Dark Season

by Joanna Lowell

  Isidore shouldn’t judge. After all, he was society’s black sheep trying to sprout a golden fleece.

  “We expected you last week,” Daphne prompted when a few moments had passed without his offering any kind of response.

  “Yes, about that … ” Isidore rubbed his thumb along his jaw, the airy, charming excuse and the off-color anecdotes vanishing from his mind. Daphne was looking at him with interest, one delicate brow raised, as though she enjoyed watching him squirm. He released his breath in a burst.

  “I should have sent a note, but what would I have written?” He wrote in the air with his forefinger. “Sick of it all, let’s meet instead on a farther shore, Sid?”

  “You could have made up a polite excuse,” said Daphne dryly. “Something less dramatic. Bad cough. Pressing business. Allergic to turbot. Anything, really.”

  Isidore laughed. Daphne was so tiny and exquisite that people often made the mistake of thinking her a perfect little doll—masses of red-gold hair, round blue eyes that opened and closed, head filled with sawdust. But she had a keen mind and a scathing tongue. He’d heard her deliver withering set-downs to men who couldn’t ever seem to grasp the fact that she wasn’t cooing in their ears. She had been the Incomparable of the season her first year out in London, and even though she’d married Bennington that summer, she didn’t stay at home feathering her love nest like many young wives. She attended every ball, every party, with Bennington and without him.

  She and Phillipa had been thick as thieves.

  He swore to himself. Fought the memories. But, looking at Daphne’s bright hair, remembering Phillipa’s dark head bent toward hers as they shared some whispered joke, he couldn’t stem the tide of dark thoughts.

  Thick as thieves, yes, but Phillipa had not confided in Daphne. There was no one with whom he could share the burden of his knowledge. Phillipa had told Daphne the same story she told everyone else.

  Cynical, brooding Isidore Blackwood had dropped down on his knees in the Tromblys’ music room, clasped Phillipa against his chest, and begged her to become his bride. Her heart had beat wildly. His heart had beat wildly. After so many years of friendship, they’d both realized, simultaneously, as though struck with the same bolt from the heavens, that they were in love. A perfect romance. He would never say a word to the contrary.

  There was, of course, one other person who knew what he knew. The man who should have proposed to Phillipa but didn’t. The man who left her in such an impossible situation that Isidore, her best friend, had had no choice but to step up and offer to make her his wife. If Isidore ever learned the man’s name … Why, he would beat him within an inch of his life.

  Daphne was staring. Christ, his repartee was rusty. She had joked about polite excuses. Now he must riposte.

  “That is very good counsel,” he said, almost hearing the creak in his voice. “But I have no need for it.” He flashed his most charming smile. “I’ve resolved to live in a way that puts me less in need of excuses.”

  “That’s not dramatic,” murmured Daphne. Then she colored slightly. “I don’t mean to be cutting,” she said. “I hope you don’t feel you have to make grand declarations on account of a missed engagement.” She paused, a shadow flitting across her eyes. “It so happens I dined alone that night. Ben didn’t turn up, either.”

  “What was his polite excuse?” Isidore spoke lightly, but he didn’t take his eyes from her face.

  She frowned. Then, all at once, she leapt up, widened her eyes, and spread her arms, imitating her husband. “By God, Daph, I plumb forgot!”

  This excellent bit of mimicry elicited another laugh. She had looked and sounded for all the world like Bennington. The man was a study in innocence. Daphne dimpled for him and sat back down.

  “He didn’t remember we’d asked you over until the sixth rubber of whist. I hated to admit you’d never come. It would have been lovely to play you each for a guilty party vis-à-vis the other, but I was afraid you’d compare notes at the club and the truth would out. Then I’d be scourged as a manipulative minx.”

  “You are a manipulative mix,” said Isidore. “I adore you for it. Bennington does too if he has half a brain in his head.”

  The arrival of the tea tray prevented Daphne from having to answer. But the tension in her rosy mouth did not escape Isidore’s notice.

  “How do you take your tea?” she asked.

  “Black, no sugar.” He took the cup and saucer, balancing both on his knee.

  “I haven’t seen Ben at the club. Haven’t laid eyes on him in weeks. Where is he now?”

  Daphne stirred sugar into her tea. “Debating the franchise, I imagine.” Then, as though clarification might be necessary, she added: “The Liberals want to extend the vote.”

  “I may be known chiefly as an indolent rake who abandoned his mother country to live in a tent with desert nomads, but I do pick up The Times on occasion, if only to swat flies.” Isidore leaned back in his chair and gazed at the medallion in the plasterwork ceiling. “I fancied Bennington as a backwoods peer. Showing up to the opening of Parliament so everyone could get a look at his pretty face then running for his life if anyone so much as mentioned the word ‘bill’ in his hearing.”

  “Did you?” Daphne’s voice sounded brittle. Isidore turned his eyes back on her. She was still stirring her tea as though she’d forgotten what her hand was doing. The sight disturbed him. She noticed his close regard and smiled, laying her spoon on the tray.

  “I don’t blame you for thinking that,” she said. “Ben was as frivolous as the rest of you. I won’t deny it.”

