The Perfect Waltz (21 page)

“I—I have an engagement this evening. I cannot tarry.”

“Please, Mr. Reyne. We’ve been practicing so hard,” Grace added her plea.

Cassie tossed her head as if she couldn’t care in the slightest what he did, but there was enough tension in her indifference to alert him. And Dorie watched him with big eyes. In her hand she clutched a triangle.

He did not want to hear the song, did not want to be dragged back into those times. But his own wants were as nothing to the look in Dorie’s eyes or Cassie’s careless, heartbreaking feigned indifference.

“Very well,” he agreed stiffly and was instantly rewarded by a glowing look from Miss Hope.

“Lovely.” She took his arm and led him to the fireplace. “Stand here, where it’s warm. And Lily will bring tea in a few minutes. The girls’ reward for all their hard work.”

He leaned against the mantelpiece, arms folded, heart braced, trying to look interested. He hoped they’d perform only one verse. Or two. He did not want to listen to the third verse, the one where his mother’s voice used to get choked and husky. That verse she did not sing to the child in her arms, nor yet to the babe in her belly or the sons who watched. She sang to her dead lover, her husband, Sebastian’s father.

Faith played the opening chords on the pianoforte, then the others joined in. Hope and Grace sang the melody. Faith, in a clear, pure voice, helped Cassie’s wavering treble maintain a descant harmony while silent Dorie played a large silver triangle, her small face frowning with concentration, as each
ting!
came right on the beat. Sebastian bit his lip watching her, touched that the Merridew girls had included his mute little sister so naturally in their song.

The sight of the earnest little girl, proudly
ting
ing away on her triangle, combined with the emotions churned up in him by the old song was almost more than Sebastian could bear. He clenched his jaw, keeping his face as impassive as possible, but when they came to the third verse, he turned his back. He stared into the fire, overwhelmed by memory and grief and bitterness as they sang . . .

 
The familiar words and melody tangled in his throat so he could hardly breathe. His mother’s voice echoed with every note. She’d yearned for his father, even after his death. After all he had done to them, his mother had still loved the man—loved him more than life itself.

How could she have loved him? His father’s weaknesses had brought his family to this place of desperation, and then he’d taken the easy way out—death—leaving Sebastian in charge. And he’d tried so hard, and failed them anyway . . .

No better than his father.

He closed his eyes, trying to force back the unwelcome memories. Nothing good came of dwelling in the past. Only pain and determination. He would
never
make the same mistakes as his father.

He suddenly realized the music had stopped.

“Didn’t you like our song?” Cassie demanded in a hostile voice. “I thought it was lovely!”

He turned. “It was,” he agreed. “Very lovely. The harmonies were beautiful. And the triangle added the perfect touch. It’s just . . .” His voice cracked, and he rubbed his forehead awkwardly, as if somehow he could rub away the emotion.

He was about to claim he had a headache, but something in their expression told him they deserved the truth. Even if it did reveal his weakness. Even if Miss Hope was there to witness it.

“It took me back, you see. I haven’t heard that song since our mother sang it to you, to help you sleep, when you were a toddler in the days just before Dorie was born. Mama used to sing it over and over, right up until the day Dorie came into the world.”

There was a sudden silence. Cassie and Dorie stared at each other, their faces shocked. Cassie turned on him, furiously. “What do you mean,
our
mother! You didn’t know us then!”

Sebastian frowned, surprised. “Of course I did. I was there when you were born.” He glanced from one to the other. “I saw both of you come into the world.”

There was another long silence. He was aware of the Merridew twins exchanging glances, but he was too surprised by Cassie’s response to take much notice.

Cassie narrowed her eyes at him, still obviously suspicious. “You don’t mean you’re our real,
actual
brother?”

There was such intensity in her voice that Sebastian was confused. He nodded. “Yes, of course I do. But you knew that already.”

“That’s what you
told
us, but people are always telling us they’re our uncles or fathers or our aunty.” She almost spat the last out with scorn. “You’re trying to tell us we had the very same mother?”

