by Susanna Ives
“It all seems so logical when you explain it.”
She wagged a finger at him. “You see, you’re mocking me.”
“Was I? I’m sorry. I’ll be good. Please continue.”
Henrietta took a deep breath, the little ruffles on her bodice rising with her breasts. She lowered her face and looked at Kesseley under her lashes. Her voice was dark and dramatic. “Ravenmist castle had changed. A darkness hung over its chambers. The wax remains of candles, long since burned to their death, hung like condemned men from the grand chandelier. Once, under its brilliance, she had danced in his strong arms, thinking how they would be consumed in its light, its fire. Under her feet, the woven tigers waited, silent in the Persian carpet. How they used to terrify her. He would laugh as she trembled. Now thick dust blinded their eyes. The delicate gilt upon the wall—”
“Why couldn’t he have burned down the castle?” he muttered.
“I heard that,” she said, trying to repress a smile. “The delicate gilt upon the wall was tarnished and black. A small noise, a mere creak, penetrated the silence. Her gaze rose to the balcony, where a shadowy figure stood. Even as her eyes did not recognize this wild beast of a man, her heart knew him, knew his soul bleeding before her. He came into the light. She could see his tormented eyes wild with sorrow. Tears leaped to her eyes, sweet and painful. Running to her, he said—” Henrietta slid the book carefully to Kesseley, trying to preserve the dramatic moment. “Now you read,” she whispered, pointing to the spot.
“What are you doing back, you cracked chit?”
“Kesseley! That is not what it says! You said you would behave!”
“Fine. I missed you.”
“No!”
“Yes, see.” He pointed to the text. “I—missed—you. His voice was ragged with—”
“I know what it says, but that’s not how he said it.” Henrietta picked up the book, held the place with her finger and gently whacked him with it. “You’re as difficult as Papa, and worse because you know it. Now think. How do you look, how do you speak, to someone you love?”
Kesseley took a sip of wine, sloshed it around his mouth. Dare he? Suddenly the moment seemed the heaviest in his life. Every desire piled on the other. One small slip and it could all crumble.
He couldn’t. He was too scared. “Why don’t you show me?” he said, his voice harsher than he intended. “How would you say, ‘I missed you’ to Lord Blackraven, assuming he has put you in an asylum to show how much he cares rather than, say, jilting you for a richer, more socially connected lady?”
Her mouth fell open and her eyes had an unbelieving look as if he had just reached out and slapped her. What the hell did I do?
Her lips started trembling, little tears moistened her eyes.
Damn it! No!
Kesseley grabbed her arm, panicked. “I didn’t mean—”
She closed the book and traced the embossed gold title with her finger. Her tears fell in little lines down her cheek.
“I missed you,” she cried, then covered her face. “I miss you.” She broke down and buried her head into Kesseley’s chest. “Edward was in the park today. He rode by us. He didn’t even see me.”
Every emotion drained out of Kesseley. He was hollow. Stiff. He could feel her on his shoulder, yet inside him, just emptiness.
She raised her head, her wet eyes looking into his. “You are so much more handsome than any man in that park today. Will you just try to look more fashionable?” She squeezed his hand. “I know you could turn Lady Sara’s head if you tried.”
The anger came like little explosions, going off everywhere in his heart.
I did all this for you. All this. And you can only think of Edward, who betrayed your trust and treated you like you were nothing. Kesseley’s hand shook, and for a horrifying moment he thought he might slap her—and like it. He shot up from the sofa, afraid of himself.
“Just go to Schweitzer and Davidson, just let them help you,” she pleaded.
“Henrietta. Enough. I’m tired of your little jabs at my person—”
“I never said anything about you!”
“Just clothes, my sensibilities and my manners.”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“By degrading me?” He was shouting now, his voice booming everywhere around him.
“I’m not! You promised to help. You said—”
“I said what I did because—” He paused, trying to rein in his temper. “Because I wanted to make you feel better. Did you ever consider that I might have more honor than to steal another man’s betrothed?”
