Page 90 of My Highland Rogue
She shook her head again. “He never had to prove anything to me. He never had to be anyone other than who he was, Ellen. He was Gordon. That was enough.”
Ellen’s attention was on their joined hands. “That’s a very romantic notion, but it isn’t real, Jennifer. Gordon knew that. In order to offer you something, he had to have something to offer. I admire him for knowing that and putting actions to ideas.”
“I know that,” Jennifer said. “I knew that Gordon always had plans for his life—for our life—but I never thought that he would stay away so long. Or that it would be so painful.”
“But he came back. He returned to you. So what is wrong?”
Jennifer squeezed her hand, released it, then stood and walked to the other side of the room. The drapes had already been closed, but she pushed one side open and stood there, looking out at the night.
“I love him.” A few minutes later she spoke again. “But I can’t love him. It’s wrong. It’s a sin.”
Ellen kept silent only because she had a feeling that if she spoke, Jennifer would burst into tears.
“I don’t think I can tell you,” Jennifer said, her voice faint. “The words won’t come.”
That didn’t sound like her goddaughter at all. She’d always faced every situation directly and with determination, from Mary’s illness and subsequent death to managing Adaire Hall and handling Harrison.
“You can always tell me anything, Jennifer.”
Slowly, Jennifer closed the drapes again and turned, facing Ellen.
“I love him. I love him with all my heart, but it’s wrong to feel that way.”
“When is love ever wrong?” Ellen asked. “Because he doesn’t have a title? That seems unlike you.”
“No, because he’s my brother.”
Ellen blinked a few times, but the words were still there, almost floating in the air between them.
“Your brother?”
Jennifer nodded.
“Gordon is your brother?”
“Yes.”
For the next several minutes, Ellen heard themost outrageous story about a woman named Betty McDonnell, who’d done something hideous. Perhaps she’d even label it evil. She’d taken Mary’s child and replaced him with her own.
When Jennifer was done speaking, Ellen stared at her wordlessly. Not one comment came to mind. In a world of words, she had nothing reassuring or comforting to say. Now, at this one particular point in time, she should have been able to murmur something, but nothing penetrated the maelstrom of her thoughts.
“If Betty hadn’t done what she did,” Jennifer added, “then Gordon and I would’ve been raised as brother and sister. I wouldn’t have come to feel for him what I do. Somehow, I’m supposed to only feel a certain way for him now and no more. How am I to do that, Ellen? How do you kill love?”
This young woman she loved so dearly was suffering.
“I don’t know,” Ellen said helplessly.
No wonder she was predisposed to like Gordon. He was Mary’s child. She’d known Mary’s husband well, but she’d only been in Gordon’s company once, for a short time. He’d startled her at the time by remarking on how her eyes were like Jennifer’s.
Poor Mary, to have never known who Gordon was. Harrison had proved to be a poor replacement.
“There, I’ve told you the truth, but it doesn’t make the situation easier to bear. Misery shared isn’t necessarily misery eased, Ellen.”
“Certainly not in this situation,” Ellen said.
“There’s something else you need to know. I’ve made a decision. I’m not going back to Adaire Hall. I can’t go back there. I can’t see the places where Gordon and I spent so much time. I can’t pretend that my life is the same. It isn’t.”
She didn’t have anything to say to that, either.
