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Restlessness still held Colin in its grip after luncheon. The rain continued to fall, and grumbles of muddy roads had circulated through the common taproom of the inn they’d stopped at for a meal.
We should have pushed on despite Ellen’s growling stomach.
Since they had not, he’d availed himself of a couple of drinks, ignoring the disappointed and frustrated looks the females in his traveling party had cast him as they’d eaten. He couldn’t help it. God, he wanted nothing more than to forget, to fall into a haze, awakening from it only after he’d reached the dreaded destination of Lancaster Hall. Once those snifters of brandy had been consumed, he’d berated himself for picking the fight with Lucy in the coach.
He’d wanted her to feel guilty for her part in their failed relationship, but all he’d done was made her cry. He never could abide her tears; they crushed him, made him feel helpless, and more than that, his protective instincts toward her grew stronger than before. Now, he couldn’t fix the new ills he’d caused, for he was indeed all that she’d said, and then some.
Perhaps I’m too broken a man to be of any good to anyone.
Why should he care? She obviously didn’t. Colin hardened his heart against the woman who’d plunged his life into a spiral of darkness even as he sent his gaze across the private dining room where she sat with Ellen in front of a cheerful fire, their heads together as they gaily chatted. Gah, but he wished he could ride or walk outside, but with the cold rain, exercise and time alone was impossible.
There was no escape from the tension-filled silence.
Without recourse and on the verge of running from the inn into the rain just to keep his sanity, Colin began to pace at the opposite end of the private dining room. The ladies ignored him. They continued to talk in low tones, and each trill of laughter Lucy made pierced his chest like shards of glass. Why couldn’t she act so carefree and happy in his company?
I’ve mucked up everything.
Perhaps it was time to make inroads into righting some of the wrongs he’d been responsible for. “Lucy, will you please join me for a moment? We need to talk.” His chest remained tight, especially when she rose and crossed to him, her ice-blue eyes hard and cold.
“What else can you possibly want from me now?” Though she kept her tone low, there was no mistaking the annoyance.
He wanted... everything, but that was outside the realm of possibility. Instead, Colin waved her into a comfortable leather wingback chair that matched the ones by the fireplace. “I need to explain a few things that have come up in the course of our travels that could be construed as... objectionable.”
Lucy uttered an unladylike snort. “Which would be what—everything?”
“Please, hear me out.” But his lips twitched with the urge to smile. When had she become so tart-mouthed? As a young lady, she’d been everything proper, and though she’d followed him about, willfully plunging herself into potential scandal with him, she’d never given him back talk. This new version of Lucy intrigued him in a way the schoolgirl never had. He met her gaze. “I must do this.”
When she sat in the indicated chair and looked at him with an expression of expectation, a queer sort of thrill played up his spine. She used to peer at him like that years ago, usually right before he kissed her. “I’m waiting, Colin.”
Oh, God. Did she remember that she’d once said that to him, that night they’d stood beneath the mistletoe? He nodded, but he paced in front of her chair with his hands clasped behind his back. Where to begin after seventeen years apart and countless rumors? Finally, he sighed. Perhaps the most pressing would be best. “About what Ellen said before...”
“There is no explanation necessary.” She waved a hand in dismissal and then rested both in her lap, but her eyes were still cold. “You used this trip to your advantage. It’s damning evidence that you haven’t changed.”
“I’m not certain it’s a bad thing.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “What did your father promise to prompt your flight home?”
Heat crept up the back of his neck. “A racehorse as well as an estate in Surrey.” When said aloud, it sounded vulgar faced with what the holiday should mean.
“I see.” Disappointment clouded her eyes before she dropped her gaze to her lap. “You are going home, not for the love of your family or Christmas, but for material things.” Her lips pulled into a frown, and he couldn’t help but stare at her mouth, remembering what those lips had felt against his. “You haven’t learned anything at all.”
“On the contrary, I’ve learned way too much about myself since we’ve been apart,” he countered.
Lucy raised her gaze and met his. Interest replaced the disappointment. “Go on.”
For the first time since the trip to Derbyshire began, they were conversing as if they sat in his father’s parlor, like civilized people. The last thing he wished to do was disturb this tentative peace, but he wanted—needed—to confess certain truths to her in an effort to have her see him in a better light. No longer did he want her to think him a rake or a bounder. He craved her acceptance, her understanding, wanted to see her smile again with her eyes, but cold terror slid through his veins. It was quite a sizable hole he’d dug for himself over the years.
