Violet Fire Page 26

  Chapter 10

  Shannon glanced up from plaiting her braid as Brandon came from his chamber into hers. Her head dipped again while she deftly finished her task, squeezing water from the end before she fastened it with a black ribbon. In her present mood she considered black the most suitable choice.

  She noticed Brandon had already changed his damp clothes. His jacket was dark blue, severely plain except for three silver buttons on the deep cuff of each sleeve. A white neckcloth showed at his throat, then disappeared beneath his satin waistcoat. His breeches were cut of the same cloth as his jacket. In contrast, his hair looked exceptionally bright, and flecks of gold were apparent in his eyes. There was nothing about his appearance or the set of his features to suggest that he was dreading the forthcoming confrontation with the Marchands.

  Brandon leaned against the doorjamb, folding his arms in front of him. “Where is Emily? I thought she would have you tucked in bed by now.”

  Shannon stood, crossing the room to the four-poster, where her clothes had been laid out. “I sent Emily out because she was fussing and because I do not want to go to bed.” She exchanged her robe for a forest green linen gown. The sleeves were pleated at the cuffs to follow the curve of her arms, and the neckline of the bodice was edged with lace. She went to Brandon and gave him her back. “Fasten me, please.”

  His fingers worked the tiny cloth-covered buttons. There was no need to ask what her intentions were. “Are you certain this is what you want to do, Shannon? There is no need. I am quite prepared to face Paul and Michaeline alone.”

  She spoke to him over her shoulder. “I want to be with you,” she said with quiet sincerity. “You could not have entered into this thing without me, and I would like them to understand that. You will not refuse me, will you?”

  He finished with her gown and turned her to face him, kissing her lightly on the lips. “No. And I wish you would remember that later, when I am the one who is offering you support. There is nothing either of us has to face alone.” He watched her eyes narrow warningly. “I’m sorry,” he said with absolutely no regret. “I couldn’t let the opportunity pass.”

  Paul and Michaeline were seated on the love seat, heads bent together and speaking in hushed tones, when Brandon escorted Shannon into the drawing room. Paul stood briefly as Shannon entered, then resumed his discussion with his wife. They stopped talking to each other only when Brandon and Shannon had taken the twin chairs opposite the love seat.

  Paul’s countenance was grave. His eyes, darting between Brandon and Shannon, were infinitely more sorrow-filled than angry. “Where is our daughter?” he asked tiredly, the words flowing outward on a grieved sigh.

  Brandon was shocked by the resignation in Paul’s tone. It was almost as if Paul expected to hear that Aurora herself was the instigator of the trick played them. Paul had not asked what had happened to his daughter, he had not assumed she was in any physical danger or had come to any harm. His voice held the pain of a father who was disillusioned and weary of his child’s hurtful antics. “I believe she is at Belletraine,” Brandon said. “She left the folly some ten months past with my brother Parker. I hope you will understand that my pride forbade me to make any inquires until recently. I am still awaiting word from her.”

  “It is much as Michaeline suspected,” Paul said, squeezing his wife’s hand as she began to weep softly. “When we did not hear from her at all these last months, and when your own letters were curiously vague about Aurora, we decided we had no choice but to come and learn of the problem for ourselves.” He turned to Shannon, studying her face with pained eyes. “I suppose you think we were foolish not to see immediately that you were not our daughter, but—”

  “No!” she protested, alarmed. “I could never think you foolish.”

  Paul ignored her, his broad shoulders slumping a little as he explained himself. “But it was a matter of choosing not to see. We wanted very much to believe that our daughter had become the young woman who met our ship. Joie de vivre,” he added wistfully, then one corner of his mouth lifted in a semblance of a smile when he realized he was not understood. “It means a joy of living. That is what we hoped Aurora had found. The differences we saw then were never physical ones. They were here,” he said, pointing to his chest. “Differences of the heart.” His hand dropped to his knee and his gaze shifted to Brandon. “I believe I understand the purpose for which this thing was done, but I would hear it from you.”

