Everything I Ever Wanted, page 26
"Didn't you?"
"You have secrets," he told her. "They are not necessarily one and the same."
India drew in a breath and released it slowly. "Perhaps you are right," she said wearily. "It is only that it has been so long since I spoke of it."
"Why is that?"
She stared at her hands for a long moment before she raised her palms in a helpless gesture. The same helplessness was reflected in her dark, lonely eyes. "I suppose," she said slowly, "because there has been no one to listen."
India had to hear herself say it aloud before she could comprehend what it meant. Had she truly allowed herself to become so isolated? Why hadn't she fought more? she wondered. Offered a struggle? When had she lost hope and embraced acceptance?
A small shudder slipped down the length of her spine. A sound, something between a hiccup and sob, escaped her lips. She covered her mouth with her fingertips, and her eyes darted away from South's implacable study. There was the press of tears at the back of her eyes and an ache in her throat.
"India?"
She shook her head quickly. If she spoke now, even if she only tried to speak, there would be tears, and they were something she did not want him to see. As weak as she had been, she had not often cried. To give in to tears seemed an act not of grief but of surrender.
South's fingers plowed through his hair and came to rest at the back of his neck. He massaged the tension that was like a thick cord under his skin. The action kept him from reaching for India and making an offer of comfort that she was certain to reject. He was on the point of getting up, solely for the purpose of moving about the room, when India turned to him again, her face pale, her expression oddly defiant.
"Let me say the rest," she said. There was a slight quaver in her voice, which India fought to control. "I would be done with this."
"Of course."
She nodded once. "After my parents died, there rose the question of what was to become of me. There were neighbors who would have seen to my care, been glad of it for the help I might have given them. The vicar and his wife, although they had three children of their own, would have also accepted me."
"As you say, the people of Devon are goodhearted."
"Yes. They were everything kind to me. It seemed as if the choice of where I should live would be mine, for no one had an opinion that one place was more suited than another." India smoothed the muslin fabric of her day dress over her lap as a way to dry her damp palms. "That changed when Lady Margrave expressed an interest in having me come to live with her. You were perhaps not aware that she has an estate near Devon. Not Marlhaven—that lies northwest of London. I am speaking of Merrimont. The property has been in her family for centuries and was never encumbered by entailment. She visited often, even after her marriage to the earl of Margrave."
India took a shallow breath, steadied herself, and continued. "You will no doubt wonder how I came to her attention. It is because of her son. She has but one child, and she would deny him very little. When she came to Merrimont, he often accompanied her unless he was at school. Lady Margrave permitted him to make the acquaintance of the village's children, though she made the initial selections. Some of us would be invited to the estate for tea and cakes, and those who comported themselves well were allowed to return."
"You were one of those?" asked South, though he knew the answer. He had no difficulty imagining her as she had been then, perched on the edge of a chair, politely accepting her cup of tea and a sweet. Her gold-and-platinum hair had likely been paler then. It would have framed her thin, solemn face like a halo. She would have been careful not to swing her legs or speak out of turn. She would not have given into her curiosity by letting her eyes stray or asking impertinent questions.
India nodded. "My mother was firm that Lady Margrave would find no fault with my manners, because she knew my failure would reflect poorly on her. I suppose I understood that, too. I practiced sitting and standing and speaking and serving. I could make a curtsy without wobbling and eat a cake without dropping a crumb."
It was as if she were being prepared for the stage even then, South thought. "Did you go often to Merrimont?"
"Yes. Sometimes there would be three or four of us invited for an afternoon. On occasion I was the only one." India saw one of South's dark brows lift slightly in question. "Lady Margrave's son," she said. "He liked... he liked to play with me."
The pause was almost infinitesimal. So was the pressure India placed on the tips of her laced fingers. South missed neither. "He is older than you?"
"Five years."
Now South's single raised eyebrow was notched another degree upward. "India." He said her name flatly, with no inflection. "I did not become interested in girls five years my junior until I was twenty-three, and even then I found them silly, vain, and tiresome."
India did not blush. The effect of South's words on her was precisely the opposite. Color drained from her face, leaving her eyes the dark focal point of her features. "You did not know me," she said with quiet dignity.
South was quite certain India had never been silly, vain, or tiresome, just as he was equally certain she was being deliberately disingenuous. This was not a battle worth waging, South decided, at least not at this time. Rather than press her with questions about the young lord of the manor, South chose to let India continue in her own way. "Forgive me," he said. "You are right, of course. I did not know you. Go on." When he saw she was not to be so easily appeased, he added, "Please."
India pressed her lips together briefly, holding back the uncharitable thought that came immediately to mind. "Very well," she said. "As I told you, when my parents died Lady Margrave came forward and asked that I be made her ward. That she would petition to take that responsibility caused a stir. Until then, I thought I would be living with the vicar."
"You wanted to go with her?"
