was a man lying on that bed. I could just make out his outline.
I had no doubt who it was.
My father.
I hadn’t seen him for ten years. I had hoped he was dead. He deserved to be dead
for what he had done, for what he was. But he wasn’t dead. He was here. And I
knew why he was here, why he had traveled here from Belgium. He had come to save
me. From Lawrence.
I accepted this, but still, it made no sense. Why?
A rough-looking man I hadn’t seen, stepped out of the dark shadows in the corner,
and nodded to Lawrence. He was dressed in rugged wool homespuns. Dark stubble
covered his cheeks.
“Has he given you any trouble?”
“Nay, my lord. Quiet he’s been. His shoulder is still bleeding, but he’s alive.”
“Good,” said my husband, and he smiled down at me.
I took a step toward that bed. I saw the man was half-covered with a filthy
blanket.
Lawrence said, such pleasure, such anticipation in his voice, “Surely you don’t
want to be shy, now, do you? Go and greet him. Tell him how very much you have
missed him. Hold him to you. Ask him why he left you so many years ago and never
came back. Ah, you have so many things to say to him, do you not, madam?”
Lawrence pressed his hand against the small of my back and shoved me toward that
bed.
My father stirred, moaned softly, and then pulled himself up painfully on one
elbow. He stared at me. There was no recognition in his blue eyes?my blue eyes?just
the dull glaze of pain.
I couldn’t look away from him. My heart began to pound, strong deep strokes. I
wanted to scream, to yell, and so I stuffed my fist in my mouth. Ten years faded
away in but an instant of time, like a veil lifting from a familiar face. It was
my father. I recognized him immediately. He looked exactly the same as he had
the last time I had seen him. Perhaps there was a bit of gray hair at his
temples, but the rest of his hair was the thick reddish-brown I remembered. And
the vivid blue of his eyes, the upward slant of his dark eyebrows that made him
look curious and immensely interested, both at the same time. Nothing had
changed. It was all the same. I would have thought after ten more years of
living the way he had, that he would have looked depraved, utterly dissipated,
but he didn’t. He was very handsome. I saw that so clearly now as I hadn’t when
I was a little girl. Women would be drawn to him. He was propped up on his elbow
now. He was also staring at me with still no recognition at all in his eyes. He
had no idea who I was.
“Well, Jameson, see what I have brought you.” Lawrence shoved me even closer to
the man who lay there on the bed, just looking at me, his eyes vague, unknowing.
He frowned, but said nothing.
Lawrence shouted, “You damned fool, don’t you recognize her?”
I suppose it was at that moment that Lawrence realized that my father was
looking at a skinny boy in a long black cloak and tight-fitting cap, holding a
terrier against his chest.
Lawrence tore the cap from my head, and my wildly curling hair spilled out over
my shoulders and down my back.
My father gave a hoarse cry. “Andrea. Oh, no. Damn you to hell, Lyndhurst, you
have brought her here. You bastard, you unspeakable bastard. I’ll kill you for
this.” My father leapt at Lawrence, but Flynt and the man who had been here
guarding my father, both jumped at him. They shoved him back down on the bed.
His whole body seemed to hitch on the pain as he fell onto his back on the bed.
When he could speak over the pain, he said, “My poor child, you did not escape.
I told you to leave him immediately, to return to London. Why did you stay? Did
he keep you a prisoner?” His voice was hoarse and low. He was in pain, bad pain.