“No, I—” But she stopped herself. “You’re right; you should talk to her.”
Oliver slapped his thighs as he stood up. “I’ll do it before dinner.”
He marched toward the door, and she stared after him, feeling bewildered and heartsick.
At the last moment, he turned back. “Cecilia”—he reluctantly turned his gaze upon Michael—“Blackthorne, thank you for listening, and not judging me too harshly.”
“I think you’ve judged yourself,” Michael said impassively. “Now follow through.”
The words took on the tone of mild command, but Oliver only nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
Cecilia stared at the door for a long moment, then everything she’d been repressing seemed to choke up her throat. She turned into Michael’s arms and buried her face in his chest, weeping. He held her for a long moment, rocking her gently.
When the storm of her emotions had calmed at last, she stared up at him with wet eyes. “I—I don’t know what to say. He—herapeda girl when he was, what, seventeen?”
“Do you realize how often such things happen among the nobility, Cecilia? At least he’s found his conscience at last. So many powerful men believe they can do whatever they want.”
“Obviously, he believed it,” she said bitterly. “To think he ... he ...” She couldn’t even find the words, only stared at her husband in confusion.
“He wants to make things right.” Michael gripped both her hands in his. “That’s a good sign.”
“Do you think with all the guilt he’s been feeling, he was the one behind what’s been happening to me?” She’d thought her brother incapable of harming her, but he’d had no problem hurting Jennette.
“I don’t think so,” Michael said at last. “I think his treatment of the maid has been tearing him up inside, not something he might have done to you. Going to court, hearing about the man who’d abandoned his wife and babe, it must have been too much for him at last.”
“I don’t know what to think of him anymore,” she whispered bleakly.
“We can be appalled at his lack of forethought and morals, but certainly, I am not one to judge him, after all the mistakes I made.”
“Those were honest mistakes, Michael,” she said earnestly. “But what Oliver did ...” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Yet he’s my brother, and I can only hope, by making amends, he becomes a better man.”
And then a new thought occurred to her, and she felt a rush of cold clarity. “I remember Jennette, but not well. She was only here for a year, so I don’t know the kind of woman she is. But bitterness and hatred can do terrible things to a person. Could she want revenge?”
Michael nodded slowly. “It seems plausible. She might believe you didn’t try to help her—or she might think she could ruin Appertan’s life by making him look guilty of your murder.”
Cecilia sank back against the sofa and closed her eyes. “Oh, but she has a child, Michael, my niece or nephew. I would hate to think she was that kind of woman, for then she might not be a very good mother.”
“We can’t make judgments until we talk to her.”
“You don’t think we should let Oliver handle this alone?” she asked in surprise.
“This woman has a reason to hate our family. If Appertan confronts her poorly, it might make everything worse. It seems to me that he would welcome our support.”
She sighed with relief. “Thank you. I don’t think I could wait around to find out what happens. But then again, we don’t even know how long it might take to find her.”
“We’ll hire an investigator if we have to, my sweet.”
As they waited for Talbot’s announcement of dinner, Cecilia studied Michael, imagining that as a soldier, he must have had to investigate any intelligence that reached his regiment. He immersed himself daily in a world where good tried to defeat evil, and evil fought back with guile. She saw the nobility and honor of such a life and felt a pang of sorrow, knowing she could never ask him to give it up.
She thought again about Jennette’s situation, and the fact that she, too, could be pregnant. “Michael ... I feel so sorry for Jennette. I can only imagine how alone she felt, how vulnerable. And then to discover that she was with child. She must have desperately wanted to protect that baby, to give it a home. If I’m pregnant ...” She trailed off, seeing him watch her intently. “Will our child be pulled between two worlds, just as I was?”
“Your mother made you feel like that, Cecilia,” he said with quiet resolve. “And you’re not your mother. Our child will know how much he’s loved by both of us, regardless of our unorthodox marriage.”
Unorthodox marriage,she thought sadly. She wasn’t even certain what that meant.
And then Talbot announced dinner, and they followed him down the corridor to the private family dining room. Cecilia kept glancing at Michael, limping at her side, and she knew that “unorthodox marriage” meant that he would leave her. She might not be as fearful and obsessive as her mother, but, for the first time, she had an inkling of her mother’s desperation not to be separated from the husband she loved. With Michael gone, her life would become as if black and white. She wouldn’t have his wit, his calm strength, or the way he made her feel like the only woman in the world.
She loved him, the honor that made him regret honest mistakes, the loyalty he showed to her father and to his men. But she would never use her love to bind him to her.
