Page 21 of Goodbye, Earl (Ladies’ Revenge Club #4)

F reddy had never put much thought into what happened after a wedding. Well, he hadn’t put much thought into what happened the day after one. Everyone knew what happened on a wedding night.

His own had been …

He coughed, shaking his head to clear it as he rounded the third wold beyond the orchard on his morning walk.

It was the second morning after the wedding and perhaps even more peaceful than the one directly following the banquet, during which a few sleepy guests were still haunting the halls of Crooked Nook, doing inconsiderate things like speaking and breathing and looking at him as he’d departed for his sojourn.

This morning, everyone was exactly where they ought to be: asleep, in their respective beds.

And soon, the majority of them would be gone.

He’d been tormented the last two nights, wondering if Claire might be waiting for him in the master chamber, perhaps wearing a particularly flimsy dressing gown.

He knew she was more than a little baffled by his restraint.

The Freddy she’d married would have already torn across the house half a dozen times by now, barged into her room, and given her exactly what they both clearly wanted.

That was the problem, though, wasn’t it? She wanted him in her bed. She wanted the Freddy she remembered, a quick tumble, and likely a firmly closed valise and a one-way ticket back to London ready at the door afterward.

He sighed. That part of himself was still there, of course. That part of himself was screaming in his ear night and day to just give in already, for the love of Christ. And he wanted to. God knew he wanted to, but not yet.

Not just yet.

To his surprise, upon his return to the Nook, he spotted his mother in the little gazebo by the trees, all alone and apparently enjoying a cup of tea with that novel she’d been reading to Oliver about swarthy highwaymen.

He changed his route, curious about why she’d be doing such a thing on a morning like this one, weaving through the trees rather than looking for a proper route.

She looked up to watch his progress, her teacup held firm and steady in front of her, and her gaze unblinking as he closed the distance between them.

“There you are,” she said as he arrived, as though he were late for an engraved invitation. “I was hoping to see you this morning.”

“Were you?” he replied, surprised. “I thought you’d be tucked up in your bliss bower until it was time to leave for your trip.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t say bliss bower, Frederick.”

He laughed, a genuine laugh that shook off some of the rocky bits that had been holding his ribs in place the last few days, and drew out the chair next to hers to fall into it. He poured himself a cup of tea with a generous dollop of cream and stirred it, waiting for his mother to say her piece.

She didn’t, of course. Why would she, now that she had him sitting there, stewing in his own curiosity?

So he spoke first instead. He could play this game too. He was her son, after all.

“You know,” he told her, sipping at his overly creamy tea, “that year in London, when you reunited with Raul, I was having you followed. I thought for sure you were up to some mischief, being back in London. That day you arrived at my flat, I was in a right panic.”

She raised her eyebrows, clearly not entirely surprised, but taken aback by the volunteering of it. “Really? I was having you followed too. I hired Mr. Murphy. I imagine you did too, didn’t you?”

“That weasel!” Freddy shook his head, and then laughed again. “He was playing double agent. He didn’t have Millie then to find him clients in the ordinary way, I suppose.”

“He did not,” Patricia agreed, “because I did. Oh, sweet Millie. I’ve never known a more capable girl. Goodness, that must be how they ended up together, mustn’t it? We did that.”

“I think we might have,” Freddy agreed, his amusement taking on a thoughtful bent. “I hadn’t considered that.”

He hadn’t. And he could not wait to go goad Abe with it.

“Well? What did Mr. Murphy discover about my nefarious purposes, then?” she asked, leaning forward with a sparkle of curiosity in her eyes. “Did he follow us to the gambling hell?”

“Yes, of course he did,” Freddy said with a wave of his hand. “None of that was interesting. You were just existing a little louder than usual. It wasn’t satisfying. Not until Raul showed up.”

“Oh,” she said, sipping again. “Oh, but I didn’t know he was going to be in London. I never thought I’d see him again. When I heard his name for the first time, I think I fled my body for several hours with the shock of it.”

Freddy watched her, judged her to be truthful, and nodded. “So the rumors were true, then? That you had almost married him in the first place, all those years ago. That you almost chose him over Father?”

“All those years ago,” she repeated with a little frown. “I am not that old, Freddy.”

“Yes, all right,” he said impatiently with a flick of his wrist. “Why didn’t you, though? Why not marry Raul? I never saw you like you are now when you were with Father. Not once.”

She frowned and set her teacup down. “That isn’t true. Your father and I had a lovely marriage.”

Freddy shot her a look which made her face falter, a little flicker of resignation.

“We had an acceptable marriage,” she amended. “I do not resent him the way you might expect. Yes, he preferred Miriam to me, and I knew that, but it also provided a kind of peace in my life. Obviously, I did not know about his mistress or their little boy before I said yes. Obviously not.”

“Their little boy,” Freddy repeated, a little incredulous at the distance in her tone. “You mean Silas.”

“Of course I mean Silas,” she snapped, and then sighed. “Raul likely had lovers and mistresses too, you know. They are both men of a certain time and place and power.”

“I don’t think he does,” Freddy returned, setting his cup down next to his mother’s. “I really do not.”

“No,” she allowed with a softening of her lips, a release of her frown.

