Page 38 of Love Thy Enemy (The Vaughns #4)

T essa surged up the stairs, her skirt tangling at her ankles, and she gripped the banister hard enough that her fingers ached; each step felt both too slow and far too fast, her mind racing ahead to the worst possibilities even as her feet fought to carry her faster.

A sick, rising dread lodged in her throat and burned behind her eyes, but she pushed it down.

Not now. The moment she let fear take hold, it would paralyze her.

Despite her making enough noise to raise the dead, there was no movement in the house, and that silence pressed in around her, cruel and absolute. With every breath drawn sharply through her nose, the shadows at the top of the stairs seemed to stretch longer, darker, and more threatening.

“Mr. Vaughn?”

“Here,” he called as she arrived at the landing.

Tessa rushed forward, and the gentleman appeared in the doorway, the concern in his eyes clear to see, even in the dim candlelight. She peered around him, but before she could move closer, he stopped her.

“I had scarlet fever as a child,” she said, hardly sparing him a look, for her eyes were riveted to the listless figure in the bed.

Mr. Vaughn stepped aside and led her to the bed.

A breeze carried through the room, flavored with the scent of vinegar from the soaked rags that hung before the window.

Eyes fixed on her son, Tessa removed her cloak, and the gentleman took it without a word, tucking it away as she sat in the chair he had vacated.

The lad lay in the bed, his eyes open but unfocused. They turned to her, though he made no sign that he recognized her at all. Reaching for his forehead, Tessa brushed a touch across the skin, which felt fevered even to her uneducated touch.

“Oh, my little Clark,” she whispered. On the bedside table sat a bowl with a rag, and Tessa took it, pressing the cool cloth against his skin as Clark turned toward the touch. “How is he?”

“It is too early to tell. I sent for Edward, but he is seeing to another patient in Danthorpe, and it will be some time before he can arrive. I am quite capable of managing without him, but I would feel more at ease with a second opinion.”

“I am certain he is in good hands,” said Tessa, though her voice caught, and Mr. Vaughn drew his arm around her shoulders.

“He is going to heal quickly. He is a Stuart,” said Daphne with a sharp tone as she appeared beside the bed, standing opposite Tessa.

Her eyes drifted from her guardian to the hand he rested on her mother’s shoulder, and Tessa straightened, easing it away.

“Jackson, Wesley, and I all had it some years ago, and it was nothing at all. A minor inconvenience.”

For all that the young lady’s eyes burned as she looked at her mother, the words had an edge of desperation to them, as though willing her belief into existence, and Tessa longed to pull her daughter into her arms.

“Daphne has been an excellent assistant,” said Mr. Vaughn, clearing his throat as he began expounding on the various treatments they’d enacted already, from the medicines administered to the rag baths with vinegar and alcohol, and including the food they were able to feed him.

And though Tessa tried to take note of it all, her attention was fixed on her son’s face.

Her Clark.

The years faded away until all she could see was the tiny, squalling babe the physician had placed in her arms. With his strong set of lungs, Clark had been determined to show all and sundry just how loud he could be, but the babe had settled the moment she’d spoken to him.

As though he’d been waiting to hear her voice.

“I am here now,” she whispered, carefully mopping his brow with the rag. “I will watch over you.”

“We do not require your assistance,” said Daphne. “Clark will be right as rain in a few hours, and he has Mr. Gregory and me to watch over him.”

“Another set of hands will be a blessing,” said Mr. Vaughn. “With the three of us, it will allow us to sleep in shifts, else we risk making ourselves ill as well.”

“I can take this first one,” said Tessa, glancing up at him. “You two can rest. I do not think I could sleep.”

“Clark wouldn’t want you here,” said Daphne, her tone growing harder with each interjection.

“Then it is doubly good that I take the nighttime hours, for he will be asleep and not know I am here,” said Tessa, meeting her daughter’s burning gaze.

The young lady pointed to her chest. “But I know you are here.”

Shooting to her feet, Tessa held her daughter’s gaze with steely determination. “It is time you and I had a discussion.”

“I have nothing to discuss with you,” said Daphne, crossing her arms.

Mr. Vaughn opened his mouth to speak, but Tessa held up a staying hand.

“Oh, I believe you have plenty you wish to say to me,” she said, motioning toward the door. But Daphne didn’t move until her guardian gave a direct order, and then the young lady stormed into the corridor, not looking at her mother.

Tessa led her into the adjacent bedchamber, closing the door behind them.

“I know you are furious with me, and with how your father and I behaved. You have every right to be,” she said, holding up placating hands. “But Clark needs all the assistance we can render. Whether he wishes me there or not, I am his mother, and I am not going to leave until he is well again.”

Daphne’s arms tightened around her chest, and she glared. “Do not dare to claim that you care about any of us besides Eva.”

Straightening, Tessa frowned. “What do you mean? I do not love Eva more than the rest of you.”

“Do not try to lie your way out of this,” scoffed Daphne. “She is the only one you took with you when you left our home in Leeds. You didn’t care about abandoning the rest of us.”

Tessa’s eyes widened. “That isn’t what happened—”

“Do not tell me what happened!” shouted Daphne, her hands falling to her sides, clenched tight. “I may have been a child, but I was old enough to remember. You ran off with Eva, not caring one jot that the rest of us wanted you. None of us mattered at all.”

