Of Moths and Butterflies

by V. R. Christensen

  “What is this?”

  “If that’s what you want, take it! Take me and—”

  He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him. Hard. “And what?” he said, his own emotion threatening to choke him as he saw the fear in her eyes. He waited for her answer.

  It came, though it was little more than a whisper. “–and leave me alone.”

  What she was asking was impossible. Neither was it possible she meant it. Tentatively she tried to reclaim her hand. He let it go and she took a step back from him.

  He approached her once more to hold her head between his hands. He looked at her. Really looked. At her flushed face, her chest that heaved with each breath, the contours of her neck. Those lips, the bottom slightly fuller than the top. Her perfect nose.

  Her eyes, flashing and darting, betrayed her uncertainty. She was afraid and yet… She made no effort now to free herself. But he had tried this before, to little effect. To ill effect. Everything in him wanted her at that moment, to have her near him, against him, in his arms. He wanted to love her and to be loved by her. And though she had said the words, though she was there within his reach, under his power should he wish to exert it, he was helpless to gain from her what he really wanted.

  He had nothing to say, no reassurances to give. To attempt it now would be pointless. He released her and left the room and soon the house as well. On his way to who knew where. But he must be away. He had made her a promise. If he was to keep it, he simply had to put some distance between himself and the Abbey.

  * * *

  Imogen, after Archer’s hasty flight, found herself unable to hold together any longer. She sank down onto the floor and with her face buried in one of his old shirts—one that vaguely smelled of him—she released the tears of sorrow and anger, frustration and fear.

  Yes, she was afraid of him, though not in the way she had feared others. Neither did she wish for him to take what she would not freely give. But the truth was, that whatever his right as her husband, she could not give what had already been taken. It was safer, far better to be that numb impenetrable woman she had determined to be. But he was equally determined to tear down her defences. Tear them down and leave. And he would leave again, for good, when he learned the truth. And he would learn it. One way or another.

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  Chapter forty

  RCHER ARRIVED IN London. How he got there was something of a mystery to him. He had gone to the station out of habit. As though he were some automaton, he had boarded the train. Once arrived, and without thinking, his legs carried him to the entrance of his club. But what was he to do here? He had no allowance to gamble away. What he possessed, everything he possessed, was hers. His by law, yes. But his uncle’s to direct and dispose of as he saw fit. It was what he had agreed upon just to have her. It was what was required of him. To pay the debts. To restore the house, and the family, to the image of respectability. Would there be anything left when they had finished?

  Great day, what had he done? He had not bought her. That would have been more honourable than the truth. No, he had sold her. He had stood by and allowed her to be sold. No wonder she could not trust him. Perhaps it was too much to expect she ever should.

  Standing, blind, numb and bewildered in the foyer of the New Saxon Gentleman’s Club, Archer at last realised that a question had been put to him. Blinking, he awoke and turned to the porter standing beside him.

  “Is there anything I might do for you, sir?”

  “No,” Archer answered. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You’ve come to dine, perhaps?”

  “Yes.” That was it. “Of course.”

  “Very well, sir,” the porter said and, bowing, he led the way to the dining room. Archer entered. Then turned again to make a hasty exit.

  “Hamilton!”

  Devil take it!

  “I hadn’t expected to see you here two weeks after your marriage,” Roger Barrett, said to him, and with an arm held out, beckoned him to share a table.

  Archer, seeing no alternative, sat, as he was bid to do.

  Barrett resumed his own chair and poured a drink for his friend and former rival.

  “Things are well, I trust?” Barrett asked in a tone that suggested he expected the answer to be to his liking.

  But how to answer such a question? He couldn’t.

  Barrett persistent. “Mrs. Hamilton is well?”

  Taking a drink, Archer stalled for time. At last he set his glass down. “She’s in perfect health, Barrett. Thank you.”

  “She is not with you, I take it.”

  “No.”

  “You’ve come alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Barrett cleared his throat and set his drink aside. His voice, when he spoke again, was taut. “Is there trouble at home?”

  “I’m not sure what business it is of yours.”

  Barrett leaned back in his chair, affecting a calm Archer knew quite well he didn’t feel. “You are my friend. She is my cousin. I’m concerned. I wish to see you both happy.”

  “A little time, I think, is necessary. It all came about rather suddenly, you know.”

  “You’ve not quite adjusted, then, to your change in circumstances? Or she has not, perhaps.”

  “No, not quite.”

  “I confess I’m a little put out to hear it.”

  “Well you didn’t expect it would be all bliss and sunshine from the start, did you?”

  Barrett didn’t answer right away, but examined Archer long and hard. “No. No, I suppose I expected some difficulty. But I was also under the impression you meant to do your utmost to mitigate that.”

  “Of course, I did. I still do. Only tell me how it’s to be done, will you? You seem always to have the right answers.”

  Barrett folded his arms across his chest and exhaled heavily.

  “You’ve spoken to me yourself of her difficulties,” Archer continued. “It cannot come as a surprise that they remain an obstacle yet.”

  “No, but what have you done in the meantime to persuade her to overcome them?”

  “Were it as easy as that.”

