Until You (40 page)

“Excuse me, Your Grace, but there is a gentleman at the door requesting to speak with you.”

“His name?”

“Mr. Stanley Watson, sir.”

Stanley Watson.
  The name caught him off guard.  “I will see him.”

“Shall I put him in the front parlor, Your Grace?”

“No, bring him here,” Nicholas said, rising from the chair behind his desk.

Hawthorne nodded, and then turned and left to fetch Mr. Watson.

“Please excuse me for arriving unannounced, Your Grace,” Mr. Watson said when he entered the room a few moments later.

As Hawthorne pulled the door closed behind him, Nicholas regarded the tall, lanky investigator he had hired nearly ten years earlier with an odd mixture of anticipation and foreboding, for Mr. Watson to have traveled to
Sethe
personally was something that had never occurred before.  In the years since he had hired him to try and locate his mother’s whereabouts, their communication had been limited to brief written correspondence and Nicholas’ occasional visits to Mr. Watson’s London office. 

“Have a seat, Mr. Watson,” he said, motioning to one of the chairs that sat in front of his desk.  “Can I get you anything?  A drink perhaps?”

“No thank you, Your Grace.  I am fine.” 

Mr. Watson’s features were drawn, his expression serious, grave even, Nicholas noted with unease.  “All right then.  What is it that has brought you here today?”  He leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms across his chest, eyeing the middle-aged man with an impassive expression that belied his inner trepidation.

Less than two hours after Mr. Watson had arrived at
Sethe
Manor, Nicholas pulled his mount to a stop before the tall iron gates that flanked the entrance to the convent of St. Mary.  He had done a great deal of thinking during the twenty minute ride from
Sethe
, and for a moment he hesitated outside the high stone wall that surrounded the centuries-old building that housed the small group of nuns who lived there.  He knew the structure quite well, for it could easily be seen from the top of the highest hill that sat within the boundaries of
Sethe
lands, but he had never before had occasion to enter its walls.  However, he would enter it now, for if Mr. Watson’s source was correct, his mother was buried within these very walls and had been for nearly twenty years.

Drawing a deep breath into his lungs he closed his eyes.  Several seconds later he opened them, and with steely resolve he urged his mount forward.  Riding up the short gravel-covered drive, he glanced toward the small cemetery that lay behind and slightly to the west of the main building.  If it was true, if his mother was in fact buried there, he wasn’t sure what he would do, how he would feel, for he had harbored such bitterness and animosity toward her for so long now.  When he’d hired Mr. Watson, he had convinced himself that he’d only wanted to find her to tell her how much he despised her for what she had done to his father and to him and his brother.  But in truth, he’d always secretly longed to know why.  Why had she left them, left him?  He wanted, no, he
needed
answers.  He could admit that now. 

When he pulled his horse to a stop before the convent’s massive double doors, an elderly woman garbed in a traditional nun’s habit, stepped forward to greet him.   She wore a large gold crucifix around her neck, and her hair was covered by a black and white wimple that matched her habit.  She appeared to be in her late sixties or early seventies, yet she stood tall and straight as she approached him. 

“Welcome,” she said as Nicholas dismounted.  “I am the Reverend Mother Francis Louise of the Daughters of Charity of St. Mary.  How may I help you?”

“Good afternoon,” Nicholas replied, bowing his head to the abbess.  “I am Nicholas Leighton, Duke of
Sethe
.”  He watched as her eyes widened slightly in surprise.

“You are here to visit your mother.”  The quiet words were spoken more as a statement, rather than a question.

He was shocked.  “It is true then?  My mother is…buried here?”

She looked at him oddly.  “This has been your mother’s resting place for the past nineteen years, Your Grace.”

“I…don’t understand,” he managed, his tone reflecting his shock and confusion.  “How can that be?”  How could she have been so close for all that time, and yet he had never known?

The Reverend Mother eyed him curiously.  “Did your father never tell you that your mother was laid to rest here?” she asked somewhat dubiously.

“My father?” 

“Perhaps we should go inside to talk,” she said gently.

Nodding, Nicholas turned to follow her into the convent, his thoughts whirling in confusion.

Minutes later, he sat beside the Reverend Mother on one of the wooden pews in the small chapel, eyeing her intently.  “How did she die?”

“When your mother arrived here she was gravely ill, Your Grace.  She had been… beaten severely.  She was incredibly weak and barely conscious when she arrived at our door seeking shelter.”

“My mother was beaten?” Nicholas queried, his tone incredulous.  “By whom?”

“Did your father never speak to you of your mother's death?” the soft-spoken abbess inquired, her expression suddenly wary.

“My father took his own life shortly after my mother left,” Nicholas replied, his voice flat.  “He never knew of her death.” 

The woman seemed taken aback by his response.  “Yes, Your Grace, he most assuredly did.”

He shook his head in denial, but he saw truth and certainty in the woman’s eyes.  Had his father deliberately lied to him about his mother's disappearance?  “My father told me, told everyone, that my mother left us, that she abandoned her family because she was in love with another man.”  He tried to make sense of it.  “Did the man she fled with beat her, is that why she sought refuge here at the convent?”  Was it possible that her lover had beaten her to death?  And if so, why?  And why would his father have lied about it?

“May I ask how old were you when you last saw your mother, Your Grace?”

“I was ten, why?”

“Young children are often unaware of the…difficulties that can exist between their parents.”

“Difficulties?”  Was she trying to excuse his mother’s adultery somehow?

“I spent several hours with your mother before she passed, and although she was gravely ill, she was able to reveal some things to me about her life.”  She hesitated, looking at him with a calm intensity.  “Some of the things that I am about to tell you may be very painful for you to hear, Your Grace.  Yet I will speak to you with complete candor if I may.”

