Jason, Veronica

by Never Call It Love

  She cried out, and then felt the long, delicious, shuddering fall.

  As she lay there, spent, she felt his kiss upon her mouth. Then he was beside her, untying her imprisoned wrists. She brought her hands down, lay for a moment more weighted by an odd languor, and then began to rub her wrists.

  Gradually that strange spell he had cast upon her lifted.

  What a barbarian he was! Breaking their tacit agreement. Tying her up in that humiliating fashion. And, worst of all, somehow making her behave as she had behaved....

  "Elizabeth, open your eyes."

  She opened them. They were no longer drowned-looking, but clear and cool.

  She said, "It was only my body."

  He knew what she meant. Only her body had surrendered, not her spirit. It looked out at him from those gray eyes, as proud and remote as ever.

  Well, what had he expected? A few minutes' lovemaking could not erase everything that had happened before. No, not for either of them, he thought, feeling a stir of returning anger. Just as she would never forget a certain night in that house north of London, he would never forget a woman lying under oath on the witness stand, or a carriage rolling away down an alley behind Old Bailey.

  His eyes left that cool face and traveled over the rest of her. The small, high breasts, the slightly rounded belly, the glossy brown triangle, the long, straight legs ending in high-arched feet.

  He said, smiling, "Only your body. Even so, madam, I should be reasonably content with my lot." He leaned over her and kissed her mouth.

  CHAPTER 20

  The days lengthened. The leaves of maple trees, only a short time before almost as pale as lettuce, took on the rich, dark green of full summer. In the flowerbed cultivated by Joseph beyond the courtyard's south wall, late iris withered and early roses bloomed. In the meadows, wild daisies gave way to yarrow and Queen Anne's lace.

  By day, Elizabeth and Patrick moved in separate worlds. She was busy drawing up lists of draperies and carpets to be replaced, conferring with Mrs. Corcoran and Gertrude, the cook, and in general administering the household. He was away for hours at a time, whether visiting his tenant farmer or on other errands, Elizabeth had no idea. When they did meet during the daylight hours, they treated each other with careful correctness, like two guests at a house party who do not know each other very well.

  But he continued to visit her room several nights a week. Often at dinner, as they made polite conversation about the weather or the ripening wheat fields or the news in the latest paper sent from Dublin, she would wonder if in two hours or so she would find herself moaning with helpless pleasure in his arms.

  Increasingly there were just the two of them at supper. Sometimes she wondered if, despite their formal behavior to each other, Colin had somehow sensed that at night in her room she and Patrick were not only lovers, but wildly abandoned ones. Perhaps that awareness had made him feel like an intruder. In any event, he was often absent from Stanford Hall overnight.

  On the first night that Colin did not appear at the supper table, Elizabeth asked about him. "He often goes to Edgewood to see his mother," Patrick said, "and to find out how matters are going at his estate there."

  "Does his mother help manage Edgewood for him?"

  "No, he has a very capable steward, a Mr. Slattery. Still, Colin needs to confer with him from time to time. And of course he also goes into the village to visit Catherine Ryan, a woman he has there."

  "What is she like?"

  "Pleasant enough. Tall and yellow-haired, and about thirty-five or a little older."

  Elizabeth remembered the tall woman she had seen walking down the village street, a basket over her arm. She made no mention of the woman, though. Since that wild night when Patrick returned from Dublin, neither of them had spoken of her visit to the village, or of Anne Reardon, or of Christopher, or of any of the sources of bitterness between them.

  She had received news of Christopher, though. Her mother had written:

  Your brother was here yesterday. He made that long trip from Paris just to spend one day with me! Mr. Yves Cordot could not spare him from the emporium for more than a short time.

  The poor boy seemed eager for details of your wedding—who had been there, what food was served at the party here afterward, and so on. Then he asked wistfully if I thought it would be all right for him to visit you in Ireland. He said, "Surely Sir Patrick no longer has any idea that I was responsible for that poor girl's death. Surely Liza has gotten any such notion out of his head by now."

