“Poor Lord Waterhouse,” Lady Wheeler said again, sounding excited at the thought of Lizzie’s supposed indiscretions. “Yet he seems to desire her for I heard…” Further furtive whispers ensued, “Yes…In the carriage…Absolutely scandalous…And to think I always imagined that he would much prefer a well-bred wife like Flora Minchin, or you, Priscilla.”
“Nathaniel is not thinking with his head at the moment,” Priscilla snapped. “All men are the same, led by what is in their breeches.”
“Priscilla!” Lady Wheeler sounded faint with outrage. Priscilla Willoughby moderated her tone.
“Lord Waterhouse will regain his senses soon enough once his lust has worn thin. Then he’ll see that little wanton for what she really is.” She laughed. “He certainly cannot love her. He was hopelessly in love with me back in his salad days. He told me I am his perfect woman.” She sounded very smug. Lizzie could see her now through the gap between the bookcases. She was dressed in pale lilac with a huge straw hat with lilac ribbons framing her face. She looked cool and glacially composed. “He wrote me endless love letters, you know, Margaret, pouring out his feelings for me.” She gave her little tinkle of laughter. “I think he is still more than a little in love with me now, to tell the truth!”
Lizzie stood up abruptly, catching her sleeve on the shelf and sending a stack of books tumbling to the floor. Both Lady Willoughby and Lady Wheeler turned, as did all the other occupants of the library. Lady Wheeler flushed an embarrassed puce but Lady Willoughby stood quite still, a little, triumphant smile on her lips.
“Lady Waterhouse! I did not see you there.”
“Indeed?” Lizzie said. She met Priscilla Willoughby’s scornful gaze and tried not to feel young and vulnerable. “I was interested in your reflections upon the male of the species, Lady Willoughby,” she continued. “Clearly you have had sufficient of them to make a study.” She nodded abruptly to them and walked out of the door into the hot street. The sun beat down on her head and the light was so bright it almost blinded her. She had forgotten a bonnet or a parasol. She felt hot and dizzy.
Love letters, Priscilla Willoughby had said. Nat, that most practical and unsentimental of men, had written Priscilla Willoughby love letters. She was his perfect woman, well-bred, refined and a lady to the bone. What had the letters said? Had they contained all the words that Lizzie herself wanted to say to Nat and had to keep penned up inside.
I have loved you always…
I will love you to the end of time…
Had Priscilla kept them tied up with ribbon, hidden in a box? Or had she valued Nat’s love so little that she threw them away or burned them or simply left them to flake into dust?
Perfect Priscilla, Nat’s ideal woman…Lizzie could discount some of Lady Willoughby’s words for the jealous spite they most certainly were, but in one case she was horribly afraid that Priscilla might be right. The deep feelings and emotions—the love—that Nat would have for a woman like that would endure far longer than the lust he had for Lizzie. One day his desire for Lizzie would burn itself out, for it was too intense to last and had no deep foundation. And then there would be nothing left at all…
Lizzie found that she was shivering despite the heat of the day. She walked slowly along Fortune Row, largely oblivious to the crowds of people out enjoying the summer sunshine. She sat down on one of the benches in the gardens and stared blankly into space. She had no idea how long she was sitting there for until a shadow fell across her and a voice said, “My lady asked me to deliver this to you, ma’am.”
Someone dropped a letter into her hand and Lizzie looked up to see the retreating figure of a maid dressed in a neat uniform. The girl did not look back. Lizzie looked down, puzzled, at the paper in her hand. It looked old and worn and it was not addressed to her—it was addressed to Priscilla Willoughby.
Understanding broke on her then, and with it a sharp barb of pain. Perfect Priscilla had not wanted her to be in any doubt that Nat really had written her those love letters, so she had sent one to Lizzie to read for herself. It sat there on her lap, tempting her to open it and to make her misery complete. It was tied with pink ribbon and the ink was faded and pale and Lizzie’s fingers itched to unfold it and see the words that her husband had written to another woman, a woman he had loved. She touched the faded ribbon and tried to resist the urge to unfasten it.
