A Wildflower for a Duke, page 25
Gabriel looked to the ceiling in exasperation as she ignored him and covered the seat with a towel before sitting daintily on the edge. Her back was arrow straight, knees together and slightly angled to the left, her fingers clasped gently in her lap. Had she been wrapped in layers of muslin and lace, she would have been the classic picture of grace and deportment. In trousers, she was provocative. Downright erotic.
“You're staring. I know this all must be a shock.”
“No. Well, yes of course it is, but it’s not that. I’ve just been reminded of how lethally seductive you are in trousers.” He shook his head.
“Well, eyes up, Your Grace. I can’t remember my place in the story with you drooling over my shapely limbs.”
Mention of her legs did nothing to draw his gaze back to her face.
She raised one eyebrow in chastisement. “You better pay attention. There may be a surprise exam at the end of this lecture, and it won't be about the curve of my thighs.” Then she began again, despite his clearly divided attention. “Nathan went off to school, and I missed him terribly even though he was home for every school holiday. When I was thirteen, I developed a deeper attachment to Nathan … and told him so. I can still feel the heat of embarrassment. He tried to soothe my fragile juvenile heart, assuring me that he loved me more than nearly everyone else in the world. He told me how special I was and how much he wished his feelings for me were of the same sort. Naturally, I believed he was just placating me with lies, and in a fit of humiliated indignation, I declared that I never wanted to see him again.”
“Yes, I can imagine.” Gabriel shot her a look, considering her explosive anger when he had been the target.
“That's when Hamish stepped in. He surmised the swarming beehive he had stumbled into and explained that Nathan couldn’t love me because he was already in love with him. Suddenly, a lifetime of moments made perfect sense, like watching so many tiny streams converge into one rushing river. I still remember how completely overcome I was witnessing the open adoration between them, and suddenly knowing it for what it was. When Hamish reached down and took Nathan's hand in his, the truth in their eyes was indisputable.” She paused to assess Gabriel’s attention, then carried on without a word.
“From that moment on, when we were together in private, they made no attempt to mask their affection for one another. It may not have been the kind of love I was raised to accept, but it was no less powerful. In many ways, it was like being the middleman in any relationship. They both tried to pull me to their side of lovers’ squabbles. I watched them support one another through life's trials. They were affectionate and playful and, well, very much in love.” She broke off quite suddenly and made to stand. “Do you need tea? Maybe this is also a conversation that requires tea?”
“No, Violet. No tea. Carry on.” Gabriel took her hand to offset his abruptness and stroked the back with his thumb.
“When Nathan started at Oxford, Hamish moved closer to be with him when they could. They both wrote to me regularly and returned home for visits, but less often. That's when things began to unravel at both ends.” She stayed silent for several minutes, watching his thumb draw a path across her hand. Gabriel guessed that somehow this tied into her troubles at home. She had, in the past, mentioned the abuse of her stepfather, and Gabriel was loath to be the reason she had to remember all the things she clearly preferred to leave buried.
“My stepfather, John, had always been the ideal stand-in for a parent. He made time for me, supported my interests, and even helped me rebuild an old, broken music box I found in the attic. Life was wonderful for a while, before the boys left. But with Hamish and Nathan gone, I spent more time in John’s company. As I began developing a woman’s body, he started to make comments. At first, it seemed that he was just complimenting me.”
Gabriel’s jaw clenched.
“He would say that my shape was irresistible to men, that he loved the way a certain gown hugged my bodice. And I was pleased with my new, more grown up appearance. But the longer his comments continued, the more uncomfortable they made me feel. One Sunday I stayed home from church because I had taken a fall from my horse that morning and scraped my knee quite badly. Once we were alone, he told me to sit on the sofa and lift my skirts a bit so he could apply liniment to the scrapes. I thanked him and assured him that I could apply it without trouble, but he insisted that it may become infected, and that he knew what to look for in a wound. I didn't want him to touch me, but he argued my mother would be upset if my stubbornness caused me to miss another week's church services. So I slid my skirts up, exposing my knee.”
Gabriel kept the hand that held Violet’s gentle. The other was clawing into the threads of the fabric with silent violence. He didn't want to hear what came next. The idea of anyone, especially a trusted family member, hurting her in such a vile manner made bile rise in his throat. He struggled to swallow it down, silently praying for her to stop her story there, to spare him the torment of hearing of all the things that he would give anything to have protected her from. But however impossible it was for him to hear those words, to feel that agonising helplessness, he would make himself listen to every devastating word if she needed to share it.
“He started to rub the oil into my cut, his circles growing larger as he slid under my dress. I winced and pulled back. He told me that he could tell it hurt a lot and that he was going to do something to make me feel better.” Her voice broke. She heaved a great shuddering breath and looked away from Gabriel as she continued, her eyes fixed on some unknown place behind his left shoulder.
“He reached into the slit of my drawers and … touched me. He cooed disgusting things about how he knew this would make me feel good. But it didn't feel good. It felt terrible. Before that moment, I didn't imagine that kind of terror even existed. The betrayal I felt … the helplessness …”
An incalculable number of tears were streaming down her face. Gabriel reached into his pocket to extract a handkerchief, glaring disdainfully at the inadequate offering.
