Dearly Beloved

by Mary Jo Putney

  Without twitching an eyelid at the question, Bonner replied, "One of the tavern girls was there. She'd been waiting quite some time and was incensed at your neglect. I took the liberty of giving her a small douceur for her inconvenience, from the funds I carried for travel expenses."

  "And my luggage was there?" Gervase pulled in the horses to negotiate heavy ruts. He was doing all of the driving; the concentration helped keep thought at bay.

  Bonner nodded. "Aye. Appeared to be untouched, but I didn't check because the island Scots are an honest lot. Was something missing?" The servant acted as if the incident had been the previous night, not over nine years before. But of course, it had not been the sort of night one would forget.

  "No, nothing was missing." Except his wife, who had not, apparently, been in Gervase's room, but in her own.

  He thought back over months of lovemaking and realized that while Diana had always been sweetly responsive, she had never shown the hardened professionalism of the true courtesan. He had been so besotted that he had never even noticed. She might indeed be as innocent as she claimed—or this might be one more example of her brilliant talent for falsehood.

  It was only a slight detour to Aubynwood, and the upcoming house party made a convenient excuse for stopping. The necessary orders required very little time. Then, grimly, he asked his housekeeper where his mother's portrait hung. The painting held pride of place in the servants' hall, where its quality was much esteemed. Sir Joshua Reynolds would have been amused, perhaps, to know where his masterpiece had come to rest.

  Gervase ignored the beautiful, amoral face of his mother to study the dark-haired boy who looked up at her so wistfully. After he had scrutinized the profile, the shape of the ears, the line of nose and jaw, the conclusion was unmistakable: the picture could almost have been of Geoffrey. Now he understood why the tenant farmer he and Geoffrey had visited at Aubynwood had looked so sharply at the boy.

  Though he had half-forgotten it, Gervase had been small for his age as a child. Only when he reached twelve had he begun to grow, matching and overtaking the height of other boys his age.

  And the seizures. He had had a few; Geoffrey had more. Were such things inherited? Quite possibly.

  So Geoffrey, with his intelligence and courage and sunny nature, was his son. Thinking of his wife as abnormal, not quite human, Gervase had literally never considered the possibility that that one brief, violent act of sexual union might produce a child.

  Gervase set the thought aside, not yet able to face it. The fact that Geoffrey was his son didn't make Diana any less a liar or a whore—but it was another complication in the hell of his marriage.

  * * *

  It was late evening when Diana arrived home, exhausted by the long coach journey. After the scene with Gervase, she had spent more than a week at High Tor Cottage, craving the peace as a balm for her misery.

  Now it was good to be with her family. Geoffrey was already in bed, but Madeline and Edith took one look at Diana's haggard face and wrapped her in affectionate care. She had not told her friends why she went north and they had not asked, but the time had come to reveal her history.

  After she had bathed and eaten, the three women gathered in Maddy's sitting room. Over endless cups of tea laced with brandy, Diana described her past in a long monologue, from her childhood in Scotland to her bizarre forced marriage, including how her father had abandoned her to her husband's nonexistent care, and ending with the disastrous confrontation with Gervase.

  When she ran out of words, Madeline exhaled with sympathetic wonder. "I knew you were a woman of mystery, but this is much more than I bargained for. May I ask questions?"

  Diana sighed. She was curled up in the corner of a sofa, wrapped in a shaggy Highland blanket as much for emotional comfort as for protection against the cool evening. "Ask whatever you like. I've always had trouble talking about what affects me deeply, but not talking has caused worse trouble."

  "What happened to your mother?"

  The teacup Diana was sipping from clicked sharply against her teeth. Setting it down carefully, she said, "She killed herself when I was eleven."

  "Oh, my dear girl," Madeline breathed, then changed the subject. "It's hard to believe your father would just abandon you in the inn the day after your marriage."

  "If you knew my father, you would know it was quite in character. He was convinced that all women were evil, especially his daughter." Diana's deep blue eyes looked black. "The sooner he got rid of me, the better for his own immortal soul."

