A Lady at Willowgrove Hall (34 page)

“Sit, Nathaniel.”

Mrs. Trent had never called him by his Christian name. He did not know if it was an oversight or if she was having one of her episodes, but he did not protest. Miss Faire motioned for him to take the chair next to the bed, and he complied.

Mrs. Trent’s skin was as thin as parchment and white. How different she looked without her customary rouge painting her cheeks. It was then he noticed that she had his father’s portrait as a young man moved from her parlor to this room. Looking more like a mirror than a painting, the blue eyes looked back at them, as if bearing witness to this moment.

Mrs. Trent followed his gaze and looked at the painting for several moments.

“I loved my husband.”

Her words were low and strange, but somehow it did not seem fitting to question her here. For all her faults, that was one truth he believed. “I know you did.”

“He loved me.” Her head shook with every word. But then she turned her eyes on him. “I’ll be blunt. I have not made life easy for you. But as you can imagine, your presence has been a constant reminder of his betrayal.”

A dozen retorts went through his mind, but he remained silent.

After a long pause, she drew a weak breath and spoke again. “I have been wrong to take my pain out on you in the manner I have. And now I must atone or carry the shame of that with me to the next world.”

His bitterness was dissolving to pity. “You owe me no explanation.”

“I do.” She met his gaze directly. “Your father loved you. He wanted to raise you in Willowgrove Hall. It was I who refused. It was to punish him. And I did—relentlessly. It is too late to ask his forgiveness. But I am asking you.”

Heat crept up from his neckcloth, and he shifted in the chair. He’d decided long ago not to be affected by her. But as hard as he tried, the boy in him still clung to the hurt. He thought of his mother and the injustice she’d experienced as a result of Mrs. Trent’s actions, and fresh anger cascaded over him.

But as he looked at the frail woman, lying still and sick, did any of it matter anymore?

He’d nearly forgotten about Miss Faire standing behind him until he heard her shoe scuff against the floor. “I will give you privacy.”

He turned and reached out to stop her, unaware of the fact that he had touched her forearm until his hand was already there. “No, please stay.”

Wordlessly, she stopped and took a chair that was against the wall. Something about her presence made him feel less alone. Less vulnerable. Stronger.

Nathaniel turned back to Mrs. Trent. Her eyes were expectant, her expression, ever controlled. “I forgive you.”

I
forgive
you
. The words echoed in the tall room. Did he really mean them? Or was he saying something to make a woman’s last days easier?

Mrs. Trent seemed to ease at the words. Her graying head sank a little deeper into the pillow.

His voice sounded far too loud for the space. “You need to rest now.”

She said nothing more, only closed her eyes. He rested his hands on his knees for a moment. He stood and turned. Miss Faire’s eyes were latched onto him.

Unsure of how he felt about what had just happened, he said nothing to her. He needed a moment to settle his thoughts. Not only had Mrs. Trent just apologized—something Nathaniel had thought would never be possible—but Miss Faire had borne witness to it all. What was more affecting was that she now knew something about him that very few people knew.

He couldn’t face her. Not yet.

But as he approached the door, he heard the soft padding of her slippers on the carpet.

“Mr. Stanton, wait.”

He stopped. Any other time, he would relish a visit with Miss Faire. But at the moment, he knew not what to say.

“I did not mean to intrude on your private conversation. I would have gone, but I—”

“You did not intrude.” He tried to manage a little chuckle to lighten the moment. “So there, Miss Faire, you were right. I did have a secret of my own, and now you know it.”

But she did not appear amused. In fact, her eyebrows drew together in what he interpreted as concern. “Is it true, then?”

He frowned. “Is what true?”

“She said that you are to inherit another property. Are you going to leave Willowgrove?”

He shrugged. This was not a conversation he was prepared to have openly. With anyone. “I don’t know. But will you not be leaving as well?”

She knitted her fingers together in front of her. “I suppose I will.”

He looked at her. “My sisters know nothing about this. Any of it. I’d consider it a favor if you kept it to yourself until I can think of a way to share it with them.”

