Page 72 of The Hidden Heart

Richard grimaced. “I am hardly a good example of love.”

“You are extremely faithful and unbending in your love for her.”

“Am I?” There was a bitter tone to his voice that startled Jessica, and she looked at him closely. “She died four years ago this evening. And I—I scarcely thought of her at all tonight.”

“You had quite a few things to occupy your mind,” Jessica reminded him. “It is little wonder that you did not think only of her and her death.”

“It wasn’t those ‘things’ that made me forget. I was simply too busy thinking about you.”

Jessica felt as if her breath had been knocked out of her. She struggled to think of something to say.

“Hardly the thoughts of a faithful husband,” he went on, his mouth twisting sardonically.

“How can you say that? You have mourned her for four years. When I came here, you were still so despairing, so sorrowful for her that you were about to end your life. And do not tell me that you were not. I saw you with that gun—I saw your face. You may not have intended to do it at just that moment. But you wanted to. You planned to.”

“Yes. I did,” he admitted. “I grieved for four years. I grieved for my wife, I grieved for my daughter. Most of all, I grieved for myself. I despaired. But do you know why? It wasn’t pure, faithful love. It was because—” He looked away, then turned his gaze back to her, his jaw knotted as though he forced himself to speak. “I was nearly mad with grief because I knew it was my fault. I killed them.”

Jessica stared at him, stunned. “What? No. I don’t believe it. You killed your wife and daughter?”

“I should say, I drove them to their death. It amounted to the same thing. We were not a family leaving together, with me riding outside the carriage. Caroline had left me. She planned to run away with her lover. She was going to leave while I was away on a trip. She had the carriage loaded. She had written me a letter explaining it all. But I ruined her plans by coming home early from my trip. I missed them—I missed Alana mostly. Caroline and I—I loved her madly when I married her. Later I found out that she did not return my love in the same way. She had married me because it was the most advantageous match she could make. It was easy to decide she loved a duke, less easy to remain in love with one when she had to live with me.”

“Oh, Richard…” Jessica reached out to him, putting her hand on his arm. It was rigid beneath her touch. “I am so sorry.”

“I knew she did not love me, and after that my love began to cool somewhat. Still, she was my wife, and she was the mother of my child. Alana was the light of my life. I missed her. I missed my home. So I came home two days early, and I found the carriage packed and ready to go. Caroline almost fainted when she saw me. I asked her what was happening. She made up a story about having to visit her family. I wanted her to leave Alana, but she refused. I wanted her to wait, said that I would accompany them. Finally she admitted the truth. We had a terrible row. I told her I would not let her leave. There was no way I would allow her to take my child with her. She told me she hated me, that she loved another and would never be happy here. I told her I didn’t care. She could not take Alana from me. She ran from the room, crying.”

He shook his head. “At first, in my arrogance, I assumed that she had gone up to her room. I paced around the drawing room a bit, trying to calm down before I went up to see Alana. I didn’t want her to see me so angry. After a few minutes I went up to her room, and I found her nurse there, crying. She told me that Alana had gone, that Caroline had not allowed her to accompany them. Then I realized that Caroline had defied me. She had taken my daughter and left. I rode after them. It was cold, there was ice. She had, not unlike her, left it till too late to start. It was bitterly cold, and the light was fading. I shouted to them to stop. If it had been my coachman, he would have, but it was not. My coachman had been with me on my trip. She had hired a post chaise, with a hired driver. So when Caroline told him to drive faster, he did. He took a curve too fast, and the coach went off the road.”

Richard muttered a curse and walked away from her to the fireplace. He stood, looking down into the fire, leaning on the mantel. “That is what haunts me,” he rasped, and his eyes glittered with tears in the firelight. “If I had not chased them, they would not have died. It was my selfishness, my arrogance, my stubbornness. I killed them…because I wanted to keep them here.”