  I told him I still thought it would be best to wait for a while. Besides, I doubt that Mr. Cordot would allow it. I gather that by now Mr. Cordot finds him almost indispensable.

  Folding the letter, Elizabeth had reflected grimly that her mother's advice to Christopher was sound. It would be best indeed for him to stay away from Patrick Stanford for a while longer—a good while longer, such as forever.

  There were no letters from Donald, of course. And Mrs. Montlow, perhaps reluctant to cause her daughter useless pain, made no mention of him in her own letters. But he often appeared in Elizabeth's dreams, smiling that gentle, humorous smile she had always loved. And although she tried to avoid thinking of the past, often the memory of him as she had last seen him there in the church—very pale, with lips stretched into a parody of that familiar smile—brought her a stab of almost physical pain.

  Several times during late spring and early summer she and Patrick went to neighborhood parties, one of them at the great gray pile, Wetherly, that Lady Moira Ashley had inherited from her late husband. Smiling, but with cool reserve in her dark blue eyes, Lady Moira led Elizabeth through lofty rooms hung with tapestries and lighted by hundreds of perfumed candles, and introduced her to other guests. If Patrick thought that his wife's gray satin gown, the one she had worn the night he first saw her, contrasted poorly with their hostess's gold-colored velvet, he did not tell Elizabeth so.

  But in late June, at his insistence, she and Patrick went to Dublin, traveling in the same carriage that had brought them from Waterford to Stanford Hall. Both the inns at which they stopped were primitive, with no accommodations for couples. Elizabeth slept with other women travelers in a long sleeping room, and Patrick in the far-more-crowded room provided for men. But in Dublin they obtained a bedroom and sitting room in a comfortable inn, once a private mansion, on one of the city's finest streets.

  They had arrived early in the afternoon, with sufficient time to visit Madame Leclerc's establishment. The Frenchwoman, small and dark and businesslike, greeted them pleasantly but with no trace of deference. Obviously she, the most successful modiste in Dublin, knew her own worth. She took down from the shelves the materials she had obtained for Elizabeth's wardrobe—fine lawns for morning gowns, brocades and satins for ball gowns, dark green velvet for a new riding habit. Finally the two women left Patrick at the window, staring out into the street, and retired to a dressing room. Elizabeth stood in her shift and corselet while the Frenchwoman plied a measuring tape.

  "Did the gown please Lady Stanford?"

  Elizabeth said, puzzled, "What gown?"

  "Why, the ruby-colored velvet Sir Patrick bought from me when he was last in Dublin."

  After a moment Elizabeth said, "Oh, yes. It was very nice."

  So he had brought home a gown for her. What had he done with it? In his rage that night, probably he had told one of the servants to put it away someplace. Then he had forgotten about it.

  Then another thought made her stiffen slightly. Perhaps he had not bought the gown for her. Ruby-colored velvet would be the perfect foil for Moira Ashley's dark loveliness.

  Madame Leclerc said, "Lady Stanford is enceinte, non?"

  "Yes, madame."

  "Is it permitted to inquire when the child will be born?"

  "In late November."

  "Then it is best that I do not make the final fitting until after the child's birth. Your gowns will not be completed until then, anyway. There are many of them, and the
re are other orders that I must complete before I start on yours." She stepped back. "I have finished now."

  With Madame Leclerc's aid, Elizabeth put on her gown. Her conversation with the Frenchwoman had made her sharply aware that it was high time that Patrick stayed in his own room every night.

  When she and Patrick emerged onto the sidewalk, he said, "I have business back at the inn. Would you prefer to go to your room, or would you like Michael to drive you around the city?"

  "I would like to drive."

  For several hours the carriage took her around Dublin, halting now and then whenever Michael thought that some stately gray-stone church, some view of the broad Liffey River, might appeal to her. She had no doubt that in other parts of Dublin slatterns sat at windows of moldering tenements, and ragged children dodged carts and wagons in the filthy streets, and men with no jobs and little prospects of any sat at curbstones numbing their misery with gin at a penny a cup. But what she saw was Anglo-Irish Dublin, with broad, tree-lined streets, mansions almost as fine as any in London, and strolling men and women with rich clothing on their bodies and proper Church of England sentiments in their heads.

