Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

C olin had expected the reunion to be an excitable one, but he was wrong.

Samantha arrived, and when she seemed weary, he decided that it had been from the journey. He had felt the same, after all. Diana raced to her the second she saw her, and when the two embraced, he couldn't help but feel an ache in his chest.

"Has it truly been that terrible?" Diana asked.

"In and of itself, his behavior is the usual. What has made him insufferable is the incessant talk of our half-brother. You would think he was next in line for the throne, not the heir of an earl."

"What has he said about him?"

"Only that he is the perfect man, and that he is going to save our estate, and that everything must be perfect in preparation for his arrival. He will be giving him your room, can you believe it?"

"Well, it is not as though there are many others to choose from, and I do not live there anymore."

"But it is your room. That is the room where we have laughed and cried and talked all night. It is yours, not the room of someone who does not know us. I do not understand why Father is so sure that he will even come. I found the letter that the mother wrote to him, and with how against it she seems, I doubt that she would allow her son to come at all."

"He is of age now," Diana sighed. "He is free to do as he pleases."

"Your Grace," Samantha said firmly, "you are a man. If your mother had told you not to do something, would you have listened?"

"We would have discussed the matter, to be sure. I trusted her opinion more than anyone else's."

"Then perhaps he will not even come at all," Samantha said hopefully.

"That is not the blessing that you think it might be," Diana explained. "If there is no heir, then when Father dies, the estate will be handed to some distant family member, or to another family altogether. You will not be taken care of."

"Not by the new head of the household, but by the two of you. That is what will happen, isn't it?"

"Certainly," Colin replied before Diana could say anything. "We wouldn't leave you to fend for yourself."

"Then all will be well." Samantha smiled. "Now, I do apologize, but I am terribly weary. That journey is very long, isn't it?"

"I slept during the journey." Diana giggled. "And then when we arrived. My husband must have truly enjoyed the quiet."

He had not, of course. He much preferred it when Diana talked to him, especially when it was something that she was passionate about, and it had begun to frighten him. He had found himself liking her too much for comfort, which he had never considered to be a possibility. He had wanted them to be friends, but when they argued, he realized that what he was mostly focused on was how soft her cheeks looked, not even how red they were.

"Something seems wrong," he said to Diana once Samantha had retired to her room.

"I thought so too," she sighed. "I was hoping that I was overthinking it, or that she was simply tired because we never traveled, and so she is simply not used to it."

"It may well be that."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "This is something else entirely. She is tired, certainly, but there is something more to it than not having slept. She seems like she has been doing something difficult for a while."

"Perhaps your father has been drinking again?"

"I would say so, but it doesn't make any sense. Father was not drinking because he was trying to fix his reputation so that there was something for his son to inherit that had any real worth. I doubt that he would slip now."

"Then what do you think it might be?"

"I do not know, and it is not like Samantha to keep it from me. I do not know what to do."

"Then we ought to leave her be for a while. She will tell you when she is ready, but until then, it is better to give her time so that she doesn't feel pestered."

"I suppose you know that feeling quite well." She laughed gently.

He wanted to tell her that she did not pester him, but after the sheer force in his voice when he had told her otherwise, he did not see any use in it. It would only open old wounds that he did not want to be reopened. He wanted them to heal.

"Might you give me a tour?" he asked instead of answering her. "You have made so many changes, and it feels as though you did them all at once."

"Well, I did not do it alone. I had the help of a few maids."

"Even so, it is lovely, and you must have worked quickly with it."

"If you must know," she explained as she led him through the rooms she had redecorated, "we did it over the course of a few days. We simply changed small things each day, and you did not notice."

"I suppose that I have been rather out of sorts of late."

"Yes, something like that."

He wanted to apologize to her. He had never meant to lose his temper, but the library had been a difficult thing to think about for years, and the more she tried to force the issue, the more anger he felt flooding back. It had been unfair on his part, and he knew that, but he simply could not bring himself to tell her that. He wondered if she might do the same thing eventually, and begin the apology, and then they would be able to move past it completely, but for the moment they were speaking once more, and that was enough for him.

"You have not been lonely of late, have you?" he asked, and she turned to him with wide eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"In my absence. I know that you said Samantha was coming because she wanted to, but I cannot help but feel as though you invited her because you and I were not speaking."

"It… It was partly that," she admitted. "I will not make a secret of it, I have been lonely. I have always had Samantha, and then when I did not have her, I had you. It has been one of the most severe punishments that I have ever received."

Colin's heart pounded. He did not want to punish her. He had been upset with her, angry with her, but he had not wanted her to feel as though he had left her to her own devices specifically to make her miserable.

"I had not meant to do that to you," he said gently.

"I had hoped not. Then again, I would have deserved it even if you did."

"No, you would not have. That is not how we are supposed to be. We are supposed to communicate when these things happen. I do not want you to have that sort of life anymore."