“Mama came home then, and at the sound of the door, I escaped and hobbled off to my room, hiding there all night. She assumed my leg was bothering me and left me alone. I remember being cold. So cold that no amount of blankets would halt the shivering. Like the cold came from the inside, and I would never be warm again. My brother knew something wasn’t right. He had noticed things, but he was so much younger than me and powerless to stop it.”
She blew her nose and dabbed her reddened cheeks. “I tried, after that day, never to be alone with him. But sometimes I couldn't find a way to escape, and it was more of the same. I told him I would tell Mama. He shrugged and said that Mama would believe exactly what she wanted to believe, and somehow I knew he was right. Then, one weekend, my mother and I went to visit an aunt about two hours from home. By this time my brother had been sent away to school.”
“When the carriage pulled up we learned my cousin had scarlet fever. My mother had a mild case as a child. I had not, so I was promptly sent away. Ironically, that was to protect me. She stayed to nurse my aunt back to health and I returned home in the carriage. At some point during that nauseating carriage ride home, I decided I would do whatever it took to make sure he could never hurt me again. This was my opportunity to flee. I could run to Hamish and Nathan, and they would protect me. I prayed over and over that he wouldn't be home when I arrived, but he was, and he cornered me immediately. He was sneering this disgusting wicked smile, as if Christmas had come early and he knew he would have everything that he wanted.” A sob broke in her throat, but she slowed her breathing and continued. “There was something in the look of certainty on his face that terrified me more than all of his groping and leering before. I tried to get to my room and close the door, but he was faster. I kicked and thrashed, but he grabbed me around the ankle and I lost my balance. My nose hit the edge of the table.”
She rubbed the small bump on her nose absently. “I kicked as hard as I could as many times as I could, and then I ran. I jumped back into the carriage and told the driver to go. He saw all the blood and assumed I needed the doctor, but once we were away, I instructed him to take me to Oxford.”
“I found Hamish first and told him all that had happened. He wanted to kill John, and I would be lying if I didn't say that a part of me—a big part of me—wanted to let him. But I couldn't stand the thought that Hamish might be punished for protecting me, so I managed to convince him of another idea. Around that time, unwanted speculation had arisen about the relationship between Hamish and Nathan. Someone had found a love letter Hamish had written to Nathan. Nathan and I managed to convince everyone that the letter was from me. Thankfully, it was left unsigned. We let word spread that we had long been in love but had kept it a secret due to his father’s disapproval. I shared the same story with my mother by letter. Nathan and I married almost immediately.”
“Years later, after John died and Nathan had finished at Oxford, we returned home. I tried to tell my mother what had happened with John, but she wouldn't listen. She said I was blaspheming the dead and told me to leave and never come back. So I did. I foolishly thought that since I was expecting that response, it wouldn't hurt quite so much. But it did. Nathan’s parents never approved of our match and he was all but cut off, but his aunt mentioned the possibility of taking over a tenant lease from a friend in Devonshire.”
“Hamish eventually followed and found adjacent land, but more often than not, he stayed with Nathan and me … and then eventually, with Nathan, Zachariah, and me. The life I shared with them, while unorthodox, was happy. My marriage to Nathan brought safety to us all.” Gabriel remained silent, watching her.
“Nathan—and even Hamish, to an extent—always felt he had robbed me of a life of love. But from the day we married, I was always loved. And, honestly, after everything, I was more than content to spend my life with a man that I knew would never touch me.”
Violet looked down at his handkerchief in her hands and traced the embroidery with one small finger. “So, you see, having Hamish release twelve buttons down the back of my dress was truly the most inconsequential thing in the world.”
It was the most heart-wrenching understatement Gabriel had ever heard.
Chapter 26
H e was trembling. Not the small, polite shivers that come from being cold, but the whole-body spasms of overwhelmed muscles pleading for some kind of action. He wanted to beat something bloody for her. He wanted to rip away all the hurt and smother the horror she’d been forced to survive.
What he wanted most of all was to pull her on top of him and wrap his arms and legs around her to keep her safe, so that nothing in the world could so much as tickle her in an uncomfortable way again. But he didn't know how she’d endured the few physical advances he had made, let alone if she would welcome the intimate way he longed to cradle her. And so he sat trembling and raised his arms so she could tuck her body close. She was limp against him, as if the effort to push all the words out had vanquished her ability to do anything but remain breathing. They sat like that for a long while, side by side.
“Your heart is pounding,” she murmured.
“I know.”
“You're trembling.”
“I know that too.”
“You haven't said a word … beyond ‘I know,’ that is. Sometimes I have so many words to say that they bicker over which one is to go first. Like there’s a fire in the theatre and everyone is pushing like a mob to be the first one free. Is it like that?”
He nodded stiffly.
