Determined to maintain her composure in front of her child, Chrystabel forced a laugh. “I dare say I’ve looked better.” That was an understatement. She hardly knew what she’d put on this morning, and poor Anne had been in fits trying to keep her still long enough to fix her hair.
“That’s not what I meant. You just look tense.”
“Well, you look stunning, dear. Thank you for coming.”
Heaven knew Chrystabel was tense. Rose’s future happiness hung in the balance, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to help.
She hated feeling powerless almost as much as she hated causing her daughter pain.
“How is she?” Lily asked, nodding in the general direction of Rose’s bedchamber.
“I can only guess.” A week had passed since the evening Rose had arrived home from Oxford, full of trembling outrage and bitter recriminations. It was a week Chrystabel had spent in knots, but she knew her daughter well enough to know when she needed solitude. “Most days she stays at Lakefield through supper, or else she has her meals fetched to her room. Though Mrs. Crump tells me the plates come back untouched.”
Lily touched her arm. “Rose will come around. I’ll talk to her. I’ll tell her she needs to forgive you.”
“You’re sweet for offering, dear.” Especially if—as Chrystabel suspected—Lily was still vexed with her mother, too. Her daughter’s capacity for kindness never ceased to amaze her. “But I was actually hoping you’d talk to her about Kit.”
Lily blanched. “She hasn’t called off the wedding, has she? B-because of what I told her?”
“No! At least, I haven’t been asked to stop planning it.” Though in truth Chrystabel feared the worst, for now she left it at that. She couldn’t bear her daughter’s guilt-stricken expression. None of this was Lily’s fault.
It was nobody’s fault but Chrystabel’s. She’d been careless and overconfident, and now her girls were paying the price. She should have realized they’d be smart enough to put the pieces together. She should have done a better job covering her tracks. But she hadn’t, and now disaster had struck.
She’d hoped her daughters would never discover the truth. Though she’d acted out of love, she’d always known that learning their mother had defied their wishes and schemed behind their backs would bring them pain and confusion. Not to mention send tremors through their blissful marriages, disturbing the happiness Chrystabel had worked so hard to help them secure.
But her clever girls had figured it out—and at the worst possible time. Emotional, headstrong Rose had only just fallen in love. Her bond with Kit was still new and fragile. Fragile enough, perhaps, that a few tremors could break it.
Chrystabel couldn’t let that happen, but she couldn’t stop it alone.
So she was calling in the reinforcements.
“As far as I’m aware, the wedding is still happening,” she assured Lily. “Violet should know more. She should be here any…ah, there she is!” Through the window, Chrystabel was relieved to see a purple-clad figure dismounting a horse. Her eldest daughter wasn’t speaking to her, but she’d hoped Violet wouldn’t ignore a summons on Rose’s behalf.
When Violet joined them, she embraced Lily but kept her distance from Chrystabel. “Good morning, Mum,” she said coolly.
Chrystabel nodded, slightly stung though she’d expected no less. “I’m glad you’ve come.”
“You said Rose needed me.”
“It’s about Rose and Kit, actually,” Lily put in.
“Why am I not surprised?” Violet narrowed her eyes at her mother. “If you mean to involve us in some ill-conceived matchmaking ploy—”
“I don’t,” Chrystabel said. “I’m out of the daughter-matching business.”
“That’s difficult to believe,” Lily said, her habitual sweetness tempered by a note of steel. It was a recent development that made Chrystabel want to beam with pride. Her youngest daughter was no longer such an appeaser—since finding Rand, she’d also found her spine.
But Chrystabel had meant what she’d said. Having seen the harm she’d caused Violet, Rose, and Lily, she knew interfering further would only lead to more heartache. She couldn’t fool her daughters anymore. She could no longer protect them from their mistakes. When she’d said she was out of the daughter-matching business, she’d meant it.
After all, her last child was a son.
“I understand why you feel that way,” she told Lily. “And I understand why you three are angry with me. If my mother had tried using trickery to influence my choice of a husband, I would have been just as angry with her.”
Of course, her mother had been a distant, neglectful sort of parent who would have chosen entirely wrong.
“I owe you girls an apology.” Chrystabel selected another oil from her collection as a pretense for sneaking a peek at her daughters’ faces. They looked appropriately stunned. She chose her next words with great care. “I’m so very sorry, my loves. I’m sorry for lying to you, for influencing you against your wishes, and for everything you’ve suffered because of me. I wish things had happened differently.”
There. She’d given an honest, heartfelt apology, and she’d meant every word. She was genuinely sorry for being dishonest and overbearing, and especially for causing distress.
But she hadn’t said she regretted it.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me yet. I just want you to know that I’ve learned my lesson.” Her fingers curled around the glass vial. “I will not be interfering in Rose and Kit’s relationship again.”
Violet’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t wish them to reconcile?”
Chrystabel’s heart skittered at the confirmation of her fears. Please, dear Rose, don’t let love slip away. “I do wish for that, very much. I still think they belong together.”
Lily tilted her head. “Even though Kit deceived her?”
“He didn’t want to,” Chrystabel admitted, fiddling with the vial. “He was quite resistant to the idea, in fact. I’m afraid I rather ambushed him to force his cooperation.” Though her words were matter-of-fact, she had the grace to blush.
Strong-arming Kit was another deed she lamented…but didn’t regret.
“Still, as I said, I’m finished meddling in their