  “If you love her—”

  Archer could feel the vein pulsing in his temple. “I would have been able to prove it by now? Is that what you mean to suggest? I’m sure you think things might have been easier for you. Perhaps they would have been. I don’t know. But to assume that it’s not a success because I’ve not tried is presuming a great deal, indeed.”

  Silence followed this.

  “So now what?” Barrett said eventually.

  Archer shook his head, helpless. “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve come to Town, but for what purpose?”

  Archer knew not how to answer. He didn’t know why he had come. He had a faint idea of a purpose to achieve, but not here. He’d arrived in London out of habit; that was all.

  “The charade falls away pretty quickly at the first sign of real trouble, doesn’t it?”

  “What can you mean?”

  Barrett leaned forward across the table. When he spoke again his voice was low and filled with resentment. “If you had even the slightest concept of your good fortune, Hamilton, you’d not be here. I suppose you’ve had a row and have left her at home? To prove some absurd point, is it?”

  Archer realised for the first time that he had not thought how she might view his absence. Had he made a mistake?

  “You’ll make it, I have no doubt. You’ll have your fill of someone else and return home. And with your luck she’ll forgive you.”

  What was Barrett on about now? Lost in his own troubling thoughts, Archer had hardly been listening.

  “A man has his needs, I understand that.”

  “What?”

  “Perhaps it will prove your point after all. It wouldn’t have done for me, but it might just do for you. You’re fortunate in that respect, you know? She expects so little, a woman or two on the side will hardly seem beyond the pale to her.”

>   Archer, at last realising Barrett’s meaning, was on his feet, his jaw set and ready for battle. “Just what do you mean by that?”

  Barrett remained unaffected. The look on his face was one of a man deeply disappointed, and the feeling—for Archer knew it well—took all the fight out of him.

  Barrett, too, stood. “Go to your woman, Hamilton,” he said, throwing down his napkin. “Get whatever it is you need—and go home.” And without another word, he turned from him.

  “Where are you going?” Archer heard himself ask. He knew the answer already.

  “I’m going to pay a visit to a relation in Kent.”

  Archer was left alone in a crowded dining room with a lump of granite in the hollow of his stomach. Yes, he must go home. He saw that. It had been wrong to leave her. He would go. Soon. But not yet.

  * * *

  Imogen awoke in the dark of Charlie’s room, cold and stiff from the stone floor on which she had fallen asleep. In need of air and exercise, she left the house as the day was just beginning to fade, and as the sun’s slanted rays cast amber and gold across the March sky. Cloaking herself in the growing shadows, she left the shelter of the garden for the open expanse of meadow, where she had walked once before, as a fugitive.

  The meadow, once strewn with blossoms, had grown rank and weedy under winter’s supervision. Strange to think it was but five months ago that she had fled here in search of safety. Was she safe now from leering and cold-hearted uncles? Was she safe from adventuring gentlemen? Was she safe from grasping aunts? This last perhaps. It was an undeniable relief to be beyond her family’s power. And yet…had she truly placed herself beyond it? She had not heard from Muriel since her marriage. No doubt she was busy hunting down the treasures she believed had been hidden in her brother’s house. If she failed to find them… Well, Imogen would no doubt hear from her sooner or later.

  Julia had written, though. She had sent a note of congratulations and kind wishes for her happiness, and a few kind words of counsel, as well. She had not heard from Roger. Imogen felt his silence, and his absence, now more than ever. Her heart had been stirred to its need for love and understanding. And from whom better than he who knew all and loved her regardless? From he whose affection was and had always been a source of comfort to her. But he was not here. Nor was Archer. Imogen turned to look back toward the house. Where had he gone? How long would he stay away?

  She heard the footsteps before the voice and turned once more to the open meadow.

  “Miss Shaw,” the gentleman said. Then, correcting himself; “Forgive me. Mrs. Hamilton.”

  “Mr. Wyndham.”

  He had appeared seemingly from nowhere. From over the ridge of a gently sloping hill, or from behind an abandoned hayrick. He stopped upon reaching her and turned to examine the view of the meadow from where she stood.

  “Were you going for a walk? This late in the evening?”

  If that had been her intention a moment ago, it was no longer. “I was just returning to the Abbey,” she answered him.

  “Ah. You are going my way then. We might walk together.”

  There was no reasonable objection she could make to this, and so, reluctantly, she fell into step beside him.

  “What has you out wandering so late, Miss Shaw–? Beg your pardon. Mrs. Hamilton.”

  She felt instinctively that his fumbling was more to prove a point than for any difficulty remembering her altered circumstances.

  “I find the Abbey too close at times. I needed the air. And the exercise.”

  “Your husband did not choose to accompany you?”

  “No,” she said, and felt her breath catch. She hoped he had not heard it. “He is away at present.”

  “Gone?” Wyndham whistled in astonishment.

  “Yes. He had business in Town, I believe.”

  “It was my understanding Hamilton had dispensed with all his London affairs when he married.”

  Perfectly aware of the double entendre, she chose to ignore him. But he would not be ignored, it seemed.

  “I feel as though I’ve done you a great wrong, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  “Your impertinence is no remarkable burden, Mr. Wyndham. I’ve endured far worse.”

