Page 12 of Revisit the Past (Society of Swans #3)

A nother bump landed against Caleb’s knee, more insistent this time. He swatted at Wrighthall’s fist and missed entirely. Confusion and melancholy had dulled his sense of accuracy.

“Will you not leave me be?” he grumbled as he adjusted himself in his chair like a sullen child.

“You are the one who told your butler to show me in when I called,” Wrighthall rebutted, shifting closer to the edge of his own seat and leaning forward, propping his elbows atop his knees. “I believe I am owed an explanation for running all about London after you yesterday and never being allowed to catch up. Might it have anything to do with this despondent air about you?”

Caleb gritted his teeth and rubbed his forehead. Dear Wrighthall was too much in the habit of being right.

“I offer my sincerest apologies, my friend, I do. But it is too shameful for words. I am too shameful.”

Silence filled the drawing room, still appointed in his brother’s tastes.

“I am surprised at you, Murfield.”

Frowning, Caleb glanced at the other man. He was surprised by the humorlessness in Wrighthall’s voice.

“I thought—I certainly hoped—that you had learned by now,” the baron continued.

“What is it that I am meant to have learned?”

Wrighthall sat up straight and eased back into his chair, arms crossed. “How soon you forget what happened the last time you withheld information from those who seek to help,” he said with a weighty sigh.

A prickle of defensiveness inspired Caleb to straighten in his seat as well. He fixed his friend with a warning glare.

“That was an entirely different situation. Of that, you are well aware.”

“Different in subject matter, I expect. But I am also entirely aware of the negative ramifications you endured as a result. I should hate to see you—or that young lady—suffer needlessly again.”

Caleb shot to his feet. “It was not needless—”

“You know it was not right of your brother to swear you to maintain his secret. Nor was it right of him to delay telling you the truth and failing to adequately prepare you for your future while he was still able.”

Wrighthall rose more slowly and fixed Caleb with a regretful expression.

“You lost years of happiness with Miss Abbott because of it. Had he been clearer-headed when you came to him, I do not believe the late earl would have wished for that outcome. If we cannot be free to share the entirety of our existences, pain and shame and all, with those we love, are we truly free?”

Silence stretched between them once more. The tension in Caleb’s muscles eased ever so slightly. “I should discover which philosophers you have been studying of late,” he mumbled under his breath.

“My favorite philosopher to study is always this one here,” said Wrighthall, tapping his temple. “I shall ring for tea—no, something stronger, I should think—and you shall tell me what happened yesterday.”

A few minutes later, Caleb did just that, both men settled into their chairs by the window once more. As he spoke, the intervals between Wrighthall’s sips of port grew longer until he eventually abandoned his glass entirely.

“I told you it was shameful.”

Wrighthall shook his head. “I wish I could say that Mr. Abbott is only seeing what any concerned parent might, but…”

Cold dread gripped Caleb. “You mean to say that you believe he is correct? That I am destined to repeat my mistakes and bring misery to Isabel?”

Wrighthall shook his head again, this time looking strangely abashed. “Not at all. In fact, I have never been more certain that Mr. Abbott is incorrect. But I must confess I am beginning to fear now that this interest in your movements has reached his ears and made him fearful of a repetition of the past.

“And I may or may not have been accidentally contributing to the impression of your impending departure, only because I have not heard you mention a change in plans. I said as much yesterday in the sculpture room to a few gentlemen who knew of my connection to you.”

Caleb reached for Wrighthall’s glass on the side table between them and thrust it at his friend. “That is no fault of yours. You provided what information you had. I should have canceled long ago, but my happiness was so great that I had entirely forgotten what it felt like to wish to leave.”

“Will you call on Mr. Abbott and explain?” Wrighthall asked after downing a relieved gulp.

“Will my explanation of the present misunderstandings absolve the crimes of the past?”

“I will remind you again that you have committed no crimes, Murfield.”

