Page 110 of Crash Landing
“I prayed it would never come to this,” her father said with such aching, Florence was afraid to hear what promised to be worse than even she had imagined.
She turned to Trajan. “I have to leave.”
“Stay, Florence,” her father pleaded. “You deserve to learn the truth.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She’d wanted this moment to arrive for all of her life, but now that it was upon her, she dreaded it.
What was the adage?Ignorance is bliss.Perhaps it was.
This revelation was going to be ugly and horrible because her mother hated her.
“All right, I’ll stay,” she said with trepidation, as she had never been a coward and knew she needed to face whatever would be revealed. But she felt scared and was shaking.
Trajan wrapped his arm around her. “Go on, Lord Newton.”
Tears streamed down her father’s face as he finally spoke. “What she sees whenever she looks at you is the mirror image of the woman I love…loved.Hercousin.”
Florence paled. “What?”
“No one ever knew. Not even Hermia.”
“I don’t understand.” What was he suggesting? Was the cousin her true mother?
“Claire,” he said, referring to the cousin, “died in childbirth.”
Florence’s head began to spin. Not only was she another woman’s child, but she had killed her mother. The breath rushed out of her. “Giving birth to me?”
Her father’s eyes widened, but he nodded. “Dear heaven, Florence. You are innocent. No child can be at fault for an act of nature. We wanted you so badly, and I have never regretted you. You are my blessing. You’ve kept my Claire alive for me.”
Florence’s head was now in full reel. All these years, she had blamed her mother… No, her father’s wife, for the woman who had just stormed out of the room had never been a mother to her. She now understood why.
Growing up, she had thought of the woman as a monster.
But who was the real monster? Weren’t they all tainted? Hadn’t theyallcommitted a wrong?
What would she have done if Trajan had brought home a child belonging to the woman he loved and insisted she raise it as her own? How would she have responded when having to face this child who resembled her real mother day after painful day? And knowing Trajan loved this other woman above her?
This could have been him and Eden.
Of course, it wasn’t. Eden had chosen another and Trajan had gotten over her.
But what if he hadn’t? What if he was only telling her that he loved her because he could not have Eden?
She was going to be ill.
“Florence, I am not the villain you believe me to be,” her father insisted, although she did not care to hear his attempts to explain. “Claire was the one I always wanted to marry, but our families refused to allow it. If you and Weymouth are a true love match, perhaps in time you will understand the heartbreak and desolation of two bound hearts being torn apart. Celeste,” he said, referring to the woman he’d married, the one she always thought had been her mother, “never loved me. Not once, not for a moment did she ever care about me. I tried so hard to make our marriage work. I promise you, I did. But she never wanted anything to do with me after she gave me a son. I endured four years of her loathing.”
“Because your heart always belonged to another,” Florence shot back.
He shook his head. “No, she never had it in her to love. Look at how your brother turned out. Sheobsessedover him. She put him up on a pedestal and worshipped him. She indulged him and protected him. She shunned everyone else. Is this a healthy way to love?”
Florence knew it wasn’t. But it did not make what her father did any more right.
“You were my child, Florence. I was not going to give you away.”
“But what you did to her… She had to see me every day, a constant reminder.”
He shook his head vehemently. “No, she was this way before you ever came along. I would have left her before I ever abandoned you. I hadn’t seen Claire, my one true love, in over four years because I wanted to make our marriage work. But I could take it no longer and finally gave up. I began a liaison with Claire, and you were the result of it.”