  “Well, that’s just the thing, isn’t it? I might have spared you a great deal of pain and heartache. Sir Edmund can only blame himself if you are not all he wished for his nephew. Hamilton, however… Had I known where it was leading, I’d have warned you.”

  “Warned me?”

  “Oh, I do not blame Hamilton for his choice,” Wyndham went on, and then stopped to pass an assessing and entirely too thorough gaze over her. “Temptation sometimes leads us to think too much of our own desires. I only hope you will not be made to regret it too greatly.”

  She did not answer him. She did not wish to know his meaning. Her anxieties already piqued by this morning’s interview with Archer, she dared not wish to raise them further by encouraging Wyndham in his suppositions. Still, she felt his words, and feared that there was nevertheless some truth in them.

  “So Hamilton is away, is he? So soon after the nuptials, too. How very thoughtless of him to leave you.”

  Again, silence was her only answer.

  “Mrs. Hamilton, forgive me,” he said, and stopping, he turned to her. “Here you are, feeling the loss of your husband, perhaps seeking some diversion from it, and I am rubbing the salt into your wounds.”

  “Think nothing of it, Mr. Wyndham. Mr. Hamilton had some urgent business to attend to. That is all.”

  “If it was anything less than life or death, my dear, then he’s a fool.”

  They walked for a time in tense silence, until they began to close in upon the Abbey.

  “The house is much improved under your management, I understand.”

  “It is cleaner and brighter. I’m afraid we are still deplorably short of staff.”

  “And you will soon see to that as well, I imagine.”

  “I’ve been given leave to manage the improvements. No more than that, Mr. Wyndham.”

  “Given leave?” he echoed, and whistled again. “I was under the impression you had returned as mistress of the place. Is that as high as they’ve raised you, then? It’s no wonder you should regret. That it should come so soon, though, that’s the greater pity.”

  “I did not say I regretted my marriage, Mr. Wyndham.”

  “No? Perhaps not yet. But I would not shrink from asserting myself, Mrs. Hamilton. What little power you have over your own circumstances should not be abandoned quite so readily as you seem to have done.”

  “Power?”

  “You know what I mean, of course. You’ve shown your aptitude, or so I’ve been informed, in regards to the improvements. I’d like to see them. Perhaps you would show me some time?”

  Uncertain in what light to consider Mr. Wyndham’s advice, or this request, she answered him, though cautiously. “If you wish it.”

  “I do.” Wyndham took a glance toward the house and suddenly fell very grave. “Though perhaps it will have to wait until another time.”

  Imogen looked up to see Sir Edmund’s silhouette framed within the open doorway of the Abbey’s dining room.

  “I think you must be late for dinner,” Wyndham said and took her hand. Which he pressed to his lips before glancing back in Sir Edmund’s direction. The gesture was unexpected, almost exaggerated, and she felt somehow shamed by it.

  She watched him as he made his way back toward the garden, then disappeared around a far corner of the house. Moving on once more, Imogen prepared to return to her room through the west wing cloisters.

  Sir Edmund stopped her. “It’s getting late, Mrs. Hamilton. Dinner is waiting.”

  “I can take it in my room, sir,” she said hesitating only long enough to deliver her answer with the appropriate degree of respect before moving on.

  “Your place is in the dining room. Or has that not yet been made clear to you?”

  It seemed there was no gainsaying him,
and so, reluctantly, she acquiesced. She entered the dining room as he held the door for her. As she passed him, she felt a chill come over her, as though she could feel the sum of all his malicious and unholy thoughts. His outward manner, however, was respectful and remained that way until the first course was laid out and the servants, to her alarm, were dismissed.

  “I see you’ve had little trouble finding someone to fill in while your husband’s away,” he said.

  With all the dignity she could muster, she answered him. “Sir?”

  “He’s been gone what, three hours? Four? Is it possible you cannot survive an entire evening without seeking to have your vanity excited by some drivelling half love-starved idiot?”

  “Is that your view of your nephews?” she said coolly as she took up her soup spoon.

  “Archer’s rearing has been without a mother’s influence. Such usually engenders exaggerated feelings of neglect in the way of maternal affection.”

  “Is it not possible that you’ve exaggerated it by your own neglect?”

  “Perhaps it is necessary, after all, to remind you just what your place is!”

  “Perhaps it is,” was her answer, as she set her spoon down again. “I’m perfectly happy to dine in my room, or in the kitchen with the other servants, if you would prefer.”

  “You may have returned to work, Mrs. Hamilton, but your responsibilities are somewhat greater now than they ever were before. And you have so far ignored the better part of them. Your life is not quite one of leisure, but then it never was, was it?” His sneer raised the hair on her arms. “Still, what I expect—”

  “Then why?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Why me? There were others who might have pleased you better. There were others more willing than I to do all you wish. You knew that. So why?”

  Sir Edmund took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. “The easiest way to keep my nephew from driving me to distraction with his moping is to give him what he wants. And as he was foolish enough to believe he wanted you, and as I saw he needed the care of a woman since he’s missed its influence so far, I gave it to him.”