“They’re not betrothed yet!”
“And if they are not, there are thousands of other ladies for him to choose from.” His anger was driving him over the edge. He looked down over the mental cliff to the hard place far below and just kept going. “Have you ever considered you didn’t have enough charms to hold him? That perhaps it is you who needs to change? Perhaps it is you who needs to grow up and stop living in this dream world.”
“Dream world!” She stood up, her whole body shaking. “You’re the one living in a dream world! I’m not blind. I see how you’re always touching me, watching me. You’re not here to find a wife! You just wanted to play house with me!”
***
Henrietta gasped and pressed her hands to her mouth. She didn’t mean those words. Why had she said them? She was just so angry she wanted to hurt someone—and he was there! She grabbed his hands. “Oh God. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. It’s just been such an awful day seeing Edward and—”
He yanked himself free from her grasp. “I’m sorry I took you to London and ruined your day.” He strode out of the room.
She chased after him. “Kesseley, please, I didn’t mean it. Oh, please forgive me.”
Lady Kesseley was coming down the stairs.
“You ladies have a wonderful evening,” he spat, as he passed her.
Lady Kesseley watched her son’s angry back as he stomped up to the first balcony, then disappeared as he continued up the next flight. She turned back and glared at Henrietta with eyes as hard and pale as arctic ice. She slowly came down the stairs and into the foyer, backing Henrietta into the parlor.
She shut the door behind her. “Sit down, Miss Watson,” she said and then waited for Henrietta to obey. “Tell me, do you have any intentions of marrying my son?”
Henrietta felt like a wiggling insect pinned to a board. She couldn’t make up pretty lies anymore.
“I feel deep affection for your son, perhaps sisterly love, but none that I believe would translate into a marriage.”
There was something so logically cold about her words that for the first time it sank inside her heart that soon she and Kesseley would be irreparably separated. He would find a wife and she…Oh Lud, she couldn’t see her future anymore. Just daisy bonnets.
She felt dizzy and slumped down on the sofa. She swallowed hard, trying to keep the tears from following. But they started to trickle down her cheeks.
“You have quite modern thoughts. Love and marriage. Many young ladies—including myself—have to marry for familial obligation. You seem to care nothing for being a countess?”
“I—I just want to die in the arms of the man I love, l-like my mother. Sh-she said I could live as I wanted, choose who I w-wanted.” Henrietta’s throat burned. She pressed her hand to her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut.
When she opened them again, Lady Kesseley had moved by the mantel. Her head was turned away and Henrietta couldn’t see her face.
“If you have no intention of marrying my son, then his clothes or his manners should be no concern of yours,” she said quietly.
“I am trying to help because I care so much about him. I just want him to be happy. You must have seen the ladies laugh at him at the park! No lady could find him attractive with the way that he dresses and his provincial manners.”
“Provincial manners!” She whipped around. “What do you know of
the manners of society?”
“I—”
“Have you ever been to London?”
“No. B-but I have visited many great homes with my father, and I read journals.”
“You read journals.” Lady Kesseley lifted an elegant, curving brow. “Well, I suppose that makes you very wise.” Fury tightened her features. “You know nothing of the cruelty hidden beneath the well-polished boots and folded cravats of fashionable men. Of course they must read love sonnets because they don’t know of love beyond themselves! When they make love, they don’t mention all the other hearts they destroyed before yours. They slice your heart open and lay in a mistress’s bed while you bleed!”
Lady Kesseley trembled, her eyes large, turned inward to some horrible memory Henrietta couldn’t fathom. Was this what Kesseley’s father had been like? Had he done these things? Henrietta flew up to embrace her, but Lady Kesseley stepped back.
“My son is not like them,” she said, shaking her head. Her voice had turned breathy and thin. “He is thoughtful and gentle. So he may need a new cravat or coat. This is nothing. And I am proud of his ‘provincial’ manners.”