“Yes, of course.”

It was nearly thirty minutes later when the Reverend Mother rose to her feet and left Nicholas alone to absorb all that she had told him.  He now knew that his mother had been a victim of his father’s escalating abuse for years before her death.  She had endured it in silence, terrified of her husband's retribution if she were ever to seek help, or to try and flee with her children as she had longed to do.  However, on the night that she had disappeared, Richard Leighton had beaten his wife so severely that she had lain bleeding and unconscious on her bedroom floor for several hours before she eventually awoke scared and alone in her bedchamber.  She had realized then that she had to flee her husband or soon forfeit her life. 

Miraculously, she had escaped the house undetected in the dead of night and in spite of her injuries, she had managed to walk the long distance to the convent of St. Mary.  Seeking sanctuary from the nuns, she had confided in the Reverend Mother that once she’d recovered her strength, she had intended to seek the support of her family in France to aid her in escaping the country with her children.  She had understood the possibility that her children would not forgive her for separating them from their father, but she had feared that her husband’s violent temper might eventually be directed not only at her, but toward their children as well. 

Though the nuns had summoned a doctor at once, the duchess’ condition had been much more severe than anyone had first realized.  When the physician had arrived, there had been little he could do to help her.  She had suffered several internal injuries and without the immediate treatment of a surgeon, there had been virtually no hope of saving her life.  At her request, they had kept her identity a secret from the physician and sadly she had died less than four hours after arriving at the convent.  With her last breath, she had spoken of her love for her two sons.

When he’d learned that his father had discerned his mother’s whereabouts and had arrived at the convent the following morning, demanding his wife’s return, Nicholas had been dumbfounded.  Everything his father had told him had been a lie.  When the duke had been told of his wife’s death, Richard had told the nuns that
Lysette
had been suffering from mental problems and had intentionally thrown herself down the stairs, resulting in her injuries.  He had then claimed that his wife had wandered from her sickroom in the middle of the night, and that he had been searching for her ever since.

Realizing they had only the duchess’ dying words to refute his claim, the nuns had been helpless to do anything other than to honor his request that the duchess be buried without ceremony in their small cemetery.  Isolated as they were within the convent walls, the nuns had eventually learned of the duke’s death, but they had never imagined that he hadn’t told anyone of the duchess’ own death beforehand, not even his own family.

When the abbess returned to the chapel a short while later, Nicholas had finally come to terms with what he had been told about his mother’s death, and about his father.

“Would you like me to show you where your mother is buried, Your Grace?”

Nodding solemnly, Nicholas rose to his feet and followed her outside to the small, well-tended cemetery. 

Standing before the hand-carved wooden cross that marked his mother’s grave, Nicholas dropped to his knees, assailed by an agonizing deluge of guilt and remorse.  “For nineteen years I blamed my mother for deserting us, when in truth she died by my father’s own hand.”  His voice shook with emotion.  “She loved me.  I knew she did.  How could I…how could I not have known what my father was doing to her?”  His hands balled into fists at his sides.  “I should have done something to help her, to make him stop.”

Nicholas felt the light touch of the Reverend Mother’s hand upon his shoulder. 

“You were only a child; there was nothing you could do for your mother.  And, as I understood it, your mother went to great pains to hide your father's actions from you and your brother.  Clearly she did not want you to feel derision for your own father, and she protected you the only way she could.”

He merely nodded.

“I will leave you alone now, Your Grace.  Feel free to stay as long as you’d like.  And of course, you are welcome to visit your mother’s grave whenever you wish.”

“Thank you…for everything.”

Once he was alone, Nicholas sank to his knees at the foot of his mother’s grave and then began to tell her how very sorry he was. 

Over a month had passed since Ashleigh had stopped taking the medicine Dr.
Ainsley
had prescribed, and much to her relief, the early contractions that had threatened her pregnancy had not returned.  She was nearly six months along now, and she felt better than she had in months.  The lethargy and occasional nausea that had once plagued her had long since passed, and aside from her rapidly expanding waistline, she was feeling much like her old self again. 

Turning from her back and onto her side, she gazed upon the sinfully handsome profile of the man lying next to her.  As if sensing her gaze, Nicholas opened his eyes and turned to look at her.  Though the room was dark, the fire cast just enough light for her to see the deep, rich color of his eyes.  As always, just looking into those brilliant blue orbs was enough to make her heart flutter.

“Can’t you sleep?” he asked, rolling toward her.

“Not really.”

“Is the baby kicking?”  He reached out and placed his hand upon the gentle swell of her stomach, covered only by the thin fabric of her nightdress, but felt no telltale movements beneath his palm. 

“No,” she replied, placing her hand atop his.  “It’s not that.  I’m just not yet tired enough to fall asleep I suppose.”  In truth, it was her thoughts that kept her from falling asleep.  She had been sharing Nicholas’ bed for the past three weeks and it was becoming increasingly difficult to lie beside him each night without throwing herself into his arms and begging him to make love to her. 

During his last visit, earlier in the week, Dr.
Ainsley
had informed her that it was safe for her and Nicholas to resume their intimate relations if they so desired, so long as they were careful.  She had mentioned that little detail to Nicholas later the same night, blushing furiously at the time, but as of yet, he had done nothing more than he had for the past month, kissing her tenderly and then deliberately pulling away before things became too heated.  She understood his hesitancy; for it was obvious that he was loathe to do anything that might endanger her or the baby’s health.  But she felt fine, and now, with the doctor’s
blessing
so to speak, she yearned to experience once again the profound connection they had shared that night in the library so many months ago, the night their child was conceived.  She and Nicholas had grown so close over the last month and a half, more so than she had ever dreamed possible, but she wanted more, greedily, she wanted it all.