Page 115

“But I have no wish to spend another Christmas carrying hatred. You have done something kind when it mattered most. As for repayment, give the money you were going to give to me to the vicar for the orphanage and the families.”

Marina paused.

“Then, I accept your apology.”

Lady Beatrice looked up, tears shining in her eyes.

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

Marina managed a small smile.

Mr. Harris promised to keep the vicar informed about the mining families and the documents still to be examined. A woman who had once crossed the street to avoid Marina now pressed her hand warmly. One of the children asked whether there would be another Christmas tree next year.

“Of course,” Marina said. “Perhaps there shall be two.”

A ripple of laughter passed through the room.

Even Ambrose smiled.

At last, the final guest departed.

The drawing-room doors closed, and silence settled around them. Marina stood beside the Christmas tree, looking at the ornaments that glimmered in the firelight.

Yesterday, she had believed her family was about to be torn apart.

Today, the very people she had feared had helped keep it together.

For six years, she had lived beneath the weight of a story other people had invented about her. Now those same people had come to tell her they no longer believed it.

She had never felt less lonely.

Thirty-Five

“Well,” Marina said at last, attempting a smile as she turned away from the drawing-room doors, “another Christmas miracle.”

Ambrose stood beside the hearth, watching her with an expression she could not quite decipher. The firelight caught the side of his face, softening the stern lines she had once found so intimidating. “Not quite a miracle,” he replied. “Those people worked very hard.”

“Then perhaps it is better than a miracle.” She folded her arms and looked back at her husband. “And now, I believe you owe me an explanation.”

His faint smile disappeared. “I believe I do.”

“You were at the vicarage,” she began, scarcely trusting herself to keep her voice steady. “All night, and most of today, while I sat here believing you had gone to sign away everything you possessed. I thought you intended to send Emma and me away, and that by the time I discovered what you had done, there would be nothing I could say to change it.”

Ambrose lowered his gaze, and for a moment she thought he might retreat into the silence that had so often stood between them. Instead, he nodded. “I know. And I am sorry.”

Her throat tightened, and she turned toward the fire, furious with herself for allowing tears to gather again. She had cried enough in the past twenty-four hours to last a lifetime. “I thought you had abandoned us. I thought you had decided we would be better off without you. And the worst of it was that I knew you believed you were doing something noble.”

“I did believe it,” he admitted quietly. “When Douglas made his demand, I could see only one way to protect Emma. If I surrendered what he wanted, I thought he might leave her in peace. I was prepared to give him everything.”

Marina turned sharply. “Everything? Your home? Your fortune? The livelihoods of the people who depend upon you? And what of yourself, Ambrose? Did you truly believe none of that mattered?”

“I thought it mattered less than Emma’s safety.”

“And less than my happiness, apparently.” She shook her head, unable to understand how a man capable of such tenderness could be so thoroughly blind to what was directly before him. “I married you. Not Griffin Manor, not your fortune, and certainly not the comfortable life you imagine you must provide. I married you.”

Something shifted in his expression. He crossed the room slowly, though he stopped a short distance away, as if uncertain whether she would welcome his approach. “I have spent most of my life believing that the people I love are safest at a distance from me,” he said. “My father taught me to think of myself as a burden. I came to believe that if I could control every danger, every disappointment, every possibility of hurt, then perhaps I might deserve to keep someone beside me.”

Marina felt her anger falter, though it did not disappear. Not yet.