“I remember all too well your father realizing he’d begun falling in love with your mother.” Mr. Layton laughed quietly, then looked to Mr. Barrington. “Heavens, Lucas was caught unawares by that change, wasn’t he?”
Mr. Barrington nodded. “And, miraculously enough, managed to salvage the mull he’d made of it all up to that point.”
While there was something reassuring and heartwarming about hearing stories of his father, it was also frustrating. “If he were here, he could tell me how he managed to turn his marriage around. I’m stumbling my way through mine.”
“Charlie,” Mr. Layton said kindly, “wewere with him as he managed that.”
A fragile bit of hope blossomed inside.
Mr. Layton rose and motioned him to do the same. “Take a stroll around the grounds with us. I think we can give you a bit of the advice your father would have, and perhaps warn you of a few of the missteps he made along the way.”
“And a few of the missteps the rest of us made as well,” Mr. Barrington added. “The Gents rather bumbled our way through the 1780s.”
“And beyond,” Mr. Layton added.
They took the stone steps down to the pebbled path and began a meandering circuit of the grounds.
Somehow, Mr. Layton looked regal even during something so unrefined as an afternoon ramble about the back lawn. Mr. Barrington looked utterly academic. How would an onlooker describe Charlie? Probably “desperate.”
“I think our first question must be, What is your goal for this marriage?” Mr. Barrington asked. “Do you wish for a love story for the ages?”
“I would settle for anything that isn’t a complete disaster.”
The other two exchanged glances.
“Sound familiar, Digby?” Mr. Barrington asked his friend.
Mr. Layton nodded. “His father’s son through and through.”
Charlie wasn’t often compared to his father. Even though this similarity was less than flattering, he liked hearing it. “Father clearly managed to avoid disaster. He and Mater had the sort of marriage most people only dream of.”
“The deep love they had for each other was not his initial goal,” Mr. Barrington said. “His first focus was to build a friendship and a much-needed degree of trust.”
Friendship and trust. Two things Charlie’s marriage didn’t yet have, though there’d been moments when both had at least seemed possible.
“How did Father approach that?”
“He chose activities that could be easily enjoyed by two people who were not in love; many, in fact, were the sort of playful pastimes one indulges in during childhood.” Mr. Barrington adjusted his spectacles as he spoke. “He was operating under the theory that Julia could enjoy the undertaking without worrying that she was opening herself up to being hurt.”
Hearing Mater referred to by her Christian name was so odd. She’d been Mater all his life. He had some vague memories of Father calling her Julia, but no one else ever did.
“She worried a lot about being hurt,” Mr. Layton said. “She had suffered through so many losses and so much pain in her life. I don’t know that she could have endured another blow. Though she made a good show of being strong and unbreakable, Julia was quite fragile. Once Lucas realized that, once he truly appreciated the fear she carried with her, the pain that rested just below the surface, it changed his entire approach to his marriage. His frustration gave way to compassion. His railing at being forced into a marriage he hadn’t wanted gave way to a deep desire to build a life with her. His desire to avoid being hurt himself became nothing compared to his need to protect her from further suffering. It changed him.”
Charlie spun a leaf in his fingers as he listened. So much of what they were describing could be applied to him. His frustration, his railing against what he’d lost, his seemingly strong but undeniably hurting wife. “Changedhim?”
Mr. Barrington nodded. “Your father was always a good man and the best sort of friend. But letting himself love your mother, deciding to be the kind of person she deserved to build a life with, brought out something more in him than had been there before.”
“He was alwaysgood,” Mr. Layton said. “He became remarkable.”
“And he and Mater were happy in the end.” Charlie knew that for a fact.
“My boy,” Mr. Layton said kindly, “they were happy long before the end.”
“How did he go about building a friendship between them?”
Mr. Barrington nodded his approval. “The best place to begin. Well chosen, Charlie.”
The compliment warmed him. These gentlemen, who had been unknown to him days earlier, were proving reassuring and strengthening. Hearing their approval felt nearly like hearing it from Father himself. Nearly.
