“I was married once, to a man who already had a wife. Two other wives. Two quite alive wives. So”—she gave a shrug, tried a laugh, found it hollow—“I am afraid I was not really married at all. Yet I lived with him, as a married woman, for an entire year.”
His face softened, melted into pure soft emotion, an unusual look from this man, though she did not find herself surprised. His hand atop hers squeezed. “I know, Gwendolyn.”
The ground dropped from beneath her. The wind picked her up and swept her away. The King of England appeared before her and declared her queen. Those things would not have shocked her more than his statement had.
“You… you know?”
“I’m afraid so.” He pulled his hand away and leaned into the opposite end of the couch, arms crossing over his chest. “It was not difficult to discern. The likenesses in the papers were very accurate. When a shivering young woman showed up on the same ship as I, clearly desirous to escape some horror and looking exactly like the woman in the sketches”—he shrugged—“I made assumptions, helped her, then asked very covert and careful questions about her later. Behind her back. Apologies.”
She waved away the apology. She did not need it. She stood on unsteady legs, and let those limbs take her aimlessly across the room. “You’ve known this entire time?”
He nodded.
“Does Jackson know? Lady Eaden? Your daughters? Everyone?” Were they all pitying and snickering about her behind her back? She closed her eyes to press back memories of the day she’d had to appear in court to give testimony arguing she’d known nothing at all about her husband’s other marriages. Laughter, whispers, horrid words not whispered at all. Many hadn’t believed her. Thankfully, the judge had.
“No,” Henry said, rising and coming to her side. “I told no one. It is not my secret to tell. They would not care, though, if they knew. They feel for you as I do.”
She pressed her eyes so tightly closed, stars bloomed like a midnight garden behind her eyelids. “And how is that?”
“They love you. As a daughter and sister and as a— Well, Jackson loves you a bit differently than that, doesn’t he?”
She slammed her eyes open. “You know of us too?”
A small crook of a smile at the corner of his lips. “Just a bit. I didn’t pry. But I have my suspicions. Affection was the natural conclusion to such a relationship. And Miss Limesby mentioned it to me once. Or ten times. Quite perturbed I never intervened and separated the two of you.”
“Did she?” The old chaperone Henry hired as companion to Gwendolyn on their travels had never said a word to her about the matter, though she had done her fair share of frowning between much heavier bouts of sleeping. “I did not think her an overly concerned chaperone. Thought that was why you hired her.”
“Oh, it was. Surprised me, too, when she complained. He placed a hand atop hers where it rested over Jackson’s mother’s scrapbook. She’d forgotten she clutched it still, heavy in her lap like a cannon.
A cannon no more. She’d moved the ship, and it would no longer tear a hole through its mark. She’d told her story, and… nothing had happened. No sinking, no destruction, no flames and screams of anguish.
It felt like stepping outside after a week of relentless rain—gulping fresh air, everything clean, the sky open and calling.
She opened the book to the page that should have killed her. She saw not the crying girl, drained, broken, and dying, but the pressed chrysanthemums, still bright despite the years. What had Mrs. Whitlock said they represented?
Hope for the future.
Lord Eaden squeezed her hand. “Do not leave us, Gwendolyn, unless you truly wish to, unless your happiness depends upon it. If that is the case, I let you go freely with only well wishes. If that is the case, then I celebrate your departure.”
“Mrs. Whitlock knows, or suspects, who I am. I am sure others will know, too. Mr. Stewart perhaps.”
He shrugged. “I am a man often gossiped about. Some whispers are good and others bad, but none of them impact the home I’ve made with my family, with Sarah. Only my own fears can do that. My fears have done that. More than any gossip ever has. Do not worry about what others whisper.” He chuckled. “Easier said than done, I know.”
“But you’re right.” She felt the truth of it. The gossip and words slung at her before she’d left England with Lord Eaden had sliced deep, but what had tangled like sharp, curved knives in her heart and mind so long was her fear, lacerating, silencing. She closed the book and stood. “I must speak with Jackson.”
“Of course.”
“Thank you, Lord Eaden.”
“Henry. Zeus, girl, it’s about time you called me Henry. Or perhaps you will take a page from Jackson’s book and call me Uncle.” He winked.
The corners of her lips inched upward. She tried to stop them, to snuff them out like candles and bask herself in darkness once more, but the chrysanthemum brightness tugged them up into a smile anyway.
He waved her toward the door. “Go. Go hunt down my nephew, but be careful.” He tossed a look out the window. “Looks like rain.”
“I’ll be sensible… Uncle Henry.”
He gave her a grin to match her own, and she couldn’t take that much glee. She turned and ran down the hall and up the stairs to don her pelisse and walking boots. She shoved the unopened letters in her pocket. She could read them while walking. She did not have to run away and spin a new life out of nothing in order to paint pretty pictures for scholars.