Though Tessa tried to defend herself, it was as though a valve had opened within her daughter, and she continued pouring out her heart, sharing every secret pain she felt.

The nights when all she had wanted was her mother to rock her to sleep.

The milestones Tessa had missed. The holidays and celebrations for which she’d been absent.

Daphne unleashed them all, heaping them upon her mother with abandon.

And Tessa remained silent.

Standing there, she felt the anguish radiating from every sharp word and the betrayal vibrating through her clenched muscles.

Though Daphne showed none of the signs of violence Clark had demonstrated, it was clear that the fury she’d felt was just as powerful—and far more repressed.

So, Tessa kept her own counsel, allowing her daughter to unearth all that pain.

It took quite a length of time before Daphne’s words slowed, and she stood there, lungs heaving as though she had run a race as she stared down her mother.

Allowing the silence to linger for a moment, Tessa prayed with all her heart that she would know what to say.

After all the mistakes she had made in her life, she yearned for wisdom and clarity so that she could heal the wounds she’d left on these poor, innocent children.

And though she tried searching for grand and eloquent explanations, three small words rose to her thoughts.

“I am sorry,” whispered Tessa.

Daphne stilled, her eyes unblinking as she watched her.

“I am sorry,” Tessa repeated, shaking her head. “I should’ve been a better mother to you. I am sorry that my weaknesses and flaws caused you so much pain. I wish I could undo it all, but I cannot. And I am sorry for that as well.”

The silence dragged on for several long moments, and though the tension in the air did not evaporate, it eased the slightest bit.

“But I do not love Eva more than any of the rest of you,” said Tessa.

Daphne’s hands clenched at that, but Tessa held up a staying hand and spoke in a calm tone.

“I know you remember much about what happened in our home, but you were a child, and I fear you did not understand. I only took Eva with me because I was expecting her when your father and I parted ways.”

Crossing her arms tight across her chest, Daphne’s eyes narrowed. “I do not believe your lies. Father wouldn’t have allowed you to separate him from his children because he loved us too much. And even after you took Eva, you couldn’t be bothered to keep her.”

What did one say to that? To tell her daughter the whole truth would be to drag her into more of the troubles that ought to remain between man and wife. Yet to remain silent would leave the wedge between mother and daughter.

“I love you, my darling girl,” whispered Tessa. “I did not want to be parted from you. Any of you. But your father believed I had been unfaithful and that Eva was another man’s child. When she was old enough that even he couldn’t deny her parentage, he took her to live with him.”

Drawing in a breath, Tessa added, “He loved you dearly, but I did as well. I simply did not have the power to keep you with me. The courts rarely grant mothers custody, and you older three were beyond the age where I could even petition for it. I couldn’t bear to drag the lot of you into a scandal. ”

Daphne turned away, giving her mother her back as the silence enveloped the room once more. Tessa longed to reach out for her daughter. To take her in her arms. But there was a gulf between them. A chasm that stretched out over the years.

“You are my firstborn, and I loved you from the moment I discovered I was to be a mother. So deeply. So dearly,” whispered Tessa.

“I am sorry I gave you reason to doubt that, but you are constantly in my thoughts and in my heart. And I promise that the fracture in our family had everything to do with the troubles between your father and me and naught to do with how much we love you children.”

Now that the conversation had begun, Tessa yearned to press the issue until everything was settled to her liking. It was an itch that dug into her skin, burrowing deep inside her. But her heart knew that forcing the issue would only make matters worse.

Daphne had spoken her piece. Tessa had spoken hers. And only time would tell if these wounds would now heal.

So Tessa slipped silently from the room, closing the door behind her. And when she stepped back into the sickroom, Mr. Vaughn was waiting, his eyes full of such warmth and understanding that she yearned to throw herself into his arms.

“You need only say the word…”

His voice echoed from her memory with promises of protection and safety.

Of a stalwart friend and ally. In her youth, she hadn’t prized those qualities, choosing to chase after beaus blessed with wittiness and easy manners.

But in those days, comfort and support had been in abundant supply.

Now, nothing was more appealing than a safe harbor in which to rest.

Forcing her eyes to Clark, she returned to the seat at his bedside, and Mr. Vaughn dragged over another, setting it at her side. Silent and calm. Tessa felt herself leaning into him—and stopped.

The bedchamber door creaked open, and Daphne slipped inside without a word and took a seat at the end of her brother’s bed. She didn’t look at her mother or her guardian. Her entire attention was fixed on the young man in the bed, his breath coming quick and shallow.

“I will sit with him first,” said Tessa. “You both need to rest so that you can take over in the morning. If Dr. Vaughn arrives, I will make note of everything he says.”

The two sat there, watching as Tessa took up the rag once more and bathed Clark’s flushed skin.

Then, without a word, Daphne nodded and slipped from the room as silently as she’d come.

Reaching over, Mr. Vaughn settled his hand atop Tessa’s; the weight of it was as welcome as a proper embrace.

It grounded her and filled her with his quiet strength.

And then, he was gone, though the feel of his hand on hers remained with her well into the night.