A Rake's Midnight Kiss (48 page)

When he finally looked at the locket, Richard went as pale as paper. The dread that this encounter would result in damage rather than renewal jammed in Genevieve’s throat.

Augusta watched him steadily. Genevieve glanced away from the naked regret and anguish in the woman’s eyes. She suddenly understood that whatever had driven a wedge between Richard and his mother, it wasn’t lack of love.

“Thomas Fraser.” Richard’s voice held no trace of its usual lightness. To Genevieve, it seemed that he struggled to look away from the picture inside. “Tell me about him.”

“He was a brave man.”

The muscle in Richard’s cheek twitched erratically. “Was? He’s dead, then?”

Augusta sat upright, as though facing an inquisition. Genevieve supposed that she did. “He died on a mission to France in 1794.”

Richard grew even paler. Worried, Genevieve rose and shifted to his side. Blindly he reached for her hand, but his
attention remained on his mother. “That was the year I was born.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

Genevieve sensed his roiling reactions. Pain, certainly. Anger. Curiosity avid as a fever.

Augusta’s lip quivered. It was the first weakness she’d displayed and Genevieve realized that she suffered too. “Please sit down. This isn’t easy. Especially with you looming over me like an ax about to fall.”

Genevieve waited for Richard to say that it wasn’t easy for him either. He remained silent. When he and Genevieve sat on the sofa, she drew his hand across her lap, holding hard to bolster his courage.

Augusta’s eyes faltered from her son’s face and she spoke in a low voice. Richard leaned forward as if striving to catch and keep every word. The need in his expression sliced at Genevieve’s heart.

“My parents were ambitious. They arranged my marriage to Lester Harmsworth when I was only seventeen.” Augusta paused. “I was already in love with a young lieutenant from a good family, but sadly, he wasn’t rich. We planned to run away together, but he was posted to India and my maid confessed our plans. In the end, I buckled to pressure and wed where I was bid.”

She stopped and glanced quickly at her son, as if expecting criticism. After a crackling silence, Augusta continued, her voice even lower. “I didn’t see my young lieutenant for five years. When we finally met again, he was a major with a fortune in prize money. He came to London while Sir Lester was in St. Petersburg.”

“So you broke your marriage vows,” Richard said softly, but with such bitterness that Genevieve flinched.

Augusta was as ashen as her son. “I was a wife in name only.”

“Because you didn’t love your husband?”

She shook her head. “No. Because Sir Lester was incapable of the marital act. In any true sense, Thomas Fraser was my husband.”

“Good God!” Richard’s hand clenched over Genevieve’s.

“Lady Harmsworth—” Genevieve protested, speaking for the first time in what felt like hours.

Augusta raised a trembling hand. “Please. I’ve waited almost thirty-four years to say this. I can’t stop now.” Her hand returned to fist in her lap until her knuckles gleamed white. “You know what love is like.”

It was an appeal for understanding. Genevieve wondered whether Richard could rise above his history to respond. However touching the circumstances leading to his birth, for years he’d paid for what this woman had done with a man to whom she wasn’t married.

“Yes, I do.” It was tacit acknowledgement that he couldn’t despise his mother for her sins. Genevieve loved him then more than she ever had. She blinked away tears.

His mother must have recognized his words as a concession too, because her anxiety faded, replaced by a grief that was no kinder for being over thirty years old. “We couldn’t stay away from each other. We had plans to elope to America and make a life together. He’d sell his commission, although a brilliant career beckoned.”

“Presumably he thought you were worth it,” Richard said with no hint of a sneer.

Augusta’s faint smile made her look very young and Genevieve had a glimpse of the girl Thomas Fraser had loved so desperately. “He said he did.” She stopped and visibly fought for control. “But he was committed to one more mission.
France was in chaos. Thousands murdered. Robespierre mad with blood. They sent Thomas there in secret, but he was betrayed. I’ve never discovered the full truth. After all, I had no official standing in his life. I was merely his mistress.”

A tear trickled down her cheek. “His pregnant mistress. Just after Thomas left for France, I discovered that I carried his child.” She brushed the tear away. “You, my son.”

Augusta visibly gathered herself to finish the tragic tale. “Sir Lester returned from St. Petersburg to a fine baby boy. He had no hope of a child of his loins, so he accepted you as his heir. He loved you. I hope you remember that.”

Richard stared across the room, but Genevieve knew he sifted memories. “Yes, he was kind to me. I grieved when he died.”

Augusta’s mouth contracted. “I couldn’t save you from scandal. After all, everyone can count and no child grows in its mother’s womb for sixteen months. I can’t even blame you for hating me. After all, my sin fell on your innocent head. But when I heard that you were madly in love with your wife, I had to tell you and… and beg forgiveness.”

It was the first truly humble thing she’d said.

Another silence fell. One heavy with years of resentment and regret. Richard had much to blame his mother for and only an afternoon’s confession to place on the other side of the balance. Genevieve longed to hold him close, to tell him that none of this mattered compared to the wonderful man he was, to insist that whatever decision he made, she was on his side. But under Augusta’s tormented dark gaze, she stayed silent.

Richard kissed the hand he held. Then he released Genevieve and rose.

Genevieve’s muscles tightened until she trembled on the edge of the sofa. Dear heaven, did he mean to storm out?
Augusta had cost him so much happiness, and he’d nurtured a lifetime of rancor.

