Secrets of the Heart

“You will get over this infatuation,” her mother went on, her cool voice like a knife lacerating Rachel’s heart. “I know it must seem to you that your world is ending, but this feeling will pass, and soon. Young girls’ fancies always do. In a few weeks, after you have gotten involved in planning the wedding and choosing dresses for your trousseau, why, you will look back on this calf love and realize how absurd it was.”

“No,” Rachel said in a choked voice. “I will not.”

“You must try. Because I can assure you that you will not marry Mr. Birkshaw. You can turn down the best offer you could hope to receive if you insist, but you still will not marry Mr. Birkshaw. If you think about it, I am sure you will see why Birkshaw has not offered for you. He knows that he cannot: I imagine he barely has the money to support himself, let alone a wife. It is my best guess that he must marry money himself. Perhaps he was foolish enough to think that you had some.”

“It was not about money!” Rachel cried. “We love each other.”

“Well, it is a love without hope,” her mother said remorselessly. “Your father and I will never allow you to marry him. And if you are so foolish as to turn down Lord Westhampton because of this piece of lunacy, I can guarantee that you will regret it the rest of your life.”

Rachel could no longer hold back her tears. She began to sob, sinking into the nearest chair and covering her face with her hands. Her mother watched her with exasperation for a moment, then pulled a dainty handkerchief from her pocket and handed it to her daughter.

“Cry it out, then,” she said. “And when you are done, lie down with a cool rag over your eyes to keep the swelling down. You cannot meet Lord Westhampton this afternoon with puffy eyes.”

“I cannot marry him,” Rachel repeated through her tears. “It would kill me.”

“No. I assure you that it will not. You are not the first young girl to fancy herself desperately in love, and you certainly will not be the last. It never kills them. Of course, if you choose to turn down the prospect of being Lady Westhampton, of having a husband who adores you and will answer your every whim, of owning two of the most admired homes in the country and a limitless number of dresses and jewels—” Lady Ravenscar broke off with a sigh. “Well, we cannot make you accept him, though what your father will say about it, I dread to think. It will be a wonder if I can convince him not to pack us all up and go storming back to Darkwater in a rage, and, lord knows, that will be the end of all your hopes. But one may hope he will see reason. You are admired by other men—though none, of course, as fine a match as Lord Westhampton. There might be another chance for you to get a decent offer before the end of the Season, when we shall all have to return to the country to finish our lives in penury.”

Rachel thought with horror of continuing to stay here this Season, going to parties and trying to attract a husband, when all the while her heart would be breaking. “Mother, I cannot….”

“Then you plan to live the rest of your life a spinster? For you will have no more opportunities to meet marriageable men. We cannot afford a second Season for you, and I can assure you that your father will have no desire to do anything for you if you cross him in this.”

Rachel shuddered, thinking of her father’s ire. She had never been on the receiving end of one of his truly terrible rages. “Mother, please…”

“Child, I cannot help you. You have only two choices—do your duty to the family, accept Lord Westhampton and have a nice, satisfactory life, or refuse and remain with us until we die, and then I suppose you will have to live as a companion to your sister Caroline.

“I want you to lie down now. I’ll send the maid up with cucumber slices and a cool cloth for your eyes. And I want you think about what you are going to do. I want you to consider what will happen to us all if you do not marry Lord Westhampton. I want you to remember this Season and all we have done for you so that you could get a good offer and have a good life. Then decide whether you want to shame your family this way. Whether you are really willing to refuse to do what you are expected to do. What you have to do. I am sure you will come to the right decision about how to answer Lord Westhampton.”

Even now, Rachel thought, closing her eyes, she could feel the pain she had felt all those years ago, the numbed, emotionally battered state in which she had stumbled to her room and lain down on her bed. Exhausted with grief and plunged into despair, she had cried until she could cry no more, while the maid fussed and dried her tears and did her best to repair the damage her outburst had done to her face.

She had lain there and thought, as her mother had told her to do. She knew, bitterly, how foolish she had been, how much she had lived in a dreamworld. And she faced the void of her future, living immured in Darkwater, the object of her father’s displeasure, constantly reminded of what an undutiful daughter she was and how she had failed the family. She could not marry Anthony without her father’s permission, at least until she was twenty-one, and she knew that her mother was right—her father would not give her permission to marry Anthony, the man who had ruined her father’s plans for gaining a wealthy son-in-law. And she knew, too, with sinking despair, that her mother was right about the state of his finances. Lady Ravenscar always knew such things. Besides, it explained why, despite his love for her, he had not asked for her hand. He had known that he would not be acceptable to her father; probably he, too, must make a good match.