  “The rest of us?” Isidore clapped a hand on his heart as though wounded.

  “But you couldn’t be more wrong,” continued Daphne. “You haven’t been around much in the past five years. Ben is very involved in politics. He has grown serious.”

  “He was always serious,” said Isidore. “About his hair oil and how he knotted his cravat. Just as I was always serious about getting to the bottom of a gin bottle and betting every shilling my father ever gave me at long odds. I don’t think frivolity is an apt charge, Daph. We were misapplying our talents, perhaps, but we were doing so with a great deal of focus and determination.”

  “My husband’s focus has changed. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Daphne took a delicate sip of tea. “A piece of walnut cake? Lemon tart? The lemon tart is divine. We have a new cook who has a gift for pastry. How is your cook working out? It’s so terribly hard to find a good one.”

  Isidore followed her gaze to the assorted cakes and sweets arrayed on the table.

  “I was teasing,” he said. “Don’t punish me by playing the perfect hostess. You know I think the world of Ben.”

  Daphne ignored him, cutting a healthy portion of lemon tart. He put his tea on the table and accepted the plate.

  “Delicious.” He pronounced after the first bite. “Your cook is truly a treasure. I could eat a dozen.”

  Daphne smiled a real smile.

  “I’m sure you could,” she said, giving him a look of frank appraisal. “I don’t know where you put it all. It’s unfair you should look like that. You’ve seen Warren Cowper? He’s produced the most alarming pair of jowls. Robert Abergavenny has gained a pound around the middle for every hair he’s lost off the top. Now that you’ve come back, you’ve put all the bloated bachelors to shame. I saw Lord Averly at the Puttnams’ musicale turning down the éclairs in favor of a watercress sandwich.”

  “And you lay this culinary heresy at my doorstep?” Isidore polished off his piece of tart and returned the empty plate to the table.

  “You cut an impressive figure.” Daphne poured him more tea, bending over the pot. Isidore couldn’t help but take in an even more generous view of her considerable endowments. She had a tiny port wine stain on her left breast just peeking out above the silk. It was shaped rather like a heart. How convenient. He nearly rolled his eyes. She looked up at him through her lashes.

  “Do you hav
e any idea how many questions I’ve had to field about your intentions? Does Lord Blackwood intend to stay in London? Does Lord Blackwood intend to marry this season? Does Lord Blackwood prefer blonds or brunettes?” She paused. “Or redheads?”

  Isidore crossed his legs and leaned back on the settee. He remembered that a man had to be wary of Daphne. Daphne delighted in her powers of attraction. She flirted shamelessly then tried to flay you alive.

  “It’s because of my figure, is it?” He shrugged. “I’ve always been possessed of it. The debutantes managed to restrain themselves in the past.”

  “Now you are … unattached.” Daphne’s coquetry vanished. She regarded him somberly.

  “I spent years in London unattached,” he reminded her. “My engagement to Phillipa was brief.”

  “Formally,” she replied. “But it was obvious to everyone your affections were engaged. Even before you admitted it to yourself.”

  He let this pass.

  “Phillipa knew,” said Daphne. “I used to think she rather took advantage of you. Before the engagement, of course. Then I realized she reciprocated your love.”

  “Of course,” echoed Isidore. He felt increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. But he’d asked for it. He should have taken her cue and begun to discuss the demerits of his cook. Daphne’s gaze was too keen. He couldn’t imagine what she was trying to get at. He looked at her blandly.

  “So do you?” Daphne glanced down then up again, as though trying to surprise a new expression on his face. “Intend to marry?” Or are you still mourning Phillipa? The unspoken question hung between them.

  “Marry?” He laughed. “That’s what’s expected of me, isn’t it? London in the spring. Castle Blackwood in the summer. A wife for all seasons. An heir for the future.”

  He saw Daphne flinch and cursed himself. Six years of marriage and she was still childless. The fault wasn’t necessarily hers, if one could speak of fault in such cases. But it couldn’t be easy. He wondered if this was the source of the strain he detected whenever she mentioned Ben. Isidore had lived his life in broad emotional strokes—love and hate, devotion and fury, joy and despair. Those were sentiments he understood. He didn’t consider himself particularly sensitive to nuance. But he couldn’t help but feel that there was a subtle undercurrent of unhappiness in the Bennington household.

  The longer he sat across from Daphne, the more he began to notice the little changes time had wrought. The light lines around her lips had been carved by frowns. She didn’t move with the same fluid, boneless grace that he remembered. She was more awkward in her skin. As though something had shaken her confidence, her sense of who she was.

