“This is none of your concern.”
“If I have to teach you a lesson in manners, so be it.” He dropped his hands to his sides but the next moment they curled into fists.
“She led me on,” Mr. Radley insisted.
“That is utterly ridiculous.” With one punch, Mr. George knocked Mr. Radley backward.
Melanie cried out in shock, but Radley quickly righted himself and lifted his fists.
“No!” She caught Walter by the back of his coat to drag him back across the room, noticing as she did that Valentine had tackled Mr. Radley and was forcing him in the direction of the door. “What are you doing?”
Thankfully, the large man yielded and backed up a few steps. “Defending your honor seemed appropriate. I always thought Radley had a vulgar manner about him when it came to the ladies. I don’t blame any woman for turning down such a man.” His gaze sharpened on Mr. Radley. “Do not speak to her again until you can do so as a gentleman.”
“Walter!” She could not believe such words would come out of the quiet man’s mouth. He was normally the least excitable out of all of her brother’s friends.
Valentine finished shoving Radley out the door and slammed it shut. He turned to them and his face was pale. “Hell.”
“Valentine?” Julia asked in a worried voice from the staircase. “What’s all the noise?”
Melanie cringed as Valentine approached his new wife. He caught her hands in his. “Your brother proposed to Melanie and was refused. He took it badly.”
Julia’s face brightened into a happy smile and she hurried across the room toward her. “Oh, well of course you would refuse him, Melanie dear. You haven’t the slightest symmetry of thought in your entire being, and he would make you utterly miserable as a husband. I would have protested the match myself, and vigorously too. He is not good enough for you.”
The moment Julia embraced her, Melanie cringed inside and yearned for release. However, Julia persisted and they hugged awkwardly a few moments longer.
“You shouldn’t have hit him,” Valentine maintained, staring at Walter George. “I would have preferred not to subject my sister to such violence.”
“Well, clearly you were trying to keep the peace and he had it coming.” Mr. George met her gaze and he frowned. “He wasn’t going to apologize. He always did tend to petulance when he didn’t get his own way.”
Julia giggled behind her hand. “I could not have said it better. It was never me who threw a tantrum.”
“No, you dove out the window instead and ran to Imogen for sympathy and advice whenever you were in trouble,” Melanie said without any malice. Julia had always run away from her problems but Melanie didn’t have that luxury. She would face them alone.
Melanie turned away. This mess was all her fault. If she had stuck to propriety she would not have created such a scene. She had forgotten that, while new to being family, Linus Radley was also a bachelor and she an unattached woman.
She flinched as Valentine put his arm around her shoulders and gently escorted her to the front hall. They had gone months without touching, but she could always expect such an action when she’d turned down another suitor. He undoubtedly thought the gesture of affection would make her feel better. She was relieved when he released her and stepped away to collect his hat and gloves from the entrance table.
“I’ll go and talk to him and perhaps this mess will blow over sooner rather than later. He is family and you will have to see him at some point. I wouldn’t like any lingering unpleasantness to mar the upcoming holiday season.”
“I understand.” The thought of seeing Linus Radley again over the Christmas dinner table turned her stomach into knots, but she’d face him when the time came and hide her dislike yet again.
“Come along, Julia,” Valentine grumbled. “Let’s see what fences are left to mend this time.”
The door closed rather ominously behind them and Melanie was grateful. Her legs began to tremble, but she refused to allow a complete collapse. A refused proposal was one thing, familiar though unpleasant, but a private brawl afterward was beyond the pale. She might never live down this shame.
Three
Walter waited until the front door closed behind Valentine and Julia then caught Melanie’s elbow to steer her back into the parlor before she fell over in a faint. She was pale and trembling beneath his hand and he was actually worried about her state of mind. “Are you all right?”
She jumped as if she’d forgotten his presence until he’d spoken and shrugged off his grip to stand alone. “Of course. As unpleasant as that was, I am glad it is over and in the past.”
Walter didn’t place much faith in her words. He was acquainted with her well enough to spot a false smile a mile away. He stepped toward her and she edged back quickly, confirming for him that she found proximity to others extremely unwelcome. Had anyone ever delved deep enough to find out why she continually rebuffed family and friends? “You know my character, Melanie. You have nothing to fear from me.”
Her gaze darted to his guiltily and then she nodded.
He reached for her trembling fingers and caught them in his. “Just imagine we are about to dance. You’ve held on to me many a night for that.”
“I have.” She turned into him, her other hand rising to his shoulder as if they were about to step off into a waltz together. They were actually very good at that, having partnered each other for so many years.
She took a few quick breaths and settled herself again.
When he judged her calmer, he smiled. “I have a question.”
Her hand jerked back from his shoulder. “Oh, please, not you too.”
He stared as her face pinked, unsure at first how to respond. Surely she did not think that he was about to propose? He wasn’t an idiot. In her current state, she wasn’t thinking clearly. Walter shook of his irritation. “Never fear, I only want to ask a question that’s been on my mind of late and will not rest.”
She stared at him and then she swallowed. “Anything.”
“Where were you when your governess died?”
She glanced away to hide her face. “I was at home of course. In Oxford.”
“I knew that.” Walter firmed his grip on her hand and slid the other into position around her back. It was surprisingly easy to hold her like this, pretending to dance when what he really intended was to question her. “But where in your parents’ house?”
Utter terror flickered over what little of her face he could see, but then she swiftly masked it behind a polite smile he’d seen so often. The change in Melanie stopped his heart. Was he close to uncovering the mystery of her alteration? He took a step and she moved with him, lulled by the familiar situation.
