He laughed. “I asked her, and she said yes. We are marrying today.” He tilted his head toward the chapel. “Right there. Will you come?”
“Yes. Will there be cake?”
Rory grimaced. “I forgot about the wedding breakfast. We’d better go back and talk to Cook. You’ll tell her what sort of cake you want, yes?”
“Yes!”
“Up you go.”
But she clung to his neck. “Carry me back, Papa.”
“Aren’t you a little old to be carried?”
“No.”
He laughed and lifted her up. She had long, skinny legs that hung down, but she was light. She laid her head on his shoulder, and he wondered if she watched the cemetery as they walked away from it.
Another time,he promised himself. These cracks in the wall—his and hers—had to be chiseled delicately, else the whole structure would come crashing down.
Gables opened the door to the house for them, and Rory set Frances down. He intended to go to the kitchens with her and give Mrs. Donnelly the news about the cake, but a flash of blue on the stairs caught his eye. He looked up and saw Genevieve standing in the middle of the staircase, her hand on her heart, her eyes wet.
“Go ahead, Frances,” he said. “I’ll be there in a moment.”
Frances ran off, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from scolding her for racing through the house like a horse rather than a young lady. He looked up at Genevieve instead. She was incredibly lovely. She hadn’t put her hair up yet, and it hung in a curly tail down her back. Her cheeks looked pink, as though they’d been scrubbed recently, and her wet eyes were large and very green. His gaze drifted to his lips, light pink and tremblingto try to contain her tears. He began to wonder if that crack in the wall had not only given him access to his grief but also to pleasure. He hadn’t forgotten about that first kiss they’d shared, and he couldn’t deny he’d felt the stirrings of desire after kissing her last night. If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he might have marveled at his feelings. He hadn’t felt any pleasure in anything for so long. Had kissing Genevieve been what first cracked his wall? Was that why he was suddenly able to feel so much more?
Whatever the cause, he didn’t want his wall cracking any further. He’d best patch it while he could.
“Don’tyoustart crying,” he said more harshly than he intended. “I’ve had enough of weeping females for one day.”
“Sorry.” She wiped at her eyes. “I just…” She waved a hand. “I didn’t mean to become emotional, but seeing you carrying Frances like that was rather unexpected. Was she the other crying female?”
She started down the stairs, moving gracefully, her hips swaying gently. Those hips, as well as the rest of her, would be in his bed tonight.
“My lord?”
His gaze snapped back to her face. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
“What is fine?”
“Whatever it is you were asking.”
“I was asking if your daughter was crying.”
“Oh, that.” He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead. Perhaps he should have Chaffer trim it before the wedding? “I wanted to tell her the good news, but before I could, she started going on about her mother. I took her to the cemetery to see the graves.”
“I no longer wonder why she was weeping.”
“She didn’t see them, but I think I made a start toward dispelling her fantasy that her mother is still alive.”
Genevieve looked unconvinced. “Don’t be surprised if she still clings to it for a little while. She’ll let it go when she doesn’t need it anymore.”
“Her grandparents should have never allowed it.”
“I doubt they had any idea she’d concocted such a fantasy. Children often resort to telling themselves stories to help make sense of a world that is, at times, chaotic and terrifying. I think we all do, though our stories become more intricate and private as we get older.”
A shiver ran up Rory’s spine as she spoke. He felt, just for a moment, that she had seen straight into his soul. Like Frances, he had told himself stories as a child, but they hadn’t been fairytales about kingdoms and queens. They’d been explanations, if only to himself, about the reasons behind the bad things that had happened to him in life. Was he still concocting those stories? Perhaps the curse was nothing more than a story he told himself to help alleviate his guilt toward Harriet’s death. Blaming it on the witch made the constant refrain in his own mind fade into the background.
But he could still hear that chorus if he listened.She’d be alive if you hadn’t sent for her. Why didn’t you go to London? What sort of man demands his wife leave her bed so soon after birth and travel hundreds of miles?