  A thought had occurred to Maddy during the younger woman's story. She hesitated, wondering if it was appropriate, before deciding to speak. "Is it possible your father was... unnaturally attracted to you? And he loathed himself for such feelings, and you for being the source of them?"

  Diana caught her breath, her face stricken. "That… would explain a great deal. He used to glare as if he hated me. And the way he carried on about how men lusted after me! It made no sense. I suppose I was a pretty child, but not so mature as to attract attention from most men.

  "He used to pray over me all night, both of us shivering on our knees as he asked God to purify my evil nature. Other times he tried beating the ungodliness out of me." Shuddering, she pulled her blanket around her shoulders.

  "I'm sorry, my dear. Perhaps I shouldn't have spoken."

  "No, I'm glad that you did," Diana said wanly. "As revolting as the idea is, at least it is a reason. My father always seemed like... like a force of nature, mysterious and implacable. I would rather think there were reasons for the way he despised me, things that weren't my fault."

  "Is he still alive?" Edith asked.

  Diana shrugged. "I have no idea. There has been not one word of contact between us since he left me at the inn."

  Madeline was amazed that a man, a clergyman no less, could have so thoroughly dispossessed his daughter. Truly he must have been mad. Turning to something she had always wondered about, she asked, "How did you and Edith meet? You've never mention that."

  "My younger sister Jane and her husband own the inn where the marriage took place," Edith answered in her broad Yorkshire accent. "I had married a drunken bully. Both my boys were grown and gone, one to the army, one to America. Jane thought I should leave my husband before he killed me, but I didn't know how, or where to go."

  She absently traced the livid scar along her left cheek. "I suppose I could have gone to Jane, but I had no money for the journey. More than that, I had no will left after twenty-five years of bullying."

  Madeline studied Edith with new insight. She knew about the older woman's sons, who wrote their mother regularly, but not about the husband. It appeared that Edith had developed her quiet, rock-ribbed strength in a hard school.

  Diana took up the story. "Jane decided that if Edith had someone to take care of, it would give her an incentive to leave her ghastly husband. I had just turned sixteen and was pregnant and terrified, but after I contacted Gervase's lawyer, I had money. Jane personally escorted me down to Yorkshire, introduced me to Edith, and helped us find High Tor Cottage. We both wanted to be as far from other people, especially men, as possible. And Edith has been taking care of me ever since."

  She smiled affectionately at the woman who had helped her survive the most difficult time of her life.

  Edith chuckled warmly. "It's worked both ways, lass."

  "After all that has happened to you, why did you want to come to London and become a courtesan?" Madeline asked. "A nunnery would appear more likely!"

  Diana topped up the tea in their cups. "I know it must seem strange, but it felt so strongly like the right thing to do," she replied. "Despite what my father and... my husband had done to me, I knew not all men were like that. In the village where I grew up, there were happy marriages, and men who knew how to be kind. Since I had a husband, I couldn't marry, but... I wanted to find a man of my own, someone to love me."

  Lost in thought, she sipped her tea, then added wryly, "I must
admit that I liked what you said about beauty giving a woman power over men. I thought it would be nice to have power for a change, to have the choice to give or withhold."

  "I also said that it was dangerous," Madeline reminded her.

  "I know," Diana whispered, her eyes closed against sudden tears. "I had no idea what I was doing. I guess I am not the stuff of which sirens are made."

  "No, my dear, you are not. You are the stuff of loving wives and mothers and friends."

  Madeline had meant the words as comfort, but they nearly fractured Diana's control. Burrowing her head into the blanket, she said brokenly, "What am I going to do? He hates me. He said he doesn't ever want to see me again."

  There was silence until Edith said, "You're our expert on men, Maddy. What do you think?"

  Madeline sat next to Diana and put her arm around the younger woman's shoulders. "St. Aubyn may hate you in some ways, but his feelings are surely far more complicated than that. Love, hate, desire, anger—all those intense emotions must be mixed together in his mind. It would be far harder to win him back if he were indifferent to you."