He hadn’t intended for his words to sound so sharp, but at the moment, he could not find a way to soften them. He lowered his eyes to avoid seeing the hurt look on her face.

“O-Of course. You have my word.”

30

T
he next morning Cecily awoke with a start in her own chamber.

The previous evening she had intended only to lie down for a moment, to rest her head and find a moment’s solace to contemplate the day’s many happenings. Her talk with Andrew. Her confession to Mrs. Trent. Mr. Stanton’s secret. But as she opened her eyes, long shadows of an early-morning sunrise crossed the room.

Mrs. Trent!

She jumped up from the bed, still fully clothed in her gown from the previous day, and as she did, the letter from Mrs. Sherwin fell off the bed and landed on the rug.

She picked it up and smoothed it, refusing to look at any particular words in the process. So it had been real. Not a frightful dream. Not a nightmare. The angry child within her pleaded with her to crumple up the letter and hurl it into the fire that a chambermaid had started before she awoke. But she stayed calm and folded the letter.

Her father was dead. The man she had loved. Feared. Blamed. The man who had rejected her. He never forgave her. And she had not forgiven him.

It bothered her. Especially as she had just witnessed Mr. Stanton’s act of forgiveness the day before.

Ignoring the fact that several locks of hair now escaped her comb and hung down her back, she quietly, reverently slid back into Mrs. Trent’s room, her hands and feet still feeling numb with sleep. Her face itched from the effect of dried tears on her skin, and her eyes burned, made worse by the shards of light slipping through the cracks around the brocade curtains.

She was only half surprised to see Andrew in the room, sitting on a straight-backed chair at the side of Mrs. Trent’s bed.

He looked as worn and as full of grief as anyone else at Willowgrove. Cecily gave Andrew credit. He played a convincing role. If it was indeed a role. He lifted his head when she entered. She tried to avoid eye contact, but his eyes sought hers and she could not look away.

She saw something in them. He was seventeen again. Too much history had transpired between them.

Then it hit her. Mrs. Trent had forgiven her for keeping her past with Andrew a secret. And Mr. Stanton had forgiven Mrs. Trent for years of pain.

But whom had she forgiven?

She had advised Mrs. Trent to forgive and ask for forgiveness, but had she done this herself?

Her heart still ached at the injustice she experienced at the hands of her father. And if she were honest, she still held Andrew partially responsible.

Andrew looked sad. Miserable, even. Was she doing the same thing Mrs. Trent had been doing to Mr. Stanton?

Andrew stood, poured a cup of tea, and extended it to her. “How was your letter?”

Cecily ignored the tea and pinned him with her stare. “You knew about my father.”

His smile faded. He looked down at the cup.

Cecily interpreted his silence as assent. “If you knew, why did you not tell me?”

“I did not want to be the one to hurt you. Again.”

“So you hid it from me?”

“Let me ask you this, Cecily.” He paused, putting the cup down on the table. “Do you think that you are the only one this has been difficult on? In case you have forgotten, you were not alone that night your father took you away. I was with you, ready, waiting to leave. And forgive me for the manner in which I have handled things since your arrival. But what would you have me do?”

Unable to look at him, she fixed her eyes on the intricate pattern on the dark rug. His question burned her ears. “I would hope for the truth. From a friend.”

“A friend,” he repeated, the words sounding almost like a question.

“Yes.”

Cecily thought about Mrs. Trent and her brave act of forgiveness. Cecily wanted to be free from that pain. She forced herself to look at Andrew, really look at him. The sandy hair. The dark eyes she had found so bewitching all those years ago. He was a symbol of so many things. And yet the anger, the fear she felt when she was with him, simply didn’t seem to matter. She thought of the women who had tried so hard to teach her things throughout her life. Her mother. Mrs. Sterling. But it was Mrs. Trent, with her desperate desire for forgiveness at the end of her life, who affected her most.

“We cannot undo the past. It is as certain and finite as it can be. But we both need to find our freedom from it.”

He nodded.

And in that moment, in that simple act, she could be in the same room with him, face-to-face with her past, and it was all right. And in her heart she knew—she could forgive Andrew Moreton.

