“I imagine you must have a lot of questions,” he finally said.
Lizzie nodded.
“Ask away,” he said with a small smile, and Lizzie was relieved that he was himself again.
She propped herself up on one elbow and said, “What your mother said about the servants…”
She didn’t finish, instead allowing him to address whichever portion of that speech he wanted to.
He nodded and folded his arms under his head.
“I must have been five or six. My father had taken my mother on a tour around Europe, in one of his attempts to make her love him,” he said bitterly, “and I was, of course, left behind with servants and nurses. They had been gone for months, and when they came back, I had started speaking in a strong Norfolk drawl, because that was all I ever heard. They were horrified, to put it lightly. They immediately got me a tutor and forbade the staff to speak to me or to allow me to go play with the children.”
Elizabeth didn’t have the language to describe how harmful she considered what his parents had done, so she just put her hand on his chest. He didn’t move, nor did he look away from the ceiling.
Elizabeth thought about his penchant for carefully selecting lifelong members of staff and his obsession with not letting people leave, and it all made a little more sense now. Not to mention his lack of desire to travel.
“Those who knew how to write left me little encouraging notes,” he said with a wistful smile, but then sobered. “I’ve thought about this event a lot recently. I think that, in order to survive and be able to bear the loss of my favourite people, I had to start believing that my parents were right, and that they had a good reason to cut me off from them. I had to believe that attachment was wrong, shameful, and unnatural, and I’ve carried those beliefs into adulthood with me, even reproaching you for your closeness to Mary. I never wanted to think about my hurt. I never wanted to remember how devastated and lonely I was when the stable master was unable to write to me because he didn’t know how. I cannot believe it took meeting those Magdalen girls for me to realise how important literacy was.”
“You were a child, Colin, and you, unfortunately, had bigger things to worry about,” Lizzie tried consoling him, but he shook his head as if disgusted with himself.
“I should have done so much better, so much earlier. But I will now,” he vowed.
“I believe you,” Lizzie said, and he rewarded her with a bright smile.
As they dressed in their separate dressing rooms, Elizabeth dwelled on how damaged they both were, and how it was undeniable that their pasts had shaped them – their fears, their wants, and their goals. But she also felt hopeful, like both their wounds were starting to heal over.
When she had been found with Colin in that cloak room, she had been certain that her biggest nightmare had come true – that she had followed in the footsteps of her parents. And now that she had learned about his past, she was certain that Colin was currently living what had to be his biggest nightmare – having a marriage like his parents’, in which both partners were sentenced to a life of misery.
Only, neither of their situations had really been like those of their parents’, had they?
“I really don’t want to deal with my mother,” Colin said dryly as he entered her dressing room.
Lizzie turned away from the looking glass. “Let’s just leave.”
He straightened. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t want to deal with her? Then don’t. Let’s just go to Ashbury, like we were planning to. Unless you think spending time here with her will change anything?”
“No, I’ve been thinking about that just now. There is nothing I can do or say to change my relationship with my mother, and believe me, I’ve tried almost everything you could think of. Perhaps it’s time to let go of the fantasy,” he said.
“I just feel bad for the staff,” Lizzie said with a grimace. “They all seem so terrified of her.”
Colin seemed to think about that.
“I shall inform Stevenson and Mrs. Hughes to give everyone the week off. My mother has her maid and her driver; once she sees there’s no one here to torture, she’ll hopefully return to the Continent.”
Elizabeth couldn’t hide her smile.
“Please take good care of Thunder,” she told Mary again.
“Lizzie, I heard you the first five times. Don’t worry.”
“Are you certain you and Robert will be all right in the gamekeeper’s cabin?”
“Of course,” Mary smiled. “It’s just a week. And when the witch is gone, we’ll return here, and a few days later, my parents and your Ma ought to arrive with the children, so we’ll enjoy our time with them.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to instruct her to be careful, to write, to take care of herself, but Mary most likely saw her face and just lifted a palm up.