She might not like him to presume, but he knew without any doubt he had to wait on her answer, or he wouldn’t ever understand the woman. And to his surprise, he very much wanted to. He took another step, then another, diverting her around a chair so they would not stumble.
She had slid her hand into position on his shoulder again but those fingers trembled still, revealing her anxiety over the question as clearly as if she’d spoken an answer. She might not like him to assume he had the right, but he thought at that moment Melanie Merton desperately needed to unburden herself.
She stared at the pin in his cravat while her fingers wriggled in his grip as if she were fighting her own instincts to flee. Indeed, her next words were the softest of whispers. “Why do you ask me that now, of all times?”
“I have perhaps just destroyed a friendship to defend your honor, and I want to know it wasn’t without a very good reason. I do not deny you the right to refuse a proposal of marriage, but there have been eleven other spurred suitors over the years. Most were decent men of good social standing who your father would have approved of.”
She nodded and her hand smoothed over his shoulder.
He drew her closer, widening his fingers on her back. “Today, I could not help but notice you shy away from any comfort offered, even by Valentine. You were not always this way. You were my sister’s best friend once, and now you barely speak. As a girl you were held often, and comforted others when they were in need. Julia once came to
you
when she’d hurt herself on one of her misadventures, rather than to Imogen. So did Imogen.”
She stiffened as soon as he reminded her of those happier times, so he took another step to distract her. “Tell me what happened. It was after your Andy’s death, after you returned to Brighton with a new governess we all hated, that I think you started to change toward us.”
She inhaled raggedly and she stumbled forward, something she’d never done while dancing with him in public. She hadn’t stumbled even during practice as a little girl. “I didn’t know.”
Walter pulled her into his chest, dropping the pretense of dancing. “Tell me, Mellie?”
She sniffed at the use of her childish nickname. He hadn’t used it in a long time, but that name had once echoed through all the houses of her friends in Cavendish Place. Not since the days before Andy had died, in fact, had a little girl called Mellie run about and laughed with them. After that unexpected death, this reserved creature had begun to walk among them and had turned aside every overture of familiarity.
Until he’d taken the initiative today.
“I was supposed to keep out of the servants’ quarters, but I hadn’t seen her for days. I snuck upstairs and into her room after my parents had gone out for the night to an entertainment at the university. I was young and wanting a cuddle so I climbed upon her bed and she let me come into her arms. Her breath was very loud and strained. She hugged me tight against her and I didn’t want her to let me go. She told me she loved me and after a while she fell silent.” She dropped her head to his chest. “I was only supposed to stay a moment and then I was to go back to the nursery where I belonged.”
Walter wrapped both arms about her and held her against him, suspecting what she would say next if she could bring herself to that point. He’d seen a corpse or two, his parents’ faces in death were still with him, but he’d been older when they had died and had been able to distract himself with the arrangements for their burials and in comforting Imogen. But a child of Melanie’s age then might not have been able to push it from her mind so easily.
At last she said, “I fell asleep there in her arms and she died holding me.”
Walter closed his eyes briefly, heart breaking for her. Valentine had never spoken of the servant’s death. Did he even realize what had happened to Melanie that night? “That must have been a shock when you woke.”
She shuddered and jerked back out of reach. Her lashes were wet with tears and she looked about to fall to pieces. It took a long time before she spoke again and her words were raw, hard with pain. “I couldn’t get free of her grip, she held me so tightly.”
And so now she lets no one close at all. She can’t bear to let anyone comfort her.
He brushed a tear from her cheek carefully. Her soft skin was hot and he struggled against the urge to pull her back into his arms. He’d found the reason for her withdrawal and at last he understood what had begun the change. “I am so sorry.”
“I thought at first she was playing a game and begged her to let me go before anyone found me and, and…when fought free, I turned. I did not recognize her.” Melanie sobbed the last words and she began to shake again. “Her eyes were open and…I was so terrified that I fled to the nursery without telling anyone she had passed away. I didn’t want to get in trouble. I didn’t know everyone expected her to die.”
“You did nothing wrong,” he assured her.
Fresh sobs shook her and he inched closer. “She loved you very much. I remember that. I can understand that you didn’t want her to be alone when she was ill.”
“I wasn’t allowed to love her, but I did.” She sniffed. “She was the only one who dared to risk my parents’ ire. If a servant was too familiar with us, they were dismissed without a reference. They couldn’t be bothered with me except when they had guests to present me to.”
“‘They’ being your parents?” Walter was fast learning to detest them. He stroked the backs of his fingers down her hot cheek once more. “There is no harm in loving the people who look after us. Those brave souls who live with us every day, expecting no more gratitude than the coin they are paid. For good or ill, they shape our lives in ways our parents could not ever imagine sometimes.”
He moved his hand to rest lightly on her shoulder. “You were only a child and what you saw of Andy’s death must have been horrifying to you. Her last moments on earth were spent with you. She would have died happy.”
“Perhaps.” She wiped at her eyes. “But I cannot forget.”
“Then don’t try to.”
Her face lifted to his and the expression there broke his heart. “If only I had been good and done as my parents had told me, if I had remembered my station, then I would never have to remember her like that. I did not mourn her,” she whispered. “I huddled in my room and hated her for not sending me away.”
Walter took a risk and bent his head to rest against hers. What she had witnessed, what she had suffered in silence, guilt and horror and mourning all confused about in a child’s mind, had changed this woman from the happy girl she’d been once. She had loved deeply and mourned still. It was no wonder even friends were rebuffed. Melanie simply couldn’t bear to let anyone that close again.