Call Down the Moon (23 page)

He turned abruptly and looked at her from across the room. He met her gaze squarely, his gray eyes clear and full of question. “I will not press you, but I would like an answer.”

She saw it then, saw that he knew, and had known all along. A part of her wanted to curl up and die, for she’d tried so hard to protect him, to protect both her sons from the grim reality of their father’s suicide. She hadn’t wanted either of them to carry an untenable burden.

Now she knew she had failed and failed badly. Because of her silence, she had forced Raphael not only to carry that burden, but to carry it by himself. So he had, keeping his own silence, becoming a controlled, responsible nine-year-old boy who had grown into a controlled, responsible man. He had given away nothing of himself or of his feelings until he’d finally found his Lucy and a measure of peace.

“Very well,” she said, summoning up her courage. She knew she owed him not just an answer, but the full truth he had asked for. “I established the sanitarium because I could think of no other way to absolve my conscience,” she said, meeting his gaze equally squarely. “I did it because I had no other way to deal with the pain and the guilt I felt over your father’s death. I did it because I wanted to keep other wives from needlessly losing their husbands, husbands from needlessly losing their wives, and children needlessly losing their parents. Do you understand, Raphael? Need I be more clear than that?”

“Thank you, Mama,” he said raggedly, staring at the floor. “Thank you. I know the admission was difficult, but you have no idea what a relief it is to have the truth out in the open, to finally be able to speak of what really happened. All these years I thought I had to protect you, to keep you safe.”

“To keep
me
safe? But my dearest, that was what I was trying to do for you. That is why I said nothing.”

Rafe raised his head. “You said nothing, but you knew his death was no accident; you knew that he deliberately put the gun to his throat and pulled the trigger. Given what I’ve just told you, you must realize that I saw it all happen.”

The duchess pressed shaking hands to her temples. “No,” she whispered. “Oh, no. Not that. Not that … I didn’t know. Oh, Raphael, I didn’t know.”

“How could you know? I didn’t tell you,” he said bluntly. “I will tell you this now, though, and I apologize if I cause you pain, but you have a right to hear. I saw him go out with the gun, and I thought he’d forgotten to call me. I chased after him, taking the shortcut through the woods. Just as I broke through the last copse he fired. There was no mistaking his intent.”

“My darling boy—what can I say to you other than I am sorry, so terribly, terribly sorry,” she choked, reaching up to wipe away the tears that had sprung to her eyes. “You said only that you’d found his body in the field. Since you never mentioned another word about it, I believed you didn’t want to bring up bad memories. I never imagined—truly, I never imagined there was anything more to your silence than that.”

“Mama, please do not upset yourself, not over me. I put the worst of the pain to rest some time ago, with Lucy’s help, and although the scars may never go away, they do heal cleanly. Tell me this, though. Since you weren’t there, how did you know the truth?”

She shook her head back and forth, the tears slipping down her cheeks. Her memory flooded back as clearly as if it were only yesterday. “I—I just knew. There were things he’d say in a fit of despair, things he’d threaten that scared the life out of me because I knew he halfmeant them,” she said, blotting her cheeks with her napkin. “That last morning he went into his library in a terrible state, ranting and raving.” She closed her eyes.

“Please, you don’t need to speak of it,” Rafe said gently. “You are upsetting yourself, Mama, and that was not my intention.”

“No,” she said, cutting him off. “It is long past time that I spoke, and you, too, have a right to know.” She drew in a deep breath, steeling herself to continue. “I never got over the fear of what he might do, but since nothing ever came of his threats, I tried to make myself believe it was only the darkness talking. He always recovered and then life went on—and happily, Raphael. We were always so happy until the next time.”

“So you decided to leave him alone when he retreated into the library in another one of his dark spells,” Rafe said.

She nodded, seeing that morning so clearly. The bright sunlight had glanced off the walls in defiance of the darkness in the house. “I never knew how long they would last. Sometimes he would be better in hours, sometimes it took weeks. I found it best to let him be. This time, he’d been drinking heavily for days. He closed the door and locked it, and I thought he would sleep it off as he often did and eventually come out feeling better. That was the pattern, you see, but this time he slipped out of the house, and—and he finally did what he always said he would do.”