"I don't know." India saw his skeptical look. "No, I am telling the truth. I didn't know. My parents had just died. I had not properly begun to mourn them. I did what people told me, what they said was best for me, because I didn't know any differently. And no one asked what I wanted, Matthew. I was eleven. My opinion, if I'd had one, would have counted for nothing. Even the vicar said that I was fortunate to be given this opportunity. People whispered that I was blessed. Can you understand my confusion? My parents were gone from me forever, and I was told Lady Margrave's interest made me blessed.
"So, no, my lord, I didn't know if I wanted to go to Merrimont or the vicarage or to any of the other homes that would have had me. The clearest memory I have from that time is that I wanted to die."
South heard the quiet defiance that framed her last words. Her eyes were luminous with unshed tears. They hovered on the rim of her lower lashes before they slipped down her cheeks. She seemed unaware when they began to fall. He was not sure that she saw him any longer, though her gaze never wavered from his.
South extended his hand across the small space that separated him from India. "Take it, India," he said. "Take my hand."
She didn't move.
"Please," he said. "Let me..."
Her fingers unfolded slowly. They trembled. The tips brushed his, caught, grasped, and then she had him like a lifeline and was in his arms, holding on, being held, tortured sobs wracking her body and shaking him and the bench. She cried with the abandon of a wounded eleven-year-old, and South sank to his knees on the floor and took her with him, cradling her woman's body and her little girl's heart.
Between the sobs there were inarticulate murmurings, phrases that could hardly be heard, utterances that made little sense at first. South strained to understand the broken words that spilled from her lips like a mantra, and when the meaning came to him, he was chilled.
"Me, too... why... why didn't... kill me, too?"
Chapter 11
South held her, rocked her. He felt India's desperation in the fingers that clutched his frock coat and the cheek pressed hard against his chest. If she could have worked her way under his skin, he knew she would have done so. It hardly mattered, he thought, when she had already worked her way into his heart.
He whispered words of comfort against her hair, though he knew she couldn't hear him over the sound of her own weeping. He didn't ask her to hush or admonish her. He let her cry until she exhausted herself, and when her body lay quiet next to his, he simply let her rest there.
India pulled away slowly, averting her head so she could knuckle her eyes free of tears. South produced a handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. She accepted it, blew her nose hard, and then balled it up in her fist. "I don't cry prettily," she told him, pushing a tendril of hair back from her damp cheek.
South caught her chin and turned her face toward him. "Are you truly a vain and silly chit after all?" he asked her gently. "Or is it that I have given you reason to think so little of me?"
India offered him an embarrassed, watery smile. "I think it must be the former."
"That is all right then," he said with mock gravity. He felt a measure of relief when he saw a bubble of silent laughter part her lips. It would be all right, he thought. When she could laugh at herself, she could heal. "I have some experience with vain and silly chits, you see."
"Tiresome, also?"
"Oh, yes."
"How very regrettable for you, my lord."
He sighed. "I often find it so."
Her tremulous smile deepened, and for a moment it graced her eyes. India leaned forward and brushed his mouth with hers. "Thank you," she whispered. The look of vague bewilderment that crossed his features touched her. It came so easily to him, she thought, he was hardly conscious of what he had done. She took his hand and placed it between her breasts, covering it with her own. "For holding my heart so carefully."
For South it was further proof that she was outside all his experience. He had to clear his throat before he could talk. "Do you want to lie down? I will not press you with more questions now."
India knew it only meant a short reprieve. He would press her later. She drew a shaky breath and released his hand. "No, I will finish. There are things that must be said."
"Very well." He extended his hand to help India to her feet, but she shook her head. South realized she intended to remain sitting on the floor, and he did the same, turning as she was so his back rested against the settee's curved seat.
India hugged her knees close to her chest and watched the fire as she spoke. "It is hard to describe Lady Margrave's disposition toward me once I came to live under her care. She was not overtly attentive, yet she seemed to know all that I did. I was regularly brought before her to give an accounting of myself. She wanted to know my progress in the schoolroom and about my lessons on the pianoforte. She would study my watercolors and my stitchery and comment on my deportment. They were not pleasant interviews, though I cannot say that she was unkind or unreasonably critical. Perhaps it was only that I sensed she was performing a duty and that she regarded my presence as the fulfillment of an obligation."
"What obligation did she have to you?" asked South.
"None at all. It is toward her son that she felt obliged. It seemed to me that Lady Margrave was rarely of a mind to deny him anything."
South considered that. "Then he was the one who suggested you should come to live at Merrimont."
India nodded. "To show charity," she told him. "That is how he explained it to me. He would be earl some day, he said, and he was preparing for that responsibility. I was to be his first good work." There was the faintest hint of irony in her tone as she said this last. "I was never in expectation that Lady Margrave would come to have fond feelings toward me. Had I been of her blood, I would have been the poor relation whose presence is merely suffered. In truth, our connection was more tenuous than that, and what she was, was indifferent." India glanced sideways at South and saw he was frowning. "I would not have you pity me, my lord. I wanted for nothing."