  Brandon could not reveal his fear of losing Clara, but he willingly told them the two other reasons he had begun the charade, only one of which Shannon knew. “Until this evening I believed you had no knowledge of the depth of Aurora’s unhappiness. I told myself you thought she was exactly as she wanted to appear to you: guileless, spirited, and affectionate. I did not want to shatter your illusions and have it revealed through her actions that she was deceiving, willful, and capable of kindness only when it served her purpose. Aurora is, quite simply, the unhappiest person I know.”

  Paul nodded faintly and spoke as if to himself. “We could not understand it. Never was there a child so wanted or so well loved.”

  “I realize that,” said Brandon, and kept his counsel that perhaps Aurora had been loved well but not wisely. “And I also realize that though you do not condone her behavior, you will continue to love her and offer her your support. I would always do the same for my daughter.” He paused, glancing briefly at Shannon. “But I do not feel toward Aurora as I do toward Clara. It was never in the nature of the love I bore her when we married. I find that not only can I not sanction her behavior, I do not love her any longer. That is the second reason I sought to deceive you. It gave me the opportunity to pretend the woman I do love was my wife.”

  Shannon found herself once again the focus of Paul and Michaeline’s attention. She was grateful when she felt Brandon’s hand slip into hers. She felt her cheeks flushing at his unexpected declaration, but she accepted it with dignity, never shying away from the Marchands.

  Michaeline’s eyes were anguished as she leaned forward. “How is it that you have my daughter’s face?” she cried out softly. The lines in her forehead were deeply creased by her torment.

  “I don’t know,” said Shannon. She wished she might go to Michaeline and offer her comfort, but knew it could not be accepted now, if ever. “I have never met Aurora, never seen a portrait. I have only seen the proof of my resemblance to her in other people’s actions toward me. I sometimes—”

  Michaeline interrupted with a stream of words in her native French, gesticulating wildly.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,” Shannon said, confused by the excited nature of Michaeline’s speech.

  “It’s your accent,” Brandon explained. “You spoke without the drawl.”

  “But what has that to do with anything?”

  Paul had calmed Michaeline, and now he answered Shannon’s question. “It never occurred to my wife and me that you may not have always lived in the colonies. You have spent some time in England, have you not?”

  Shannon nodded. “All save these last few months. I was born there.”

  Michaeline paled, but she let her husband speak for them both. “What is your name when you are not posing as my daughter?” he asked.

  Shannon dropped her eyes at this reminder of her duplicity. “I am Shannon Kilmartin.”

  Paul had not expected the name to mean anything to him, but he considered it thoughtfully. “And where were you born, Miss Kilmartin?”

  “I was born in the village of Glen Eden. It is—”

  Paul stopped her with an impatient wave of his hand. “I know where it is,” he said, his angular features paling. “And your birthdate?”

  An emotion Shannon could not name seized her inside. Though it lacked form or substance, it became as a living thing clawing at her belly, pressing at her heart. The palm of her hand became damp in Brandon’s grip, and beads of perspiration glistened above her lip. “November 11, 1725.”

&n
bsp; Brandon actually gave a little jerk as he heard Shannon speak his wife’s birthday. “Dear God,” he whispered, his throat tight.

  Michaeline nearly came out of her seat, but Paul, though clearly shaken, continued. “Your parents?” he asked. “Can you tell me anything about them?”

  Shannon felt as if she were shrinking in her chair, as if her hand would become too small for Brandon’s and she would simply slip away. “My mother was Mary Kilmartin, but I don’t know my father’s name.”

  “Your mother’s name wasn’t Kilmartin when you were born,” Brandon reminded her gently.

  “What? Oh, no, she was married then, to my stepfather. Thomas Stewart.”

  Michaeline pressed her handkerchief to her lips. Tears dripped soundlessly over her ashen cheeks. Paul’s chin lowered and he stared at his hands without really seeing them. He spoke to the floor, his head too heavy to lift. “I spoke the truth when I said that Aurora was a wanted child. She was wanted so dearly that we paid for the right to make her our own.”