She pressed her forehead hard into her hand as if she could push away her guilt and regret.

Rafe crossed the room and knelt in front of her, covering her free hand with his own. “It wasn’t your fault any more than it was mine, Mama, although it took me years to understand that. We can torture ourselves with all the things we might have done, should have done, and none of it does any good, none of it will bring him back. We have to absolve ourselves and go on.”

“You are wise, Raphael,” the duchess said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Very wise to realize that.”

“As I said, it took time before I learned to stop torturing myself. At least you did something productive in founding the sanitarium. I only wish we had been able…”

“That we had been able to do what, darling?”

He paused, then gently smiled at her. “Able to talk about this when it happened. I lied to protect you and Hugo, and you lied to protect us. It’s been one large parcel of lies, designed to protect each other, and all you and I managed to do was to lock ourselves out alone in the cold, and I suppose we locked Hugo out there, too.”

“Darling,” she said uncertainly, lifting her head, determined to have it all out, now that they’d come this far. “Your brother—does he know that his father’s death was self-inflicted?”

Rafe pushed his other hand through his hair and sighed heavily. “No. I don’t think he even suspects, and I hope to God it stays that way. He’s been through enough, losing Papa when he was only five. At least I had a few more years of maturity to help me deal with the shock, but he was just a baby.” He shook his head. “I remember—I remember how devastated he was, how worried I was for him. He’d always been such a sunny, happy lad, full of nonsense, making everyone laugh, and then that terrible day happened, and all the light went out of his eyes. I’m not sure it ever came back, not really, despite the act he puts on.”

“I do know,” the duchess said in a low voice. “I have been gravely concerned about him for the longest time—not just because of the gambling and all the other pieces of nonsense he gets up to, but because I don’t think Hugo knows who he really is. I feel I must be at fault, that I wasn’t a good enough mother to him, that I should have done something different or better.” She wiped away a fresh rush of tears with shaking fingers.

“Please do not blame yourself. You have been a wonderful mother to us both,” Rafe said, handing her his handkerchief. “I’ve blamed myself for his troubles as well, but to tell you the truth, I’ve always thought that the real Hugo disappeared after Papa’s death. Do you remember? He shut himself away in the nursery and refused to come out for weeks, and when he finally did emerge, he was a different child, difficult and rebellious, jumpy as could be, lashing out at everything and everyone.”

“Yes … I do remember,” she said with a frown, thinking back to those dreadful months after her husband’s death. “I was so caught up in my own grief that I wasn’t paying proper attention to either of you, I suppose, but I do remember thinking that he wasn’t himself. I put the change down to shock and unhappiness, but he never grew out of his difficulties, did he?”

“No, although I have seen a few small glimpses of the old Hugo in the last year, enough to give me hope … Good Lord, Mama,” he said with a choked laugh, standing and picking up the letter. “What are we doing hashing over the past when it’s the present we should be thinking about—Hugo’s gone and gotten himself married.”

Eleanor’s voice caught on a half-laugh, half-sob. “So he has. So he has. I can’t quite believe it.”

“I am knocked flat, myself. So please enlighten me—who is this Meggie Bloom? You never did say, except that you thought Hugo met her when he visited your sanitarium.” Rafe froze, his eyes filled with sudden horror. “No—oh no, don’t tell me. She’s not … is she? Please tell me there’s another explanation? I couldn’t bear for Hugo to make such a terrible mistake—not that one. Mama.” Rafe winced. “Here I thought he had managed to perpetrate nearly every scandal in the book … Wait—surely he wouldn’t have been
allowed
to marry her? Or would he have been, if she was lucid at the time? Dear God. Oh, dear, dear God, what has he gone and done now?”

Eleanor laughed merrily, a cleansing relief from the intense emotions of the last half hour. “No cause for worry,” she said. “There is another explanation, thank goodness. Meggie Bloom works—or worked—at the sanitarium, and although I have never met her, from all accounts she is a lovely girl, very compassionate, and truly gifted with those who are troubled.”