  When she returned to the inn, she found that Patrick was not among those seated in the comfortable common room reading newspapers or writing at desks along one wall. But as she passed the open doorway of the taproom, she saw that he was one of three men seated at a table over pint mugs of ale or stout. One of the men was about forty, with a thin, dark face. His clothing, although of a cut that looked vaguely foreign to Elizabeth, was excellent enough that he did not seem out of place in Dublin's finest inn. But as she climbed the stairs, she wondered briefly about the other man. Stocky and red-faced, he had been dressed in a plain coat and breeches of brown broadcloth, the sort of clothing a moderately prosperous farmer might save for important occasions. Perhaps he was some farmer, trying to buy land from Patrick, or to sell some to him.

  Upstairs in their sitting room, Elizabeth stood by the window and watched the long day fade into twilight. At eight someone knocked on the door. Elizabeth opened it, to find one of the inn's menservants standing in the hall. Sir Patrick Stanford sent his regards to Lady Stanford, and begged to inform her that he would take supper downstairs. Would Lady Stanford care to have her own supper brought up now?

  Lady Stanford would. By nine she had finished an excellent meal of mullet cooked in wine sauce. Still Patrick had not returned. His business with both of those men, whatever it was, must be complicated indeed. Wryly she reflected that if he were buying more land, probably it was her money that enabled him to do so. But he had never offered to discuss financial matters with her, and she had felt too proud to ask questions.

  At ten she went to bed. Sometimes during the night she came awake for a few moments, dimly aware that Patrick now lay beside her, and then went back to sleep.

  Thus it was not until the next day, as their carriage moved south from Dublin, that she told him what she had resolved upon in Madame Leclerc's fitting room. "When we return to Stanford Hall, you must stop coming to my room. We must think of the child's safety."

  "Very well."

  He had been expecting her to say that. But why did she have to say it. the little hypocrite, in that cold, offhand manner, as if their lovemaking had been for her only a disagreeable duty? He knew that was far from the case. And yet, probably in a way, she was pleased to have an excuse for shutting him out of her room. She must have found it a constant source of chagrin that, despite the enmity between them, she could not resist the pleasure she found in his arms. Yes, making that little speech a moment ago must have brought her considerable satisfaction.

  Well, why should he care? She was far from being the only desirable woman of his acquaintance. He recalled a note from Moira that one of the Wetherly servants had brought him the day before he and Elizabeth had set out for Dublin. It had been a reminder, formal in tone, that soon he must call upon her to discuss the "young entry"—the preseason fox hunt designed to acquaint the young hounds with hunting procedures. Early in September, huntsmen, horses, and foxhounds would all assemble at Wetherly.

  She had written a postscript:

  As I am sure you will perceive, all the above is mere subterfuge. Once I said to you, "You will have to marry me first." Now I cannot impose such a stricture. In short, my dear Patrick, I have decided that half a loaf is better than none.

  He gazed at his wife's profile, cool against the side-swept brim of her black velvet hat. As soon as possible, he would reply to Moira's note, in person.

  During the next few weeks Patrick not only stayed out of Elizabeth's room. He also often stayed away from the supper table. She did not question him about his absences, nor did he volunteer any explanation. At first she thought he might be trying to annoy her by staying away. Soon, though, she realized he must have a more compelling reason than that. She thought of Moira Ashley on the sidesaddle, looking down at Patrick with hurt and anger plain in her face. Yes, surely it was Lady Moira who kept Patrick away from Stanford Hall, not only at suppertime, but often at night.

  Well, Elizabeth asked herself, what else would one expect of a man like Patrick Stanford? Even if the circumstances of their marriage had been different, even if she had not stated in writing that she would not question his pursuit of "other relationships," no doubt before long he would have been unfaithful. If she felt jealousy at all, she assured herself, it was entirely physical, induced only by memories of his lovemaking.

