Promise Me Forever (6 page)

T
om’s long-ago promises echoed through Lauren’s mind. He’d kept the one, but fate would prevent him from keeping the other. Too many years had passed. What did she truly know about this man? What did he know about her?

Only that he had to stay, and she wanted to go.

Standing on the veranda, near the garden, she had no will to resist, but what woman in her right mind would
want
to resist the tenderness of his kiss. She almost thought she detected an apology. Perhaps it was simply a desire to distract her from her tears. She’d not even realized that they’d trailed down her face until he’d pressed his lips to hers, and the tears pooled and seeped between
them, to be lapped up by his questing tongue.

His large hands, roughened from years of hard labor, cradled and stroked her cheeks. Englishmen didn’t touch with bare hands. Tom possessed no such qualms, never had. But even in his youth, he’d possessed an undeniable respectfulness, urging her to the brink of scandalous behavior, but never forcing her to cross over.

She told herself that her affection for him was as her mother had always warned her: misguided, misplaced, misinterpreted. It was impossible for a girl to love a boy and for that love to remain steadfast as they each grew into adulthood.

Yet she couldn’t deny that Tom still managed to stir her feelings. She thought she’d never grow tired of looking at him, never grow weary of listening to his voice, never seek an excuse not to be kissed or held by him. And even as she thought those things, she realized they were all the surface of the man. She didn’t know the road he’d traveled to his success. She didn’t know what other men thought of him. Had he earned their respect, their loyalty? Would they follow him wherever he led?

And what women had found their way into his heart over the years?

She’d entertained the notion of marrying Kimburton, had enjoyed his attentions. Surely at least one woman had gained Tom’s favor. The pang of envy brought on by the thought was almost more
than she could bear. To know his kiss, to know his touch, to know his body.

She’d once thought she’d be willing to trade her soul for the privilege. But trading her soul meant trading her dreams.

His place, his home was now and would forever be in England.

She broke off from the kiss, her knees so weak she could barely stand. His breaths were coming as rapid and harsh as hers. She was confused, lost, unsure of her feelings. She’d adopted anger at him to survive his not writing, and yet he’d written. She’d come to hate him, and now she realized the emotion was unjustified. And yet its remnants lingered, not entirely wiped away by the truth. How did she discard ten years of believing he’d abandoned her? Simply because he had not inflicted the wound didn’t mean that it wasn’t still there and scarred. Everything she’d believed, understood, accepted was suddenly unraveling just as he’d said his life was.

“Where does this new discovery leave us?” he asked quietly.

“I honestly don’t know, Tom. What I’ve known all these years…what I’ve felt…I hardly know how to rearrange what I’ve understood to be the truth. I’m overwhelmed. I need time to sort through so very much.”

He nodded, as though he’d known the answer before she’d spoken it. Or perhaps he simply un
derstood better than she what it was to discover the truth of one’s life had been a lie.

“I think it best if I don’t stay for dinner,” he said, his voice sounding like sand rubbed over rock. “Extend my regrets to your family. I’ll show myself out.”

Her heart urged her to call out to him, to stop him, but shattered promises kept her mute while the echo of his bootheels faded as her memories never had.

Long after Tom left, Lauren sat on the stone bench in the garden, surrounded by the roses that her mother loved to nurture. This small corner was her mother’s one indulgence, her one reminder of the farm life she’d left behind—to work in the garden, rooting around in the soil where the roses grew. Gardeners tended the vast majority of the property, but this one perfect spot was her mother’s realm. Lauren had spent many an hour sitting there, finding solace in the beauty her mother created, drawing comfort from the poignant fragrance surrounding her. She would miss this small corner of England when she left, but she still needed to leave and quickly, before she was trapped into once again staying.

Tears burned her eyes. She’d not expected to miss anything about the horrid place. She’d hated it before she’d ever arrived, because it had taken her away from everything that she loved, from so
many people she cared about. It had taken her away from Tom. Tom who had promised to come for her…

And was there finally only because England had called him to come.