Not knowing what else to do, Colin threw himself into the chair beside hers. He dropped his voice to a whisper, and with a glance at his daughter to make certain she wasn’t eavesdropping, he focused on Lucy’s face. “Ellen is correct. I do cry at nights sometimes.”
Would she think him weak?
“Why?” Her eyes had widened with interest.
He took a shuddering breath. The truth would not reflect well on him, but Lucy waited patiently and he owed her this confessional. He nodded. “When I am home and drinking,” he held up a hand when she opened her mouth to protest, “Spare me the lecture. I am well aware I’m a failure as a man.” Colin stared at the shabby carpet beneath his boots. “When I am in my cups, I take a small portrait of Adelaide out of a drawer in my desk. I stare at it, and at times I force myself to look at it.”
“To remember your wife fondly?”
He raised his head, searched out her gaze and held it.
“You miss her, do you not?”
“No.” The word was pulled from his tight throat. Surely Lucy would hate him after this, but he had to fully confess. “I make myself look upon that portrait of my dead wife to ask her forgiveness for never giving her the affection and attention she should have had.” The tightness in his chest, the feeling that never quite left him, made its presence known, and if it hadn’t been the coolness of Lucy’s eyes, he would have stopped talking and called for yet another drink.
Lucy held her bottom lip between her teeth as she’d done as a young woman when she mulled something over. “You had an affair.” Disappointment once more pooled in her gaze, which added to his self-loathing.
“No.” Why couldn’t she see past the mask he kept over his heart to hide from the fear? “Regardless of my reputation of a rake, I was faithful to my wife while we were wed. I’d actually prided myself on it.”
“Then why the excess of maudlin emotion? Why torture yourself?”
He rubbed a hand along his jaw. “I hated myself in those moments, for I didn’t love her as I should have, not with my whole self.” Colin lowered his voice so much that Lucy leaned closer. “When I’m in a blue study, I know the truth. I cannot escape from it during those times. So I ask forgiveness for failing her and Ellen. For being a disgrace to them, but in death at least she is at peace and can no longer suffer embarrassment from me.”
What must Lucy think of him? Perhaps manners would prevent her from saying.
Silence brewed between them for long moments, marked by the steady drone of rain hitting the nearby window glass. Finally, she rested a hand on his forearm. “Why didn’t you love your wife as you should have?”
The heat from her fingers seeped through his sleeve and only served to make him remember how good she’d felt against him all those years ago. “I was in love with another, a woman I couldn’t have, a woman who was another man’s wife.” You. And he’d never been able to forget her, even after all these years, even when he knew she’d belonged to his best friend. He couldn’t stop hiding the truth from himself: he still loved Lucy Ashbrook. If he confessed that, it would turn the remainder of the trip into a farce. He couldn’t risk it.
She couldn’t quite hide the shock in her expression. “How terrible for you both.”
If only she knew. “Yes.” A wave of emotion smacked into him, and then another and another, too quick for him to analyze. To his mortification, hot tears stung the backs of his eyelids. He looked at Ellen while blinking the moisture away, lest Lucy see. “My wife died during Christmastide, so the holiday is forever a reminder of my failures.” When he returned his attention to his companion, compassion filled her gaze.
“You haven’t failed, Colin.” Lucy squeezed his arm, and he reeled with the comfort that small action brought. How long had he kept these thoughts to himself, battled with them in his mind alone? “Life has merely handed you a series of setbacks that you haven’t handled with nobility or grace.”
“I know.” He didn’t have guidance, no longer had access to her voice in his head that had served as his moral compass. If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose himself in those Arctic depths of hers. Would she save him from drowning?
Lucy gave him a small smile that brimmed with empathy. “You loved her when you married, didn’t you? There must have been some emotion there for you both to wed.” The low, dulcet tone of her voice wrapped around him, and he calmed somewhat.
“I was... fond of her.” The more he spoke, the more of himself he laid bare at her feet, and the more she’d grow horrified of his behavior. “I married her out of obligation due to her carrying Ellen. My father and hers demanded it.” Colin rubbed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. “I thought Adelaide and I would grow into romance, that we could have the idyllic love as my parents and yours enjoyed.”
Over the course of his marriage, he’d hoped his union would have that deep and abiding affection, but it had never developed. He’d not felt the things he had when he’d been with Lucy all those years ago.
“You worked at it, though.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. She became my goal for a time.” Colin leaned forward in his chair, resting his arms on his knees. “With Adelaide I wanted to succeed, to show her I wasn’t the man she’d met when she was my mistress.” To amend the fact that he had failed where Lucy was concerned.
