable if she had agreed to marry him in haze of irrational emotion. He promised himself that he would never again be that foolish. And he never again revealed his ancestry to another. Unwilling to test even the love of friendship against adversity.
He knew that there were many of the English nobility that could claim French ancestry, but what was accepted among the upper levels of the peerage was often frowned upon amongst the lower. Throughout his boyhood years and beyond he had faced suspicion and even hatred from those who knew that he was half French. It had been only by hiding that fact as thoroughly as possible, purging even the remains of his accent, that he began to feel accepted, and even then, it was an uneasy sensation. He had no doubt that as soon as any of his friends, even the current ones, discovered the truth about his parentage, they would drop him immediately. It could hardly have come as a surprise. Distrust of the French had been growing in Britain for generations, after all. Since Napoleon had ravaged the mainland, in many places, that distrust had blossomed into outright hatred.
No, Sir John had always been certain that his father, indeed, any sensible man, would only take on such hardships in exchange for financial security. Perhaps he had been fortunate and found the company of his wife pleasant, perhaps he discovered an affection for her after their marriage, but it was very difficult to believe that he would have married her for love alone. Surely, it was duty that drove his actions. Sir Richard had been an honorable man. A man had a responsibility to his wife and to his son. John suspected that it was his own fault, more than his mother’s, that his Father had died to insure them passage aboard that ship. After all, he was his father’s heir. As fond as Sir John was of his mother, she must simply be romanticizing their relationship within her memory.
“Oh, only look.” Collette exclaimed delightedly. “Madeleine, your likeness of John looks just like hisPère. Oh, it takes me back through the years to see it. Jean, come see. It is just likemon Cher,Richard when we first met in Paris all those years ago.”
Curious, John abandoned his pose, attempting to subtly shake the stiffness from his limbs as he crossed to the ladies. The sketch that his mother’s friend had produced bore a passing resemblance to himself, he supposed, but he could scarcely deny that it looked more like a youthful version of his father than anything else.
“Incroyable, is it not?” Collette insisted. “And Madeleine never even met my Richard.”
“Indeed no, I was stuck at my father’s country estate the whole time you pursued the poor man, and had only your letters to give me a taste of excitement and romance,” the elderly Frenchwoman agreed, nodding sagely.
“Wait one moment,” Sir John said, interrupting their dreamy remembrances. “Youpursued Father,Maman?”
“Oh, quite shamelessly, I fear,” his mother laughed girlishly, exchanging a sly look with her friend. “My proper and reserved Englishman,” she cooed, sounding entirely too much like a young girl in love. “I knew the moment that I laid my eyes on him that I must have Sir Richard Ashbrooke for my very own. Never mind that he was all but engaged to some stuffy English noblewoman. As if that cold woman could please your passionate Father.Non.One would think that he was French.” She fanned herself dramatically with a tiny gloved hand.
John opened his mouth and then closed it again. He looked away from his mother’s face. As she had gotten older, she said the most embarrassing things. She continued on apace. “MaMamanthought I was out of my mind to throw aside my suitors. All for a man who had already won a lady with wealth, title, and beauty; a woman of his own country. Certainly, myMamanhad more sense than I, but I did not care. I would have Sir Richard no matter the odds, and his cold, bloodless Lady Elaine did not stand a chance against my determination.”