She would not read it. She would not torment herself.
She flicked the letter off her lap and onto the path, where a passing lady skewered it with her parasol tip and walked on without even noticing. It gave Lizzie some satisfaction, and when large drops of summer rain started to fall and the ink began to run she felt even better. Soon, she thought, Priscilla’s love letter would be no more than pulp. Except that there were no doubt plenty more where that had come from.
She walked home through the rain and ran into the house, soaking wet, to find that Nat had returned for luncheon and was standing discussing household matters with Mrs. Alibone in the hall. Both of them stared at her, with her bedraggled hair and drenched gown, and Lizzie burst out laughing at their identical looks of surprise and disapproval.
“Madam is an Original,” Mrs. Alibone said to Nat, in tones of disapproval as Lizzie scampered past, up the stairs to change. “My former mistress the Duchess of Cole had very particular ideas on the behavior of young ladies—”
“I would not take Her Grace as a model of good behavior,” Lizzie commented over her shoulder. “She tended to try to murder those she disapproved of, didn’t she? Something of an overreaction…”
She laughed as Mrs. Alibone drew herself up as though she had starch in her spine.
That evening Lizzie and Nat went out to a musicale at the assembly rooms. Alice and Miles were there and various other members of Fortune’s Folly society, and Lizzie smiled until her face ached, and chatted, and laughed but later she could not remember a single thing that she had talked about. Priscilla Willoughby sat across the room, dazzling in pale pink, and smiled at Lizzie like a fat cat that had eaten a particularly delicious saucer of cream, and when Lizzie got home there was another love letter, this time tied with scarlet ribbon, waiting for her. Lizzie put it on the fire and went to bed.
She woke in the night with a low pain aching in her belly and she knew at once what it meant. Six weeks without her courses and she had started to think, started to hope, that she might be expecting a child. Her mind had tiptoed around the edges of the thought because she had still been afraid to face it head-on, but alongside the anxiety had been flickers of excitement and tiny sparks of expectation as each day had passed. Now, though, the hope and the excitement were extinguished in one huge flood of despair. It came from nowhere, ambushing Lizzie with its force and power, racing through her in an unstoppable tide, until she had to stuff the pillow into her mouth to prevent herself from crying aloud. The tears were flooding down her face and she pressed herself deep into the warm embrace of her bed, seeking comfort blindly. Nat was in the chamber next door—he had not come to her room that night—and a part of her wanted to run to him. She wanted so much the comfort he could give her. She wanted him to know instinctively that she needed him and to come to her. But the door remained obstinately closed and Nat’s absence only seemed to underline the distance between them, and Lizzie’s stubborn refusal to let others see her grief prevented her from seeking him out.
She stayed in bed the next day and the one after, pleading a sore throat, which was something that conveniently could not be disproved. Nat took one look at her wan face and said he was sure she was right to rest, and kissed her cheek and went out. He brought her flowers that evening, rich red roses from the gardens that smelled heavenly and made her want to go outside into the fresh summer air. He seemed anxious for her but Lizzie felt too tired to talk. She was puzzled, for her courses had never interfered with her life before—they had been trifling inconvenient things, but she had never experienced this lassitude. She fell asleep with Nat sitting beside her bed and a
woke in the middle of the night to find him gone.
On the evening five days later when Lizzie finally got up out of bed, Nat took her to the subscription ball, evidently hoping it would lift her spirits. Lizzie drank too much and danced three times with John Jerrold and tried not to mind that Nat partnered Pris-cilla Willoughby, who looked stunning in amber silk.
“You look blue-deviled, Lizzie,” Alice said to her the next day as they shared a cup of tea at the Pump Rooms.
“I have the headache,” Lizzie confessed. “I had too much wine again last night.”
“Why?” Alice asked bluntly.
Lizzie turned her teacup around and around in her hands. She had been asking herself the same question. “It makes me feel better,” she admitted after a moment. “I feel so sad, Alice, and I do not understand why. The wine takes the edge of the pain away, at least for a little.”