Sebastian was shocked, but suddenly a number of things fell into place. The girls’ reluctance to tell him of their past, Cassie’s hostility, Dorie’s lack of trust. If they had been handed from “relative” to “relative,” no wonder they hadn’t taken him at his word. He glanced at Miss Hope. This was intimate family business. He should not embarrass the Merridews by dwelling on such private matters. He was about to tell Cassie they would discuss it later, in private, when Miss Hope squeezed his arm.

“They need absolute assurance on this, now,” she whispered. “Don’t worry about us. Tell them what they need to know, Mr. Reyne.” She nodded and gave him a small, encouraging smile.

He glanced at her, then turned back to Cassie and said, “Yes, we all three of us had the very same mother. And the same father. You and Dorie are my true blood, legitimate, legal sisters. Dorie and I even have the same gray eyes—Papa’s eyes.”

Cassie’s gaze flew from his face to Dorie’s, comparing.

He continued, “And though Dorie has more of Mama’s features—Mama was a beauty when she was young—you have Mama’s beautiful blue eyes and her pretty singing voice. Alas, Cassie, you and I have Papa’s nose, though yours is the smaller and prettier.”

Cassie touched her straight little patrician nose, then examined his longer, equally patrician one, crooked from where a fist had broken it. She paused, screwed up her nose in thought and then asked, “Who was Mam, then? And how did you come to lose us?”

He hesitated. Miss Hope intervened, seeming to read his mind. “Why don’t you three come and sit by the fire? If you prefer, Mr. Reyne, we can leave, and you can tell your sisters in private.”

He looked at her in silent gratitude; he’d never told the whole story to the girls—mainly because they’d made it clear from the beginning they wanted nothing to do with him. And he did not want to explain the great failure of his life in front of everyone, especially her, but Cassie said, “No, stay. You’re our friends, and I want you to hear it, too.” She looked at Sebastian and said in a challenging voice, “I’ll tell Grace anyway, you know, and she’ll tell her sisters.”

He looked at Miss Hope and said, “I must warn you, it isn’t a pretty story.”

Hope laid a hand on his arm and said, “Don’t worry about us. We know how to keep a confidence, don’t we, girls?” Her sisters nodded, and Sebastian felt a lump in his throat. She added, “Besides, our own story is hardly a tale for bedtime telling.”

Sebastian gave in. “Very well, the whole story. Let us sit down.” He sat down in a blue plush armchair, and his two sisters squashed into a matching one facing him across the fire. The Merridews quietly seated themselves on an overstuffed sofa and waited.

Sebastian wasn’t sure where to start. Then he remembered Cassie’s question. “You asked who the woman you called “Mam” was. I knew her as Widow Morgan—”

Cassie nodded at the name.

“—and I paid her to take care of you after our mother died.”

“How did she die?” Cassie asked. “And what about our father? Tell us the whole story.”

“Our father was a wastrel,” Sebastian said stiffly. “He was born a younger son of good family, but everything he wanted was given to him, without effort, and he never learned responsibility. He was also a gambler and . . . well, suffice it to say it was either feast or famine in our house. My early life was pampered and privileged, as was Johnny’s, my younger brother.”

The girls sat up at that. “You never mentioned Johnny before—”

“I’ll get to him later. He was two years younger than I, two years less lucky. I went to a good school for nearly four years. It made all the difference to my life.”

Hope watched his face as he spoke and recalled how Giles Bemerton said he’d known Sebastian at school.

“But Johnny was sickly, and in the end he never went to school, for by the time he was well enough to go, there was no money. Papa had disgraced himself.” His face hardened. “He was disowned by his family and could no longer lead the life he was accustomed to. He sold everything we had of value, but that was soon gone. He tried to live by the cards, but nobody would accept his vowels and—” He shook his head. “Well, you don’t need to know all the details. We slipped lower and lower down the social scale until by the time Cassie was born, we were living in rented rooms in the poorest part of town—in Manchester.”

