Her heart stopped, then started again as if to make up for its miss, beating against her chest like a hammer on an anvil.
“You did?” She could think of nothing else to say. It sounded inadequate and stupid, but she couldn’t think of anything else. She couldn’t think of anything at all. She tried again, clenching her hands into fists to stop herself clutching her chest to try to quell the pounding of her pulse. “The children are yours?”
He winced. “As far as society is concerned, they could be.” He hesitated. “I was on a visit to my estate. I had no idea she was respectable. She told me she was a maid, and I thought she meant a maidservant.” He snorted. “She certainly wasn’t the other kind of maid.”
“She was not a virgin?”
“Believe me, I’d know.” She believed him. “But the world believes the babies are mine. Virginie, they are not. I have looked deep inside myself. If I had got children on her, I would know, or the god part of me would know. It does not. But since society believes it so, that is of little use.”
Her reasoning returned to her in a rush. She breathed more easily as a question burst into her mind. “But a god may decide when the person they are with conceives.” She’d done that often enough in France.
He groaned and covered his eyes. “I was drunk. Blind drunk, but I did not release fertile seed into her.” He lowered his hand, and his expression was bleak as ever.
He took a step towards her. She stepped back. “No. If you touch me, we’re lost. You know that. I’m barely holding on as it is.”
He lifted his arms from his sides and let them fall again with a slap. “What can we do? Eros—”
“It’s not Eros, Marcus. Not anymore. He started us, gave the initial push, but we continued it. We should have worked harder to break the connection.”
His voice deepened, warmed with remembered passion. “There was no need. We’re different people now, Virginie. We could have married.”
Could have? Yes, he was right. He had responsibilities that did not include her. Perhaps if she’d willed it, become pregnant—but now, she would not do that to any child. Children were not pawns or levers, they were beings in their own right—mortal or immortal.
It was beginning to sound as if Rhea Simpson had done exactly that. A respectable single woman had to be desperate indeed to take those measures. Unless Marcus was right, and he was the dupe, not the father. As a fellow Olympian, she believed him. But they could not tell that part to society, who would forever condemn him for a cad and a base seducer.
“It doesn’t matter, Marcus, does it? Even if there was a way of announcing that you were not the father for sure, it would not stop the gossips.”
He grimaced. “You’re right. I’ve been trapped by a human. Who said gods were invulnerable?”
She took a few steps to the nearest chair and trailed her fingers along the back of it. She needed to touch something. The uneven bumps from the slightly worn, badly upholstered material nudged her fingers. The texture proved a slight distraction from the problem, enough to keep her from bursting into useless, humiliating tears. The thought of being without him hurt almost too much to bear, wrenching her stomach. But they had to face it. Better like this than in public. They’d lived their affair in the eyes of a delighted, scandalised society. She had no reason to end it the same way. At least she could try to get back her dignity.
This was the end. It had to be. She’d been facing the possibility for the last few days, but certainty stared her in the face. Time to hold her head high and walk away.
Some semblance of reality edged its way into her mind, though not her heart. Not yet. She didn’t know if it ever would. She couldn’t imagine never seeing Marcus again, never touching him. Such a deep tear, right through her heart, she didn’t know if she could recover from it.
“I can’t help you with this.” She cleared her throat, aware her voice had grown weak.
“I know.” His dark eyes were sombre. None of the light that she’d seen in them when he laughed with her, made love to her, was left. “We must stay apart. I would like to think we would always be friends, but it must be at a distance.” He stuck his hands in his breeches’ pockets, and by the way the fabric bunched he’d clenched his fists. “We cannot even write to each other.”
“One day,” she said softly. Her nails scored the pattern of a flower in the fabric. “But what will you do now?”
“Marry her, I suppose.” He couldn’t have sounded more unexcited if his grandmother had stripped in front of him.
“She is pretty, she seems biddable.”
“She’s a deceitful bitch.” For the first time, his hard tones repulsed her. How could he say that about the pitiful woman she’d seen at the club?
Virginie considered the girl desperate rather than malicious. “You should not speak that way of her.”
“If she is not, then someone behind her is. I’ve been manipulated into this!”
An ominous thought struck her. “Do you mean to make her pay for it?”
He cocked a dark brow. “In what way, madam?”
It was the first time he’d called her “madam” in those formal tones for months. But Virginie would not be gainsaid in this. If he married Rhea only to mistreat her, Virginie would take the woman into her own home and defy convention. God knew she’d done it enough recently. “Do you mean to make her life a misery?”
“What kind of a man do you take me for? Am I then to be classed with the gods of vengeance? No. I will answer, though it chokes me to do so. I thought you knew me better than that, Virginie.”
“So did I,” she said, refusing to be silenced or cowed. She clutched the chair.
“The answer is no. Any woman I make my wife will be treated with respect, and all the affection I can muster for her.”
Though it wouldn’t be a great deal. Torture, to be in love with him and not have him return it!
Another cloud cleared. When she was a little girl her mother had told her if there was enough blue in the sky to make a sailor a pair of britches, then it wouldn’t rain. Perhaps her personal storm was clearing and the sky would be bluer a little further on.
