Page 78 of Unchaining the Heart of the Marquess
“Yes,” the Duchess sobbed.
“We are most sorrowful for your loss. Under the throes of such grief, it is impossible for one to think clearly, rationally. It could not have been easy to bury your son in the arms of another woman.”
“No,” she shook her head sobbing harder. The Duke moved forward wrapping his arms around his wife.
“It was not your first loss was it?”
“No, it was not,” this time the Duke answered, tears in his own eyes.
Llewelyn moved from his place in front of the fireplace and knelt down in front of the Duke and Duchess, taking her hand in his. Frederick’s mouth nearly dropped open in shock. He could not believe the change in the man from moments before when he had laid bare her crimes for all present to know.
Llewelyn met her eyes gentling his voice to just above a whisper. “You have watched over our Sarah’s boy from the day he was born, giving him everything that we never could have. I swear to you on all that is holy that our sweet Sarah has done the same for your own beloved babe in the hereafter. He will have been deeply and fervently loved, just as you yourself would have done.”
Frederick felt something wet on his cheek and reached up to find that it was his own tears. He sat down in a nearby chair, his body unable to stand for a moment longer, overwhelmed by what he had just witnessed. In all his life he had never seen anything more beautiful than this one single act of compassion.
In all of his own heartbreak over her betrayal, he had never once thought about the dead baby boy that lie in the ground. He had not considered the sorrow his mother must have felt every single day looking into the eyes of a son that was not her own. He could not imagine the pain of having gone through the throes of childbirth only to hold the lifeless body of your most beloved child in your arms and then to place that child in the earth and walk away. To survive such horrors was nothing short of a miracle.
I have been selfish. I have been most terribly selfish.
Frederick watched as Llewelyn embraced the Duchess, holding her in his arms as she sobbed out all of the pain and regret of the past five and twenty years. “I am sorry,” she whispered. “I am so very sorry.”
Frederick’s heart constricted in his chest so fiercely he felt as if he could not breathe. Unable to take another moment of the pain, he barreled out of the croft. Gulping in lungs full of air, he attempted to slow the beat of his heart. Hearing his mother’s sobs, Llewelyn’s words, it had felt as if is very own soul were being ripped asunder.
He had asked for this. He had thought himself to be the better man for brokering forgiveness between his two families. In reality, he had not had a single clue as to what he had been really asking or who had actually felt the most pain and suffering. He had suffered naught compared to what he had just witnessed.I have been a pompous fool.Could he have ripped his heart out to stop from feeling what he felt in that moment he would have?
A hand came to rest on his shoulder startling him. He turned around to find Devon Tatham standing behind him. He did not utter a word, but instead pulled Frederick into his arms and let him cry, he let his fully grown son weep into his shirt as if he were once more a child with a skinned knee. Sobs tore from Frederick’s throat as all of the pain and confusion poured out of him in a torrent of tears.
When he was done, the two men sat down on a log next to one another. Frederick rubbed his face with his hands, attempting to wipe away any evidence of tears. “There is no shame in weeping, son. I have done so many times in my life over you and your mother. I was lost for a very long time.”
“I did not conceive it possible to know such pain. I realize now that I know nothing, nothing about anything.”
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
“Socrates?” Frederick asked in surprise.
“A wise man wouldn’t you say?”
“Indeed,” he agreed.
“You should go to your mother. She is in pain and needs the comfort only a son can bring,” Tatham advised. Frederick looked at him in surprise once more. Tatham smiled sadly and arose extending his hand to Frederick to rise. “You were right in what you said to me. In everything, but blood, the Duchess is your mother, and I must learn to accept that if I wish to be a part of your life. And I very much do wish to be a part of your life. Go to her. She needs you.”
Frederick nodded his head and reentered the croft, leaving Tatham outside alone. The last thing he heard before he entered was Tatham murmuring, his face turned up to the heavens, “We got our boy back, Sarah. Our son has finally come home.”
Epilogue
When Frederick returned to Chescrown, it was not as the man he had been when he had left two days before. In his place was a man of new inner strength and peace. When he had left Chescrown for Pentford, he had not known who he was or where he belonged. He returned a man of both worlds, secure in the knowledge that he was loved more than any one man could ever hope to be loved by more people than he could have ever imagined possible.
Seeing Josephine sitting in the grass at the water’s edge, Frederick walked down to the pond and sat in the grass beside her. Josephine looked all around them with a puzzled look on her face. “Where are the others?”
“They have gone to Dun Dubh to lay their ghosts to rest,” Frederick answered, taking her hand in his.
“Why did you not go with them? Should you not be there too?”
“Yes, I should be.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I had to come back to get something I had left behind before I could join them.”