“I didn’t mean—”
She held up her hand, not wanting to be interrupted. “I know you wangled this little invitation out of my son so you could be near that cousin of yours. Maybe you think you can win him back. But let me assure you, you are an ignorant, immature and selfish girl. You are no match for Lady Sara. And not good enough for my son.”
Her loud words echoed in the corners, and then the room fell silent but for the clomp and rattle of carriages rolling down the street outside.
Lady Kesseley studied her for a moment, the hardness falling from her eyes. “How like your mother you have grown,” she finally said quietly. “Your father so loved her. She filled your home with happiness. I couldn’t provide the same for Tommie.” She shook her head. “How can you be so blind to all the love that you have been blessed with?”
Chapter Eight
Early in the morning Henrietta gave up on trying to sleep and stared at the ceiling. The shadows of tiny cracks in the plaster looked like spidery veins. London was as sleepless as herself. All night she could hear the clomp of horses’ feet echoing down the alley, then the sliding of heavy mew doors.
She was so tired but her mind would not stop replaying her conversation with Kesseley. What had happened was irreversible. In her heart burned the memory of Kesseley’s face, the disbelieving hurt in his eyes, which were always so trusting, so gentle. She felt she had destroyed some innocence, like those dreadful village boys who pelted rocks at the robins’ nests, killing the fragile babies inside their bright, blue eggs. Kesseley never did that. He fed orphaned birds ground meat and milk through a tube until they could fly.
I am a horrid girl.
When the gray, dull light of the London morning peeked under the heavy curtains, she crawled out of bed, taking a blanket with her. The floor was cold, and the fire had long since burned to ash. She pulled the servants’ bell, then sat at the mirror and examined her reflection. Yes, she was horrid in all aspects. Her lids were heavy, drooping down over her red-rimmed eyes. Her muscles felt loose and shaky from lack of sleep.
The maidservant from the day before bustled in, crisp and alert, making Henrietta feel even duller. She wound Henrietta’s long braid into a simple knot, then tightened her stays and sewed her into a plain cotton morning dress with quick and efficient fingers.
Once she was alone again, guilt consumed her thoughts. Why did it feel like someone took a knife and slowly cut away her skin whenever she upset Kesseley?
Outside her chamber, she heard the creak of his door opening. She ran out to the hall. Her words fell out in a jumbled heap. “Kesseley, what I said was unforgivable. I haven’t slept at all. I feel horrid. Please, please say you aren’t so terribly angry at me. Please tell me how I can make this up to you. I can’t bear it.”
Henrietta could have run straight into a stone wall for the cold anger radiating from him. If he’d had a sword, he might have run it through her heart.
“Please,” she whispered, putting a tentative hand on his arm. She could feel the contours of his stiff muscles under his green coat. He didn’t push her away like last night.
“Let us just forget about it,” he said in a tight voice.
“Yes,” she whispered, relieved.
They stood staring at each other, awkward, not quite sure how to go about forgetting it. “W-would you like to go to the Royal Academy or the Agricultural Society?” she offered.
“Thank you, but no, I am going to a club.”
Don’t leave! she thought. Couldn’t they go back to the excitement of yesterday, before the park, when everything was new and exciting? Not this silence and coldness.
He looked pointedly at her hand, issuing an unspoken command to remove it from his arm. When she did, he nodded goodbye and brushed past her. She could hear him call for Boxly. She imagined the butler putting him in that old caped greatcoat with the worn elbows.
Then the door closed.
She hurried downstairs to the parlor and watched him leave through the window. She could see the swing of his strong shoulders as he walked away, getting smaller, then disappearing around a curve. Samuel padded in, hefted his big front paws into her lap and gave her hand a lick.
“You’ve been left behind, too?” she said.
Samuel gave her a sad, brown eye. She scratched under his ears. “Would you like to go for a stroll?” He jumped down and splayed his legs, letting out a sharp bark.