Caleb could not help scoffing at his friend’s limitless capacity for humoring him. “What greater crime can there be than breaking the heart of the woman you love? What sentence can any judge pass that would remedy it?”

“If you explained the circumstances to the man—the true circumstances—perhaps he would find it in himself to be understanding. He has lost someone he loved, has he not?”

In Caleb’s misery and self-pity, it was a tempting suggestion, though not tempting enough.

“But…But what if he is correct? What if I have already proven that I do not deserve her? What if I ruined my chance to make her happy four years ago and have only been deluding myself—both of us—since my return? When she looks at me with such sweetness and trust, how can I live peacefully knowing the pain buried beneath them?”

With a deep inhale, Wrighthall set his drink down once more. He leaned across the space between them and tapped Caleb’s knee with his fist yet again.

“Because, while Mr. Abbott may have been watching you for signs of a potential threat, I was watching Miss Abbott.” He paused and gave a strange, rueful chuckle.

“Lately of the two of you, it seems you are the only one who thinks yourself unworthy. She looks at you with sweetness and trust because you already bring her joy by sharing your life with her. She forgave you. Does that not mean you are permitted to forgive yourself? I fear that if you do not, then you truly will be sacrificing both your opportunities at happiness.”

For the first time since that moment at the Royal Academy yesterday, Caleb’s mind quieted. That was sorely tempting, indeed.

To forgive himself for his mistakes seemed far too easy. Otherwise, Caleb would spend the rest of his days, whether they were spent beside Isabel or not, feeling that he could always be doing more to make amends.

“A note has just been delivered for his lordship, with a request for urgent response,” announced a voice at the drawing room door.

Caleb waved the footman in and took the single folded sheet from the silver tray. When he turned it over, he was surprised to feel a pinch of disappointment that a swan in purple wax did not greet him. At present, he certainly would not have minded if an older, wiser guide would simply reveal to him the right course of action and the right way to feel, anonymous or not.

Still, both he and Wrighthall raised their brows at the unfamiliar burgundy seal. Caleb popped it open with a letter opener and read the few lines in a blink.

“Well, who is it and what is their urgent business?” prodded the other gentleman.

“It is Lady Ainsworth. She has requested that I meet her at her residence at once. No reason given.”

Wrighthall’s brow rose higher still. “Very odd. Well, I suppose you had best ring for your carriage.”

Before Caleb could gather his senses enough to find his footing, his friend had already crossed to the nearest bell pull and tugged. Caleb still had not fully regained his composure by the time Wrighthall pushed him into his barouche, or even by the time the horses slowed to a stop outside the dowager countess’s townhouse.

He sat inside the relative privacy of the carriage for a moment longer, staring up at the handsome building through the window and willing his innards to cease their spinning. Though they had often encountered each other at various events throughout the Season, both with and without Isabel’s presence, Lady Ainsworth had never personally written to Caleb, let alone summoned him to her home.

Would Isabel be inside, waiting for him? Perhaps she would be waiting to inform him that she’d thought better of the risk of entrusting her heart into the very hands that had shattered it into pieces.

“My lord?” asked his attendant from outside, voice muffled through the thick wood of the barouche.

“Yes, yes, I am ready,” Caleb lied, more to himself than to the footman who opened the carriage door.

Lady Ainsworth’s butler wasted no time greeting his lady’s visitor and showing him upstairs, much to Caleb’s regret. He still had not decided what he would say when he entered the drawing room…and found a most unexpected sight.

“Lord Murfield, thank you for joining us with such haste,” said the dowager countess from the middle of the room, flanked by three young ladies.

“Good afternoon,” Caleb replied, bowing his head to Lady Ainsworth, Miss Reeve, Miss Gardiner, and Miss Clara in turn.

Only when he’d taken his seat in the chair opposite the ladies’ sofa did Caleb notice that unassuming Miss Gardiner clutched his portfolio in her lap. His heart plummeted, taking with it whatever weak hopes Wrighthall’s encouragement had attempted to instill.