“Oh, no, no…” Jessica went to him. “It was not your fault. Caroline chose to leave. She tried to sneak out and steal your daughter from you when you were not here. You had no idea—how could you not react with anger? Anyone would have. Anyone would have resisted her taking their child away. And she was the one who ran instead of staying and trying to work something out. She selfishly took your daughter away from you and ran. That was neither right nor fair. It is no wonder you reacted with anger. How could you know what would happen if you chased them? And she is as much at fault for urging the driver to go faster. It was a horrible, tragic accident. They did not deserve to die, and you did not deserve to have them taken from you. It just happened, as horrible things sometimes do. You cannot blame yourself for it. You cannot make the rest of your life miserable in penance!”

Impulsively, Jessica slipped her arm around his waist and leaned against him. Almost convulsively, he wrapped his arms around her and held her to him. His body was taut, rigid with tension. She wrapped her arms around his waist, holding him, and her hands stroked his back. Richard buried his face in the crook of her neck, making a low moan of despair deep in this throat. His shoulders shook as the sobs took him, and he clutched her even more tightly to him.

Jessica clung to him, absorbing the pain that poured out of his body, the years of unspoken guilt and blame. She was sure he had never told anyone what he had just told her; he had doubtless held it deep inside, loathing himself, eaten up with sorrow and guilt and thinking that he deserved it as his penance.

“It’s all right,” she murmured, rubbing her hands soothingly up and down his back. “It will be all right.”

His hand clenched into fists, digging into her dress and squeezing handfuls of it as he cried. He had cried before for Caroline and Alana, and always, when he cried, he had felt as well the bitter lash of guilt, the knowledge that he deserved all the pain he felt and more, that he could never repent or repay enough to take back that precipitate chase that had led to the deaths of all he loved. Now, for the first time, he cried for himself, for the pain inside, the bitter, almost unendurable misery that had been his life for the past four years.

“Alana would not want you to blame yourself. You know she wouldn’t. She loved you as only a child can love—fully, happily. She would ache to know you hurt. All she would want for you is to feel good again, to be happy again—whether she was here or not.”

His arms tightened further at her words, almost squeezing the breath from her, and she heard his ragged intake of air. “Oh, God. You’re right. How did you—you did not even know her. Yet you understand her better than I.”

He pulled back from her, wiping the tears from his face, and looked down at her. Jessica smiled up at him.

“I know how a daughter feels about her father. My father’s scandal ruined both our lives. There were times when I was so angry at him I wanted to scream at him, to pound him with my fists. There I was, ostracized by almost everyone I had associated with before, suddenly on the edge of financial ruin, not knowing what to do or where to turn, and he would go out at night, drinking and carousing. I would rage at him, beg him to tell me what he had done and why, and he would tell me that he could not. Then he would leave again. There were times when I hated him.

“But when he died, I thought I would come apart with grief. I regretted every bitter word I had ever said to him or thought about him. He was my father and I loved him, and I still to this day cannot believe that he did anything wrong. I would give anything to have him back. I would be willing to endure being ostracized time and again, if only I could somehow change those last few months and make him alive and happy. I know now that all that really mattered was how much I loved him. And I hope desperately that, wherever he is, he is happy. That’s how I know what your daughter would want for you. Because I want it for my father.”

Richard drew a long, shuddering breath, and he raised his hands to her face, laying them against her cheeks and gently stroking his thumbs over the ridges of her cheekbones. “Alana would have loved you.”

“I think I would have loved her, too.”

He smiled a little. “I am certain you would have. She was like you in some ways—fearless and honest…and blunt. And very tender of heart.”

“I think perhaps she is also rather like her father in those ways.” Jessica smiled and went up on tiptoe to brush a light kiss across his lips. “You are a good man. Don’t destroy yourself with grief and guilt.”

Richard gazed at her for a moment. “Thank you.” His voice was husky with emotion. “You seem to be in the habit of saving me.” He bent and returned her light kiss, then pressed his lips against her forehead, as well. “Whether I want it or not.”