Her dream of love died that afternoon. She faced the world as it was, the world in which a daughter married as she ought, as her parents desired. She saw reality, in which love did not hold sway, but only cold, hard reason. Her whole being ached at the thought of joining that world. But in the end, she had risen and let her maid dress her in the afternoon dress her mother had chosen, had let Caroline’s Lucy do her hair up and hide the telltale redness around her eyes with just the barest touch of rice powder. Then she had gone downstairs and accepted Lord Westhampton’s proposal of marriage.

3

Michael jerked awake. He lay still for a moment, drifting back to reality—sweating, heart pounding, hot blood racing. He had dreamed of Rachel. He could not remember the details of the dream, but the feeling was clear—the same mingling of excitement and pleasure, underlaid with sorrow, that was always there when he dreamed of his wife.

Being with Rachel was a different thing entirely. The same feelings were inside him, but amplified many times more and shot through with the thrum of nerves and uncertainty. In his dreams, at least he was able to talk to her without turning into a stiff priggish fool, as he did in real life. In dreams he was able to kiss and caress her to the point of thunderous, pulsating lust. The sorrow came as his mind swam back to the surface of consciousness and reality seeped in.

It was always worse after she had been here for a visit. Then the dreams would come frequently and with intensity. They tended to fade with her absence. It was easier to live without her, as he had discovered after they had been married for a year or so. Great as the joy was in being with her, the pain grew to an excruciating point, until he could no longer bear living with her, being with her every day, aching with love and passion for her, yet never fulfilled. Never truly being her husband. It was an almost unbearable thing, to love her as he did—and to know that she did not love him in return, that she never had and never would. To know, in fact, that since she had married him, she had lived her life in muted sorrow, aching, as he himself did, for someone she would never have. He knew how she felt; he wished with all his heart that he could take that sorrow from her. He also knew, worst of all, that it was he who had condemned her to that life.

With a sigh, Michael pushed aside the covers and got out of bed. The caress of the cool air on his overheated skin was pleasant, and he did not put on his dressing gown as he walked to his dresser and poured himself a glass of water from the carafe that stood there. He drank it thirstily, then strolled over to the window and pushed aside one edge of the heavy velvet drape to look out into the night.

His bedroom looked out upon the sweep of driveway and trees that led up to the front of the elegant house. Beyond lay the view of hills that typified the beautiful Lake District of his home. It was not daylight yet, but the dark was lightening, so that one could make out the dim shapes of trees and shrubs in the gray light. It would soon be dawn, he knew, when the light would turn golden, then burn away the mists. There was no point now in trying to go back to bed and sleep. He supposed that he should put on his dressing gown and slippers, and light a candle. Start his day.

But it seemed a pointless effort to him. There was nothing in the day before him but loneliness and the ache of loss. It would be so for many days more, he knew. Experience had taught him that. The house was still too full of memories of Rachel, too alive with her presence. Hope still rose in him crazily that he would turn a corner and see her there, or that he would hear her laughter ringing down a corridor. She had been here longer than normal this time, almost three months, and Gabriela had been with them, too, so that there had been the sound of a child’s laughter in the house, as well, a sound missing from here for many, many years.

Rachel had been happier, he thought, than he had ever seen her—at least since their marriage, that is. She had been pleased for Dev and Richard, glad that they had finally found love in their lives. She loved both her brother and brother-in-law deeply, and their unhappiness had further dampened her spirits. Conversely, their joy had brightened her own emotions. And Gabriela’s presence had also brought her happiness. The girl was lively and bright, and somehow her being there had made everything smoother with Rachel and Michael. It was hard to maintain formality with Gabriela around, laughing and chattering, throwing herself with enthusiasm into everything around her.

It had brought home to Michael how much Rachel would have enjoyed children—another thing of which she had been robbed by marriage to him. He had wanted to give her children, had thought that he would. That had been back in the early days, when he had believed that she would grow to love him someday, that the depth and intensity of his love would eventually warm her heart to him. He had thought they would have a normal marriage in time, with intimacy and its natural result: children. He had lived in a fool’s paradise, not knowing that the woman he loved had already given her heart to another man.

He had been naive not to see that she was in love, he supposed. He had known too much about books back then and not enough about the heart of a woman.

