Page 69 of A Match Made in London
“It is not weak to remember someone you loved. Rather, it is weak to forget them simply because the memory of them brings you pain.” She fingered the locket at her throat.
They made another turn then, heading down the path that led through soaring stone arches and alongside the dinner boxes that lined the other side of The Grove. They were quiet for a time, each mired in their own thoughts, their own pain, their own memories.
Yet Rosalind’s memories of Guinevere were softened now. Remembering her as she must have been here, as she had used to be before her return from London, had changed something in her. She had spent so long with the image of pain and grief dulling the recollection of her sister’s natural joy, Rosalind had quite forgotten how much happiness she used to pull from life.
As if reading her thoughts, Tristan said, his voice infinitely gentle, “The locket, it’s a reminder of your sister?”
“Yes.” The answer came without hesitation. For where was the secret in that? No, the secret was in the contents themselves.
“She is the reason you have such a distrust of men like me.”
It was said so matter-of-factly, so calmly, it stole Rosalind’s breath. She could deny it, of course. Could claim outrage over his assumption.
Instead she said, with an ease that should have frightened her, “It was during her time in London. She fell in love, was seduced, abandoned. She returned home a veritable shell of her former self.” She swallowed hard, the memory a cherry pit lodged in her throat. “She never recovered and died not long after. She simply lost the will to live. The man who left her might as well have killed her himself.”
He was silent for a moment before speaking again. “I am so sorry.”
“Thank you.”
They came to Handel’s statue then. As one they turned to look the way of the composer’s gaze, to the orchestra and the dancers below. It was an odd feeling, to witness such gaiety while they were in their own bubble of sadness.
“You know,” she said, “I have never told that to another living soul.” She waited for panic to set in. She had revealed secrets of her sister’s, ones she had sworn to never divulge to another person.
Yet all she felt was relief; her burden had been lightened. She hugged his arm to her, feeling at peace for the first time in too long.
• • •
Tristan felt the importance of Rosalind’s confession to the very marrow of his bones. He was humbled by her trust in him. She had no reason to confide in him. Yet she had done just that.
He looked on as she watched the dancers twirl and dip to the lively music pouring from the orchestra. The small line between her brows was almost gone, the lines of her face softened in a way he had never seen. It was as if the telling of her pain had relieved it, as if sharing it had given her peace.
But it was more than that, really. For she had not given part of her burden to him—and mustn’t that secret have been a terrible burden to carry all these years? No, she had given him a gift of incredible value. His heart squeezed with the importance of such a thing from this woman, who did not trust easily, yet had trusted in him.
And suddenly he wanted to give her something equally dear, to show her how much her faith meant to him.
How muchshemeant to him.
“You have entrusted me with knowledge that is infinitely precious,” he said haltingly. “And so I will entrust you with something of my own.”
She looked up at him then and laid her free hand on the dark green wool of his sleeve. “Truly, you needn’t—”
“I want to,” he cut in, his voice soft but firm with intention. He drew in a deep breath. “As I’ve told you, my mother died when I was quite young. What I have not told you was how my father hated her, and me by extension.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Surely not, Tristan. He could not have hated his own son.”
He could no longer meet her gaze, so full of disbelief and horror at his bald confession. “But that is the thing,” he replied, the words ripped raw from him. “He did not believe I was his.”
“Oh.” The one word left her in a rush of breath.
“She had loved another, you see, and was forced into the marriage. You can imagine the hatred he felt for me. It was not something he ever hid from me but battered me with daily. If I had not found my friends Willbridge and Morley after I started school…” He paused, swallowed hard, the muscles of his throat working as he remembered those difficult days. Before he learned to hide his uncertainty and self-doubt behind false bravado, blessedly bolstered by the friendship of the two boys. “Anyway, it was something I learned to live with. And then my father remarried, and everything changed. Instead of heaping abuse upon my head, it was as if I had never been born in the first place. An improvement on what I had known before, I suppose.” He tried to say the last with a touch of his typical humor, but it rang hollow in the air, a mere echo.
She was silent for a time, studying him as he had her after her own confession. He expected all manner of platitudes, not the simple question that issued from her lips.
“And your brother? Was he not treated in the same way?”
“Arthur?” An image flashed, of a boy with hair as red as their father’s, his features as sharp and prominent as a proper Crosby’s should be. “Not in the least. He was the wanted son, the one my father told me on numerous occasions he wished would inherit the title, the legacy.”
“How incredibly cruel.”
