Chapter Nineteen

“You have heard that my parents died in a carriage accident more than ten years ago, yes?” he asked.

Eliza nodded, her chest tight. She had been only a child herself when it happened, and living far from London. But she had heard the sad story whispered in ballrooms by scheming mamas delighted that the tragedy had resulted in a young, marriageable duke.

Wessex nodded, too, mimicking her unconsciously. “But that is the end, and a story should start at the beginning. My mother was a passionate woman of deep feeling. As I said, she cared, truly cared, about everyone and everything. The highest prince, the lowliest snail—nothing was beneath her attention and sympathy. She brought baskets of food and gifts to the tenants every week and sat with them when they were sick, which drove my father mad with worry. A lady couldn’t withstand their illnesses, he said. He was proved wrong time and again, however. Thrice she became very ill herself, but she didn’t succumb. My mother was indomitable.”

Every word was spoken with rueful affection. However unhappily his story would end, his love for her was obvious.

“She sounds lovely,” Eliza said gently.

He smiled wryly. “She was exhausting. We loved her, of course. No one could help but love Grace Sinclair. And my father was of a similar mind, though he possessed a sturdier temperament. They were well-matched.”

Eliza ached to reach for him, to smooth the worry from his brow—so out of place in his dear face. But she kept her hands clasped firmly in her lap. “I am sure they were very happy together.”

He nodded. “I was home from Oxford for the summer holiday when they died. I had expected to find her in excellent health, for summers were generally very pleasant for her. The true danger for her always lay in winter, when the cold made misery so much more acute. But influenza had struck our village, and she had worn herself to the bone. She was a shell of herself when I arrived home. Too thin, and she hadn’t slept in three days. She wanted to take a basket and sit with a sick family. My father argued against it, for she was exhausted, but she was determined. I offered to go, but my father refused, as he did not want to expose me to the illness. I was relieved. It looked like rain, and my mother could never be convinced to take the coach instead of the cart. I should have insisted on joining them. A better son would have.”

Eliza shook her head mutely, unable to form words to make it better, easier, for him. “Sebastian, no.”

He played idly with a strawberry leaf. “When they did not come home that evening, we went in search of them. We found them at the bottom of the ravine. The horse was still alive but in no condition to stay that way. I shot it and ended its misery. My parents were already dead.”

Her throat tightened painfully, but she forced the words out anyway. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Wessex tilted his head in acknowledgment. “I know that. There was no fault here. Even knowing what I know now—that they died—I don’t know if I could have prevented it. If I had joined them, would they have lived? Or would we all have died? Maybe the cart wouldn’t have gone over the cliff, but we would have gotten influenza and died from fever. There are too many questions without answers. I do not blame the villagers. I do not blame my mother or my father. I do not blame myself. What would be the point?”

Eliza merely looked at him, not knowing what to say. He was correct, and she could not blame him, either. Yet somehow she sensed that it weighed upon him all the more heavily, precisely because there was no one to blame.

“And yet, you are angry,” she said gently. “Despite that there is no one to blame, you are angry.”

“Of course I am angry, Eliza. Did they spare a thought for their son before hying off to save the poor and unfortunate? Did they never consider what would become of me, so recently changed from boy to man, if their lives were ended? No, they did not. And I must say, it was a shock. I never saw it coming.” He paused, shook his head, and then repeated, “I never saw it coming.”

Eliza flinched, remembering her stepmother’s cries and the sudden silence that followed. “No one ever does.”

His lips twisted in an odd grimace-smile. “Pain and suffering had always been things that happened to other people, not to me. Never to me. I had never known want. Every whim had always been granted. I can’t recall even a single moment of sadness from my childhood. But I was no longer a child. I was a man, and far too old to have felt pain for the first time. It was, as I said, a shock. I didn’t speak for months, and I barely touched my food. I became, as my mother had, a shell of myself. It was as though I had died with them. I often wished I had.”

There was nothing else for her to do but open her arms to him. She had no words that could heal him, but her touch might give him comfort.

“Don’t,” he said, even as he moved into her embrace. “Don’t comfort me. I am ridiculous. I was a grown man acting like a child. The pain of loss surprised me then, but I know better now. I will always see it coming.”

She stroked his hair and wished she had kept her glove off. “Hush. It was an accident. You can’t prevent accidents.”

“Pain and love are two sides of the same coin. To prevent the former, one merely forgoes the latter. Easily done, Sigrid.”

And with that, he pulled free of her embrace.