Regency Surrender: Notorious Secrets: The Soldier's Dark Secret / The Soldier's Rebel Lover
learnt that tears were futile, and at school—well, you learn very quickly that it is better not to show weakness. And now I seem to be weeping constantly. Eight months since my mother died, and only now am I beginning to appreciate that she really is gone. It doesn’t make sense.
‘You can never understand, you with your idyllic childhood here, growing up knowing how much you were loved, you can have no idea what it was like for me. Those miserable days at school, those cold little notes Maman wrote to me there about the weather, and the fishing, and—and nothing about her. Nothing about missing me. She didn’t love me, I have known that for a long time.’
‘I think she did.’
She jerked her head round to look at him. ‘How can you possibly say that?’
‘The locket. Worn round her neck every day of her life. Her only possession treasured enough to leave to you. Containing portraits of you and her, so close they are almost touching when the clasp is closed. A mother and her only daughter. Just because she never demonstrated her love doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. That locket tells me it was very real.’
Celeste dropped her head on to the cool of the window glass. When Jack put his arms around her waist, she resisted the urge to lean back into the comfort of his arms. She did not deserve comfort. This time the urge to confess outweighed the shame of what she must say. ‘I had not seen her for a year before she died. The last time—the last time...’
She kept her eyes on the garden through the window glass which was misting over with her breath. ‘Yesterday, when I said that she didn’t give me a chance, it was a lie. Just after Henri died, Maman came to Paris. She told me that now she had done her duty by Henri, she wanted to heal the rift between us. I—I—I was angry with her. I told her that she had made her choice when she sent me off to boarding school at his behest. She did not protest very much. I presumed that the offer was more of a token than— No, I won’t make excuses.’
Celeste turned around, facing Jack unflinchingly. ‘I sent her packing. I could not forgive her for choosing Henri over me. When I was ten years old, I begged Maman not to send me away, but she chose to do what Henri wanted. Because she owed him our lives, she did as he asked, the letter says. Perhaps if I’d given her a chance that day in Paris, she would have explained it to me, but I did not. We were estranged for a long time but that last year, our estrangement was my fault alone. I feel such guilt. You would not understand such guilt. There is a part of me, you know, that thinks I deserve to suffer now. A part of me that thinks I do not deserve answers. Jack, I don’t want you to be under the misapprehension that I’m an innocent victim.’
‘Celeste, for God’s sake, you had a lifetime’s experience of her not explaining. You can’t be thinking that what she did is your fault.’
‘Can’t I?’
‘No.’ Jack gave her a gentle shake. ‘No. You don’t know if it would have made any difference. You cannot know for certain if she would ever have trusted you enough.’
‘Yes, I have tried to tell myself that. I am not a martyr. I have tried.’ Celeste shook her head wearily. ‘For months, trying, pretending, and until I came here it was working—I thought. But now I can’t pretend.’
‘Celeste, I repeat, it’s not your fault.’
‘Jack, you can’t know that any more than I can. You don’t understand...’
‘I understand a damn sight more than you think.’
‘Those soldiers you told me about, yes, but they were not your family. You were not directly responsible.’ She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. ‘Perhaps this dark secret of Maman’s would have sent her to her grave regardless of what I did. But there is the possibility that she might have confided in me if I had given her one last opportunity. It’s possible that she might still be alive today as a result.’
‘Speculation is pointless, it changes nothing.’ Jack’s tone was harsh. His fists were clenched. ‘You can dig up the skeletons of your mother’s past. They might be gruesome, or they might be nothing at all, but whatever they are, they cannot alter what happened. It was her act, not yours. You can’t let the guilt destroy you.’ His eyes went quite blank. ‘You can never know if it would have made a difference. There are so many imponderables. If you had kept your mouth shut. If you had not been so determined to see for yourself. If you had not spilled your guts. If you had not—’
He broke off, staring at her as if she were a spectre. His expression frightened her in its intensity. ‘You will never know, but if you keep asking, one thing is for certain. You will tear yourself apart. That much, I most certainly understand.’
Celeste stared at the door as it slammed shut behind him. She sank down on to the sofa. She felt as if she were seeing her life through a shattered mirror. Everything she thought she knew about herself had become distorted. The barrier which her mother had erected between them was bizarrely, in death, beginning to break down. In doing so, it was not only destroying Celeste’s idea of her mother, it was destroying her notion of herself.
She curled up, squeezing her eyes closed, but the tears leaked out regardless. Was she tearing herself apart for no purpose? No, she had a purpose. She had to know. And when she did, she would be healed, not broken.
And as for Jack? If you had kept your mouth shut. If you had not been so determined to see for yourself. If you had not spilled your guts. He had clearly been talking about himself. What had he been so determined to see? What did it mean, to spill his guts? Had he been ill? Or did he mean he had talked? Given away secrets?
‘Non,’ Celeste muttered. Jack was no traitor, on that she would stake her own life. Then what was Jack? ‘I could as well ask, what is Celeste,’ she muttered as exhaustion overtook her.
* * *
Jack sat at the window of his bedchamber, watching the grey light of dawn appear in the night sky and replaying his conversation with Celeste in his head for the hundredth time.
Guilt. From the moment she had told him that her mother had taken her own life, Jack had known that guilt would eventually overwhelm her. He’d hoped that by helping her quest for answers, he’d postpone its onset but it was already too late. After yesterday’s confession, she wouldn’t be able to ignore it.
Jack was something of a connoisseur of guilt and all its insidious manifestations. Eating away at you. Keeping you awake. Torturing your dreams. Turning you inside out. He couldn’t bear thinking of Celeste suffering the same fate. Celeste, who had worked so hard to escape her miserable childhood and make her own world. Celeste who was so confident, and so independent and so strong.
And now so vulnerable. He couldn’t bear to think of what it would do to her, if she did not find the answers she sought. But then he already knew. Guilt would consume her. As it was consuming him?
Feeling his chest tightening, Jack pushed open the window and gulped in the fresh air. Outside, the sky had turned from grey to a hazy pink. It was time for his early-morning swim. Pulling off his nightshirt, Jack grabbed his breeches and shirt. As he pulled the window closed, he noticed a flutter of white in the garden below. Celeste, hatless as usual. Her hair was piled carelessly on top of her head, long tendrils of it hanging down, as if she had not even bothered to look in the mirror. Her gown was cream coloured, with short puffs of sleeves and a scooped neck, accentuating the golden glow of her skin.
She was barefoot. He could see tantalising glimpses of her toes as she walked. The deep flounce of her gown was already wet with dew. She paused, lifting her face to the pale sun, closing her eyes. Had she slept? What was she thinking? She was so very lovely, and she looked so very fragile.
She made for the path which would lead her to the lake. Jack watched as she reached the gate, hesitated, then turned away. Giving way to a sudden impulse, he headed out of his bedchamber, descending the stairs three at a time, and ran out into the garden.
* * *
‘Celeste!’
‘Jack.’ His