The Color of Forever (20 page)

I lowered my gaze. “That is very sad for Mr. Danforth. And terribly dishonorable of my husband.” Anger returned, and I frowned as I looked up.

“You must understand, I am in shock this morning, because I always believed he was a man of integrity. It’s why I fell in love with him. And I thought he loved me just as deeply in return
.
I thought we were destined to be together—that he had never loved anyone
…
not truly
—
until he met me. That’s why he never married, or so I thought. But he admitted that he’d loved her, and no doubt he would have proposed to her if she had not already been married. Perhaps that is the only reason he married me—because he couldn’t have
her
. All along, I was second choice. I still am.”

Mr. Williams rubbed my hands more gently, and I felt the heat returning to the tips of my fingers. “I believe he does love you, Mrs. Fraser. Otherwise he wouldn’t have ended his affair with Mrs. Danforth. If I am correct, this is the first time they’ve returned to Cape Elizabeth since your wedding day.”

I let out a sigh of defeat. “Yes, but I am afraid you are missing a few puzzle pieces, Mr. Williams. I don’t think you would be defending him if you knew what he did.”

Mr. Williams’s eyebrows pulled together with agitation. “What was that?”

I leaned back in my chair, and for reasons I will never understand, I took perverse pleasure in revealing the filthy, scandalous details to Mr. Williams.

For once, I wanted honesty—honesty without concern for propriety.

“He was with Mrs. Danforth again in London this past summer. In fact, he made love to her in his coach after a ball. There, look. I’ve shocked you. I apologize, Mr. Williams.”

He stood up and paced around the room. “He told you this?”

“Yes,” I replied, “but I doubt he ever would have if I hadn’t found her earring in my garden yesterday morning. I tried to return it to her in the afternoon, only to discover that she had driven to Portland—when
he
happened to be there as well. He confessed everything, of course, when he came home for dinner and I confronted him.” I stood up as well. “But if I hadn’t found that earring, I believe I would still be in the dark, living a lie. I might never have known the truth.”

I turned away from Mr. Williams and tried to squelch the nausea that rose up in my belly. “I feel like such a fool.”

“You are not the fool,” Mr. Williams softly said, crossing the plank floor to reach me. He touched my arm. “
He
is.”

My heart began to pound faster, for I was intensely aware of Mr. Williams’s touch and his overall physical presence behind me as I turned my cheek to the side. I was afraid to turn my body around completely—afraid to look into his eyes.

By now the sun had come up, and a soft gray light appeared in the windows. The little stone house had grown warmer with the heat of the fire, and I realized I was still wearing my heavy cloak. I began to unbutton it.

Mr. Williams removed it from my shoulders and draped it over the kitchen chair behind him. At last, I found the mettle to turn around. A tear spilled across my cheek.

Mr. Williams wiped it away with the pad of his thumb. “Please don’t cry, Evangeline,” he whispered, and it was not lost upon me that he addressed me by my first name. “Everything will be all right.”

“Will it?” I asked. “It doesn’t feel that way. Not today.”

A wave exploded on the rocks outside—then another, and another, like the angry beating heart of the unsettled ocean. Mr. Williams pulled me into his arms. Again, I found myself weeping on his shoulder, grateful for the comfort he offered, for the safe harbor I always knew I could come to when my world was falling apart.

He squeezed me tightly against him, and I clung to him with inexplicable desperation, fisting great clumps of his shirt in my hands. I wanted to thank him for being there. For holding me so steadily and solidly.

After a moment, I gathered my composure and stepped back, but my hands remained resting on his broad shoulders as I looked uncertainly into his eyes. I noticed the little flecks of gold within the blue that surrounded his pupils, and I couldn’t resist the desire to reach up and lay my hand on his cheek, touch the rough stubble at his jaw.

“Come away with me,” Mr. Williams said suddenly. “You must know how much I love you. I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you, and I swear I would never hurt you like he has. I would cherish you always. I would never leave you or betray you.”

I stepped back. “Mr. Williams
. Please
…you mustn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am married.”

His face flushed with color. “I know that, but he has broken his vows and he cannot possibly make you happy. Not after this.” Mr. Williams paused and wet his lips, took a deep breath. “You and I could leave here and start over somewhere else where no one knows us. We could go to New York. I would take care of you, Evangeline. I promise. We could leave this morning. You would never have to go back there, never see him again.”

I regarded Mr. Williams with horror. “But my children…”

He nodded quickly, as if he were struggling to iron out all the details. “We could take them with us. Sneak them away.”

I shook my head. “No, I could never do that. I’m Sebastian’s wife.”

“But you hate him.”

“No, I don’t.”

His lips parted. “You just said you did.”

Oh, God
… I looked away, toward the back room. “I’m so sorry. I hate what he did,” I tried to explain, realizing I was making a terrible mess of things. “But I still love him.”

Mr. Williams closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead. For a long moment, he stood in the center of the room without speaking.

“Forgive me,” he said at last, looking up. “I don’t know what came over me. I just thought…perhaps…” He turned away and sank, forlorn, onto one of the kitchen chairs. He rested his elbow on the table and buried his forehead in his hand.

Overwhelmed by regret for my inability to recognize the depth of his feelings—and how my presence here under the circumstances might affect him—I hurried to kneel before him and took his hands in mine. “Please do not apologize. You have been such a good friend to me, always. You mean so much to me, Mr. Williams. Truly. It was lovely that you said those things to me. That you want to be my hero. I will never forget it.”

“I
will
be your hero,” he said, “if you ever need me to be.”

I sat back on my heels and regarded him for a painful, tremulous moment. “I shouldn’t have come here,” I said. “I should go home now.”

I saw the disappointment in his eyes, followed by acceptance as he nodded.