  Her voice muffled in the blanket, Diana asked, "Do you think there is any chance that I can change his mind?"

  "Yes, if you'll come out of that blanket and fight like a woman." Madeline made her voice teasing and was rewarded by the sight of Diana's tear-stained face emerging.

  "What does it mean to fight like a woman?"

  "Think what he likes about you and use it on him. Love, desire, laughter—you would know better than I. And also try to understand all the reasons why he is so angry."

  The hopelessness of Diana's expression changed to thought. After lifting her cup for a sip of tea, she asked, "Do you think it's because I have injured his pride? That he thinks I deliberately set out to humiliate him?"

  Madeline considered, weighing what she knew about St. Aubyn with what she knew about men in general. "Pride would certainly be part of it, but not all," she said slowly. "From what you said, he thinks you betrayed his trust. That is one of the gravest injuries that can occur between man and woman, and St. Aubyn doesn't seem like one who would trust easily. He'd bent over backward to give you the benefit of the doubt, which would make apparent betrayal all the more unforgivable."

  "You're right as always, Maddy," Diana said with a frown. "I don't know what to do about it, but it is a beginning."

  Then she remembered a remark of Gervase's that she hadn't understood. "He accused me of setting my friend Madeline to ask for money indirectly. Do you know what he was talking about?"

  Her friend nodded. "I asked St. Aubyn for regular payments to an account in your name. He was quite willing, so you're the richer by two hundred pounds a month since last September." At the stricken expression on Diana's face, Maddy asked anxiously, "Did it cause a problem?"

  "I'm afraid so. He assumed that I was behind it and only pretending innocence."

  "Oh, no! Diana, I'm so sorry," Madeline said with horrified remorse. "Life is uncertain, and since St. Aubyn was prepared to be generous it seemed foolish not to save toward your future. It worried me, how casual you were about financial security. And now he blames you for what I did?"

  Maddy had had to earn her own security, so it wasn't surprising that she had been concerned for her less experienced friend. Now her well-intentioned deed became one more reason for Gervase to think his wife was a liar.

  Diana drained the last of the tea, "It doesn't much matter," she said wearily. "I had ample other sins to be blamed for."

  She swished her teacup, then held it for a moment with her eyes closed before handing it to Edith. "Please, can you tell me if... if everything is over between Gervase and me?"

  Edith looked doubtful. "It's not good to look at matters that are too close to the heart. You care too much about this."

  "Please." Diana pleaded, "I must know if there is any hope."

  Edith reluctantly accepted the cup and stared into the bottom with unfocused eyes. Her breathing slowed and when she spoke it was in a distant voice. "It has not ended. There is much between you, both dark and light." She frowned and swirled the cup. "The end has not yet been written. There is danger, and not just to you. Darkness threatens." In a low, uncanny voice, she finished, "Darkness, death, and desire."

  The soft intake of Diana's breath broke Edith's mood and she looked up, her voice brisk again. "You'll get a deal more use from this cup by putting tea in it, lass," she said, pouring the last of the tea from the pot and reaching for the brandy.

  "I'm not sure I need it," Diana protested. "I'm almost asleep right here on Maddy's sofa."

  "You're exhausted, and we're keeping you up with our questions," Madeline said with compunction. Offering a friendly arm, she guided Diana to her bedroom, leaving her after a hug.

  Back in Maddy's room, Edith said thoughtfully, "Do you know, it's time I paid a visit to my sister Jane on Mull."

  Knowing the older woman's oblique manner of speaking, Madeline poured a dollop of brandy into both their teacups. "I suppose it's only a coincidence that the route to Mull would take you near that Lowland Scots village where Diana grew up."

  "Aye, just a coincidence." Edith sipped her brandy pensively. "I should think everyone in the neighborhood knows about the mad vicar."