“Maybe I can do some of the talking for you. Eliminate a few of the squabbling people so the rest can get out more easily.” She turned her body towards his and rested one hand on his stomach. The violence of those already painfully embarrassing tremors abruptly increased. Having her close only made the need to drag her closer and bury his face in her hair that much harder to disregard. She started to pull her hand away.
“Bad?” she asked, so much vulnerability in that one little word that he felt inside out with self-loathing to have put it there.
He squeezed his eyes closed and emphatically shook his head. He could feel the tears stinging at the backs of his eyes. She settled her hand back against his abdomen. He wanted so desperately to comfort her, but he had no idea how.
“When Nathan first heard … everything, he was afraid to touch me. But I wasn’t afraid of Nathan, and Gabriel, I’m not afraid of you. Do you want to touch me?”
“Please.” It came out as a groan while his frozen muscles broke free, like icicles shattering against cobblestone. In one fluid motion, he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her onto his lap, and squeezed her as tightly against him as he possibly could without hurting her. He fisted the loose fabric on the back of her shirt, and, after a moment's hesitation, he gave into the impulse that had been screaming inside him and buried his face in her neck. “Oh, Violet.”
Memories of every asinine comment, every thoughtless, possibly frightening action he had unwittingly inflicted upon her, flooded Gabriel’s mind. He had been so wrapped up in his own internal struggles that he hadn’t noticed the right details or asked the right questions. She had certainly hinted that her marriage to Nathan was based in friendship, but he had never thought to ask why Violet would have accepted a passionless marriage. It was equivalent to reading the last chapter of a book, and realising the abundant foreshadowing you failed to recognize was really quite obvious.
She said she’d been happy to marry a man who would never touch her. He’d spent weeks alternating between panting over her, which likely terrified her, and refusing to let her in at all. And, for the second time, she had found herself in a marriage with a man who was in love with someone else. This time, not even a living someone else. Two separate marriages where attaining the love of her spouse was either utterly impossible or, in his case, must have felt hopeless.
The cruelty and injustice Violet had suffered was inconceivably and utterly unfair, and he hated himself for his small part in it. Still, he could not speak. It was too much. Everything he was feeling was too much.
Violet began to rub up and down his spine. “One terrible man betrayed my trust in the worst way possible. I think it might have been easy to believe that all love could lead to betrayal, and to deem the possibility of something safe and enduring, unworthy of the risk. It might have been easy to believe that had I not witnessed a lifetime of selfless, unwavering love between Hamish and Nathan. Watching them year after year was undeniable proof that the betrayal of one man didn't mean that all men betray.”
Gabriel’s shuddering body had finally relaxed, his fists partially unclenched. His nose was still tucked in her neck. So much of what he felt didn't have a strong enough spoken equivalent. He didn't want to say that he was sorry for all the hurt she had suffered, when what he felt was so much more than sorry could ever be. But there was one thing that needed to be said. He raised his head and looked into her clear blue eyes.
“Violet, before we married I told you I hoped our relationship would eventually lead to the natural progression of heirs. But you know I have a brother, Michael. A kind brother that would take good care of the tenants and be a fair and capable duke. You married me to save your son, and you have had enough options taken from you. I’ll be damned if this will be another. I will be whatever kind of husband you need me to be. If you want a platonic relationship, I will take care of you and be that friend, without so much as another salacious comment. If you decide you want more …” The pad of his thumb began to slowly stroke her cheek, still red from tears. “If you want more, I am going to court you, and kiss you, and move so slowly that my feelings have plenty of time to work themselves out, and you have all the time that you need to become comfortable with my touch. You don’t have to decide today or tomorrow or the day after that. You have every option available to you, Violet. And no matter what you choose, I will never let anyone hurt you again.” His muscles ached. Even the small amount of space he had created between their bodies so he could see her was too much. He longed to pull her close to him again. He felt the pull of her as if he were yarn around a skein of Violet, helpless to do anything but wind towards her gentle tug.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed the tip of his nose. “Would you …” She looked suddenly unsure of herself.
“Yes,” Gabriel said. “Whatever it is, the answer is yes.” He snuggled her close to his chest again.
“You don’t even know what it is. I could be asking for ten more goats.”
He smiled despite himself. “Even if it was fifty more goats, still yes.”
“Will you stay tonight … just for a little while I sleep?”
“That's far better than fifty more goats. I need to go and check on the children, and then I will return directly.”
***
Gabriel found Nora perched on her bed, reading with a blanket over her head like a cape. “I think he’s going to be all right,” she stated without removing the blanket. “Zach, I mean. And he doesn’t smell like old pig slop now! That was a brilliant idea to take him swimming, Papa!”
Gabriel lowered himself beside her, stretching his feet out to the end of the bed. “Yes, and he has you to help him.” He watched and listened as she rambled on with all the lightness of a child who was blissfully unaware of the darkness lurking in the world. He knew he couldn’t protect her from everything, and that was the most terrifying part.
Gabriel kissed her forehead. “You know you can always talk to me about anything, right? If anyone ever tries to do anything to make you feel”—he scrambled for an appropriate description—“scared or uncomfortable. You’re always safe to come to me. I will always listen, and I will always believe you.”