Offering a hand to help me rise, he walked me to the door, where we stood facing each other, hands clasped between us.

“Before I fetch your cloak and hat,” he said, “I want you to know that I meant what I said. I do love you, Evangeline, and I always will. I will be right here waiting, if you ever need me.”

As he squeezed my hands in his, I was overcome, yet again, by heartache and regret, for I could not bear the thought of causing this man further pain. He was good and kind. He did not deserve to be unhappy.

“Please, Mr. Williams. You mustn’t wait for me. You must find your own happiness. I couldn’t bear to think of you suffering in any way.”

Like his uncle.

Mr. Williams raised both my hands to his lips and kissed them devotedly.

And if not for the roar of the surf, perhaps things might have turned out differently. Perhaps we might have heard the thunder of hooves as a rider entered the yard, dismounted, and strode to the front door to look in the window.

We might have had a chance to at least step apart.

Chapter Thirty-eight

When Mr. Williams opened the door, shock reverberated through my body at the sight of a tall dark figure on the stoop—my husband, looking every inch the well-to-do-gentleman in his top hat, overcoat with fur lapels, shiny black boots and riding crop at his side.

“Sebastian,” I said. “What are you—?”

His eyes blazed with fury as he threw his riding crop to the ground, stepped over the threshold and grabbed Mr. Williams by the shirt collar. “Take your hands off my wife.”

Dragging Mr. Williams outside, he shoved him away. Mr. Williams fell backwards, onto the freshly fallen snow, and shook his head as if to wake himself.

“Sebastian, stop it!” I shouted as I followed them outside.

His big black horse was stomping around skittishly, tossing his head in the air, wanting to bolt. I hurried to take hold of Sebastian’s arm, but this gave Mr. Williams an opportunity to scramble to his feet and retaliate. I had no choice but to move out of the way as he came barreling toward my husband. He threw himself forward and tackled Sebastian, who fell onto his back. His hat flew off and Mr. Williams proceeded to pound him in the face and shake him repeatedly by the lapels, saying, “You lousy cheat! You’re all alike, men like you, flaunting your fancy carriages and silk hats, looking down on the rest of us. You don’t deserve her!”

“Stop it!” I shouted.

Sebastian managed to rise up and toss Mr. Williams away, and get back on his feet. They circled around each other, glaring like a couple of wolves, ready to fight to the death.

Sebastian pointed his finger at Mr. Williams. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. Right from the beginning, since the day I brought her here, you’ve had your eye on her.”

“I certainly have,” Mr. Williams replied. “I won’t deny it for a second. But I never laid a hand on her, because I’m a better man than you, Fraser. I don’t steal other men’s wives.”

Thinking back to our conversation in his kitchen a short while ago, I realized it was a bald-faced lie, for Mr. Williams had asked me—quite plainly—to run away with him.

“Mr. Williams,
please
…” I said, though I didn’t know what, exactly, I was pleading for. For him to refrain from punching my husband in the face again? Or perhaps there was a part of me that feared he would reveal how I’d welcomed his arms around me on more than one occasion.

“If you’re referring to Mrs. Danforth,” Sebastian said, “that was over a long time ago.” He wiped a spot of blood from his lip.

“London wasn’t so long ago,” Mr. Williams reminded him, and Sebastian gave me a look of deep disappointment.

“You told him that?”

“I was angry with you,” I explained. “I needed to talk to someone, and he’s a friend. And how can you insinuate that my telling him was a betrayal, when you did far worse?”

He regarded me with exasperation in the hazy morning light and finally stopped pacing. He bent to pick up his hat, brushed the snow off it and placed it back on his head. “It’s time to go home,” he said, striding toward me.

I backed away. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Not after what you did in London.”

His eyes flashed with remorse. “Evangeline, please come home with me and we will discuss it further. We will work everything out. Give me another chance and I promise I will spend my life making it up to you, proving how much I love you. I will never betray your trust again.”

“Why should I believe you when I cannot possibly trust you?”

“You can, because I assure you, regret is a very powerful teacher.”

I continued to back away, shaking my head at him.

He followed and took hold of my arm. “Please, Evangeline, I cannot lose you.”

“Let her go!” Mr. Williams shouted from across the yard. “She doesn’t want to go with you.”

Sebastian turned and pointed a warning finger at him. “Stay out of this, Williams. It’s none of your affair.”

“It
is
my affair, because I love her, more than you do.” He came striding quickly toward us.

Sebastian let go of my arm and prepared to defend himself again. “There is not a single chance in hell that is true.”

“I wouldn’t do what you did,” Mr. Williams said. “Not to
her
. Now get off this property. She’s staying right here.”

“I’m not staying, or going, anywhere!” I shouted at both of them as I turned and marched angrily across the yard toward the snow-covered beach. I stepped onto the sloping rocks and realized with more than a little unease how slippery it was. There were patches of ice beneath the snow. The wind bit into my cheeks, but I did not wish to turn around. I wanted to escape the hurt and anger I had felt when I looked into my husband’s eyes and realized there was nothing he could do or say to reverse what he had done. He couldn’t change what happened. It would never go away. He would be apologizing to me for the rest of our lives. It would haunt us forever.

Gathering my skirts in my fists, I stepped over the fault lines in the ledges of bedrock, careful not to slip. I would climb back up off the rocks when I was further from the lighthouse, for I wanted them both to understand that I did not belong to either of them, that they did not control me. I would make up my own mind when I was fully prepared to do so.

A fierce gust of wind blew at my skirts, and the ocean roared like an angry beast. Stopping for a moment to catch my breath, I looked out at the raging water that churned, hissed, and foamed before my eyes. A gull screeched over my head, flapping his spread wings.