She couldn’t deny that a part of her was glad to have seen him, to know he was safe and well. A part of her had even considered accepting his ludicrous proposition to teach him, not so much to get out of unbuttoning her bodice, but simply to have the opportunity to spend a bit of time with him. But she had to protect her heart. It was too vulnerable. She didn’t want to place herself in the position of having to leave him again—and she quite simply didn’t think she could stay there much longer without losing the final vestiges of herself.

Oh, she had adapted and adjusted and played the role of an aristocrat’s stepdaughter, but she’d never felt that she’d shown her true self to these people. She’d wanted to be accepted, and so she’d changed. But then so had her mother and her sisters. They would gather in the quiet of the garden, practicing their enunciation. It was more than replacing the drawl. It was learning the proper words, inflections, style.

When her stepfather had stumbled across them one afternoon, exchanging words they’d heard, trying to decipher their meanings, attempting to use them correctly…a look of regret so incredibly profound had crossed his features that Lauren
had been certain he would put them all on a ship and send them back to Texas. Instead, he’d hired a series of tutors to teach them diction, etiquette, walking, dancing, riding, dining, piano, singing, painting, and letter writing. No conceivable aspect of their behavior was left unschooled.

Tom wanted her to teach him what he needed to know. The man had no idea what all was involved. It would take months. Dear God, it could take years. He was brash and bold, a man of uncultured habits and wicked temptations.

And a part of her had no desire whatsoever to see him tamed.

Hearing the rustle of skirts, the quiet footsteps of a graceful stride, she wasn’t at all surprised when a moment later her mother sat on the bench beside her, and said softly, “I’ve always enjoyed this section of the garden.”

“Me too.”

“As have I,” her mother corrected gently.

“I’m not in the mood to play English to night, Mama.”

Her mother wrapped her hand around Lauren’s where it rested in her lap. “Dinner is ready to be served.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Samantha encountered Tom in the foyer. He offered his regrets, but apparently he remembered another pressing engagement and was unable to stay for dinner.”

“Apparently.”

“You spoke with him before he left?”

“Before he took his leave,” she corrected out of habit, the same habit that had made her mother correct her only seconds earlier. Among the Texas ladies of the house hold, when it came to emulating those with whom Ravenleigh associated, they recognized no hierarchy, simply a heartfelt desire to help each of them fit in.

“Yes,” Lauren continued. “I spoke with him.”

“Did he say anything of interest?”

She couldn’t quite identify the tone of her mother’s voice. It was as though she’d expected him to reveal some horrible truth.

“He wants me to teach him to be a gentleman.”

“He can hire someone to oversee that task.”

“He was seeking to
hire
me. I refused, of course.”

Her mother squeezed her hand. “I know it must be difficult to see him again after all these years…”

Lauren didn’t realize until she reached up and wiped the cool dampness from her cheeks that the tears she’d felt earlier had continued to fall. She swallowed hard. “
Difficult
scarcely defines what I’m feeling. His place is here now, and I don’t want mine to be.”

She felt her mother’s hand twitch.

Twisting around slightly, she studied her mother in the garden’s yellowish light. Her transforma
tion from a hardworking cotton farmer into a countess had happened so gradually that Lauren sometimes had difficulty remembering what her mother looked like before they’d left Texas. What she did remember was her mother’s insistence that Lauren not spend time with that “incorrigible boy.”

Lauren’s heart kicked up its beat as realization began to dawn as slowly as the sun easing over the horizon. “Tom told me that he wrote me, Mama. All these years. He wrote me.”

Her mother rose to her feet, took several steps forward, crossed her arms over her chest, and gazed out on the darkness.

“You kept his letters from me,” Lauren said, with a boldness born of undeniable comprehension.

Her mother turned around. “You were so unhappy—”

“And you thought keeping his letters from me was a way to make me happier?” she asked incredulously, coming to her feet and fisting her hands at her sides, infuriated beyond reason.

“I thought it would make the transition to this new life easier if you didn’t have the constant reminders of what was back in Texas.”

