'Twas the Night After Christmas (14 page)

Damn her!
And
her meddling companion.

That thought swirled in his brain the rest of the afternoon, fortifying him for dinner. He would demand to know what was in the letters. Then he would demand to know what exactly she wanted from him after so many years of neglect. And if she wouldn’t tell him, he would lay out for Camilla why he’d been estranged from his parents.

Yes, that’s what he would do.

But when he came down to dinner, fully prepared for a confrontation, no one was there. On his plate was a folded sheet of paper addressed to “Lord Devonmont” in what must be Camilla’s hand, since it certainly wasn’t his mother’s.

He gritted his teeth. God, but he was sick of missives. Letters were what people resorted to when they didn’t want to lie to your face. When they wanted to pretend they weren’t ripping your heart out.

With an oath, he opened it to read:

Your Lordship,

Your mother has a fierce headache and will not be coming down to dinner. With your permission, I shall stay with her this evening.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Stuart

Balling it up, he tossed it into the fire. With his permission—right. As if he had any say in the matter.

He could read between the lines. No dinner with Mother, so no evening with Camilla. He was being punished—for speaking the truth, for not reading Mother’s letters. Punished for not opening Camilla’s eyes to what his mother really was.

Except he wasn’t sure anymore what his mother really was.
Who
she was. He couldn’t even be sure anymore what he meant to her.

And that was driving him insane.

C
amilla paced the countess’s sitting room, praying that she would emerge soon. The lady’s maid insisted that her ladyship had asked not to be disturbed because of her headache.

Camilla sighed. More likely, the woman’s heart had been cleaved in two by her unfeeling son.

Ask her what happened when I came into my majority. I daresay she won’t answer you. And until she does, you have no right to judge me.

All right, so perhaps he wasn’t so much unfeeling as wounded. But why? And how? As a paid companion, she’d seen plenty of families torn apart over foolish nonsense—a father embarrassing his son in public, a daughter who turned down a marriage proposal. Families were difficult to fathom.

But she began to think it wasn’t something small that had torn this family apart. The rift seemed deeper and wider than she’d assumed.

Perhaps Pierce was right. Perhaps she should
not
have meddled. Certainly she’d brought more pain to Lady Devonmont in the process. Still, how could he not have read his own mother’s letters? It didn’t seem worthy of him.

Then again, she didn’t really know him, despite having spent a week of evenings with him. He was entertaining—witty, clever, and even charming when he wanted to be. She’d poked at his mask, lifted it a bit, tried to peek beneath it, but whenever she got a good glimpse of his real self, he jerked the mask back into place.

It was maddening.

The door to the bedroom opened, and the countess walked out. At once Camilla’s heart dropped into her stomach. Her ladyship’s eyes and nose were red, her features drawn.

She looked startled to see Camilla. “I thought you’d be at dinner.”

“I’m not about to abandon you when you’re upset.”

The countess forced a smile. “I’m not upset. I’m just a bit . . . ” Her face began to crumple, and she turned away to hide it.

“You
are
upset, and you have every right to be so.” Camilla hurried over to put her arm about the woman’s shoulders. “It was cruel of him to ignore your letters.”

“He had his reasons,” she choked out.

“You keep saying that. But what could they possibly be?” When the countess just shook her head and pulled free to walk back toward her bedchamber, Camilla steadied her nerve and
added, “He told me to ask you about his holidays from school.”

Lady Devonmont froze.

“He didn’t tell me why I should ask, and he wouldn’t tell me why he mentioned it. He left that to you. Why? What happened during his holidays?”

The countess stood there a long moment, as if debating something. Then she sighed. “Nothing happened. That’s the trouble.”

“If nothing happened, then why—”

“I wasn’t around for his holidays.
That’s
what he wants you to know.”

Camilla blinked, sure that she had misunderstood. No feeling mother was absent for her child’s holidays from school. “None of them? No Christmases, no Easters?”

“Not a one,” she whispered.

Shock coursed through her. Even when she’d been forced to leave Jasper with her husband’s family, she’d always made an effort to be with him for important occasions. She couldn’t imagine not seeing Jasper for Christmas, for pity’s sake.

The rest of Pierce’s words leaped into her mind. “And his matriculation ceremony? He said I should ask about that, too. Don’t tell me you weren’t there for that, either.”

The countess faced her with a shattered expression. “He spent every school holiday from the time he was eight with his cousins at Waverly Farm. They were the ones, along with his great-uncle, to attend his matriculation ceremony. I couldn’t go. I wasn’t allowed.”

“What do you mean?”

Lady Devonmont’s eyes, the same warm brown as Pierce’s,
darkened, and she released a long, tortured breath. “Pierce’s father wouldn’t allow it.”

“The earl?”

“Yes, of course the earl,” she snapped. “Who else?”

“Right, sorry,” Camilla mumbled. Her mind reeled at the very idea of Pierce being left to relations when he had two perfectly good parents. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. Neither does Pierce.”

No, how could he? It must have driven a stake through his heart to essentially lose his parents so young. He’d been only two years older than Jasper!

Her ladyship began to pace. “That’s why I’ve never told him that his father was the reason for my absence. Because it would only raise more questions that I can’t answer.”

“So you don’t know why the earl kept you from your son?” she said incredulously.

“I do know why.” The countess’s face closed up. “But I shan’t discuss it. I can’t. Some things must remain private.”

“Private? The reason your son was abandoned is something you consider
private
?” Camilla cried. “I daresay he deserves to know why.”