He stared into the fire and said in a low voice, “I was there when you were born, Cassie, because there was no other choice. There was no money for a midwife, and Papa had been gone for days, off trying to raise some money. Mama told me what to do, and I did it.” He swallowed, fighting emotion. “I’ll never forget the first sight of you, all red-faced and angry and squalling your displeasure to the world. And then Mama fed you, and you stopped crying.” He glanced at Cassie and said thickly, “You were so beautiful.”

“How old were you?” Hope asked softly. He must have been just a young boy. She wanted the girls to realize it.

He glanced at her. “Twelve.”

She nodded. “The same age Dorie is now.”

He stared at her as if wondering what possible relevance his age had. “Yes. I was older, of course, when Dorie was born. Papa had . . . died, by then.” He paused. There was something he wasn’t telling them, Hope realized, something about his father’s death.

“Didn’t you have any relatives to turn to?”

“No, Mama wrote, but . . .” He shook his head. He contemplated the fire again, brooding. “Dorie was born a few months after that.” He jerked his chin at the pianoforte and added, “That song you were singing before, Mama used to sing it to Cassie over and over while she waited for Dorie to be born.” He stared into the fire for a moment, watching the flames dance, listening to the hiss and crackle, lost in memories.

“If your father was dead, how did you live?” Hope prompted. She had a feeling that if she didn’t ask, he would skip over the most important part—the role of Sebastian Reyne, hero. She wanted his sisters to understand what hardships he had faced and how very young he had been. If they did, they would surely stop repudiating his care, and perhaps some of that haunted look he carried would fade from his bleak, gray gaze.

He shrugged uncomfortably and muttered, “I’d always managed to do an odd job here and there, and help out at the market.”

Hope had seen a ragged urchin at a market once, picking up bruised fruit and vegetables from the gutters. That was how Sebastian Reyne kept his family alive?

“But I got a job in one of the mills after Papa died—he wouldn’t let me take a proper job before—‘Not fitting for one of our class!’” His mouth twisted.

Hope suddenly understood the source of the vehemence with which he occasionally referred to the ton.

“I got Johnny a job soon afterward. Luckily, Dorie was born in the middle of the night, otherwise we’d have been at the mill, working, and Mama would have been alone.”

Hope glanced at the Reyne girls and said for their benefit, “So you and your younger brother supported your mother and two babies.”

He grimaced. “Supported was hardly the word. And we didn’t do a good enough job. Mama died while Dorie was still a weanling.” He swallowed and said in a voice that grated with emotion, “After that, I took you two babies to Widow Morgan and paid her to look after you for us.”

“You were only, what, fourteen? And Johnny twelve?” Hope asked, her voice suddenly husky as she imagined a young boy, alone, desperately struggling to keep their family together. “How could you afford to pay her and keep yourselves?”

Judging by the discomfort he showed at the question, it was another area he’d been about to skim over, Hope thought.

He shrugged awkwardly, “Johnny and I slept at the mill so we didn’t need to pay rent for a room anymore.” He looked at his sisters and said, “But I looked in on you at Widow Morgan’s every morning and every night, to check for myself that you were all right.”

Cassie stared at him and whispered, “You still check on us now, morning and night.”

He grimaced wryly and nodded. “I can’t seem to break the habit.”

“How did you come to lose us then?” Cassie asked.

His face contorted briefly, then he mastered himself and said baldly, “Johnny died. An accident at the mill.”

Cassie and Dorie glanced at each other. They were clutching each other’s hands tightly. Cassie said, “Johnny died? What happened?”

He shook his head as if unwilling to talk about it, but his sisters were staring up at him, and Hope could see he was trapped. He twisted his hands and spoke. “It was at the end of a shift. Most accidents happen then, for the children are tired.”

“After working for twelve long hours,” Miss Hope prompted.

He shook his head shortly, “The shift was fourteen hours in those days. Anyway, Johnny was tired, and it made him slow, clumsy. I tried to keep an eye on him, but they’d put me in the office by that time—I’m good with figures—and I didn’t see how tired he was. I did come out to check, and I saw it happen . . .” He kneaded his big, scarred hands painfully as he told the story. Hope noticed Dorie watching them.