imagine anyone better.”
It bewildered her. “But you don’t like me.”
With a devastating jolt, Beau realised this was the crux of her flight from his proposal of marriage. Without liking, there couldn’t be respect or approval or acceptance. Her logic could not be faulted. And he was guilty of doubting her fitness as the mother of his child. But he’d learnt so much more about her since then.
“That’s not true, Maggie,” he said with passionate insistence. “You blew my mind the day I arrived home and I’ve been struggling to get it together ever since. I now believe a woman who could make my discerning grandfather so happy and so proud of her, is a woman well worth knowing. And I believe a woman who inspires so much caring from our live-in staff has to have a very caring heart herself.”
He saw her face tightening, felt her resistance to what he was saying, and in sheer desperation, cried, “Maggie, I swear to you, I no longer see in you anything not to like.”
He knew, the moment the words were out, he’d emphasised a negative instead of a positive. He saw the recoil in her eyes, the bleak dismissal of this line of pursuit even before she spoke.
“I guess it suits you to say such things, now that I have something you want.”
It was a judgment he deserved, but it hurt. The rejection of his earnest endeavours to alter her impression of him hurt, too. He realised he’d delivered too many hurts himself, striking at vulnerabilities he hadn’t known existed, hadn’t stopped to look for them behind his grandfather’s creation.
Blinded by prejudice.
Too many prejudices.
Where was his salvation now?
Despair dragged at his determination. He’d dug his own grave and made the walls too high for him to climb out of it. Or maybe he was using the wrong approach. He had to keep trying, no matter what.
“What do you want to do, Maggie?’ he asked, humbled by her painfully accurate reading of the situation. ”What would make you feel...right?”
MAGGIE didn’t know what would make her feel right. She didn’t know what to do. She lifted her gaze to a sky so endlessly blue it seemed to stretch on to infinity. Her heart ached with so many griefs, her mind couldn’t encompass them all. They slid into a desperate, silent plea for help.
Vivian... Vivian...
Where was he? Did he see it had gone terribly wrong? It was such wicked, painful irony...the marriage he’d wanted between her and Beau...the child to carry on his family line...it was in her power to deliver on the promise...yet her soul revolted against accepting the form it was taking.
Give it a chance...
I did. I tried. It can’t work like this, she cried, exonerating herself from the burden laid on her.
Yet the needs of others kept pulling her back to it, denying her release.
Sedgewick... You must cultivate a positive attitude. Was she being too negative in the face of Beau’s desire to keep her and the child?
Mrs. Featherfield...A new baby at Rosecliff. I can’t imagine anything more perfect. Was it fair to deprive her child of its natural inheritance?
Wallace seeing sexual attraction as the answer... and she couldn’t deny it had led to this shared parenthood. Given more open expression, might it not bridge this dreadful gap between them and soften their differences?
Mr. Polly... Nature will take its course. A little help and care and you can always get the result you want.
Could Beau learn to care?
Did a baby help?
Would anything change if she gave it more of a chance, or would the prison gates inexorably close her in if she stayed on here?
She took a deep breath and looked at him...this man who knew her intimately yet did not know her at all. Vivian’s grandson. The father of her child.
Her heart fluttered at that last thought. It was real now. The father of her child. She couldn’t deny him, yet...what would it lead to?
“How can I trust you?” she blurted out, anguished by her uncertainties.
A muscle in his cheek contracted but his eyes didn’t waver from hers, dark pools of green, seemingly reflecting the pain she felt. “It would need you to take a risk, Maggie,” he said quietly. “I can’t prove your trust is not misplaced unless you’re willing to chance it.”
“Marriage is too big a risk for me, Beau.”
He nodded, then managed a wry smile. “A classic case of fools rushing in...I’m sorry, Maggie. My understanding has been very amiss. I seem to have blundered all the way along the line with you and I wish like hell I’d done everything differently. But I know that doesn’t make anything better for you.”
His regretful attitude soothed some of her jangling nerves. He probably thought she was mad, rejecting his offer of marriage out of hand, and so fiercely. Impossible to explain just how threatened she’d felt at that moment, with him looming over her in a pose of commanding authority and the bank of distrust forming too dangerous a current for her to ride.
He looked...almost kind now. Caring. Of course, it could be another pose. On the other hand, there had to be good in him. Everyone at Rosecliff couldn’t be entirely deceived on that point. Maybe with their child, he would show his best side. He couldn’t hang anything nasty on an innocent baby.
What was it about her that brought out the mean judgments he made? If they were to be linked by their child, she needed to understand where he was coming from with her. At least that way she would be more prepared for handling the situation. She searched for some meeting ground and instinctively homed in on the person who’d brought them together.
“Vivian loved you, Beau. Very much.”
“I know,” he murmured encouragingly.
“He expected...because we were both dear to him...he wanted us to like each other.”
“Yes, he would,” came the ready agreement.
“I warned him it might not happen. I was always prepared to leave if you didn’t like me. After all, you were his grandson. His real family. I thought you might see me as a usurper of his affections...”
“Maggie, I don’t see you like that,” he quickly assured her. “Nothing and no one could have changed the bond between my grandfather and me. It was unique to us. Just as I’m sure what you shared with him was unique to you.”
Yes it was. Wonderfully, unbelievably unique. No one could ever guess, ever comprehend what it had meant to her. Which was why she had to be as fair as it was reasonably possible to Vivian’s grandson.
“You could have been jealous,” she suggested, still unsure of his feelings where she was concerned.
“No. Not in any possessive way, Maggie. My grandfather gave of himself to many people. It never diminished what he gave to me.”
He sounded so genuine, so reasonable, it made no sense of what he’d done. “Then why have you been so mean to me?” she bluntly asked, searching his eyes for the true answer.
He grimaced, guilt and shame flicking over his face. “I was upset over not having seen my grandfather for so long. I guess I felt cheated by his dying when he did. And when I first arrived home you did seem like a usurper, acting the mistress of the house, the staff taking their lead from you. I simply wasn’t prepared for what I walked into, Maggie, and it chewed me up. I’m sorry you became a target of distrust.”
A target...the focus of all his bad feelings. Yes, she could accept that explanation. But it didn’t make her feel any safer with