Page 54 of When She Loved Me
“Thank you.”
Trevor found his mother lounging by herself, a sherry in one hand, a book in another. Seeming to recall her once telling Nicole that she certainly did not read novels, he was surprised to see the book was just that, as he couldn’t imagine what elseA Sicilian Romancemight be, if he’d read that title correctly. She snapped the book closed and laid it upon the side table, face down.
“I believe you’ve lost something,” she said in her enigmatic way.
“So I have.” He was weary now and had still to convince his wife to come home with him. He didn’t suppose he had the energy to deal with his mother’s unpleasantness before that. “Where is she?”
“Not,how is she?Or,why is she here?Very curious, indeed.”
“I’d rather have those answers from her.” He scraped a hand over his face and jaw, impatient to find Nicole.
“Upstairs, likely asleep by now,” his mother finally offered. And as Trevor pivoted, she called out, “Don’t make the mistake your father did.”
He was quite sure he didn’t need a lecture from his mother and turned back toward her, allowing his expression to say so.
She smirked but otherwise ignored his dry look and forestalled him. “Did you ever wonder what came first, your father’s unfaithfulness, or my wretchedness?”
He had not. He’d absolved his father years ago for his infidelities, knowing how very difficult his mother could be. But as it seemed he would pay a price to her for taking in Nicole, he shoved his hands in his pockets, and gave her a shake of his head.
“I thought not.” She lifted a hand and smoothed the gray hair away from her face. “I was very young when we married, and so in love with him.”
Trevor’s gaze snapped to her face, to her eyes, at the break in her voice.
She continued, “He was much like you, tall and handsome, hard to resist. I absolutely adored him.” With a sharply indrawn breath, she told him, “I didn’t find out that he’d not given up his mistress until about a year into our marriage. I cried and begged and pleaded, and he promised he would. He never did give her up. Honoria was her name. When all was said and done, when he died, she’d actually had more of him that I ever did. And he’d added others, even if they didn’t last. But she always did. She came to his funeral, wailed openly upon the casket. As if the grand open secret of the Earl of Leven’s proclivities throughout the years hadn’t been bad enough, she did that to me, cementing my humiliation. I’ve never had set foot inside the city again if not for your betrothal and wedding.” She breathed harshly, as if this confession had taken any small amount of stamina she’d had. “The sister was undoubtedly unsuitable for you. But when you married this one, honestly I hoped you had a chance.”
Trevor slumped onto the arm of the chair next to him. “Mother, I had no idea—”
She waved this off, so much anger in her still. “But now I see you’re just like your father, not chasing the skirts, I’ll give you that. But you haven’t a clue what to do with a good woman, one who clearly adores you. You’ll ruin her, I suspect, as your father did me. Take a good look, son, this is what happens to us, when we’re spurned and unloved and broken. We turn bitter and ugly, reject any form of love. It’s just too painful. At a certain point, it just becomes so much easier—so damn safe—to be callous, keeping everyone and everything at a distance.”
He was at a complete loss for words, staring at her, seeing a trace of tears water her eyes.
She swiped impatiently at her eyes, stiffened her lip. “But there you have it, and that’swhatyou’ll have, a mean and wretched wife, if you don’t figure this out now.”
“I aim to,” he insisted, frowning.
She fluttered her hand again, dismissively. “Then go, go to her. The fact that she came here tells me exactly how awful you’ve been. She didn’t want to be found by you, for whatever you’ve done to her. You’ve likely got half a chance to fix it. Get on with it.”
Almost as if she were a whole new person, or if he absolutely saw her that way, he asked, “You like her, don’t you, Mother?”
She wanted to smile, at his assumption, or at his wanting her approval, he could not know, and then she did not, held the smile away from him yet. Instead, she said, “She talks entirely too much, has my kitchen in an uproar, and her needlework is beyond unfortunate.” And then, with a rare softening about her once pretty features, “But it’s very hard not to like her.”
Trevor couldn’t say he recalled ever seeing such bemusement upon his mother’s face. He stepped forward and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “We’re all going to be just fine, mother. I’ll make sure of it.”
She nodded, one tear finally fell away from her tired eyes. “Third door on the right, son.”
He proved how dastardly—and desperate—he was by not rapping upon the door to announce his presence. He had some fleeting and frightful vision of her hearing him call a greeting through the door and jumping up to secure the lock. He couldn’t take that chance, and quietly pushed open the door to show him only a pitch black room. Closing the door behind him, he waited until his eyes adjusted, until he could distinguish Nicole’s slender form in his mother’s guest bed.
She stirred not at all, so that Trevor came close and stared at her for quite some time, his hands shoved into the pockets of his breeches. He spent some time trying to recall the first time he’d ever met her. At the time, his interest and purpose had been set upon Sabrina, so that, honestly, he recalled only her personality from that very first meeting. But of course, that was half her allure, being at that time—before he’d stolen so much of her liveliness and friendliness—such an open book. And beguiling, so much so that when’ he’d noticed her at the Clarendon ball, he realized she was so much more than merely Sabrina’s younger sister. So damnably exquisite, so perfect for him.
Having kicked himself enough over the past year and a half withwould havesandshould haves, he spared himself further torment with the one constant that had been screaming in his head since the moment his lips had first touched hers: that he should have, at that instant, realized the full extent of her hold over him,and his feelings for her, and have called off the betrothal to her sister. He’d been overwhelmed by his reaction to her then, but it would have behooved him to have examined it more closely at the time, to have thought of the grand picture, and not only of Leven.
If only....
He was reluctant to wake her, and then anxious to do so. She looked so damn peaceful, her brow unwrinkled, her hair wildly cast about her head and the pillows and the bed. Carefully, he perched on the side of the bed, and gently moved the thick locks away from her face. She slept on her stomach, her slender arms hugging one pillow.
But wake her he did. Her long lashes fluttered, and she blinked several times. Sorrowfully, she startled with a certain annoyance to find him sitting beside her. More gloomily, she pushed his hand away.
“If you touch me again, I will scream this house down.”