He had been almost thirty when he met Rachel, far too old to still know so little about love and courtship. He had grown up quiet and bookish, in chosen opposition to his father. His father had tainted the Westhampton name with scandal. An outdoors man with huge appetites, the former Lord Westhampton had lived exactly as he pleased. He had eaten and drunk to excess, never counting it a good evening unless he went stumbling and belching to bed. He had been wild in his youth, gambling, drinking and wenching, and his ways did not change much when at last Michael’s grandfather forced his son into marriage.

Michael had been more like his mother, a quiet, intelligent woman who loved books and knowledge far more than the usual feminine pursuits of clothes and parties. Michael had seen the pain in his mother’s eyes, and he had known that his father was the cause of it. He had hated his father for his excesses and his bullying, and he had vowed never to be the sort of man his father was.

Michael had learned to ride and shoot and hunt; he had been taught the manly art of boxing, as well as the more gentlemanly art of fencing. His father had insisted on his learning these things, which to him constituted the education of a British gentleman, and Michael had learned them as he did everything, with quiet determination. But while he did not have it in him to do any less than the best he could in such sports, he did not love them as he loved the education of his mind. His happiness lay in books and in the quiet hours he spent reading and puzzling out the mysteries of the universe. He had a thirst for knowledge that equaled his father’s thirst for liquor.

He despised his father for his loose, hedonistic ways, for the shame he had brought upon his family’s name and the pain he had brought to his gentle wife, and he had vowed early on never to be like his father. Where his father was prodigal, he was wise with money, recouping the family fortune that his father had tried his best to throw away. Where his father was greedy, he was abstemious. And where his father blustered and roared, he kept his temper in check. Michael was controlled, intelligent and circumspect. He enjoyed his time at Oxford and made friends among the men of letters and science whom he met there. After his father died—from a broken neck in a fall off a horse one night as he rode home inebriated—Michael spent most of his time in solitude at the family estate in the Lake District, reading, restoring the estate and corresponding with those of like mind.

The only time he had veered from his quiet life had been during the war, when Sir Robert Blount—a friend of his who worked in the government—had begged for Michael’s help in catching a ring of Napoleon’s spies operating within England. His friend had asked Michael to try his hand at deciphering the coded messages that the spies were using, knowing that such puzzles were precisely the sort of thing that Michael enjoyed. He had soon broken the code, and had found himself being drawn more and more into the game of intrigue. He told himself that he did it only for patriotism and for the intellectual challenge, but he knew, with some degree of shame, that he enjoyed the excitement and danger of it, as well. There was something elementally satisfying in using his wits and physical skills to defeat his opponents, a certain giddy pleasure in escaping danger. He discovered that he had a heretofore untapped talent for disguises and accents, that he was able to mingle with people of widely varying classes and places without being detected. His unobtrusive demeanor and his attractive but unremarkable looks made it easy to disappear into any crowd.

After the war ended, his life settled into its former quiet routine. It bothered him a little that he missed the excitement of the intrigue; the love of danger reminded him too much of his father, and he hated to see in himself anything of the former Lord Westhampton.

He was not actively looking for a wife. When he chanced to think about the matter, he assumed that he would someday marry someone of appropriate birth and like interests, a woman with whom he could raise a family and share a life. He was not expecting the thunderbolt of passion that struck him the first time he saw Rachel Aincourt.

He was in London for part of the Season, as was his custom, and he had attended a large party with his friend Peregrin Overhill. Perry had been waxing enthusiastic over a new beauty in town, but as Perry was the sort who often raved over some girl or other, though without ever actually pursuing them, Michael had, frankly, paid little attention to what he had said about Lord Ravenscar’s youngest daughter. He had little doubt that she was lovely to look at. Michael was friends with the Duke of Cleybourne, and his duchess, Caroline, Ravenscar’s oldest daughter, was, indeed, a beauty.

But when he entered the crowded ballroom and caught sight of Rachel, slim and tall in her elegant white dress, the word beauty scarcely seemed adequate to describe her. Her face glowed, the fair skin touched with pink at the cheeks and as soft as velvet. Her green eyes, fringed with lashes as black as the curls on her head, were brilliant and huge. And when she smiled—well, there were not words to convey how his heart had turned within his chest, and his life, formerly so routine, organized and calm, suddenly became a chaotic and glorious tumult of feeling.

All his previous thoughts of a pleasant marriage flew out the window. He knew as soon as he crossed the room and spoke to her that this was the woman he wanted as his wife. This soft-spoken girl with the dazzling smile awoke in him such passion, such emotion, that he knew he could never feel this way about anyone else.

