And she knew, without a doubt, that whatever it was that made him run away, time after time, had nothing to do with her presence burdening him. Perhaps he simply didn’t know how to share. He’d spent so very much of his life on his own.
Well, she’d show him how. Two heads were better than one, two hearts even stronger.
When he finally drew back, she searched his intense gray eyes. “What happened? It’s something else, isn’t it? Besides Margery and your father’s ultimatum?” He tried to look away, but she moved to the side, keeping her gaze locked on his. “What happened?” she repeated. “What new disaster has arisen to pile on top of the others?”
He sighed, looking reluctant to confide in her.
But at least he didn’t run.
With both hands, she propelled him toward a large stump and pushed down on his shoulders until he sat. “Talk to me,” she said, reminding herself of her mother.
Leaves rustled overhead, and a sparrow fluttered from one branch to another. Lady had found her way back home. Jasper blinked his little squirrel eyes at them, then darted up a tree. Lily rubbed her scarred hand and examined her ruined stockings, waiting.
“The marquess,” Rand said at last, “has revealed he had an excuse for the way he’s always mistreated me.”
”You were a child. There was no excuse.” But then a flash of insight made Lily wonder if this was the ‘troublesome’ incident Etta had mentioned.
Her curiosity piqued, she had to redouble her efforts at appearing patient. The last thing she wanted was to scare him off.
”He blamed me for the death of my mother.”
“What?” She dropped to sit beside him. “I thought it was a riding accident.“
“Yes, but I never knew the circumstances. It seems, as a child, I had a habit of running off.” He paused as though waiting for her to agree or to chide him. When she didn’t, he went on. “I was six when it happened. She couldn’t find me and went out looking.”
“Then fell off her horse?” Lily asked quietly.
“And broke her neck.”
“Oh, Rand.” Sensing his grief, she shifted to face him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I’d disappeared.”
“You were six. You weren’t responsible for her accident. It could have happened another day, another time—”
“But it didn’t.” The guilt rolled off of him in waves. “It happened when I ran off. I killed her.”
With a hand on his chin, she turned his face to hers. “No. You’re not to blame.”
“My father thinks I am. I left her, and she died. And look at me. I’m still running off and hurting the people I love.”
She offered him a wan smile. “I believe I just put a stop to that. And Rand, you didn’t kill her. Your father saying so doesn’t make it true. You were six years old. Events happen. This one was tragic, but you cannot believe it’s your fault.”
“My father believes it.”
“Not really,” she argued. “Or he’d have voiced that blame aloud long ago. And he never did, did he? Or you would have known that’s why he was cruel to you.”
He appeared to consider that for a moment, and Lily felt a little of the tightness ease from his body. “You won’t convince me the old goat is good,” he finally said.
“No, and I wouldn’t try. His treatment of you was unpardonable, but perhaps natural, for all that. He was hurting—”
“Hurting?” Rand interrupted in a tone of patent disbelief.
She nodded. “He must have loved her very much to react in such a strong manner, even if it was wrong.”
“Love? I cannot picture the man in love. I doubt he even believes in such a fine emotion.”
She decided to drop that for now. “Regardless, he was wrong to treat you poorly. Not only because you were—are—his child, but also because—”
“I was only six,” he finished softly, as though really hearing that for the first time.
“Yes, you were only six.”
An invisible weight seemed to roll off his shoulders, and he sat there a long while, silent, leaning his forehead against hers.
“I need time to think,” he said at last, pulling slightly away.
“About your mother?”
He shook his head, a slow, mournful motion. “About Margery. I cannot marry her, loving you. I cannot. But the baby—”
“The baby? What baby?”
“She’s with child,” he said miserably. “Margery is going to have the baron’s son. Or daughter. It wasn’t intentional. She claims she and Armstrong got carried away. Just once.”
Shock and dismay swirled in Lily’s stomach and made a lump rise in her throat. But having seen Margery and the baron together, she had no trouble imagining the two of them getting carried away.
She swallowed hard. “How do you feel about her being with child?”
“My baby sister is having a baby—she did what it takes to have a baby.” Rand’s mouth twisted ruefully. “I honestly don’t know how I feel about that. And…she asked me to raise it as my own. If we can’t find a way for her to wed Armstrong, that is.”
“And you agreed, of course,” she said softly. Picturing Rand raising another girl’s baby made Lily’s stomach continue roiling, but she was determined to maintain an outward calm. “Because what else can you do? The child oughtn’t to be punished for its parents’ indiscretion.”
“Yes, I agreed,” he admitted. “But I confess, as much as I can’t picture myself wed to Margery, I find that when I think of raising her child…I don’t mind. Which is odd.”
“You’re far too generous to refuse an innocent babe a good home. Why should you think it odd?”
“Because until very recently I found the thought of raising any child abhorrent. But now, when I close my eyes…” He did so, and a little crease appeared in his forehead. “I see
