Читать книгу Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 2 - Elizabeth Rolls - Страница 68

In the morning, the Ashford family was gone. So was Sophie. Mr Huxley was preparing to depart. And although, in Charles’s view, Lord Cranbourne deserved nothing more than to be preparing to depart the earth for ever, the doctor declared him a little stronger today.

It was, perforce, a small group that gathered for breakfast. Charles forced himself to join them. Vaguely he wondered where the Averys were. He was in no shape to handle anyone else’s difficulties. His own were stretching every resource he possessed. He got up and left the table before he ended up venting his despair.

By unspoken consensus the remaining guests began to prepare to return to town. They would all dine out for years on the story of this botched house party, Charles thought bitterly. He stayed out of their way and left them to their packing. Then he haunted the stables so he could stop Mr Mateo Cardea before he mounted up and left.

It worked. Charles stood in the bright sun and held the horse’s bridle while Cardea lashed his small portmanteau behind the saddle.

‘I want to know what sort of hold he had over you,’ Charles said.

Cardea did not pretend to misunderstand. ‘He knew some dangerous details from my rash youth. Back then I thought privateering to be more glamorous than hauling cargo.’ The man actually winked at him. Charles’s snort echoed the horse’s.

‘Let us just say it was information that I do not wish a few of the people I do business with today to discover.’ He shrugged. ‘It was no hardship to go along with the old man. Besides keeping his information to himself, he offered me a handsome settlement. And who would not wish to be married to the beautiful Sophie?’

Charles clenched his teeth, but Cardea grew serious as he reached to shake his hand. ‘You watch how you treat her. I have promised her that we will be a close family once again.’ His grip grew stronger. ‘I still know a few dirty tricks from the old days.’

Charles did not respond. He watched as the man mounted up and rode off.

Later in the afternoon, Charles stood at the library windows when Lord Avery entered the room.

‘My wife and I are heading back into town, Dayle. We wished to thank you for your generosity. It’s a sight more than I showed you.’

Charles would have spoken, but the man stopped him. ‘You’ve given us a start. No doubt it is more than I deserve, but I thank you for it. We’ll take it from here. I don’t know how far we will get, but we’ll make the journey together, and that’s what matters.’ He clapped Charles on the back. ‘See you in Westminster.’

At last everyone had gone. Only Charles and his mother, and Cranbourne, still upstairs in his sick room, were left. Charles wandered the empty house, seeing Sophie in every corner, and knew how wrong he had been, about so many things.

He set off in search of his mother, and found her at last in the red drawing room. A bench had been pulled over and placed in front of the chimneypiece. She sat there, silently contemplating the portrait above the mantel.

Charles directed a wan smile at her and motioned for her to make room. Sitting next to her, he stared at the past and resolved to fix the future.

With a little sigh his mother let her head lean on his shoulder. Charles breathed deep, took her hand, and told her. He confessed it all. Everything about Phillip and his father and his vain attempts to make amends.

She cried. Each tear cracked Charles’s heart open a little further. Then, being his mother, she scolded him, comforted him, and ultimately, forgave him.

Evening had come on. The servants, perhaps sensing that they were best left alone, had not come in to build up the fire. Charles did it himself, and then he leaned on the mantel and watched the snap and crackle of the flames.

‘There is something else,’ he said.

He told his mother about Sophie. From their childhood, to their more recent tempestuous relationship, to how he had allowed his guilt and self-loathing to spur him into pushing her away. Before he had done, he was the one with the tears in his eyes. He looked for her reaction.

She stared at him in fond exasperation. ‘I would never have expected you to be such a nodcock, Charles. I swear, I will take back all my words of forgiveness if you do not get yourself after that girl,’ she threatened.

‘I will. I promise. But there is one place I have to go before I do.’

Charles went home. He had not been back to Fordham for more than a few hours since the day he had left, at fifteen. But, at last, he was home.

On the first day he visited Phillip’s grave. He stood for a long time, just staring at the marker, then he sat down with his back against it and he talked with his brother. He laughed as he recalled the times of their childhood. He cried as he begged for his forgiveness. He told him all about Sophie and the muddle he had made of things, of his life. When the sun started to sink in the sky and the air grew chill, he stood, and he promised to visit again.

The next marker was his father’s. Very gently he laid a lily at the base of the stone. His father had had a fondness for lilies. Maybe more than for his wayward second son. But Charles had to learn to let go of that resentment. ‘Perhaps some day,’ he whispered into the still evening air, ‘I’ll be able to do it.’

On the second morning he went straight to the forest after breakfast, to the tree where he and Sophie had first met. Charles stood at the base of the massive old monument and looked up into a maze of leafy green and gnarled brown. He took off his coat and grasped a branch.

It was not as easy as he had expected it to be, given the additional height he had gained over the years, but he made it almost to the top. It was the additional weight that kept him from getting as high as he used to do. He settled himself into the crook of a sturdy branch and he looked out over the green landscape of the forest.

Just the smell of the place brought back so many memories. He breathed deeply, absorbing the smell of loam and life, and remembered the surprise on Sophie’s tear-stained face that first time they had met, when she had climbed up and found him here before her. He had climbed up here in a temper, he recalled, resentful of the increasing time his older brother was required to spend learning the workings of the estate. But he’d found the very best possible distraction for his sorrow. He smiled to recall that funny little face, the braids, and the pinafore she had left on the ground below.

He climbed down then, and revisited all their old haunts. There had been so much laughter, a few tears, and a bone deep trust. It had been a rich friendship, a balm to the soul of two lonely children. Looking back now, he could hardly believe he had left it behind when he had finally left home. He should have recognised the value of what they had shared.

The truly horrendous thought was that fate had given him a second chance at it and he had nearly made the same mistake. For a long time he sat in the gazebo where the pair of them had spent so many hours, and let the wind ruffle his hair.

Unbidden, his own words came back to him. He could hear them as clearly as if they floated past on the breeze. He would sacrifice anything, do anything, to prevail. That vow still held true, but it held a wealth of new meaning. He knew, now, what he must do.

Sophie had been right. He had needed this. He was ready now to move forward, to accomplish something with his life. With her.

Fate had given him a second chance. Charles only hoped Sophie would as well.