“I haven’t been here for 3 years, almost 4.”
“Since your brother died?”
“And my mother.”
He did not know what to say. None of the well worded platitudes offered in his own moment of grief seemed right. “I am sorry.”
“Thank you for your kindness,” she answered him simply. “I fear I am a coward to avoid this place.”
“There is nothing of the coward to avoid places that feel too much.” He countered firmly.
“You're too kind, Robert.” She still thought herself uncaring and cowardly for not facing her grief. Yet she had dared to criticise him for failing a sibling. She was a hypocrite.
“It is merely the truth. I believe it takes a fortitude of the soul to survive grief. A gel, I am told, needs her mother.” He said so ruefully, sure he was treading in dangerous ground.
“And a man his father, yet yours is deceased. I am sorry for prattling on. I am not the only one with a dead parent. You are an orphan, are you not?”
“Yes, I suppose so.” The words were soft, but they held a heavy message.
What was she supposed to say? Having known grief, she knew words were not enough. “My condolences.”
He nodded tightly and continued, “I must confess, I find I only grieved for my mother.”
“How did she die?” She ventured boldly. Clearly there was more to the matter than the initial implications.
“A carriage accident.”
“Is that where you...”
“Got my scars. Yes.” He was silent a moment. “I grew to favor my mother. I think that was hard for my father. We had a warm house once. After that my father sent me off to school and crawled into a bottle.”
Lady Amelia’s eyes grew large and misty for the young boy he had been, grieving for his mother, forced to sever connections with his sister and abandoned by his father.
“He gave me over to tutors and masters of the manly arts. I was in Eton when I heard he died. I came home to attend to my duties as the new Duke of Windon and laid him to rest. As soon as he was placed in the ground I returned to Eton. I wore black for the expected time as did my sister. But I confess I think she wore it out of filial devotion, and I? I cannot think why except that it was expected. My real father had died years before. He told me to never fall in love. It hurts too much. It certainly destroyed him.” He said it in a light manner that she now recognised to be an armor of sorts. There was a world of confusion, puzzlement and pain beneath it all. “Six months to the day after the funeral I took off the mourning bands and resumed my life.”
He turned to her, wondering why she was silent, Amelia was looking at him with the most heartbroken expression and tears streaming down her face.
He stared at her as she bit down on her lips to keep from making a sound. Her reaction stunned him. Nobody had ever cried for him. He found it oddly appealing and saddening. She should not cry for any reason. “Now, hush, not another tear.” He pulled a starched handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at her cheeks.
The sobs burst out despite her best effort
s. “I cannot bear it Robert, I cannot.”
“I confess, I am waiting for your anger to wash over me, demanding how I can be content with mere duty,” he prompted.
“I am wrong, so wrong to judge you. Oh Robert, I cannot bear it. You without a mother, separated from your sister and a father that abandoned you. Oh...ooh.” He stopped dabbing at her face. It proved ineffectual at staunching the flow of tears anyways and his handkerchief was quite soaked.
He leaned closer and gathered her to his chest. She was lean but of considerable height. Her head reaching his shoulders and the coils of the coiffure she currently sported tickled his chin as he held her shuddering body in his embrace.
“Here I am, well loved and discontent. You have surely chastised me with your tale. I am ashamed and fully contrite.” She spoke into his chest, muffled but audible through her sniffling.
Robert bent over her head to hear what she had mumbled against his chest. “It was not my intentions to make you cry. Neither are they to have the effects of a sermon. I only wanted to tell you.”
“And I understand,” she protested. “I still feel a fool,” she muttered against his chest with a touch of asperity.
He threw his head back and laughed. He wondered how he could feel the urge when he had been in the holds of grief mere moments ago.
Amelia remained content to lay her head on his chest. The rumbling from his chest was even more delightful than the sound that escaped into the air. She leaned in closer and rubbed her face in his waistcoat.