  "Very likely." Maddy agreed, curling her feet up beneath her. "It probably isn't important, but it would be interesting to know more about him. To know if he's even alive." She glanced at her friend sternly. "If he is still on this mortal coil, I trust you will not aid him to his heavenly reward?"

  "Of course not," Edith said with dignity. "I've never raised a hand to anyone since I parted my husband's hair with a poker the night I left." Her mouth twisted. "The vile gaffer didn't want me to go."

  "Did you really?" Madeline asked in astonishment. Then she broke down into giggles. "I think I've had more than enough brandy, because that sounds very amusing. Did you kill him?"

  "No," Edith said with regret. "Wasn't a heavy poker."

  "Is he still alive?"

  "After I left, he found another woman to take care of him. He beat her to death one night, so they hanged him."

  Maddy gulped, sobered by Edith's dispassionate words. After a long silence she said, "All three of us had our secrets about men. Strange how they are all surfacing at the same time."

  Edith nodded, lips tight. "I just hope matters work out as satisfactorily for Diana as they have for you and me."

  * * *

  Diana's facade crumbled after Madeline left her. She tried to be calm and controlled, but she had wept almost continually while she was in Yorkshire, and humiliating tears kept escaping on the journey home. As she had once told Gervase, she was a crier, not a thrower.

  It would be easier if she could be angry, but she couldn't. The declaration of love that she had wanted so much had made him utterly vulnerable to what he perceived as betrayal, and the horrible things he had said were products of his pain. Now she recognized that he would have better accepted her confession before he had opened himself up to her. It was easy to be wise when it was too late.

  Grief threatened to swamp her again. Determined not to cry, she sat at her desk and looked at the letters that had come in her absence. There were bills for fabric and shoes, for Geoffrey's school fees, a note from Francis Brandelin saying that he was going out of town, but would call when he returned.

  There was also a small package addressed in an unfamiliar hand. Thinking it some item she had ordered and forgotten, Diana unwrapped it absently, then stopped dead, fighting a shock wave of dizziness at the sight of the contents.

  Inside the velvet-lined box were the rest of the pearls from the necklace Gervase had been giving to her a pearl at a time. There was no note, no message of any kind, even an insulting one. She wondered if sending the pearls was a gesture of contempt or of indifference.

  She didn't want to think about it. Her hand trembling, she closed the box and set it to one side on the desk, then picked up the last let
ter. The paper was heavy and cream-colored paper and the seal was St. Aubyn's.

  Heart hammering, she broke the seal, and was bitterly disappointed that the note was in a stranger's hand, the same writing that had addressed the package of pearls. Gervase's secretary, presumably. In the past, he'd had always written personally.

  It was an invitation to a house party at Aubynwood, sent before Gervase had met her in Yorkshire, before he had said that he never wanted to see her again. It had been waiting here ever since, a bleak reminder of what might have been.

  Diana started to crumple the invitation, then stopped. A house party meant a number of guests, probably government people, since he sometimes invited political associates to Aubynwood.

  The gathering would begin at the end of the next week. She absently smoothed the heavy paper, thinking hard. By rights, she was the Viscountess St. Aubyn. Would Gervase throw her out of Aubynwood if she walked in? He might if he met her alone, but his sense of propriety made it unlikely that he would do so in front of other guests. If she arrived a day late, when others were already there...

  She stared unseeing across the room, torn between temptation and terror. She was willing to fight for Gervase, to do everything possible to persuade him that her love was genuine, but to do so, she had to see him. She might never have another chance to get so close.

  No conscious decision was necessary. Diana would go to Aubynwood.

  Chapter 21

  Knowing that her son needed attention from her to soften the impact of the fact that she was leaving again, Diana breakfasted with Geoffrey the next morning, then rode with him in the park.

  He reveled in her company, chatting, telling her about the books he had read, and showing how much his riding had improved. On horseback, or rather ponyback, he was clearly his father's son; even though he had been riding for less than a year, he had the natural grace of the born equestrian.