It was a disaster.” Rob’s eyes darkened at the memory, and a frown deepened the creases at the corners of his mouth.
Deborah refused to agree. “I wouldn’t say that.” The two of them were seated in his study, reviewing all that had—and hadn’t—happened at the dinner they’d hosted this evening. Unlike the morning room with its feminine elegance and light colors, Rob’s study was masculine, featuring mahogany furniture as well as a deep maroon rug. It was a somber room, mirroring its owner’s current mood.
“If it wasn’t a disaster, what would you call it?”
“A disappointment.” Deborah wouldn’t minimize that. “I had hoped one of the men we invited to dinner would have been a possible suitor, but it was obvious they were all …” She paused, searching for the correct word, finally settling on “unacceptable.”
On the surface, the evening might have been deemed a success. The guests all seemed to enjoy the meal, and—with only a few exceptions—the conversation had been pleasant. Deborah had thought she was the only one who’d felt undercurrents, but Rob’s blunt assessment told her otherwise.
“I’ve never seen my daughter so unhappy,” he said, settling back in the chair after taking a long swig of his coffee.
The man was even more astute than she’d realized. Not only had he felt the same things she had, but he’d noticed the subtle changes in Emily’s demeanor. Deborah hadn’t expected that.
“Emily did her best,” she said softly. “I doubt any of the guests realized how she felt.”
For the first time since they’d entered the small room where he handled all the household affairs, Rob smiled. “She wasn’t shy about telling us, was she?”
“Indeed, she was not.” As soon as the last guest had left, Emily had turned to Deborah and her father, fisting her hands on her hips as she said, “I won’t marry any of them. If you try to make me, I’ll run away.” Not seeming to notice that her father flinched as if she’d struck him, Emily had continued. “They were awful. Do you hear me? Awful!” And on that note, she’d stormed upstairs.
Deborah met Rob’s smile with one of her own. “I wouldn’t say the men were all awful, but they were unsuitable.”
“Tell me what you found wrong with each of them,” he said as he accepted a refill of his coffee cup. Bradford, in his efficient, unobtrusive manner, had appeared with a coffee tray only seconds after Emily had left. Apparently he knew his employer well enough to know that the evening was not over.
Deborah closed her eyes for a second, visualizing the dinner table and its guests, then started with the man she considered the least offensive of the candidates. “Herb Langford was too quiet. Emily would be bored with him.”
“I agree. I should have realized that, but every time I saw him, he was with his father. I thought he was simply deferring to him. What about Milt Brendan?”
The answer was easy. “Too self-centered. Did you notice how he tried to turn every conversation to himself and his accomplishments?”
As Rob nodded, a lock of his dark brown hair tumbled over his forehead, giving him a surprisingly boyish look. “Milt became predictable pretty quickly, didn’t he?”
They continued their discussion of the men and their failings until Rob said, “That leaves only Frank Fisher. He seemed to be the best of the lot.”
Deborah shuddered, remembering the handsome blond man with the cold gray eyes. “He was the worst.”
“Really? Why do you say that?” Rob’s voice mirrored the surprise she saw in his expression. Apparently he’d been fooled by Frank’s genial appearance. Deborah wasn’t surprised by that. Most people—men and women—would find Frank charming, but they lacked Deborah’s perspective.
“Frank has a cruel streak. Every time someone said something he didn’t like, his eyes narrowed. And when Emily smiled at Herb Langford, Frank gripped his knife as if he wanted to throw it at one of them.” Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, Deborah waited a second before she put her fears into words. “Emily wouldn’t be safe with him.”
“That’s a rather strong statement.” Rob set his cup back on the desk and shook his head slightly as he looked at Deborah. “I’ve never heard anything bad about Frank. I wouldn’t have let him set foot inside this house if I had.”
Deborah wasn’t surprised. “Men like that are good at hiding their true nature until it’s too late. My job is to make sure that the women I match don’t end up with men like Frank.” So far, thanks to God’s guidance, she had succeeded.
“Is that why you became a matchmaker?” Rob appeared to have accepted her assessment of Frank and was moving on to what he probably thought was a less distressing subject. Little did he know that the two were intricately entwined.
“Yes,” she admitted. “Women deserve better husbands than my mother and sister had.” She hadn’t planned to say that, but the words had popped out, seemingly of their own volition.
Rob was silent for a moment, his eyes solemn as he studied her. At last, he asked, “Do you want to tell me about it?”
Though she started to shake her head, Deborah stopped. It was true she never spoke of her past or the events that had led to her choice of a profession, but she found that she wanted Rob to understand. Somehow, it was important that he know what had made her the woman she was today. That must have been the reason she’d mentioned Ma and Clara.