Given time and a chance for the madness between them to settle down, or at least to mature, they could have found happiness together. Damn the gods and their fated stories, she knew it to be true.
But it had never happened. Too caught up in their unholy passion, they had never spent much time actually getting to know each other enough for love to flourish.
No, Marcus was handsome, striking, dizzyingly good at lovemaking, but she couldn’t say she loved him. Only that the potential was there. And now they would never know, not in this lifetime, because he was obliged elsewhere.
“I wish you and your bride all felicitations for the future.” She would leave this place with her head high. Metaphorically at least, because if anyone spied her at this stage it could prove disastrous. Even more disastrous.
“Thank you.” His nod was one friend to another. It marked the end of what was, and the beginning of what is. She would accept that, and take his lead.
“I can make it easier for you both. Eros isn’t the only person who can cast love spells.” Although it would kill her to do it. She wanted him for herself, but for Virginie marriage was a serious business. Even if both parties agreed to go their separate ways, that was their decision and not one she would have a hand in forcing.
Rather, she’d leave Marcus completely alone to find his own way. If, in six months, he came to her and confessed he and his wife had agreed to live apart, she might change her mind. She did not need marriage, and she did not need children.
Or love. For others, they could have it, come to her for help, but she didn’t want it to herself. Love was the most weakening emotion there was.
To her relief Marcus shook his head. “No, but thank you. I know what that offer cost you. My marriage will be honest and truthful. We will face the future together. Even though the children are not mine, I will raise
them with honour. They cannot inherit the dukedom, of course, so I must get more children on her.”
Virginie gritted her teeth to suppress her flinch. This hurt so much. No, love was not for her. If this was what lust was like, she didn’t want anything that went deeper.
Any children born outside wedlock could not inherit an entailed estate or a title. If Marcus wanted the Lyndhurst title to persist, he would have to beget a son on his wife. Even the distant, Biblical way she phrased it in her mind made her heart ache. She didn’t know how long she could carry on, but she must. She would have nobody to help her in her efforts, and she could trust nobody. This was her only course.
Marcus and she would go their separate ways after today. Society would have to find another scandal to amuse it.
She stepped out from behind the sanctuary of her chair and gave him a gracious nod. “Goodbye, Marcus.”
He snapped a formal bow. “As gods we will meet and no doubt act together. Until then, au revoir. From start to finish you have been a complete delight. Thank you.”
At least she had that.
Virginie curtseyed, using her arm for balance and to flourish her fan at the close. Without another word, she left.
Outside, the rain seethed down, the fine rain that got a person wet without effort. She welcomed it. There were fewer people around. Those that passed her were too busy keeping themselves covered to bother about a woman in a wilting straw hat who hurried past with her head down.
The moisture that dripped off her chin was entirely due to the rain. Nothing else.
Chapter Eight
Virginie slept with the silver rose beside her on the nightstand. For some reason the pretty object gave her comfort. It was not bespelled, she could sense that, but it did recall Harry and his kindness. She had rejected him, but he had not held the rejection against her. More than she deserved, considering the way she had done it.
She felt itchy, wrong in her own skin, but that was because she was facing a great change in her life. The affair with Marcus had been brief but intense. He’d awakened her to emotions and reactions she’d only known before in theory. That she could fall under the spell of love, or something close to it, still astonished her. She was supposed to rule love, not be love’s victim. Eros had taken her at a time when she’d felt in control, superior, as if she could do anything she wanted. She had learned differently.
Refusing to shrink, cowed into the country as she had considered at first, Virginie got up the next day. She paid as much attention to her appearance as always and sallied forth. If she was staying, she would not hide away, an acceptance of her guilt.
She took care not to allow anyone to cut her. She avoided people who would be sure to do so, something that took her attention and a certain fleetness of foot.
In order to avoid a gaggle of society’s highest sticklers, whose glares as she approached made their intentions obvious, she was forced to duck into the nearest shop. This happened to be a tobacconists’. She emerged with a pretty enamel snuffbox. Then she could legitimately turn around and walk in the opposite direction without her move appearing to be a retreat.
In Bond Street she had to cross the road and make another unwanted purchase to avoid yet another group. Really, the gossips seemed to be lying in wait for her today. She’d appear at one of the larger functions tonight—no, she’d go to the theatre and sit in solitary state. If nobody called on her box, she’d claim she had chosen that consequence.
The way the high-sticklers were prepared to trap her and shame her made Virginie determined not to allow them to do so.
She wore white to the theatre, with her diamonds and pearls, set in silver. For once she had her hair powdered, stark white to match her gown. Her complexion could bear such an unforgiving look. She wore it out of defiance and ensured she was the image of purity, unlike the last time she’d appeared here.
Drury Lane Theatre was full tonight, surprising at this time of year. Their purpose attained, daughters turned off and a few fortunates affianced. Many families had retired to the country to prepare for the next stage of the social round, the country house party. Virginie doubted she’d be invited to any of those this year, but she would welcome the time to herself. Or so she told herself. But Venus was a sociable goddess, appreciating the company of other women, as well as her lovers.
