‘They are also afraid of me,’ he said in a brooding voice.
‘A little in awe, perhaps, but not afraid.’
‘I haven’t known what to say to them since their mother died.’
Lizzie could believe it all too easily. ‘What was she like?’ she asked gently.
‘She was a wonderful mother,’ Daniel said at once. ‘She insisted on taking charge of the nursery herself. She left the nannies very little to do. She said that nobody must come between her and her children.’
Lizzie wondered if he knew what he was revealing. Daniel had nothing but good to say of his late wife, but through the words there appeared a picture of a woman who had not loved her husband and had consoled herself with her children. He gave no hint as to whether he had loved Serena, but it was clear that her remoteness had left him lonelier. The right woman could have drawn him out, she thought, encouraged the warmth that she was sure was there in him. If she’d loved him…
Lizzie pulled herself together, wondering where her wits were wandering. It was Daniel’s fault for looking so handsome as they drifted beneath the trees, moving in and out of the sunlight. He wore no jacket and his sleeves were short, leaving no doubt of the spare, hard lines of his body, the broad chest and narrow hips. He controlled his horse easily, with slight movements of his muscular thighs that held her attention even while she knew that a wise woman would blank him out, for her own sake.
It was a shame, she thought. So much masculine power and beauty was destined for an athlete, a dancer, or a trapeze artist. One thing was for sure. It was wasted on a king.
CHAPTER FOUR
THAT night Lizzie was about to go to bed when there was a knock on the door to the secret passage.
‘It’s Daniel,’ came a quiet voice from behind.
She slid back the bolts and he stepped into the room, still in white tie and tails from a reception at a foreign embassy. He looked pale and drawn, as though his mind was troubled.
‘I’ve brought you something,’ he said, giving her a large brown envelope.
‘The letters,’ she breathed, exploring.
‘Four of them, to start with. You might tell me if you recognise Dame Elizabeth’s writing.’
She settled down on the sofa and began to go through them like a treasure hunter who’d just struck gold.
‘I don’t really know her writing,’ she said regretfully. ‘In her last years she had arthritis in her hands and never wrote anything down if she could help it. This could be hers. I’m not sure.’
The letters were touching. A gentle, eager soul breathed through the words. This was a woman with a great, tender heart, full of love for one man.
‘My goodness,’ she breathed. ‘I’d really love to-’ She
checked herself on the verge of saying she’d love to see the other side of the correspondence. It would be silly to throw away her ace while she was winning.
‘Love to-?’ Daniel asked.
‘Love to see the rest of the letters.’
‘This is all you get for the moment.’
She began to read the four letters slowly. They were not only loving but also frankly sensual in a way that made her revise her opinion of Alphonse.
‘I wish I’d known your grandfather,’ she murmured. ‘He can’t have been the stick-in-the-mud everyone thought, or no woman would have written to him like this.’
‘I beg your pardon!’ Daniel said frostily. ‘I resent the term “stick-in-the-mud”.’
‘Sorry,’ Lizzie said quickly. ‘But you know what I mean.’
‘I don’t think I do. He was a man I greatly admired-’
‘But don’t you realise that now you’ve got another reason to admire him? If he could inspire this kind of love he must have been quite a man. Listen…’
‘“
From another letter Lizzie read, ‘“
She stopped. After a moment some quality in the silence made her look up to find him staring into space. He looked stunned.
‘Daniel,’ she said, laying her hand over his.
He didn’t look at her. His eyes were fixed on something she couldn’t see. Perhaps his grandfather. Perhaps himself.
‘I read that letter earlier,’ he murmured. ‘But I barely noticed those words. When you read them-it’s different-I hear them for the first time-almost as though you-’
He stopped, suddenly self-conscious.
‘You’re right,’ he went on after a moment. ‘How little I really knew him! I admired him, but I was in awe of him, just as my own children are of me. He seemed so stiff and remote. But he couldn’t have been if a woman could write such words to him.’
He gave a wry laugh. ‘What do we ever know of another person? I wanted to be like him, and now I discover that I never can be. He was a man who could inspire a woman to say that the world was beautiful because of him. And I know, if I’m honest, that no woman has ever said or even thought that about me.’
‘What about your wife?’ Lizzie asked.
‘I married when I was nineteen. She was twenty-four. We weren’t in love. It was a state marriage, and we were raised to the idea of duty.’
‘But didn’t you ever fall in love?’
‘She was in love with someone else. We didn’t talk about it. Now I look back, we didn’t talk about anything, which may be why we managed to remain on cordial terms until she died. If people don’t talk to each other, there’s nothing to quarrel about.’
‘You poor soul,’ Lizzie said, meaning it.
‘She’s the one you should feel sorry for. She was forced to separate from the man she loved and marry a silly boy. She
suffered an arid marriage with only her children to console her, and died before her life could get any better.’
‘How did she die?’
‘A fall from her horse. She was a reckless rider. Maybe she was trying to ease the frustrations of her life.’ He gave a bitter laugh, directed at himself. ‘You should have heard my romantic notions as a bridegroom. Despite the odds, I’d convinced myself that we might fall in love. I’d have gladly loved her. She was beautiful. But the other man was always there in her heart, and I never had a chance.’
‘Did you know who he was?’
‘Oh, yes, he was a splendid fellow, just right for her. A nervous teenager had no chance of winning her heart. I honour her for her fidelity to me. I know she never wavered. But, poor woman, it was a bleak business for her!’
‘And for you,’ Lizzie said sympathetically.
The picture he’d painted for her was vivid: the lonely boy, longing for some love in a world that had given him none and finding only a wife as deprived as himself. The handsome, apparently confident man before her was a shell. Inside him the ‘nervous teenager’ still lived, and probably always would, unless another woman’s touch could heal his wounds.
Thinking of nothing but to comfort him, she laid her hand on his cheek, searching his face. He raised his eyes to hers and she was shocked at their defencelessness. They were on his ground. By all the rules he should be in control. But something in that letter had broken his control by revealing his own loneliness to him in cruel colours.