Free The Art of Love: Origins of Sinner's Grove by A.B. Michaels Page A

her lover. You feel the same way about me. Why are you agreeing to this farce?”
    George looked away and sat silently for a few moments, as if collecting his thoughts. Finally he turned to Lia and took one of her small hands in his. “I care about you far too much to try to lie my way out of anything you’ve told me today. I honestly cannot dispute anything you’ve said. But here’s a story you perhaps don’t know.” He released her hand and leaned down, clasping his own hands between his legs. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to know your mother. She was a beautiful woman, inside and out. As a child I remember her hugging both Em and me and calling us her ‘perfect little pair of angels.’ We had no idea that she pictured us together, but apparently it’s what she always wanted.
    “Before any of us came along she married your father, of course, but did you know that my father had also vied for her hand? From what I’ve picked up over the years, he loved her desperately and was heartbroken when she chose Richard over him.”
    Lia shook her head in wonder. “I never heard that. Ever.”
    George continued. “My mother had always adored my father so he quickly married her and did his best to keep his desolation secret. But you can imagine the kind of sweet agony my father was in all those years, all those social and family gatherings, all those occasions where he was close to his beloved Catherine but could never have her.”
    “Did my father know?”
    “I’m not sure. Perhaps on some level he did. But I don’t think they ever confronted each other about it. Men just don’t talk about those things. But my father had his little triumphs, like having a son where your father had only daughters…no offense, of course.”
    Lia pursed her lips. “None taken. Go on.”
    “Sad to say, my father also reveled in the fact that your father, with all due respect, was a terrible businessman, that he couldn’t sustain his lifestyle on his own.”
    “That’s true enough. My father has always hated the thought of having to be ‘in trade’. He was born a century too late, I think. That’s why he forced Em into marrying Hiram.”
    “He forced her?”
    George sounded incensed, like a knight errant ready to do battle for his lady love. Mayb e he was born a few centuries too late, too . She shrugged. “As good as. He told her the family honor was at stake, that she was the only one who could save the day.”
    “And so he made her marry a troglodyte,” George muttered.
    “A very rich troglodyte, but yes, a troglodyte all the same. But George, I’m not sure what that, or your father’s love for my mother, has to do with us.”
    “It has everything to do with us.” The pitch in his mellow voice turning sharp. “My parents, like yours, wanted Em and me to tie the family together. But for my father, it meant—it means— something more than a simple ‘wouldn’t it be nice if’ kind of scenario.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Look. He was devastated when your mother died birthing you; in his own way, he grieved as much as your father did. He couldn’t come out and admit it, of course, but it was there in everything he said and did in relation to your family. He still bears that grief, even today. My mother, bless her, chose to look the other way, and continues to act as though nothing is wrong. It’s how she gets by, I guess.”
    “But how—”
    “I know it’s crazy, but my father thinks that if our generation connects and has children, that will bring him and your mother back together, in a symbolic way, of course. That’s why he was furious when your father married Em to Hiram Sizemore. And why he insists that I make good on your mother’s wish with you.”
    “In that respect he and my father are two peas in a pod. But I want to know why, George? Why do we have to fulfill a wish that neither of us had anything to do with?”
    George rolled his shoulders as if ready to do battle. He took a deep breath and