“He does, but I can’t . . . ” Her voice broke. “I won’t speak of it. I begged his forgiveness in my letters for not being a mother to him all those years, and I understand if he can’t forgive me. But as I told him, I had good reasons for agreeing to let others raise him. I did what I had to. He will simply have to accept it.”

Camilla gaped at her. “Don’t you see why he can’t, not without knowing why?”

The countess shot her a warning glance. “Stay out of this, my dear.”

“How can I, when I see how it pains you both?”

“Curse it, why can’t you both just leave the past be? Why can’t we just start anew and forget—”

“Because you can’t! Not if you want to repair your relationship with your son.”

Her ladyship let out a low moan but wouldn’t say more.

“Why wouldn’t the earl let you see him?”

The countess just shook her head.

Drat it, the woman was as stubborn as Pierce! And what did she mean, some things were private?

Oh. Camilla could think of only one reason the countess might feel a need for privacy in such a situation. And it would explain why her ladyship had snapped at Camilla for unwittingly implying that Pierce wasn’t the earl’s son.

Perhaps Pierce really
wasn’t
the earl’s son.

It would explain so much—why the countess didn’t want to talk about it, why Pierce didn’t want to talk about it. If he were another man’s son . . .

The thought brought her up short. She’d seen a portrait of the late earl. Pierce was the very image of his father. Anyone with eyes could tell
that.

Besides which, he’d been born well on the right side of the blanket, for the countess often said she’d had him ten months after her marriage at eighteen. And while Camilla could almost imagine the countess giving herself to one man, and then being forced to marry another after she found herself with a babe in her
belly, Camilla had trouble imagining her ladyship as an adulteress. Especially married to a man as rigid as the earl.

Nor did Pierce seem to think such a thing. Surely he would have hinted at it if he’d known. But perhaps he didn’t know.
If
there was even anything to know, which she began to doubt. He
did
look amazingly like his father.

Which meant something else was at work here.

Remembering other things Pierce said, Camilla added, “At least tell me what happened when he reached his majority. He said you would never say.”

The color drained from Lady Devonmont’s face. “He’s right.”

“But why?”

“Because . . . because you would hate me if I told you.” Her throat moved convulsively. “And I just can’t . . . bear to have you hating me, too.”

Camilla couldn’t imagine anything her ladyship could have done that would be as awful as all that. “I would never hate you, my lady. If you’d only explain—”

“Enough, curse it!” The countess drew into herself, putting on her own mask—a cold, uncaring one that didn’t hide a thing, for her eyes blazed bright within it.

Then she turned on her heel and headed for her bedchamber. “I’m retiring for the evening. We will not speak of this again.”

“But, my lady—”

“No!” She halted just short of the door, her shoulders trembling as if she fought to contain tears. Then she seemed to steady herself. “I never asked you to interfere in this, Camilla, and if you continue . . . ” She left the words hanging, but the implication was clear.

Camilla choked down the sudden raw pain in her throat. Her ladyship would never dismiss her. Would she? No, Camilla couldn’t believe it. But the fact that she would even threaten such a thing showed how desperate she was.

It also showed that Camilla had gone as far as she dared. It was one thing to defy the earl. But defying the woman who’d been good enough to bring Jasper here would be madness. She couldn’t afford to behave irrationally; she had her son to think of.

“As you wish,” Camilla said quietly. “We won’t speak of it again.”

But that didn’t mean she would stop trying to learn more another way.

As soon as the countess gave a tight nod and disappeared into her bedchamber, Camilla turned on her heel and headed for the earl’s room. She was tired of seeing two people she’d begun to care about hitting their heads against the brick wall of the past.

Part of her understood. There were things about her own past that she’d rather not have revealed. But this was carrying “privacy” too far. At least when
she
had briefly given her son over to relatives to be raised, she’d told him why. He’d never doubted that his mother loved him.

Clearly Pierce doubted that very deeply. Something inside her chest twisted at the thought. She hadn’t known her own parents, which was why she realized how precious it was to have ones you could trust and believe in.

She knocked on the door. His voice bade her enter. Drumming up her courage, she opened the door, only to find the room
completely dark. The fire had burned out, and there were no candles lit except the one in her hand.

Sweet heaven, he must already have retired for the night.

“I beg your pardon,” she mumbled, and began to ease the door shut.

“Don’t go,” he said, his voice low but commanding. It certainly wasn’t the voice of someone just roused from sleep.

She hesitated. “I think I must.”

“I’m not in bed. I’m just sitting here in the dark.” A hint of sarcasm laced his tone. “I’m fully dressed, and I promise not to pounce.” When she still stood uncertain, he said, more softly, “Please come in and keep me company awhile.”

Please
. It was a word he rarely used—a word that men of his rank had no need to use. But something in the tenor of his voice, in the way he asked for her company so humbly, made tears start in her eyes. No doubt he’d asked for his mother’s company many times in his childhood and never got it.

She slipped inside, shutting the door behind her. As her eyes adjusted to the dim room, she saw him in his favorite armchair, which he’d apparently dragged over to face the window. “Do you often sit in the dark?” she asked as she headed toward him.

“Only when there’s a full moon and snow on the ground.” He gestured before him. “Look at that.”

She had to blow out the candle to be able to see beyond her reflection in the glass, but when she did, she was treated to a rapturous view. Spread out below them was the snow-draped lawn, turned magical by moonlight. The bushes were like frosted cakes served up on a blanket of marzipan, and footsteps in the snow
looked like almonds dotting the pastry of a tart. Only the black, leafless beeches skirting the edge of the gardens struck a somber note.