  “What are you saying?” Shannon asked, her face clouded with the force of her dread.

  Paul still did not look up. “Aurora is your sister…your twin.”

  “No! I have no sister. My mother would have never sold one of her children.” She looked at Brandon, pleading with him to believe her. “She wouldn’t have done it.”

  Brandon immediately moved to Shannon’s side, resting one hip against the arm of her chair and circling her shoulders with his arm. “I believe you,” he told her. “Paul, I think she has heard enough.”

  Paul looked up sharply. “No, I have explained it badly. It was not the woman with whom I had the arrangement, but a man. Thomas Stewart is the one who responded to a query I had made. He told me he was the vicar of Glen Eden, that he knew a young woman who would soon be giving birth to a child out of wedlock. She was a gentle girl, he said, with no prospects of marriage. The village had shunned her and it was his Christian duty to assist her. Later he informed me that she had agreed to give us her child when it was born, that she wanted something better for it than to be raised as her bastard.”

  “He told you one truth,” Brandon said. “Stewart was the vicar of Glen Eden.”

  “Dear God, how did this thing come to pass? Am I to understand the man was married to Aurora’s mother?”

  “My mother,” Shannon said. “Thomas Stewart was married to my mother. She was carrying her child when he wed her. He did it at the request of the Countess of Glen Eden, in exchange for her promise that he would have a secure living.”

  “We did not know. How could we know?”

  “You must be mistaken. My mother—” Shannon’s hands began to tremble as an image of her mother as an older woman was replaced by the face of her mother as a young girl. She saw Mary Kilmartin’s features as clearly as if she held her locket in front of her, and as she stared at the image in her mind’s eye, it was transposed onto the face of the child sleeping above stairs.

  “Shannon? What is it?” asked Brandon, alarmed by the stillness that held her everywhere except her hands.

  Very quietly, unwittingly causing the others to strain to catch her voice, Shannon explained about the lost locket. “Clara is the very image of my mother as a young girl,” she said, finishing her story. “It never made sense to me before, but now…now I see the truth of it.” Shannon shut her eyes and rested her head against Brandon’s arm. Pain was a colorless shield over the planes of her face. “She never once mentioned that she had borne another child. Perhaps my stepfather forbade her, or perhaps she did not want to dwell on what she had done. I do not think it would have been an easy thing for her to have given up her child.”

  Brandon stroked her arm comfortingly. “We don’t know that she entered into it willingly. Thomas was not above forcing her. He was not above deciding that his arrangement with the countess only called for him supporting one child. He may have suspected Mary carried twins when he approached Paul.”

  Shannon was not really listening. “I wonder how they decided,” she said dully, “who would remain with them and who would be sold? How does one make that choice?”

  Brandon spoke to Paul and Michaeline. “I am going to take Shannon to her bedchamber,” he said. “If you would be kind enough to wait for me, I would still like to speak with you.” Ignoring Shannon’s halfhearted protest that she could stay and hear the things that were said, Brandon escorted her out of the room. After seeing to it that Martha was the one to care for her, Brandon returned to the Marchands.

  Michaeline was sipping a glass of red wine, and Paul had his hands around a tumbler of whiskey. On the table beside the chair where Brandon had been sitting was another tumbler with three fingers of Scotch. He picked it up and walked to the fireplace, idly rearranging some coals that had spilled onto the apron with the toe of his boot.

  Brandon finally spoke into the heavy silence by telling Paul and Michaeline how he had met Shannon. He managed to convey a sense of Shannon’s life at Glen Eden without betraying her confidences or what he knew to be her father’s most perverse cruelties. He spared himself nothing in the telling, making certain they understood that he had been at fault for entering into a marriage that had at its foundation his love for another woman. He had never been able to make Aurora happy, he said, and perhaps this had been the reason.