  He wasn’t surprised Daphne and Bennington’s union had soured. Even if Daphne had borne a child, he couldn’t see those two comfortably settled in the nuptial bower. He’d thought the match doomed from the very beginning. He knew Daphne to be, for all her intelligence and charm, a vain and jealous woman. And he knew Bennington … well, he just knew Bennington. The man was, quite frankly, too handsome for his own good. Women had always thrown themselves at him, and he’d never seemed more deeply attached to one than another. He enjoyed them all. Isidore had always wondered if some secret financial difficulty had spurred him into the engagement. He’d never asked, and he’d never caught wind of any gossip that confirmed his suspicion. Daphne was certainly desirable enough to tempt a man into marriage, even if she hadn’t come with a substantial fortune. Maybe Bennington had simply fallen under her spell. He liked to fall under the spells of beautiful women. Usually it was all over in an evening’s enchantment. Isidore had known him to be so ensorcelled a hundred times … before and after he’d married Daphne. But he tended to be discreet. It could be Daphne was deceived and thought him faithful. He hoped so. But he rather doubted it. The lines in her face were most likely the signs of her disappointment. He wondered if she had strayed herself.

  “Well,” said Daphne, an ugly smile stretching her beautiful lips. “That is what’s expected of you. What you will do, of course, remains to be seen. We all play our roles with differing degrees of success. My life has not gone as I’d planned.”

  “Nor has mine.” He fumbled for the right words. He wanted to comfort Daphne, who suddenly seemed perilously close to tears. “We don’t always have complete control over what happens to us. There are greater forces at work.”

  “Sid,” she said. Her blue eyes were enormous, brimming. Her voice had faded to a whisper so low he could barely hear her. “What forces do you mean?”

  The sneer the question summoned was more for himself than for her. He’d wasted enough time with his mad, black thoughts about the devil. And he couldn’t really bring himself to mouth platitudes about a watchmaker God.

  “Chance,” he said flatly. “Contingency. The random unfolding of the universe. The forces of chaos. That’s all. Nothing grand. Nothing purposive.”

  “Sid.” Daphne didn’t seem to have listened. She was sitting up very straight, her hands on her lap. Staring at him. “Sometimes I think that I’m cursed. I think that she cursed me.”

  “Who?” he said, leadenly. He knew who. The room seemed suddenly suffocating. It smelled of old leather and dust and cooling, bitter, overdrawn tea. Shouldn’t there be flowers? Daphne could have insisted on a few bouquets to add just a little life and color and fragrance. He couldn’t sit still a moment longer.

  “Can I open the window? It’s a fine day,” he said and, without waiting for an answer, walked to a window, pulled apart the curtains, and lifted the sash.

  “Sid.” He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Do you think it’s possible?”

  “I think you’re mad,” he said. From the window he watched men in high-crowned hats walking smartly along the street. They were utterly, intractably sane. They didn’t look for the reflection of a raven-haired, black-eyed girl in every puddle, every shop window. He found himself crossing his eyes so he could see the windowpane rather than the scene outside. That dark blur was his own raven hair. Not hers.

  He heard a muffled sob and turned to catch Daphne in his arms. She pressed her small, soft body against him, and he stroked her hair, the silky strands touched with flame by the afternoon light that shone through the parted curtains. The sitting room door was open, and his eyes strayed to it. All he needed was a servant to pass that door. Or Bennington.

  “Daphne.” He thrust her back, hands on her shoulders. “That was cruel. I didn’t mean … We all went a little mad. I went mad. For years. You’re not cursed. No one is cursed.”

  “She could be so spiteful.” Daphne stared, not at him, but at the light streaming over his shoulder. Her heart-shaped face was illuminated. Eyes like blue fire. “She envied me. Do you think she’s happy? Knowing how I suffer?”

  “Stop it,” he said, muscles straining with the effort it took not to shake her. Her eyes focused on his.

  “You loved her,” she said. “I loved her too. Everyone loved her.” Daphne pulled out of his grasp, drifting to the other side of the room. She let her fingers trail across the mantel then picked up an antique pistol from its mounting and laid the barrel across her palm.

  “It’s heavy,” she said. He crossed to her in two strides and snatched the pistol from her hand. She smiled at him as though she’d scored a point.

  “Are you frightened?” she asked. “That hasn’t been fired since Waterloo.”

  He returned the gun to the mantel.

  “I’m not frightened,” he said. “I’m finished. I’ve played every sick game, indulged every morbid thought. I let a phantom chase me from London clear into the Sahara. It’s over. Five years, Daphne. Do you think she’s still roaming after five years? She’s at peace. Now it’s our turn. If I can try to believe that, surely you can too.”

  “If she’s at peace, why did Miss Seymour say she’s still in the shadows?”

  Isidore leaned against the mantel. He made his face a perfect blank. “You can’t bait me with a riddle,” he said evenly. “I’ve liv
ed in the land of the sphinx. I don’t think all riddles need to be answered.”

  He waited. He figured she might last a minute. She didn’t.

  “Miss Seymour is a medium.” Daphne chose a newspaper from the table and handed it to him.

  He read the banner across the top. “Spiritual Magazine.” He flipped the pages so hard one tore with a dull, protesting sound. “That’s what this is about? Of all the faddish nonsense.” He thrust the paper back at her. “Daphne, you can’t be serious.”

  “Don’t look at me like that.” She flung herself into the armchair. “I’m not the one who started it. It’s Louisa Trombly. She hired a woman as a private medium.”

  “She what?”

  “She hired a medium,” repeated Daphne.

  “I heard you,” he grated. “I understand the concept of retaining an employee at wages for services. But this medium, what does she do?”