Henrietta rang for Boxly and told him she was going to the park with Samuel and requested a leash. He returned with a rope that looked as if it were used to lead horses. Good enough, Henrietta decided as she heard Lady Kesseley stirring upstairs. Grabbing her gloves and tossing on her bonnet untied, she quickly fled the house before having to face Lady Kesseley again.
It was apparent not ten feet from the door that Samuel had never been on a leash, and hounds had scented every inch of London. Samuel dug in his nails between the pavers, his thick neck taut and hard, refusing her tugs on the leash, fighting to sniff every mounting block. He pulled her down a street of neat white row houses, running parallel with the park. She hadn’t the strength to rein him and clung to his leash, taking a brisk canine tour of Mayfair. She could just see the sign for Oxford Street when Samuel lifted his nose in the air, picked up a new scent, then veered toward the park to the place Kesseley had flagged the hack the afternoon before.
It certainly wasn’t fashionable hour. The park was almost empty but for the people in dark, worn clothes, eyes averted, quietly hurrying to other destinations. She pulled Samuel onto the path, and he actually started to trot beside her, like a good hound.
This was much better, almost enjoyable, as the cool wet, morning breeze blew under her bonnet, tingling her cheeks. For a moment, the sun popped out from between dense clouds and sparkled through the tree leaves. Henrietta’s heart lightened.
A rather proper elderly man with a pearl-handled cane passed her. Henrietta smiled. He only scowled.
What? She looked down. Samuel was hunched, defecating on the soft sable sand.
Samuel!
“Wait here!” she ordered. Samuel’s ears didn’t perk up, like they did when Kesseley issued commands in his deep voice. He just kicked the dirt with his back paws.
Henrietta hurried over to the trees, looking for a fallen stick. She found a nice one with broomlike spindles and turned to brush Samuel’s mess off the pathway, but when she turned back, he was gone!
She pivoted on her heel. No Samuel anywhere.
Oh God. Not only did Kesseley hate her, but she’d lost his dog!
She saw the end of the leash, disappearing down a path. Ughh! She dropped the stick and chased after Samuel, her bonnet dangling behind her head.
Despite his girth, Samuel was fast. He had chased a squirrel up a large oak, and the creature now sat on a branch fluffing his squirrel tail, taunting
Samuel. She grabbed the leash and yanked it.
“I told you to wait, Samuel!”
He only laughed.
Wait, dogs didn’t laugh. She was going mad.
Coming around a bend in the path was a group of giggling young ladies, clustered about a handsome couple, walking serenely arm-in-arm, their heads bowed together as if they were conversing in sweet lovers’ whispers.
Good God! Edward and Lady Sara were not twenty feet from her. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything. It was like watching the oncoming carriage, the pounding of the horses’ hooves, the inevitable impact.
Lady Sara was beautiful, perfectly beautiful, a walking masterpiece of art. Pale, unblemished skin glowed in the morning light. Small blond curls, the delicate kind that didn’t frizz like Henrietta’s, peeked out from her bonnet. She had high graceful cheekbones and full, pale pink lips. Henrietta’s heart sank. How could she compare to such radiance?
And the way Edward gazed at Lady Sara. There was a wondrous light in his eyes—one Henrietta had never seen.
“Samuel, come here!” Henrietta hissed. He ignored her, of course. Using some Herculean strength she never knew she possessed, she dragged Samuel by his hind legs behind the tree. Squatting on her knees, she hugged his big chest and buried his head in his fur.
Please don’t see me! Please don’t see me!
They were just beyond the tree, a few steps from her hiding place, close enough to hear the poem he was reciting:
“Amid the roses, you slumber
Dressed in white,
An innocent mystery in sight,
The muses of sorrow and delight
Implore to me to pause
In my midnight flight
At this garden gate
And look upon my soul’s fate.”
His female audience gave a collective “ahhh” while Henrietta bit down on her lip, hot tears burning her eyes. Then that abominable little squirrel picked that very moment to scurry down the tree and across the path. Samuel gave a powerful lunge, pulling Henrietta with him. Thud! Her head hit the path. Everything went black.