“Have you ever had a premonition? Have you ever woke with the thought that the day held some significance though you knew not what?”
“No.” Her word was as quiet as a whisper.
“I knew the moment I opened my eyes that I should hurry to the window. It was early. A blanket of mist clung to the ground. I watched my father stride across the lawn, heading towards the woods bordering our estate.” To speak quickly prevented the images lingering in his mind. “The morning was col
d, damp, and I noted he had no coat.”
“You were at Moorlands, I assume.”
He nodded.
“How old were you?”
“Ten.”
“Just a boy, then.”
He nodded again. “I don’t know why but I had an urge to follow him. With no time to dress, I took a blanket off the bed and ran along the path. I found my father sitting on a log in a clearing. I froze, worried he might be angry that I’d left the house in my nightclothes.” Matthew paused. To his own ears, his voice sounded childlike. His heart was racing. He could smell the earthy scent in the air, could feel the same paralysing sense of doubt, of fear. “I hesitated a moment too long. The gunshot rang through the air seconds before his body slumped forward and hit the ground.”
Priscilla gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. There was a pained silence. “Oh, Matthew. How awful. The trauma of witnessing such a thing must never leave you.”
“It doesn’t. But that was only the beginning of a period of psychological torment.”
Priscilla dabbed the corner of her eye with her finger. “What did you do?”
“I raced to the house to alert my mother. She sent me to my room and then, with the help of my brother who was fifteen at the time, set about creating the deception.”
“Deception?”
“We were to tell the coroner it was an accident. That we were out hunting with Lord Watts from the neighbouring estate. My brother, Simon, said he’d witnessed Lord Watts shoot at a deer, that my father had strayed from his line. Simon was adept at telling tales, but I was not. Despite my mother’s distress, I couldn’t do it. Perhaps my reluctance stemmed from anger, disappointment in my father. Pain. Confusion. I don’t know. Why would he do such a cowardly thing? Why would he bring shame on his family?” Matthew shrugged. There was no point trying to analyse the thoughts of a desperate man.
“And so what happened?”
“Due to the nature of his close friendship with my mother, Lord Watts lied to the coroner.” He chose not to add that the lord spent many nights thereafter in his mother’s bed or that they were lovers for years until the fellow married a debutante twenty years his junior. “Simon lied too, as did my mother’s uncle. Several men came to inspect the body. They all supported the cause of death as accidental. After all, why would a man whose bloodline brimmed with honourable men take his own life? Why would a peer shoot his friend in front of witnesses?”
It wasn’t the lie that hurt him, he understood that, but the disdain shown to a child who’d always been told to tell the truth.
“From then on they treated me differently. To rationalise what I’d seen I tried to talk to my mother, but she insisted I was just a silly boy who made up stories. When the nightmares woke me from sleep — no one came. When I … when I soiled my bed in those moments when fear still gripped me — no one came.”
Priscilla cleared her throat. “Is that why you keep your family at a distance?”
“She sent me away to school, told the master I had a wild imagination which often led to endless lies.” His tone was hard now, unyielding. “The nightmares continued, as did the other embarrassing aspect that accompanied my trauma. But I was no longer alone at night. This time I was beaten for it, ridiculed, made to feel worthless. That was until Tristan came. Until I stopped being a victim and fought back. Indeed, I didn’t stop fighting until I’d bloodied every boy’s nose who’d dared taunt me.”
Silence ensued. The wild beat of his heart and the sharp crack of a gunshot were the only sounds echoing in his ears.
“And so that is why you insist on honesty.” Priscilla’s soft voice drifted through the carriage.
“Let me be clear. If you ever lie to me, we could not reside in the same house. We would be married in name only.” Twenty years of bitterness was evident in his voice. “I would not tolerate your deception.” In truth, it would kill him to discover he’d been wrong about her.
“Then I pray I always have the strength of character to be truthful.” She glanced down at her hands resting in her lap. “But in telling people we are in love, we have lied, Matthew?”
“Have we?”
“Do not try to offer one of your alternative explanations. A lie is a lie.”
“I have not lied. Do we not share a passionate affection? Do we not take pleasure in each other’s company?” He admired her, yearned to claim her body. It was the closest thing to love he’d ever known. “I am committed to no one but you.”
She crinkled her nose. “Yet it is not the same as true love.”