She would live through this. Harry was right, she should not give ground and slink out of the country, not without a fight. If she made a few appearances like this and then retreated to France to administer her holdings, that would appear more natural. Then she could come back when the scandal had died. Or face it.
She hated to admit it, but she didn’t know if she had the courage to do that.
A soft knock sounded on the door of her box at the beginning of the second act. All during the first, she’d paid strict attention to the action on the stage, although she’d be hard put to say what she was watching. She’d put her spying-glass to its correct purpose, instead of ogling the audience. On the other hand, the audience was watching her. She felt their gazes on her, pricking her skin.
Her footman held a salver, with a single card on it. She read it, then read it again, before nodding. This would be her greatest test so far, to receive her mother in her box. She appreciated the card, warning her in advance of what she had in store.
When her mother entered the box, Virginie stood to greet her and kissed her on both cheeks, as befitted a fond daughter to her mama.
Nobody who had not met Mrs. Davenport before would have recognised the woman as any kind of servant. Virginie’s mother had dressed in state. Her dark blue gown, laced with gold was of the finest material, not one that Virginie recognised, so it must be her own. When had she obtained it? It was in the latest fashion, with the smaller hoops and the more delicate patterns. Her lace was familiar, but she did not begrudge her mother borrowing it. Especially when she’d appeared like this.
But her parent was not alone. After greeting her, Virginie turned to the shadowy woman waiting at the back of the box.
Shock jolted through her like lightning forking from her head to her feet. She gripped her fan. Her mother had achieved a coup. She nodded to the lady, and Rhea Simpson nodded back, her face solemn. No matter, she had come.
“I appreciate your visit,” Virginie said. “Would you take a glass of wine?”
Indicating the seat next to her, she waited until the newcomers had sat before resuming her own place. Mrs. Davenport ensured that Rhea sat between them, as an honoured guest. Virginie asked her about the play and discovered that Rhea knew more about it, discoursing on the personalities of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony with intelligence and understanding. If this woman were not her rival, Virginie would have liked her. As it was, this meeting might be rare, a proffering and accepting of an olive branch. She would not cultivate the acquaintance. It would mean witnessing something so painful to her that it hurt more than the original dart Eros had shot into her.
“You are a very well educated woman,” she said at one point. “Your parents are to be commended.”
Rhea gave a laugh that sounded more bitter than pleased. “You might well think that, ma’am, but the truth is they engaged a fine tutor for my brother. He was their darling. But he was not given to academic study, so he turned to me. We were closer than my mother liked, but since he wished it, our parents let it be. It is to his credit that I learned the small amount I know. And that the library, facing south, was warmer than my bedroom, which faced in the opposite direction. I spent a great deal of time there.”
Rhea was pretty, but not stunningly lovely, and had a pleasing manner. Her soft blue eyes and dark blonde hair suited her creamy complexion, and she was of moderate height. She comported herself well, deploying her fan occasionally and sipping her wine with a delicate air. She would make an adequate duchess, and Marcus would at least be kind to her. If he hadn’t been so kind already they might not find themselves in this pickle. But life was full of ifs and none had any truth in
the real world.
“You seem in a much better frame of mind, my dear,” she commented when she could get a word in edgeways between asp and breast, so to speak.
Rhea was much more attractive when she smiled. “Indeed. You must not tell anyone for a week or so, but I know you will wish me happy.”
For a moment Virginie entertained the wild hope that Rhea had accepted an offer from someone else.
“His grace the Duke of Lyndhurst called on me this afternoon, just before dinner, and asked for my hand.” Rhea sounded like a girl, breathless and happy. As well she might be.
“I’m delighted for you, my dear.” Virginie leaned forward, and spoke to Rhea from behind her fan. “You have nothing to fear from this direction.” She lowered her fan. Many of society’s worst gossips could lip-read. Or so she believed, and she wanted to take no chances with this golden opportunity her mother had manufactured for her. “Such good news!”
Rhea was staring at her, wide-eyed. “Th-thank you.”
“You’re welcome. You must strive to please your husband. When is the ceremony to be?”
“As soon as possible. A private celebration, then we will go directly into the country.”
Had he kissed her, caressed her? Reacquainted himself with what he had once enjoyed? While she believed Marcus when he’d said he had little recollection of the events, she had no sympathy for that. Drunken gentlemen should take more care of what they did. If someone had tricked him, then he would still have to admit responsibility.
But she ached, oh how badly! All her training came into force as she smiled and conversed with Rhea Simpson, and on the other side, her mother did so too. Virginie, Rhea and Mrs. Davenport were watched avidly, but this was Virginie giving her blessing to the union and retreating. True, some might speculate that this was a three-way affair. Such affairs had happened before, and in recent memory. Lord John Hervey had moved his male lover in with his wife and had survived to become a high-ranking politician.
Virginie would not do that. She never shared. Instead she had the chance of walking away with dignity.
Forged by Love: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 4 Page 8