“And then you wake up feeling worse,” Alice said. She shook her head, exasperation and sympathy mixed in her gaze. “Lizzie, you are in grief. You are mourning for Sir Montague and for all the things that you have lost. Be gentle with yourself.” She leaned forward. “Have you told Nat how you are feeling?”
Lizzie shook her head slowly. “I told him I had a sore throat.”
Alice’s expression twisted. “Lizzie—”
“I’m not pregnant,” Lizzie said suddenly. The words tumbled out of her, impossible to quell once she had started. “I’m not pregnant, Alice, and I wanted to be so much. I did not realize how much I wanted a baby until I knew there was not to be one.” She knotted her fingers together. “I thought it would be a terrible thing to happen, but now that it has not…” She stopped as a tear plopped into the dregs of her tea.
“Oh, Lizzie,” Alice said. Her tone was so soft. She put a hand over Lizzie’s clenched ones. “Lizzie, I am sorry. I was not sure, that day at The Old Palace, that it was what you truly wanted.”
“Neither was I.” Lizzie sniffed, scrubbing at her eyes with a furtive hand so that the other tea drinkers in the Pump Rooms would not see her tears. Her unhappiness felt like a shard of glass wedged in her throat. “I wanted it so much, Alice,” she said. “I still do. And at least then there would be something binding me to Nat.” She looked up and met the arrested expression in Alice’s face. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “I know you and Miles are blissfully happy, but not all of us are so blessed.”
Alice squeezed her tightly clasped hands. “You and Nat were friends not long ago, Lizzie,” she said. “What happened?”
“It all went wrong when I fell in love with him,” Lizzie said sadly. “I don’t know why, but I cannot talk to him now. He feels like a stranger.” She bit her lip. “I should never have married him. I knew it would be a disaster.”
“Talk to Nat,” Alice said. “Tell him how you feel—”
“No!” Lizzie straightened up. “I can’t, Alice,” she said more quietly. “Am I to tell him I love him and lose my pride as well as everything else?”
“Pride is a cold comforter,” Alice said. She sighed sharply. “Truly I think Nat is almost as big a fool as you. He must be the only person in Fortune’s Folly who cannot see that you are in love with him. I am inclined to give him a piece of my mind!”
“Don’t!” Lizzie grabbed her hand. “Please, Alice. Don’t. Leave it to me.” She looked away. “I will talk to him in my own good time. I am not ready yet. My feelings are too raw.”
“All right.” Alice looked at her and sighed again. “But please be careful, Lizzie. You frighten me. So much has changed for you recently. It is no wonder you feel cast adrift.” She looked at her. “What are you going to do for the rest of the day?”
“I have no idea,” Lizzie said. The hours stretched before her, empty and dull. What had she done with her time before she married? For a terrifying moment she could not even remember.
“Lady Waterhouse. Lady Vickery.” Priscilla Willoughby had paused beside their table and was now looking down her perfectly proportioned nose at them. “How charming to see you both here.” She bared her teeth is a smile. “And how well you have fitted into local society, Lady Vickery. But then of course—” she flicked an imaginary speck from her gloves “—Lady Membury once told me that you were the cleverest maid she had ever employed.” And she nodded and moved on.
Lizzie was halfway out of her seat, consumed with rage and disgust, her own concerns forgotten, when Alice grabbed her arm.
“Lizzie, no!” Alice hissed.
“I have had enough of that spiteful bitch!” Lizzie said.
“Yes,” Alice said, her hand tightening on Lizzie’s arm, “but a fight in the Pump Rooms is not the answer.” She pulled her friend back down into her chair and poured another cup of tea. Lizzie, shaking with fury, was astonished to see that Alice’s face was quite calm and her hand quite steady.
“I do not know how you can be so serene,” she began, then stopped as Alice met her eyes and she saw the bright fury there was there.
“I am not,” Alice said, “but I refuse to give Lady Willoughby the satisfaction of seeing that she has angered me. She wishes to provoke me into an ill-bred display simply to prove her point. Well, I will not oblige her.”
“No,” Lizzie said, subsiding. “Of course you are right.”
“Revenge,” Alice said, very precisely, “is far better than an overt display of anger.”