I tried to be a better man, but it hadn’t worked.
“I remember that about you, that determination.” Lucy smiled again, but it wasn’t full and it didn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing would stop you once you had your mind set on something.”
Except winning you. I never could manage to see that to the end.
He forced a swallow into his dry throat. “The second pregnancy was an effort to bring us closer. We thought the addition of another child was what we needed to finally have things feel like a family.” But nothing he or his wife had done mended the rifts between them... for there was no love at the foundation. “It was my second chance to make things right.”
Lucy’s eyes went limpid with understanding. “But she didn’t survive.”
“No.” Unshed tears crowded his throat, and he swallowed to alleviate the excess of feeling. Colin didn’t win that battle. Instead, he let the tears fall, regardless if it revealed his weakness. For so long he’d had no choice except to remain strong for Ellen, to keep up appearances for the sake of his reputation, to deny his feelings to himself. Now, with this woman, it felt natural to show his real self, to finally mourn, because she would understand. “I wanted that child, Lucy,” he said in a frantic whisper. “That son.” He swiped halfheartedly at the moisture on his cheeks as he held her gaze. “Perhaps my children were the only thing I did right... and I’m ruining the chance with Ellen.”
“Oh, Colin.” Lucy’s eyes swam with tears of her own. The compassion in those ice-blue depths became his undoing.
At the other side of the room, his daughter had gained her feet. “Papa, are you quite well?” Concern threaded through her voice.
The “papa” broke him. No. I haven’t been well for some time. Desperate for direction, for help, Colin threw himself to the floor, knelt at Lucy’s feet. He had no idea how to answer Ellen. “I’ve destroyed everything that ever meant something to me.” Every relationship he’d entered into had fallen beneath his ennui and his quest to forget since that long-ago Christmas when he’d tumbled into a perpetual free-fall. “I don’t know what to do now.”
“It’s never too late to change,” Lucy choked out, and when he laid his head in her lap and sobbed, she didn’t dissuade him. She let him cry while she stroked her fingers through his hair. “Ellen, please order a fresh pot of tea. Your father needs a moment to gather himself,” she said, and her voice rang with the gentle command of a woman used to restoring order.
“Right away, Lucy,” Ellen said. Her footsteps pounded on the worn hardwood as she ran from the room.
Once they were alone, Lucy whispered, “It’s all right, Colin. You needed to let your emotions come out.” Each stroke of her fingers through his hair, glancing along his forehead and nape, brought a fair measure of calm. Oh, how he’d missed that. “Time eventually heals all wounds.” Her breath warmed his cheek as she bent close to him. “You have a chance to be a better person.”
Perhaps stupidly, hope rose in his chest. “A chance to win you back after I’ve been such an arse all these years?” he asked quietly, and though his tears had stemmed, he held his position, enjoying too much her nearness, the warmth of her. The subtle scent of daisies teased his nose and he smiled, for she’d favored that perfume in her youth.
The slight inhalation of her surprise rang in the heavy silence. “I’m not certain such a thing is possible. We are not the same people we were all those years ago.”
“Perhaps that’s the point.” Colin finally raised his head. He caught the confusion in her gaze, the banked heat of something buried deep in those depths, and the silly, foolish hope bloomed brighter. “We are both at a place in our lives that anything is possible once more.”
“I... we...” She floundered, and then her cheeks held a hint of a blush when he grabbed one of her hands and placed a kiss upon the back. “Too much history between us is, well... too much. It would always stand as a specter of the past.”
“Or serve as a warning of what not to do in the future.” When his daughter came back into the room, Colin stood. He wiped the remains of the tears from his cheeks. “Ellen, my girl, I think I’ve turned a corner.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.” She ran lightly over to him and threw herself into his arms. “It will be lovely to have a real Christmas this year.” The girl hugged him tight, and his heart squeezed.
“Don’t expect great miracles straight off. I’m not such a hero as all of that.” He set her away from him in order to look at Lucy. “Thank you.”
“You’re more than welcome.” When he grinned, feeling decidedly wicked, another swath of color flooded her cheeks. “I should...” Lucy shot to her feet while fluttering a hand, presumably to encompass the detritus of their earlier repast.
He nodded, choosing to keep his own counsel for the moment, but his mind whirled. From that moment, he vowed to stop making her miserable for the hurts of their shared past. He would start helping her rediscover Christmas magic—for them both.