“What has happened to Isabe—Miss Abbott?” he asked quietly.

“She has left London, I am afraid,” said Lady Ainsworth.

That unexpected answer stole the breath from Caleb’s lungs, as if she had taken all the air in the city with her. Isabel was gone? Why should that surprise him? He would have run, too. He had been running away from himself for years.

“Did she say why?” he asked dumbly. He already knew what the answer would be. He was the cause.

“In truth, I believe her father may have had some influence there, given some recently acquired information,” Lady Ainsworth replied. The corners of her mouth twitched down in a frown that seemed disapproving—though of her brother-in-law or the young man sitting across from her, Caleb could not tell.

“Sh-She also wished for these to be returned to you…should they be useful to you on your next journey,” stammered Miss Gardiner as she presented Caleb’s portfolio to him, eyes on the low table between them.

His suspicions had been confirmed. Hands numb, Caleb accepted the portfolio and mumbled his thanks to the girl. He ran his palm over the smooth leather. When had Isabel’s hands last touched it?

“I do not blame her, or Mr. Abbott, but I wish I might have spared her a little pain with an explanation…”

“See! I knew there must be some sort of reason!” cried the younger Gardiner sister, hopeful eyes shining.

Caleb held up a hand and gave a humorless chuckle. “I would not be inclined to think too well of me just yet, Miss Clara, but I thank you regardless.

“You see, I had initially planned to end my Season early under the assumption that it would all end up as an exercise in misery after Miss Abbott gave me the cut direct the moment she saw my face again. But when that did not happen, to my utter disbelief…”

“Because you still love each other after all this time,” Miss Clara added with a romantic sigh, hands pressed to her heart. She muffled a surprised yelp when Miss Reeve, seated to her right, jabbed her in the side with an elbow.

Caleb mustered a reassuring smile for the young lady. It had no effect upon his own wounded heart, which crumbled a little faster with every imagined gallop of the horses that carried Isabel away from any further hurt he might cause.

“That has been my most earnest, most ardent hope,” he confessed slowly, lowering his head. “Still, I am afraid the shadows of the past continue to cast doubt upon the present and the future. I cannot say there is no logic in that.”

“But is there?”

The unexpected sharpness in Miss Reeve’s voice caused Caleb’s head to snap back up. The other three ladies also stared at their companion in surprise.

She ignored them, her observant, brown eyes fixed squarely on Caleb. He went still. The viscount’s daughter had spoken but three words to Caleb and he already felt quite put in his place.

“I pray you will forgive my bluntness, my lord, but the time for pleasantries has come and gone,” she continued with an admirable, quietly confident fire.

“Mercy,” Miss Clara, glancing nervously at Caleb, hissed in a whisper. Her wonderfully agreeable nature seemed to desire harmony at all times, even when harmony would have been wholly unnatural in the situation.

The older woman in the room, and the one most likely to be most concerned with proper decorum in the presence of a gentleman, merely watched with cool interest. Lady Ainsworth seemed to sense that Isabel’s friends could manage the topic with both the honesty and delicacy required of it and made no motion to intervene.

“Please do not think to spare me,” said Caleb, gesturing for Miss Reeve to continue.

“Then please do not think to plunge our dear Isabel into a lifetime of shrouded sorrow. Eventually, she attempted to convince us all that she’d healed, but we are her closest friends. Of course we could see the fractures that remained. It is high time they were healed once and for all…and you are the one to do it.”

As Miss Reeve spoke, Caleb’s lips slowly parted in shock. She had declared her intentions and he had requested not to be spared, yet he still had not expected such directness from Isabel’s friend. Lady Ainsworth watched Miss Reeve from the corner of her eye, wearing a small, proud smile. The two other misses nodded along eagerly.

“What a fool I have been,” Caleb said under his breath. “What a mess I have caused. What if that is merely who I am—a fool who is bound to bring her despair?”