"Nor do I," she said sadly, and then after a moment of silence, she laughed.

Colin could not help but join her.

"This has been such a long few weeks," she sighed. "I do not know when it will end. Each time I feel as though we are getting to the end of it, something else happens."

"Then it ends now," he promised her. "From this moment on, there will be no more secrets, no more lies, and every time something happens, we deal with it together. It all stops now."

"In which case," she said slowly, "I need to tell you something. Oh, God, you will hate me."

"What? I will not hate you. What has happened?"

"It is not what has happened, but what I have done."

"Alright, so tell me what you have done. I will not hate you for it."

"You might," she said softly, walking to the stairs.

He followed after her, and as they walked into her room, she pulled a book from her shelf. He laughed, wondering if this great act that she had committed against him was simply taking a book of his.

Then she opened the book.

The moment the key slid out of the pages and into her palm, he knew what she had done. She handed it to him, and he turned and walked to the library, the key sliding into the lock and turning, and opened the door to reveal a library that looked nothing like the one he had seen all that time ago.

"Diana," he said carefully, "what have you done?"

"I redecorated."

"Why?"

"Because—because I—I do not know."

"Yes, you do. We all know why we do the things that we do, and you know exactly why you did it. Do not lie to me."

"I simply wanted to do something nice for you."

Silence fell over them for a moment, with Colin not believing her at all, and then she spoke again.

"That is not true," she continued. "I wanted to spite you. I wanted a place that could be mine and mine alone, and I was angry with you, and I wanted to do something for myself, but I also wanted to prove to you that I would not bow to you."

"I cannot speak to you for the moment," he said gently. "I will be in my study. I will be ready to speak with you soon, and if not, then we can discuss the matter tomorrow, but right now I need to go and think."

"Very well," she replied, not even attempting to argue with him, "I will give you all of the time that you need."

She walked away, and he was about to go to his study when he caught sight of a lamp. He had never seen it before—so it was an addition that Diana had made, but it once had a deer head on the wall above it. He had always hated it. It made him uncomfortable to the extent that he had not wanted to be in there at all, and now that it was gone, the room almost seemed inviting.

Then he saw the open book on the desk, the one that he had left there years before, and that was the last thing he needed before he could no longer hold back. He stepped inside, feeling as though he was being watched, and seated himself and began to read the book. For some reason, Diana had not moved it, but he was glad that she had not. There was no need to find where he had stopped reading, as it was already there for him.

Samantha was not the only one that had grown weary, it appeared, as the next thing Colin knew, he was gently being nudged awake. It was Diana who had approached him gingerly and was looking at him with wide eyes.

"I understand that you do not wish to see me right now," she whispered, "but you cannot sleep here. It is not good for you."

"You are wrong," he replied, still partly asleep.

"I am not," she said, rather confused. "Everyone knows that sleeping at a desk is a bad idea. You would be far better off going to sleep in your bed."

"No, I mean that you are wrong about me not wanting to see you. I do. I very much do."

"But I have made you angry. That is why you wanted me to go."

"I wanted you to go so that I could think. I was not angry, I was simply confused, and shocked. Now that I have looked at it, and sat here and read, I can see that this is truly a blessing. I always adored this room, you know."

"You wouldn't know from the way you have been acting about it."

"No, and I ought to apologize for that. I did not mean to be standoffish, but it is the only way I know how to be about this room. It has been a source of pain for me for years now. I also want you to know that the way you have acted cannot happen again. I do not want you acting out of spite if ever I cannot tell you something."

"And I regret what I did, which is why I have told you rather than hoping you never opened the door, but you shutting yourself off is not something that I can tolerate, not when you do not tell me why."

Colin laughed gently, and she stared at him for a moment before finally joining him.

"We are dreadful at this, aren't we?" she asked.

"Most terrible indeed," he sighed. "Although when one looks at the examples that have been set for us, it is no surprise. It is a miracle that we are trying to be different at all."

"Perhaps that is the real reason why I never saw myself marrying. I couldn't fathom a place where I could communicate when something was wrong, because I have never been allowed to, and now I do not know how."

"Then perhaps we might learn together? We can learn to be patient with one another, and to respect each other, and to be more open. I truly think we could do it, so long as we both wish to."

"And I most certainly do. It has been tormenting me that you have been… not angry but something like that with me."

"And I do not wish to feel that way anymore. I also do not wish to put you in a position where you feel as though the only way to make me listen is to make it worse."

"In which case—and you can tell me no if you wish and I shall respect it, but we also agreed to no more lies and no more secrets—why did you not want to tell me what happened here?"

"In truth, it is because I do not need your pity."

"Then I will not pity you," she promised. "But you can tell me what happened whenever you are ready."

She turned to leave, but he took her wrist gently so she would turn back.

"I am ready," he said, before taking a deep breath. "My father… He was not the sort of man I told you he was."