Taking the glasses, he walked around the back of the chaise-longue. Her shoulders stiffened, her breath changing ever so slightly, anticipating.
Adrian admired the back of her neck, her bronzed locks sitting atop her head in a messy style that appeared to be held in place with a stick. It was a pity that she had thought to grab a housecoat this time, but his thoughts could not be diverted from what lay beneath.
“It is strong,” he warned, as he leaned over to give her the drink.
She turned, clearing her throat as she took the glass from him. “Thank you. Strong is good.”
As she cradled the little glass and lifted it gingerly to her lips, Adrian walked the rest of the way to the reading chair by the fire. He considered sitting next to Valerie on the chaise-longue, but decided not to tempt himself.
No, it was better to keep some distance between them; he could not risk kissing her again, not when they were entirely alone and the rest of the household were asleep. With such absolute privacy, he might not be able to stop.
“This is delicious,” she said quietly, green eyes peering at him. “Port always reminds me of Christmas. My mother used to let me have a tiny sip of hers, but only on Christmas Eve. I would pretend to be inebriated and, oh, how she would laugh.”
Adrian raised an eyebrow. “How peculiar.”
“I suppose every family seems peculiar to another,” Valerie replied with an awkward shrug and another sip of her drink. “Do you have any happy memories of your mother?”
He sat back in the comfortable, jacquard reading chair and frowned at her, his fingertips rolling the stem of the small port glass back and forth.
Talking about the past was not something he did. He did not need to, when his mind saw fit to relive it on a weekly basis, and that was only in the last five years. The five years prior tothat, there had been nightmares almost every night, his brain performing the worst parts of his life for its own twisted entertainment. A music hall of misery, right within his own skull.
But Valerie was looking at him with such earnest hope that it was like a spring bubbling up that he could not dam. For once, for the first time, he found that he actually wanted to talk.
“Not many,” he answered stiffly. “I was kept from her for portions of my life. Most of those… happier memories are of Christmas, at her parties and gatherings. For several years, it was the only time she could be near me without my father intervening.”
In his mind’s eye, he saw her weaving through a crowd to seek him out, and how her face had lit up so brightly every time she found him. A relief, almost. She would sneak him things she had made for him, and she would always steal a hug. A gift that he had looked forward to with as much enthusiasm as the townsfolk looked forward to the parties themselves.
“Oh my goodness,” Valerie rasped, her hand covering her mouth. “Why was she kept from you?”
Adrian drank half the contents of his glass to try and wet his dry throat, but it did not do much to help. “My father was a vicious, twisted, cruel little man,” he said with venom. “Hemistreated my mother from the moment they were married, according to those who were here at that time. When I was born, he tormented her, sometimes claiming I was not his, sometimes accepting that I was.”
“Did she have a lover?” Valerie asked, frowning.
Adrian’s temper flared for a moment. “No, she did not. She was loyal to that serpent; her life depended on it.”
“I meant no offense,” Valerie murmured, lowering her gaze. “I just want to understand you.”
Adrian took a steadying breath. “He had no evidence that I might not be his child and the previous housekeeper insisted that she had no doubt, for my mother was not permitted to go into the gardens alone much less indulge in an affair,” he continued. “It was just another way for him to torture my mother, a way to take her joy from her. Most of the time until I went to Eton, he had governesses raise me. I was not allowed to see my mother, though she was right here in this castle. Indeed, she was only allowed to leave when he wanted to parade her around.”
“I see…”
Adrian finished off the port and stood to get another. “She seemed for all the world like the perfect Duchess, and society adored her,” he said as he walked to the side-table. “They only saw the charming, smiling, radiant woman who danced like a dream and could make an entire dinner party laugh with hersharp wit. I like to think that those moments were restorative for her, a medicine against the disease of my father. I like to think she was happy in those moments.
“Iknowshe was happy at her Christmas parties,” he said more quietly, deciding to just bring the decanter of port back over to the reading chair. “It is, I suspect, why she hosted and arranged so many. If she could make everyone smile, then she could smile. And, of course, it is where we were allowed to see one another again. A whole, too-short season of being in her company.”
He paused, his throat a little sore. How long had it been since he had said so much at once? He could not begin to remember and nor, it seemed, could his voice.
Taking a smaller sip of his port, he glanced across at Valerie to gauge her response. She sat slightly hunched on the chaise-longue, her body tilted forward, closer to him. Her beautiful green eyes were fixed upon him, gleaming with a sorrow that made him feel uneasy. Perhaps, this was why he did not tell his story to anyone; he could not bear the pity.
“What happened to her?” Valerie asked, when Adrian had not spoken for a minute or so. “To both of them, I suppose? Indeed, what happened toyou,Your Grace?”
The formality of her address made him hesitate. Was this something he should be telling her? It was a story he had kept close to his chest because it was no one’s business but his own, to respond to and do with as he pleased.
And what good has it done?His nightmares were less frequent, yes, but they still plagued him. Once, a physician had told him that he might feel better if he were to unburden himself, but Adrian had dismissed the physician as a fool and never mentioned it to another doctor again.
Yet, just speaking about his motherhadfelt somewhat… lightening.
“I had just finished my first year at the University of Cambridge,” he began. “I had returned for the summer and was surprised to be greeted by my mother. There was a lady waiting in the drawing room. Thomasina. It transpired that my mother had arranged a match, and though I had no real opinion of the woman, I knew it would make my mother happy to accept.”