“It’s not a pretty story,” she warned him. When he nodded, encouraging her to continue, Deborah said, “I grew up in a house without love.” The words were stark, and yet they only hinted at what her childhood had been like. “Our mother pretended that Pa loved us all, but Clara and I knew better.” When Rob’s eyes lit with a question, Deborah explained that Clara was her older sister.
“We both recognized that Pa had no love to give anyone. I’m still not sure why he married Ma. Maybe it was infatuation. At any rate, his coldness affected us all. Ma withdrew into her shell, and I couldn’t wait to escape. Clara wanted marriage, but she said she wouldn’t marry a man who didn’t love her.”
“It sounds as if she did.”
Deborah shook her head. “I believe Adam loved her, but it was a strange kind of love. He wanted complete control of her. When she didn’t do exactly what he expected, he’d shout at her.” Deborah closed her eyes, not wanting to continue, but knowing she couldn’t stop now that she’d come this far. “Soon shouting wasn’t enough.”
When she opened her eyes, Deborah saw the glint of understanding on Rob’s face as he picked up his cup. “He hit her?”
“Yes. Each time I saw her, Clara had more bruises than I could count. One time he even broke her arm. I begged her to leave him, but she wouldn’t. She said Adam loved her and couldn’t live without her.” Deborah shook her head again, meeting Rob’s gaze as she said, “The days after he hurt her, Adam was always sorry about the bruises and would promise it wouldn’t happen again.”
“Yet it did.”
Deborah nodded. “I was afraid he would kill her, but it turned out that diphtheria did that.”
Rob drained his cup then remained silent for a moment while he appeared to be assimilating all that she’d told him. “And now you’re alone, with no family.”
He made it sound awful, but it wasn’t. “There are worse things than being single.”
“I know.”
The pain that flitted across his face left Deborah with no doubt that Rob was thinking of his wife. Though she wanted to lay her hand on his to comfort him, she did not. Rob was her client, and that meant she needed to be professional in everything she said and did.
“It must have been difficult to lose someone you loved so dearly.”
To her astonishment, her words were met with a harsh laugh. “Is that what you thought I meant?”
“Why, yes. The rumor mill says the reason you haven’t married again is because you’re still mourning your wife.”
Rob shook his head, his eyes darkening with emotion. “What I’m mourning is the marriage we could have had if we hadn’t been so foolish.” When he reached for the coffeepot and poured himself another cup, Deborah suspected Rob was buying time, composing his thoughts, much as she had done earlier.
He took a sip of the coffee then said, “Rachel and I married too young and for the wrong reasons. I was blinded by her beauty.” Once again, his laugh was a harsh parody of true mirth. “I thought I was the luckiest man alive when she seemed to favor me. I didn’t realize that she didn’t want me, just my money. Rachel loved beautiful things, and I was a man who could give them to her.”
The reality was so different from what she’d imagined that Deborah felt as if she’d been bludgeoned. She had known Rob was still suffering, but she had been wrong about the reason. Knowing that listening was a form of comfort, Deborah sat silently, waiting for Rob to continue.
“Neither of us was prepared for the reality of marriage,” he said. “We both tried, but we failed. Rachel hated being a mother. Fortunately, we had a housekeeper who cared for Emily, leaving Rachel free to visit her friends and buy whatever caught her fancy. She seemed happy for a while, but when she discovered she was expecting a second child, there was no consoling her.”
Deep furrows bracketed Rob’s mouth as he frowned. “Rachel told me she couldn’t bear being married any longer. The next day she ran away.” He stared at the wall for a moment before he spoke. “I was frantic. No matter how bad our marriage was, I couldn’t bear the thought of her being alone and vulnerable. Luckily, it wasn’t hard to find her. I brought Rachel back and did everything I could to make her happy, but it wasn’t enough. She was miserable, and so was I.”
Rob reached for his cup again, taking a long slug before he finished his story. “And then she died in childbirth, taking our son with her.”
“Oh, Rob.” Deborah felt her eyes begin to mist, and she blinked furiously to keep the tears from falling. Rob needed comfort, not tears. But what could she say to comfort him other than that she understood why he had no desire to marry again?
“What happened to you and Rachel was tragic,” she said as calmly as she could. “But not all marriages are like that.”
“I know that,” he admitted. “My brain knows that, but my heart is harder to convince. That’s why I’m so worried about Emily finding the right man. I can’t let her make the same mistakes I did.”
“She won’t.” It might be foolish, and she might regret it in the morning, but Deborah reached out and laid her hand on Rob’s, squeezing it as tightly as she could in an effort to show him that he wasn’t alone. “She has us,” Deborah said. “We’ll protect her.”