31

M
rs. Trent was dead.

Tears blurred Cecily’s vision.

It had happened sometime during the midnight hours, during the time when the moon cast silver light on the earth below. She’d been awoken by Clarkson’s frantic cry before the sun’s first rays.

It hardly caught them by surprise. Mrs. Trent’s passing had been inevitable. They had known for days. Dr. Collingswood had told them as much. So why was Cecily struggling to maintain composure?

She wiped the moisture from her face. In a short time, Mrs. Trent had become the grandmother she’d always wished for.

And now, in Mrs. Trent’s chamber, surrounded by her things in the morning light, her heart ached with every beat.

Mrs. Trent’s still form lay on the bed. A white sheet covered her.

Dr. Collingswood, who had been absent from the room, stepped behind her.

Cecily’s voice cracked as she spoke. “Was she at peace?”

“She never awoke.”

Through the shrouds in her mind, Cecily tried to recall their last conversation. She attempted to breathe, but the air might as well be fire. Never had she expected to care for the woman who employed her, but somewhere between the reading and conversations, the walks in the garden, she had filled a void in Cecily’s life that she did not even realize existed.

The still, stale air in the sickroom was stifling. She stepped into the corridor, grateful for its coolness. Morning light was just creeping in the windows, covering the space in shadows. With tears blinding her vision, Cecily was not even sure how she was taking one step in front of the other.

But she needed air.

She kept her tearful gaze downcast and increased her pace down the corridor. She was not looking, until she ran so hard into something that little black flecks scurried across her vision. Someone grabbed her arm, steadying her. She looked up. A fabric-covered button. White neckcloth. The scent of outdoors and sandalwood.

She looked up at the face of Mr. Stanton.

At any other time, such a misstep would be embarrassing. It would require acknowledgment or even an apology. But his face was etched with the same lines she had seen on the doctor’s. His color, even for a man with tanned skin, seemed pale and wan.

She spoke without really thinking. “Mrs. Trent is dead.”

Perhaps it was shocking to put it so bluntly. But if there was one thing she had learned about Mr. Stanton, it was that he cared little for pretentious etiquette.

“I know.”

After several moments he released his hands from her upper arms, and she immediately missed the warmth she felt through her sleeves.

“Are you all right?” His words were low, almost a whisper. She was not sure she had ever been spoken to with such tenderness.

She tucked her loose hair behind her ears and wiped her face. She tried to speak, but the only sound she could form came out as a sob.

Then, in the coolness of the still shadows, Mr. Stanton moved closer. He reached out one arm. Then the other. Then wrapped them around her.

He pulled her tight against his chest.

This was not proper. She should pull away.

But the need to feel safe and not alone took over her senses.

At the touch of his hand, the sensation of him so close, a tear fell. Then another.

His words were soft. His lips grazed her forehead, causing the ground beneath her to spin and shift. She could not make out the words above the wild beating of her heart. But as his arms tightened around her, the warmth of him stilled her trembling.

This was a temporary sanctuary, she knew. But the part of her that she could not heal on her own prevented her from stepping back. She did not want to be alone. And more than that, she didn’t want to be separated from this man who held her.

After a moment, she found her strength. “I apologize. I do not know what came over me.”

“Do not apologize.” His hands moved to her arms. Then they fell to his sides. “It is sad news, indeed.”

But did he know how deep the sadness went? How it touched every part of her?

“She is at peace now,” he said.

Cecily opened her mouth to respond when down the hall, the door to Mrs. Trent’s chamber opened. Dr. Collingswood poked his head out, his wig askew. “Stanton, good, you’re here. I thought I heard voices.”

Mr. Stanton looked down at her, his expression tender. “The vicar is downstairs,” Mr. Stanton said to her, “as are a few townspeople. If you do not feel like being alone, I know some of them wish to see you.” He glanced up at the physician, then back to her. “And I need to speak with you. Privately, on a matter Mrs. Trent wished me to take up with you. Will you come by the office later?”

She nodded.

“Until then.” He gave a slight bow and disappeared down the hall and into the room.