Rafe snorted. “I doubt Hugo was interested in those sort of gifts. Is the girl a striking beauty?”

The duchess searched her brain, but came up blank. “I don’t really know. Sister Agnes, the nun who runs the sanitarium, never gave me any details other than that, but why would she? She knows I am concerned only with the level of care the patients receive. She mentioned Meggie Bloom merely in the context of her excellent work.”

“Odd, Hugo doesn’t say anything about the sanitarium. He says he met her in Woodbridge.”

“Yes, dear, but then he doesn’t go into much detail about anything. I suppose he didn’t think the actual location important, and it is certainly possible that he met her in the town. She’s not confined, after all, and Woodbridge would be the largest village near Lyden.”

Rafe rubbed his thumb over his bottom lip. “Mama, do you suppose it’s possible that this girl, being without family or money, decided that Hugo would make a nice catch and set her cap at him in the most obvious way? The marriage does seem rather precipitous, after all, and given the difference in their social rank she would have a very great deal to gain if she did the time-honored thing.”

The duchess gasped. “Do you mean you think he got her—oh, dear. I hadn’t thought of that, although I suppose I should have, knowing your brother. Oh, that would be unfortunate.”

“Mmm,” Rafe replied, rereading the page. “On the other hand he says that he loves her very much and is happier than he’s ever been. He would have to love her if he decided to marry a penniless girl with no breeding to speak of, although I confess to true astonishment if that really is the case. It seems a hell of a selfless act to take on a girl of no consequence, and Hugo has never been known for his selflessness.”

“It is true that he tends toward self-indulgence,” the duchess agreed unhappily.

“Anyway, Hugo would say he loved her, wouldn’t he, if he was going to put a good face on the matter, and you know how he is about trying to gloss over his mistakes.”

“People do grow up, dear,” she said in her younger son’s defense. “Not everyone comes to responsibility as early as you did.”

“Mama,” Rafe said with obvious exasperation, “I am not trying to be hard on Hugo or paint him as a devil, I am only trying to make sense of this. As much as I love my brother, I have no intention of letting him pull the wool over my eyes, not if he’s done something that might seriously compromise the family.”

“Such as what?” the duchess asked sharply. “He’s only married the girl, Raphael, he hasn’t committed a crime. The match might be inappropriate, but it’s done, and we will just have to put the best face on it we can.”

“I have no trouble with that,” Rafe replied, “as long as Hugo does love her and she loves him in return—Lord knows, anyone who can bring my brother real happiness has my blessing, and I don’t give a fig about her background. No, my problem is that we know very little about Miss Bloom’s strengths and a great deal about Hugo’s weaknesses. I am only looking for the truth, whatever it may be—forewarned is forearmed.” He cocked his head and looked at his mother in an appraising fashion. “Can
you
think of anything else, anything else at all that might logically explain this sudden and highly surprising marriage?”

“Well, I did broach the subject of marriage to Hugo,” the duchess said, tapping one finger against her mouth. “He had just bought Lyden Hall and said he intended to settle there. He told me he would consider the idea, and he did go to London for the Season, after all.”

“Which in itself is not normal behavior for Hugo,” Rafe pointed out. “I can only think that he must have taken your words to heart and been looking for a wife, as bizarre as the idea is.”

“Yes … and I’ve heard from more than one person that he had his eye on that awful Amelia Langford with the intention of making a match, although I never believed it for a moment, despite the size of her fortune.”

“Amelia Langford?” Rafe closed his eyes for a brief moment as if pained at the very idea. “I should think not. If there is one thing I can say for my brother, his taste has always been impeccable—not necessarily correct, but impeccable no matter what he was getting up to. Which brings me back to my original point. If Hugo was so busy looking for a socially respectable wife in London, then when would he have had time to court this Meggie Bloom all the way out in Suffolk? And why?”

“I cannot think. My sources place him at nearly every important event in London since April. I can’t imagine his driving back and forth in between social engagements.”

“Precisely. Which indicates to me that if he did get up to mischief with Miss Bloom, it was back in March, as you said. He married her at the end of the first week in June. Need I be more clear?”