Lizzie sat forward, her attention caught. “What did you have in mind?” she said.
“I HEARD THAT LADY WILLOUGHBY sent her apologies tonight,” Alice whispered to Lizzie in the interval at the al fresco concert on Fortune Parade that evening. Miles and Nat had gone to fetch refreshments and she and Lizzie were sitting beneath an awning in the warm evening sunshine, and listening as the orchestra tuned up for the second half of the performance.
“She claims to be suffering from a headache but the servants say she has contracted a dreadful skin complaint. Apparently she itches, and the…um…intimate areas itch the most. It is the latest on dit.”
“How awful,” Lizzie said, shuddering. “Do they have any idea what could have caused it?”
“No,” Alice said. “It is quite a mystery.” She examined her programme. “Oh good, the Bach cantata is next.” She lowered her voice again. “I have heard, though, that the juice of the Buckthorn Alder can be very itchy if it is accidentally rubbed against the skin.”
“I heard that, too,” Lizzie said, nodding to Lady Wheeler and Mary as they passed by on their way to their seats. “Particularly if it is accidentally absorbed into one’s undergarments.”
“But of course that could never happen,” Alice said, smiling angelically as Miles and Nat rejoined them, “for that would necessitate the juice getting into the laundry water and how could that be?”
“Only by the most extraordinary accident,” Lizzie agreed. “Perhaps if she had received a gift of something like lavender water that she believed was from an old admirer…” She cast Nat a sideways glance under her lashes but he was talking to Miles and fortunately not attending. “Did they say how long it was likely to be before Lady Willoughby recovered?” she asked.
“Several days, I believe,” Alice said, shaking her head.
“Really?” Lizzie said. “How terrible.” Her eyes met Alice’s and they smiled, conspiratorial as a pair of schoolgirls. It felt good to be wicked, Lizzie thought; good to take revenge on Priscilla Willoughby, who so richly deserved her comeuppance. She doubted that Priscilla was the sort of woman to be routed for long, however. It would take more than a bottle of doctored lavender water to vanquish her. Like the evil witch in the fairy tale she would surely be back for revenge.
Lizzie glanced at Nat and tried to erase the knowledge of his love letters to Priscilla from her mind. It had all been a very long time ago, she told herself. Nat might not love her but he no longer loved Priscilla, either. He could not. Nevertheless her jealousy of the woman who had once held her husband’s heart was difficult to ignore. All those letters, all
those declarations of love, all the words and the emotion that she wanted and was denied…The music started again and Lizzie fixed her gaze on the orchestra and tried not to care too much.
THE FOLLOWING DAY NAT had left the house before Lizzie had even woken up.
“His lordship has been called away on urgent family business,” Mrs. Alibone murmured, when Lizzie came down for breakfast. “He did not wish to wake you but asked that I let you know he hopes to be back this evening.”
She slithered out of the room like a snake leaving Lizzie feeling fretful and cast down. Why could Nat not have taken her with him to Water House? It was several years since she had seen his family. Was he ashamed to have married her? He had been absent so often lately that they barely felt married anyway. And why had he not left her a note rather than leaving a message with Mrs. Alibone, whom she hated? The housekeeper, with her sharp tongue and prying gaze, made her feel as though she was a prisoner in her own home.
Lady Wheeler and Mary called that morning, full of barely concealed curiosity as to how the investigation into Sir Montague’s murder was proceeding. Lizzie thought that Mary looked dreadful. Her face looked drawn and sallow, her body was twitchy, fidgeting, utterly unable to keep still whilst her mother gossiped and chatted and accepted a second cup of tea.
“One wonders if Sir Thomas will be next,” Lady Wheeler said fretfully as she stirred in three spoonfuls of sugar. “I am hoping no one will murder him, for he has been quite attentive to Mary and it would be a feather in her cap to catch him and become Lady Fortune.”
“Tom is hardly a suitor I would wish on any of my friends,” Lizzie said. “If I tried for a week I doubt I could name a single good quality that he possesses.”
Undoing of a Lady Page 16