“I suppose I don’t, either. Freddy, do you remember when I would take you to Sudley Castle when you were a lad?

How we’d tour the halls and look at all the paintings and then go say our respects for the queen who is buried there? ”

“Yes, of course,” he said with a bit of surprise. “What has that to do with anything?”

“I grew up visiting Sudley,” she told him.

“My mother and father would stay for weeks every autumn, after returning from London. I hated it, then. I hated how cold it got and how lonely it was for a child. The only balm was how often I ended up in the crypt because no one was paying any attention to me. I’d sit with Queen Catherine Parr and I’d complain about my life to her, as though she’d have any sympathy for someone as charmed as I was. ”

Freddy could only blink in response, imagining his mother as a little girl in ribbons and pinafores, hiding from her family in a marble crypt.

“I learned everything there was to know about her,” she continued.

“She married four times, you know. Four times! King Henry was the third, and when she married him, she was madly in love with another man. She stayed in love with the other man, with Thomas Seymour, until the king died and she could finally be with him.”

“A happy ending,” Freddy said, though her tone did not sound very happy.

“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Patricia said with a sad little smile.

“Thomas was a lecher. He spent their entire marriage trying to seduce Princess Elizabeth, who was little more than a girl herself still at that age. He left Catherine to die in childbirth, leaving behind a baby that vanished to history so quickly that she likely did not live very long. Queen Catherine Parr married four times, Freddy, and still never managed to be loved.”

Freddy stared, the sickening bent of this story, the noxious truth of it having actually unfolded once upon a time, lingering between them.

“That is horrible,” he said.

She nodded. She sighed.

“I spent those years of my blossom into womanhood thinking about Queen Catherine Parr,” she told him. “And when I wasn’t at Sudley, I learned about the others. I learned about all the ways a king can harm his wives, how each individual one of them ended up misused, harmed, and dead.

“I think it broke a part of me, Freddy. I think it taught me that love was not possible. I was determined to fail my debut Season, to become a wallflower, and to be allowed to live out my life in spinsterhood without risk or harm. I swore to it, even, with my friends, and then was the only one who did not follow through.”

They fell silent for a moment, the hum of birdsong and early-morning insects buzzing through the fruit blossoms punctuating what she had said.

“I could not be invisible, you understand. My father is a lord. I was wealthy and pretty and highly sought, and I had known Frederick—my Frederick—as a child. My mother told me to stop being a silly little chit and to accept my good fortune, and I agreed to do so, until I met Raul.”

She shook her head, taking up her cup and fortifying herself. She sipped with her eyes closed like she was back there again, a debutante on a dance floor. “It was madness,” she said softly. “Beautiful madness.”

Freddy nodded. Freddy understood. He truly did.

It sounded as though his mother could have lived out his exact story. He did not know if she was already engaged to his father when Raul had appeared, or if a staircase had been involved, of course, but it sounded very familiar to him. Very familiar indeed.

“I almost ran away with him,” she confessed softly.

“I almost did it. I don’t think it would have even been that bad for my reputation if I had.

I might have lived out my life with him in Lisbon, amongst vineyards and sunlit days.

The only thing to lose was everything I was.

I would lose my parents, my friends, my standing. I would lose England.

“And at the time, all of that seemed so very important, so much more important than my heart. I still might have overcome it, if not for Sudley Castle.”

Freddy shook his head. “I don’t follow.”

She gave a weak little smile. “Your father proposed we marry there, because he knew I was so fond of it. He knew I was fond of it but not why. He said it one afternoon in my family’s parlor, and I felt the weight of a lifetime of doomed queens unfold in my chest like a revelation.

Most of Henry’s wives married him because they loved him, Freddy, and it did not protect them from doom.

Raul was my Thomas Seymour, wasn’t he? A romantic ideal that might still hurt me in the end.

I told myself that Frederick would likely hurt me too, of course, but he’d do it where I felt safe, where I could have other things in the absence of love. ”

Freddy couldn't respond right away. He didn’t trust himself to. He opened his mouth once and somehow felt his own voice crack before he’d even put it to use, so he closed it again and turned over what she was saying in his mind, over and over.

“I don’t regret it,” she said, watching him. “I could never regret anything that brought you into my world, Freddy. I hope you know that.”

“You don’t?” he replied with no small amount of shock. “It seems like perhaps you should.”

“I don’t,” she repeated, reaching across the table for his hand and squeezing it hard.

“Sometimes, love can strike us before we’re ready to hold it.

I am wiser now. I am less afraid. I am ready for what I feel and have always felt for Raul.

It had to happen this way because it never would have worked in the other. ”

He wrinkled his brow, giving half a shake to his head. He knew what she was doing, what she was saying, but it was just so very painful to think about. How long had she hurt like this? How long had she carried it quietly, and alone?

“Do you understand?” she asked softly, still squeezing his hand, her eyes searching his face.

He sighed and nodded, flipping his hand over so that her grip would fall into his palm, so that he could hold her in return. “I think so.”

“That’s good,” she said, her shoulders easing and a little smile coming over her face. “I am so glad we saw each other this morning.”

“So am I, Mother,” said Freddy, relaxing in turn and returning the smile. “Truly. So am I.”