“I did not even say anything to offend her,” Lionel protested, groaning as a particularly high, jarring note cut through him like a knife. “I merely repeated what Amelia said to me recently, that she will find it difficult to find a suitable husband.”
Caroline pressed her lips together, clearly fighting a snort. “I doubt very much that that was what Amelia said to you.”
“Perhaps I did not repeat it verbatim,” Lionel conceded, “but it was something like that—that she would not be able to settle for less than she has received from this household, because she has been well taken care of. Amelia said it was an advantage, not something offensive.”
Caroline sighed, the sound flowing into a soft laugh. “If you had saidthat, we would not be listening to the Great Cacophony.” A fond smile pulled at her lips. “It is easy to forget that you are siblings instead of father and daughter, sometimes.”
“As it is easy to forget that you are grandmother and granddaughter, instead of mother and daughter,” Lionel replied, thinking of everything he had told Amelia last night.
He did not know what had compelled him to speak so honestly, for it was not something he spoke about often, but he had certainly felt lighter afterwards.
“I realize that I might have spoken out of turn earlier,” Caroline said, a short while later, during a lull in the shrill music that bombarded the Dower House. “I had forgotten something else, it seems. I am sorry. I got carried away with the thought of grandchildren.”
Lionel gazed out toward the pleasant gardens of the Dower House, frowning at the low winter sun that seemed to burn through the windowpanes.
“You are not the only one,” he murmured. Whether he had meant to say it out loud or not; he did not know.
Caroline’s eyes brightened. “You have changed your mind with regards to children?”
“Not in the grander sense of it,” he replied after a pause, his brow creasing in consternation. “It is not that I want children, or that I would risk it, but that… I find myself imagining having children with Amelia. And it is as pleasant a thought as it is a worrisome one. She had… done something to me, Grandmother.”
“Yes, I can see that.” Caroline smiled, her eyes shining with a bittersweet sort of sadness. “I could not have chosen a better wife for you, and though I know you are no great friend of fate, I cannot help but think that it has smiled on you. Think about it—what are the chances of finding a woman like her so swiftly?”
He grimaced, rubbing the heel of his palm against his chest, where an ache had formed. “Or it is a cruel joke,” he said. “To offer me such a wondrous reason to live, to make me dream of beginning a family with her, only to…” He shook his head in an attempt to dislodge the certainty that stuck like a thorn in his mind.
“I do not believe that,” Caroline said solemnly. “I believe she is a gift and a reassurance, and I think youshouldconsider having children with her. It is natural to want that, and I see no reason why you should resist it.”
Lionel turned back to look at his grandmother. “You see no reason? Are you quite serious?”
“Lionel, I know of your beliefs and, here and there, I have found it difficult not to share them, but you cannot live your life as if it has already ended,” she urged, hurrying to wipe away a tear. “Thatwould be a terrible waste and… I cannot bear the thought of you missing out on so much because you fear what is coming. Weallfear what might come, but we live anyway. Indeed, no one is guaranteed tomorrow.”
Glancing at the gardens once more, Lionel closed his eyes against the glare of the winter sun, a red haze permeating his eyelids. He imagined summer sunshine in its place, and the warmth of Amelia’s smile as she welcomed him home. He imagined countless seasons with her, watching the leaves fall and the buds bloom, never taking a single one for granted.
All of it impossible.
“Not everyone is like you, Grandmother,” he said softly, opening his eyes again. “Not everyone can endure loss and remain optimistic. Not everyone can lose love and continue to find reasons for existing. My mother was never the same after my father passed—you saw it for yourself. I cannot be selfish. No… I have made my choice.”
Caroline sighed wearily. “And what choice is that? To be utterly miserable? To live each day as if you are walking to the gallows? To squander the time you have?”
“No, Grandmother—to not give Amelia any reason to miss me when I am gone,” he replied, his voice catching in his throat.
“You are going underground again?”
He shook his head. “I intend to go further than that.”
“I realize that you will not listen to a word that this old coot has to say,” Caroline grumbled more firmly, “but need I remind you that your uncle is, by all accounts, alive and well. Do you thinkhe, of all people, would be an exception?”
Lionel blinked. “You have heard from him?”
“I have heardabouthim,” Caroline replied. “He is two-and-forty now, Lionel. I would urge you to remember that.”
But she was right; Lionel couldnotlisten to anything that might give him hope or sway him from his decision. “Unless I hear from my uncle directly, or see him in person, I will not believe the hearsay of others. We have no way of knowing if my uncle is alive.”
“But he was forty when you returned from war,” she insisted, her tone laced with exasperation.
“And perhaps he died on the voyage to the Americas, unable to escape his fate,” Lionel pointed out, for there had been no word from John in the two years since he had been sent away. And Lionel was not about to risk everything on Caroline’s dubious sources.
“Lionel, I—” Caroline’s words were severed by the parlor door blasting open.