"That is because you asked for nothing," he said flatly.
India ignored him. "I was fed and clothed and educated. In the main I lived at Merrimont, but I often went to Marlhaven and sometimes to London with Lady Margrave. There were times when she was desirous of my company, though not my conversation. I did not mind, because I liked to travel and Lady Margrave was not demanding."
"What of the earl? He was ultimately your benefactor, was he not? Did you come to his attention?"
"Not in any significant way. He was at Marlhaven or at the London residence on all of the occasions I visited with her ladyship, and I was introduced each time, but beyond a few perfunctory inquiries as to my health and well-being, he expressed little enough interest in my presence. I remember that I was relieved because I found him to be a rather frightening individual. He was always stiff and terribly correct, and when he spoke it was as if his voice were coming from a very deep well. The earl was not a large man, so those stentorian tones were all the more surprising. In later years he was often ill, so there were occasions when I was brought directly to his bedside. At the countess's request, I read to him, though I could not say that he cared particularly for my company. Still, he suffered it with more grace than he did that of his own son."
"No love lost there?" asked South.
"None."
"And it was always so?"
India smoothed the fabric of her gown over her knees. "I cannot say how it was before my arrival."
South made no comment, his mood thoughtful.
Watching him out the corner of her eye, India continued. "I do not recall any topic on which they agreed. I have witnessed other people take opposing views for the sheer challenge of the debate, but that was not the case here. This was... different. Mean-spirited, I suppose. I was glad of being ignored by them when they were at loggerheads, which they often were."
Nodding slowly, South asked, "Even at the end?"
"Oh, yes. Especially then, I think, though I do not know what they argued about. I was careful to make myself scarce except when Lady Margrave insisted that it be otherwise. That was not often as the earl lay dying."
"I see. And when did he die?"
"It's been seven years."
South considered that. "About the same time you left to make your way as a governess."
"Yes."
He gave her an arch look. "Would you have me believe those events are not related?"
"You may believe whatever you like," she said coolly. "But it is a fact that it was never Lady Margrave's intention to present me to Society. Indeed, it would have been inappropriate for her to do so, since I had neither birth nor breeding to recommend me. She was clear from the beginning that I would be prepared for a gentlewoman's position, and you will allow that employment as a governess suits that admirably."
The line of South's lips was derisive. "Lady Margrave could have presented a monkey to the ton and had it embraced by the fold. She could have made a good marriage for it if such had been her desire. I think you come unreasonably to her defense, India. She sent you away when you were but sixteen."
"I was ready to leave. In truth, I desired it."
South shook his head. There was more, and India was still reluctant to tell him the whole of it. He was in equal parts frustrated and intrigued. "You were still in mourning for the earl."
"An observation only. I did not mourn him as I did my own parents. There was perhaps only a modest feeling of mutual respect between us. I do not believe I was showing a lack of proper regard by leaving when I did."
"The countess found the position for you?"
"Yes. She arranged everything."
"And the new earl?"
"Margrave was in agreement."
"Then he was finished with his charity toward you."
India hesitated. "He wanted to see how I would manage on my own, I think."
South had the sense that she had chosen her words carefully. India spoke of herself as if she were Margrave's experiment, not his mother's ward. "Did he consider your turn with the Olmsteads a rousing success or failure?"
"I am not certain. Perhaps a bit of both."
"I don't understand."
"My failure to keep the position put me in need of his charity again. He enjoyed that, I believe."
South's expression was frankly skeptical. "You merely believe that to be true?" he asked. "Or you know it to be true?"
"He enjoyed it," she said flatly.
"So in that way it was a success."
"Yes. He would have had me return with him to Marlhaven. I went to London instead. It was not the defiant act you might think, my lord. I had the countess's sanction and the promise of a quarterly allowance from her. Whether she remained my guardian or became my protector is of no importance. It did not alter the nature of our association or our feelings. In return she asked that I keep myself distant from her son."
One of South's brows kicked up. "I can only wonder that it took her so long."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that she should have taken note of her son's interest in you much earlier and acted upon it."
South's point of view raised India's faint smile. "Her ladyship was desirous that I not tempt Margrave. It was my unsettling influence that she wished to discourage. I was no longer a child, Matthew, much as you might wish to think that I was. And he was twenty-two."
"When you left for London, mayhap, but I am speaking of your earliest days at Merrimont. It matters little what Margrave said you were to him. There was no charity in his heart, and you would be hard pressed to convince me otherwise. His interest in you was..." He stopped, searching for the right word. Unnatural came to mind, but he refrained from using it. He chose something more vague and less offensive. "It was not at all the thing."
India's bubble of laughter had an edge of hysteria to it. She pressed the back of her hand to her lips to stave it off. "Forgive me," she said after a moment. "It is only that no one has said as much before."
South thought he had said very little—too little in fact. "I have not the clear sense of it yet, India, because even now you are wont to shield Margrave. That alone strains my understanding when I am uncertain that he has ever shown you any real kindness."