  As before, she busied herself with household matters. But often a strange restlessness drove her out-of-doors. She no longer dared to ride. However, Joseph had produced, from a cobwebby corner of the carriage house, a two-wheeled cart. With a placid old dapple gray named Toby plodding between the shafts, and Gypsy perched on the wooden seat beside her, she sometimes went for drives. Most of the time, though, she preferred to walk through a countryside washed by the full tide of summer. With Gypsy frisking beside or ahead of her, wearing the collar Joseph had placed around his neck, she wandered through meadows where bees settled hungrily on clover blossoms, and past orchards where apple-tree boughs bent under the weight of ripening fruit.

  As she turned her reluctant steps homeward, she would wonder if Patrick would sit at the other end of the long table tonight, and then feel angry with her own thoughts. It was not, she assured herself, that she was lonely for the sight of him sitting there. It was just that she felt awkward, seated alone at that long table.

  But after a while she seldom took supper alone. From late July onward, Colin spent more and more of his time at Stanford Hall. For a while, he said, long-needed repairs at Edgewood had required his attention, but now matters were so well advanced that there was nothing his steward, Mr. Slattery, could not handle. Elizabeth accepted his explanation but wondered privately if he had guessed that she found it unpleasant to dine alone so often. Whatever the reason for his presence, she was glad of it.

  On evenings when Patrick was not present, she and Colin played chess in the library after supper. Often when she made a move and then looked up from the board, she observed what appeared to be sympathy in Colin's dark eyes. Several times she thought he was about to make some comment concerning his brother's absence, but he never did. His silence on that point only strengthened her belief that Wetherly was the place where Patrick spent most of those hours when he was absent from Stanford Hall.

  One night, as they were putting the chess pieces away in a tooled-leather box, she said, "Colin, haven't you ever been away from Ireland?"

  "Once. I was only nineteen then, and had not yet..."

  He checked himself. He had been about to say that in those days he had not yet reconciled himself to certain things—his lameness, his illegitimacy.

  He said, "I had not yet realized that the life I was best suited for was right here in Ireland. And so I took ship for the West Indies. For a while I stayed with an English family who had a sugar plantation."

  "Is it a beautiful part of the world?"
r />   "Beautiful, and sinister."

  He spoke of shimmering blue water that became green or turquoise in the warm shallows, and of pink sandy beaches fringed with coconut palms bending in the trade wind. But he also spoke of slave ships, discharging their wretched cargo of men and women and children to labor in the cane fields, or in the mines, where the gentle Carib Indians, the islands' original and now almost extinct inhabitants, had sickened and died in the foul air and under the overseer's lash. He spoke of voodoo drums in the hills throbbing through the hot darkness, and of the white settlers' constant fear that some night those drums would signal a murderous descent of the blacks upon the plantations, the pretty, European-style little towns....

  Elizabeth was so fascinated that, until the tall clock in one corner struck the hour, she did not realize it was midnight.

  One afternoon in early September when she returned from a long walk, she found Patrick standing in the library doorway. He said, "May I speak to you for a moment?"

  Together they moved into the room. Tomorrow, he told her, the neighborhood hunt would assemble at Wetherly for the young entry. "Although of course you are unable to join the hunt, Moira thought you might care to attend the ball she will give tomorrow night."

  Elizabeth said coldly, "Please thank Lady Moira for her kind although extremely belated invitation. Tell her that just as a woman in my condition cannot ride to hounds, she also cannot dance."

  Aware that her movements must appear slow and clumsy, she turned and left him.

  But even though she could not join the hunt, she saw it the next day. She was walking down a narrow lane with Gypsy, when she heard the sound of the horn, and the hounds giving tongue. Hastily seizing Gypsy's collar, she stopped beside a tree. Not more than a few yards in front of her, the fox streaked across the lane and under the bottom rail of a fence into an uncultivated field. The hounds were next, some not fully grown, scrambling through the rails in clamorous pursuit. Then, as she tightened her grip on the wildly excited Gypsy, the riders began to stream past, the men in pink coats, the women in formal black habits. Patrick was among those in the lead. As he approached the fence, he turned his head for an instant and looked at her beside the tree, trying to control the plunging, barking dog. He leaped the fence, rode on. The rest of the riders streamed past, Moira among them.