  “Non,” Michaeline said, teary-eyed. “I would like to blame you, but I cannot. Paul and I tried to dissuade her from marrying. She was too young, too reckless. We surrendered to her wishes, not because she pleaded prettily or argued more loudly than we did, but because we realized we had no control over her decision. We believed, in the end, it was better to tender our blessing than to have her marry in defiance of us.”

  “I would have waited if I had known of your reservations,” Brandon said seriously.

  “I know,” she said sadly. “Mayhap if we had spoken, there would have been no marriage then, but we did not trust Aurora not to follow you to Virginia. She had threatened as much. She has always been single-minded in the pursuit of what she wanted, and at that time it was marriage to you that she desired above all else.”

  Brandon nodded, understanding they had felt a need to protect Aurora from herself. “Does Aurora know you are not her natural parents?” he asked.

  Michaeline looked guiltily at Paul. “We never told her about her birth because we thought we were honoring her mother’s wish that her daughter never know she was illegitimate. Monsieur Stewart led us to believe this was so.”

  “Then she does not know,” Brandon said, trying to understand the look that had passed between Michaeline and her husband.

  Michaeline shook her head. “I should have said we did not deliberately tell her the truth, but once, while we were here, Paul and I argued over the matter. Although we wanted to believe she was happy in her marriage, we perceived that all was not as it should be. Paul wanted to tell her then, to prove to her how much she was loved, how much she had been wanted by us. He thought it might make some difference if she knew the truth. I was opposed to saying anything.”

  “And this is the argument that you thought Aurora may have overheard,” Brandon filled in. “The one you tried to describe to Shannon.”

  “Exactement,” said Michaeline. “So you see, I cannot say if Aurora knows.”

  Brandon stared at his glass of Scotch. “And I cannot say if it matters.” He took a deep swallow and let the liquor slide down his raw throat to the pit of his aching belly. “There is one more thing you must know.” He held their glance. “I intend to divorce Aurora. Shannon has made no promise to marry me, so I will not have you think she is the cause. I can no longer hold myself to the vows I spoke with your daughter. We ceased to have a marriage before Clara was born. I had planned to present you with a fait accompli, but I would have done so in person. If you desire to speak to Aurora in this matter, I will help you find her, but nothing she or you can say can change my mind.” He set the tumbler on the mantelpiece. “You are welcome to sta
y at the folly for as long as you like. I want you to know that I hold you both in great affection. After the trick I played you, I will understand if you do not choose to believe me.”

  Paul stood and helped Michaeline to her feet. She leaned heavily against him. “It is as you said before,” he said gravely. “We love our daughter, but we cannot sanction her actions. Divorce is a terrible finality, an affront to God’s blessing at your marriage, but you are her husband and it is for you to decide what your future with Aurora will be. We’ll leave in the morning, as planned. If Aurora has need of us, she knows where her home will always be.”

  Brandon was stunned. “I never thought…” He took a few steps toward the center of the room. “But you will return, won’t you?”

  Paul raised an eyebrow in question.

  “Because of Clara,” he explained. “I want my child to know her grandparents.”

  Paul nodded his eyes wet with pleasure. Michaeline was not so restrained. Her cheeks were immediately damp from the steady fall of her tears.

  * * *

  Brandon lay beside Shannon, not touching her, simply taking comfort in the serenity of her expression. He regretted no part of deceiving the Marchands as profoundly as he did causing Shannon pain. And to what purpose? He had wanted to keep Paul and Michaeline’s illusions intact, only to find they had none concerning their daughter. They made no attempt to defend her actions. Instead they accepted it, reconciled to the fact that they had only been hoping she had changed. That is what he thought they had been forced to abandon this night: their hope.

  None of them deserved the evening’s other revelation. He would never forget the Marchands’ anguished faces when they realized they had been gulled into separating Shannon from her sister, nor Shannon’s suffering when she understood what her mother had done. How was he to make amends for bringing her to this pass?