Page 23 of Pursuing Lord Pascal
She was curious. His mother’s desertion didn’t seem to anger him. Instead, he spoke with fond tolerance, as if he knew she couldn’t help herself. Very mature, but Amy couldn’t imagine he’d felt that way as a child.
“So I discovered. I rattled around the chilly manor house with Papa, until I went to Harrow at eight, forsaking my ovine chums.”
He spoke wryly, but this time, she wasn’t fooled. “It must have been lonely.”
Self-derision flattened his lips. “School was full of decent chaps. I was fine, once I got there.”
She frowned. Did this mean that he loathed country life? If he did, he’d never be content with her. “What about your mother? What happened to her?”
“When she realized her son was almost as pretty as she was, she allowed me to come to London a few weeks a year. That was always great fun. But Papa didn’t want his heir exposed to the feckless crowd my mother ran with.”
Still moving at his side, Amy stared blindly across the pond to the trees beyond. Silly to grieve over that bleak, loveless childhood. Pascal had been torn between parents who were clearly a poor match.
Amy had already noted his complex relationship with his extraordinary looks. That ambivalence must have started when his mother used her son as a prop to her vanity. “What was your father like?”
“A good man. Much older than my mother. You’ve probably gathered it wasn’t a harmonious union. They had little in common.”
“Except you.” Their quiet conversation had persuaded the birds it was safe to return to the ponds.
“Except me. He was kind in his fashion, although he had no real idea how to manage a child. I think we were both relieved when I went away to school. He died when I was twelve.” The soft thud of Pascal’s boots created a gentle counterpoint to this sad history.
“I can guess Harrow wasn’t altogether easy.” In wordless comfort, Amy squeezed his arm. Two brothers and numerous Nash cousins gave her an idea of what little savages boys could be. “You’ve forbidden any mention of your appearance, but I imagine a beautiful blond boy had trouble with bullies.”
When he slowed to a stop, she slid her hand free and turned to face him. They stood near a reed bed where a warbler sang for a mate. The sweet music rang out across the cool spring air.
Pascal sent her an unreadable look. “I had the odd fight. I needed toughening up.”
Amy didn’t comment on what she knew must be a rank understatement. She was too busy trying to hide her appalled reaction to the revelations about his barren family life. He’d loathe her pity.
He looked like he had everything the world could give. Yet he’d lacked something as basic as a mother’s love. He might still be a stranger, but his pain tore a jagged crack in her heart.
“Is your mother still alive?” It was an effort to steady her voice.
“She died fifteen years ago when her lover’s yacht went down off the Isle of Wight.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “She wasn’t made for old age.”
Not for the first time, the perfection of his features operated as a mask concealing the real man. “That seems…cold.”
His lips turned down, as he took her arm again and walked on. “When I was a child, I adored her and clamored for her attention. After I came home from London, I’d cry for a week. But she lost interest in me, once I stopped being small and appealing. Gangly, pimply adolescents tried her patience—and she abhorred people knowing she had a son approaching manhood. By the end, we were strangers.”
He spoke carelessly, but by now, Amy knew better than to trust his pretended indifference. The vibrating tension in the arm under her fingers indicated that the hurt still cut deep.
For his sake, she made herself smile, even as she wanted to fling her arms around him and apologize on behalf of fate for that desolate upbringing. “I refuse to believe you were ever pimply or gangly. I’ll wager you always looked like a prince. No wonder you devoted yourself to pleasure when you hit London. The ladies must have gone into a frenzy for you.”
His laugh held a sour note. “You describe a dashed shallow cove.”
“That’s what you want me to believe, isn’t it?”
He leveled that deep blue gaze upon her. “What I want you to believe is that I’ll make an excellent lover and an even better husband.”
The abrupt change struck a jarring note. She knew how reluctantly he’d spoken of his past, but now he had, she couldn’t help seeing beyond this magnificent creature to the bereft little boy.
Although if she told him that, he’d run a hundred miles. Just when she started to think that she might like him to stay.
It was clear she’d wring no more confidences from him today. The uncompromising line of his jaw told her that he’d unveiled as much of his soul as he intended. “We’ve made an excellent start.”