“That’s faulty reasoning if I ever heard it. You didn’t keep Lydia’s letters from me. Or Gina’s.” Gina had been one of her dearest friends in Texas. Now she was the Countess of Huntingdon, the wife of Ravenleigh’s cousin, Devon Sheridan.

“That was different. I didn’t think their letters would serve as continual reminders of what you’d left behind. You weren’t sneaking out at night to meet with them.”

“You had no right—”

“It’s a mother’s responsibility to protect her children.”

“What did you think you were protecting me from?”

“Heartache. Lauren, I was trying to make the adjustment easier on you.”

“Well, you failed miserably.”

Even in the darkness, she thought she saw her mother flinch. She immediately regretted the harshness of her words, but she hardly knew what to do with the anger roiling through her. She’d never been so angry, so hurt. Never felt so betrayed. She’d often heard that the path to hell was paved with good intentions. She’d never truly understood what that meant, until that moment. Her mother had led her there—whether intentional or not. Maybe she’d never understood exactly what Tom had meant to Lauren, for surely she’d have not diverted his letters had she known.

“May I please have the letters now?” she asked, with resignation. The damage was done. Lashing out at her mother, whom she’d always respected and loved, wasn’t going to undo it.

“I’m sorry, Lauren. I burned them.”

Lauren felt as though she’d been struck. “He
says he wrote every day for two years,” she said quietly. “That’s over seven hundred letters, Mama. Did you ever read any of them?”

Her mother slowly shook her head. “No, that seemed wrong.”

“While taking and destroying them didn’t seem wrong to you?”

“It didn’t seem
as
wrong because I had a good reason for doing it.”

“You had a reason, but I’m not convinced it was a
good
one. Didn’t you ever feel guilty?”

“Eventually. The boy’s perseverance astounded me, but by the time I discovered he wasn’t one to give up so easily, it was too late. If the letters suddenly started arriving, you might have questioned what had happened to the others. I thought any explanation I might have given would have been inadequate.”

“You mean you were afraid that I would hate you for what you did.”

“I was afraid you might have difficulty forgiving me, yes. But regardless of how many he sent, my reason for taking them remained the same: to protect you, to keep you from having false hope. To give you a better life. It’s too dark to show you my hands—”

“I know your hands, Mama, as well as I know my own. They’ve comforted me for as long as I can remember.”
And kept Tom’s letters from me
.

“They’re scarred, still rough and brown after all these years,” her mother said, as though Lauren needed to be reminded. “Do you know the mortification I feel every time we dine with guests, ladies who have never had to bend with the strain of picking cotton, who have never lifted anything heavier than a fan? My ugly hands say more about me than
Burke’s Peerage
says about them.”

“They’re not ugly, Mama. They speak to your strength, your determination. They’re not something to be embarrassed by. Why would you be ashamed—”

“They’re a constant reminder of what life was. I loved your father, Lauren, he was a good man. But the work was hard and the day was long and I was old while I was still young. Your father meant everything to me, and I sometimes wondered how I’d go on after he died. Then I met Christopher Montgomery and fell in love with him—when I never expected to fall in love again. He brought me to a world where my back never ached and my hands never bled. He pampered me and my girls, and I’ve grown to love the life he’s offered me.”

Grown to love? No, Lauren, unfortunately, had never experienced that emotion.

“I wanted my girls always to have this life,” her mother continued. “I’d always hoped that you would grow to love it as well. Do you remember
all the practicing we did, how often we’d laugh at our clumsy attempts to appear educated and refined, the list of elegant-sounding words we memorized—”

Fighting back tears, Lauren turned her head to the side, stared into the darkness that had so reflected her life. Looking away was easier than watching her mother wringing her hands, easier than remembering their loyalty and support for each other as they’d faced a new life.

“All I ever wanted was for you to be happy,” her mother said quietly.

Lauren blinked away the tears and swallowed. “That’s all I want as well, but I’ve been so lonely here. I don’t belong. I never have. I never will.”