He passed Genevieve the locket. She glanced at the tiny, exquisite painting and bit back a shocked gasp. If one disregarded the old-fashioned powdered wig, the man staring from the miniature was Richard. No wonder he’d been so moved to see it.

The tension between mother and son drew her gaze from Thomas Fraser’s handsome face. Augusta’s eyes were lowered as if she awaited condemnation. Richard still hadn’t moved. The disregarded tea table stretched between them like a thorny barrier.

Genevieve’s heart melted with compassion for Augusta. How could it not? But her main concern in this encounter remained Richard. How must he feel after today’s revelations?

When he stepped across to his mother, it was as if the earth quaked beneath Genevieve’s feet. Her hands fisted at her sides as she told herself not to go after him, not to beg him to be kind to this woman who had endured so much. She had to trust Richard to choose his next move.

Let him choose wisely, she prayed silently. Let him chose the action that rids his heart of poison.

Unblinking she watched him approach his mother. Augusta slowly raised her eyes. Genevieve read in her face that she awaited castigation. After all, how could a belated confession compensate for such pain?

With his characteristic grace, Richard dropped to his knees by his mother’s chair. “I’m sorry for your heartbreak, Mother. I’m sorry that I was such a blind, self-righteous, contemptible ass all these years. I’m sorry it’s taken me until now to ask your forgiveness.”

Augusta straightened in astonishment. “Richard?”

“I sincerely beg your pardon.” He embraced his mother with a naturalness that scoured Genevieve’s heart.

“My son—” Augusta choked. She buried her face in Richard’s broad, capable shoulder. The proud, beautiful woman who had offered such a frosty welcome began to cry, sobs muffled against her son’s coat.

Torn between joy and sorrow, Genevieve watched mother and son. They had so much time to make up. Their reconciliation wouldn’t change the world’s view of the old scandal. Nonetheless, something inside her flowered into gratitude. Richard and Augusta had found their path. They would survive. Better. They would triumph. Genevieve felt privileged to witness this raw, true occasion when her husband conquered his demons.

Eyes dark with emotion, Richard glanced up at Genevieve. His smile was distinctly shaky, but it conveyed his depth of emotion. Genevieve released a choked laugh and lifted her hand to dash moisture from her cheeks.

“I love you,” she mouthed silently.

“And I love you,” he said softly, firming his grip around his mother’s shoulders.

He extended his hand toward Genevieve, an invitation to share this extraordinary moment. On shaky legs, she rose and stumbled across to enfold Richard and his mother in her arms. The man she loved had made peace with his past. Now a shining future beckoned.

Always a voracious reader, Anna Campbell decided when she was a child that she wanted to be a writer. Once she discovered the wonderful world of romance novels, she knew exactly what she wanted to write. Anna has won numerous awards for her historical romances, including the
RT Book Reviews
Reviewers’ Choice, the Booksellers’ Best, the Golden Quill (three times), the Heart of Excellence, the Aspen Gold (twice), and the Australian Romance Readers Association’s most popular historical romance (five times). Her books have twice been nominated for Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA Award and three times for Romance Writers of Australia’s Romantic Book of the Year.

When she’s not writing passionate, intense stories featuring gorgeous Regency heroes and the women who are their destiny, Anna loves to travel, especially in the United Kingdom, and listen to all kinds of music. She lives near the sea on the east coast of Australia, where she’s losing her battle with an overgrown subtropical garden.

You can learn more at:

AnnaCampbell.info

Twitter @AnnaCampbelloz

Facebook.com/AnnaCampbellwriter

Rothermere House, London, April 1826

T
he ball to celebrate a woman’s forthcoming wedding should be one of the happiest events in her life.

Suppressing a sigh, Lady Lydia Rothermere surveyed the crowd stuffed into her brother Cam’s white and gilt ballroom and told herself of course she was happy. This mightn’t be the night she’d dreamed about as a foolish adolescent, but she’d long ago relinquished dreams. She was a mature, sensible woman of twenty-seven marrying a mature, sensible man of forty-one. She was content with her decision. For a woman well past her debut, contentment was something with which she should be, well, content.

The bracing lecture didn’t notably raise her spirits. She muffled another sigh and plastered a smile on her face. This party was in her honor and she intended to enjoy it, even if it killed her. She wore a new dress to mark the occasion, dark blue brocade with Brussels lace, and her maid had
twined red and white rosebuds through her thick auburn hair.

“I’m neglecting you, my dear.” Sir Grenville Berwick turned from the political cronies who had occupied his attention for the last half hour and took possession of her white-gloved hand.

Her fiancé’s touch aroused no frisson of anticipation. But then only one man had ever made Lydia tremble with desire, and that had been so long ago, she now viewed the events of that summer day as an aberration in an otherwise blameless life. She didn’t pretend to love the man she promised to marry, but she respected him. And God willing, she’d have children, lots of children, to whom she would devote the vast well of frustrated love in her heart.

Please let it be so.

As she turned to Grenville, she kept the smile on her lips, even if it felt like a rictus grin. Tonight he looked the perfect parliamentarian in his sober dark coat and with his graying brown hair combed back from his high forehead. “I’m not some flighty young thing. You don’t have to fuss over me.”