He set about courting her in a gentlemanly way—never, of course, doing anything untoward or extreme, but consistently calling on her, taking her for an occasional ride in his high-wheeled tilbury, dancing the politely curtailed two dances at balls. He was aided in his efforts by the fact that he was already friends with the Duke of Cleybourne and therefore had frequent access to his house. Both the duchess and Lady Ravenscar, alert to every nuance of interest from a marriageable male, were sure to include him in any party they made up, whether for a picnic or a night at the opera or taking in the newest play at Drury Lane.

Michael did not delude himself that he was a figure of high romance to a young girl, but he was aware that he was considered a marital prize, being not only titled and wealthy, but also quite presentable in looks and manner. He knew that Rachel did not love him, but he was hopeful that in time he could win her heart. She did not turn down his offers of a ride along Rotten Row, and she always seemed happy enough to talk to him whenever he made up one of their party. He would have moved more slowly, allowing her time to develop some affection for him, but he knew from Cleybourne that Ravenscar, perennially strapped for cash, was likely to give his daughter’s hand to the first eligible man to make her an offer. Given that one of the most likely men to offer for her had been Sir Wilfred Hamerston-Smythe, a widower old enough to be Rachel’s father and from whom many had suggested his wife had died to get away, Michael knew it was not a matter of conceit to think that Rachel would be happier married to him.

He had not really considered the possibility that Rachel would turn down his offer. Daughters generally married as their parents wished, and she, too, would have known that his offer was among the best of her options. So, even though Rachel’s demeanor when accepting his proposal had been subdued and even, he thought, a little red eyed, he had put it down to the remnants of a girl’s romantic hopes that her future husband would be a knight from a fairy tale, come riding to rescue her. He would make her happy, he told himself. He knew that he was probably a rather dull, bookish figure to a young woman, but he thought that his gentle wooing, his respect and love and consideration of her would engender in her some affection that he could build into, if not the fire of passion, at least a warm glow of love.

He had not realized then that not only did she not love him, she loved someone else.

Just thinking about it now was enough to pierce his chest with pain. Michael sighed and dropped the curtain, walking away from the window. He wrapped his dressing gown around himself and slumped down in a chair, his gaze turning inward to the time over seven years ago when he discovered, only two days before the wedding, that his fiancеe had eloped with another man.

Their wedding was to be celebrated here at Westhampton in the picturesque stone Norman church in the village, where all the earls of Westhampton had been married for longer than anyone could remember. The house was packed with friends and family who had come to celebrate the wedding, and still more were staying in the inn in the village and with Sir Edward Moreton, a neighbor whose kind lady had taken on the burden of lodging several of the wedding guests.

It was a joyous occasion. Michael could not remember a time when he had been so happy. He thought that Rachel had been warming to him during the past few months. Once they were engaged, they had been allowed to spend more time together in comparative solitude. While Rachel’s mother or sister was always with them when he came to call on her, they now often sat discreetly apart from the engaged couple, allowing them to talk more freely. And at balls he was now allowed to dance with her more than twice in an evening without calling down gossip upon their heads.

The fact that she seemed to like him more the more she was around him made him hopeful that he would be able to win her love completely once the massive production of the wedding was over and they were finally alone together.

It was two days before the wedding, and as Michael strolled with Rachel from the music room after a convivial evening of song and merriment among their friends, he was thinking with anticipation of the time when they would at last be alone together. He did not intend to consummate their marriage that first night; it would be, he thought, too frightening for a young woman still virtually a stranger to him. No matter how much he wanted Rachel, he intended to take his time and build her trust in him, to awaken her gradually to passion. He had long ago vowed that no woman would suffer at his hands, and he certainly would not inflict any pain or fear upon Rachel, whom he loved.

But it would be wonderful just to be alone with her, without the constant presence of a chaperon—to be able to talk with her, to laugh and do as they pleased, to get to know one another, to kiss and hold her, to take her hand, without anyone there to watch or gossip. There had been times in the last few months when he had wondered if that moment would ever arrive.

Rachel, he thought, had been quieter than usual all evening, and as he looked down at her, it seemed to him that she was a trifle pale. She was, he supposed, nervous about the wedding approaching so rapidly.

As they passed the conservatory, empty and dark, he took her arm and whisked her inside the door. Rachel looked up at him, startled, her eyes wide.

“What is it?” she whispered.