“She is already despairing as we speak,” answered Miss Gardiner. The room went still and quiet.

“She is?” Caleb repeated.

A cruel hand gripped his chest and twisted at the thought of his poor Isabel, suffering by his hand yet again. Perhaps, even now, she was drowning in tearful agony.

“Of course she is,” Miss Gardiner replied, her tremulous voice barely more than a whisper. If she noticed the surprised glances her companions shared, she did not allow them to impede her rare surge of bravery.

“Do you not see, my lord?” the young lady continued with a kindness and patience that somehow reassured Caleb where no other well-meaning words had. The knot of unshed tears burning in his throat loosened ever so slightly.

“Isabel despairs because you are the very cause of her joy and she fears she has lost you…again. Indeed, she was angry and deeply hurt when she summoned us to say our farewells this morning. She thought you had willfully omitted your plans for the end of the Season, thus confirming a pattern of behavior that both she and Mr. Abbott much feared.”

“Which we, of course, knew could not possibly be right,” offered Miss Clara earnestly. “We have seen the way you look at her and the way you speak to and about her. Nothing can be clearer than the fact that you love her as unwaveringly as she loves you.”

Miss Gardiner smiled softly.

“My sister is correct. Regardless of the unfortunate events that occurred in the past, none of us have any doubt now that you will devote yourself endlessly to the pursuit of Isabel’s comfort and contentment for all her days, as she deserves. In a way, you are already doing just that.”

“How so?” asked Caleb, his natural curiosity tempering his incredulity. He leaned forward in his chair.

Something deep inside him tingled, waking up, as if it sensed the imminent discovery of the true key he’d been searching for.

Seemingly startled by his sudden intensity, the young lady shrank into herself and swallowed but did not lose courage.

“You seem to think that by ceaselessly punishing yourself, you are somehow increasing Isabel’s chances at happiness by freeing her from the constant reminder of your past mistakes and saving her from any potential mistakes you might commit in the future.

“At least in my view, which may not account for much, your own happiness is what will secure Isabel’s—not your punishment. She is the most joyful any of us have ever seen when you are near. Yet if you continue to think that you will be doing the honorable thing by disappearing from her life again, I fear our dear friend’s days of joy will be well and truly over. Even now, I do not believe Isabel would wish for you to withhold peace from yourself for all eternity.”

Time seemed to slow around Caleb as Miss Gardiner’s sage, compassionate words echoed in his ears and seeped into the cracks of his heart. They joined with Wrighthall’s earlier sentiments, expanding to fill those old, hollow places.

He desperately longed for those sentiments to be true, that it might be possible—permissible, even—for him to release the burdens that had kept him and Isabel asunder for so long and find joy on the other side, in the smiles he hoped to put on Isabel’s pretty lips every day.

“Do you mean to tell me that I should…”

Before Caleb could gather his thoughts enough to finish the question, a footman marched into the drawing room and announced to his mistress that her most important trunks had been loaded onto the carriage and the remainder would be following as swiftly as the staff could finish packing.

Lady Ainsworth thanked and dismissed him and rose quickly, the younger women following suit. Caleb did the same. The dowager countess, normally calm and composed, took a bold step forward, stopping just a few feet before her guest.

“Yes, Lord Murfield, that is precisely what we are telling you. The fight need not end here, but that is something only you can determine.” The lady paused and placed a gentle hand on his forearm. “I hope to see you again soon. Very soon.”

As the young ladies also excused themselves, a strange, welcome weightlessness filled Caleb’s limbs. It did not completely drive out his fears, but it loosed their iron grip just enough for an ember of hope to shine through.

That little flicker, all the braver for its trembling, grew with every step that carried him out of Lady Ainsworth’s drawing room.

Perhaps this was Caleb’s chance to choose his fate. Perhaps he was finally finished with being swept about by waves of cowardice and grief and dragging innocent hearts underneath the waters with him.

He could choose differently. For Isabel’s sake, he would.