Anna frowned. The sun was already high in the sky. James usually finished his ride much earlier, and he knew she was coming. “Is Lady Selsley in?” she asked.
“I believe her ladyship is a trifle indisposed.” Was that a flicker of dismay on Thirkettle’s correct façade?
Anna had certainly hoped for more of a welcome than this on her last visit to the house of her birth. “I should like to see her before I sail,” she said simply. “Perhaps she would be willing to receive me in her rooms?”
Thirkettle considered. “I shall ask her, ma’am.”
She waited in the entry while he sent a footman upstairs. Within five minutes, he returned, bowed and said, “Mrs. Arrington, Lady Selsley will receive you in the yellow sitting room.”
Lucy awaited Anna’s arrival with some trepidation. She wasn’t sure James wanted her to receive any guests at all, especially not the sister whose life Lucy had helped ruin, and in her guilt she dreaded seeing Anna in her own right. But Anna was going so far away, and for who knew how long, so Lucy didn’t think it right to refuse to see her.
Lucy had had no contact at all with her husband the day before. She had pleaded an indisposition, claiming to suffer from monthly cramps, which in reality had never particularly troubled her, and Molly had fussed over her like a hen with one chick, obliging her to submit to a foul-tasting tea that Cook swore by and to having hot compresses applied to her back—hardly a pleasant remedy on a hot July afternoon. But she knew all the servants must be aware that something had gone seriously awry between her and James, and that all her maid’s fussing over her physical condition was merely a polite front for more intimate worries she was too correct to express.
Today Lucy had abandoned the pretense that she was so ill she must keep to her bed, and she was in her sitting room sketching when the footman came to announce that Anna had arrived and wished to see her. Hurriedly she closed her sketchbook—perversely, she had been unable to concentrate on any of the landscapes or still lifes she had attempted and had taken to producing studies of James in several states of dress and undress, drawn from memory.
The footman knocked softly and opened the door. “Mrs. Arrington,” he announced.
Lucy stood, and Anna hurried into the room as the footman stepped out and closed the door behind him. “My dear Lucy.” She caught her in an impetuous embrace, looking almost like her old spirited self. “I hope you are quite well.”
“I am,” Lucy replied, momentarily forgetting her supposed illness.
“Are you certain? Thirkettle told me you were indisposed.”
Lucy blushed in confusion. “As to that—the merest trifle, I assure you.”
“I’m glad.”
“Do sit down,” Lucy said, indicating the chair opposite hers as she resumed her own seat. “I hope you’re well.”
“Oh, yes.” Anna pressed her lips together and turned her head to gaze out the window. “I’m well. There’s so much to do, and I know so little of what to expect once we reach Portugal, but…I’m sure I shall do very well.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Lucy asked, feeling obscurely that she had a duty to do whatever she could to separate Anna and Sebastian.
“It’s what I must do,” Anna said, turning back to meet Lucy’s eyes again. “But I didn’t come here to talk about myself. I wanted to say my farewells, and how glad I am that you and James—” Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “You’ve quarreled, haven’t you?”
Too surprised to dissemble, Lucy could only say, “How did you know?”
Anna shrugged, then leaned forward to grasp Lucy’s hands. “A lucky guess. You hidden away up here, him out riding so late in the morning…and now that I happen to think of it, the servants all seem rather tense. It’s in the very atmosphere of the place, and I suppose I’m becoming—that is, one can’t help noticing such things.”
So Anna could recognize an unhappy marriage because of her own intimate experience with such things. Lucy longed to weep for them all. “Yes, we quarreled.”
“May I ask why?” Anna said, her eyes alight with curiosity and concern.
“I’d really rather not say.” She certainly couldn’t tell Anna, of all people, what had happened.
“Of course not,” Anna said smoothly. “Only, if I may offer you a little sisterly advice, I don’t think hiding is the best way to resolve anything with James. He likes to have his bluster out, and he can’t do that if he doesn’t see you.”
Lucy shook her head and blinked back tears. “He—he’s made it quite clear he has no wish to see me.”
Anna frowned. “He did? That’s so odd—but still, you mustn’t heed him. Make him see you. Make him listen to you. That’s the only way to break him out of this.”
“I don’t know if it would do any good.”
“I think it would. I know my brother.” Her eyebrows flew up as if a new idea had just struck her. “Lucy. I said I wasn’t going to talk of my troubles, but…Sebastian was much like a brother to you, I suppose.”
“He was,” Lucy allowed cautiously, “though I was quite young when he joined his regiment.”
“Perhaps you might advise me.” Anna studied her hands, her eyes deeply downcast. “What would you do if Sebastian had…had completely misunderstood you? If he believed something false? How would you convince him you were telling the truth?”
Was Anna about to tell her what had gone wrong? “What—” she began.
“I’d rather not say, either,” Anna said quickly, her face crimsoning.
Lucy nodded. She must respect that, though she would ask James if he had any notion—no, she wouldn’t. She could never tell James anything again, for they would live separate lives. She didn’t truly believe she could repair their relationship by following Anna’s advice and confronting him.
“But,” Anna continued, “how would you change Sebastian’s mind?”
Lucy pondered for a moment. “I’m not sure. I can’t think of any case where I needed to change his mind, offhand, but I do know he can be very…stubborn. Fixed in his ways. I’m sorry I can’t offer better advice than that.”
“Well,” Anna said, “it’s as I expected, then. I suppose I must be patient and persistent.”
“I’m so sorry!” Lucy cried impulsively, unable to bear Anna’s unhappiness and her share in it.
“Sorry for what?”
She couldn’t tell the whole truth; it wouldn’t be just or kind, but perhaps if she told some part of it. “I should’ve known you and Sebastian wouldn’t suit. I should’ve spoken—”
“How could you possibly have known any such thing? You hardly knew me.”
“I knew Sebastian,” Lucy said miserably. She took a deep breath and tried to determine what she could and couldn’t say. “I knew that he could be cold, and that he sometimes…puts his self-interest before his principles.”
“Lucy. I wouldn’t have listened.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what,” Anna said firmly. “I would have convinced myself that your view of him as a cousin had no relevance for me as his wife, or that you’d exaggerated childhood slights that had no bearing on who he was as a man. Or I might have even thought you were jealous—though not after you became engaged to James. Anyone could see you were taken with each other.”
Lucy bit her lip. She couldn’t be sure that Anna would have gone so far as to disbelieve her engagement, though she could readily picture Sebastian passing it off as some kind of misunderstanding or youthful delusion. James would have believed her, though, and armed with the truth would have persuaded his uncle to forbid the marriage.
Anna took Lucy’s hand again. “Please, Lucy, don’t feel guilty over this. James tried to warn me, and I didn’t listen to him, not the least bit. I simply wasn’t of a mind to heed anyone’s advice. I was a fool—I know that now. But it was my mistake and no one else’s, and I—I won’t have you burdened with it. It isn’t your fault. No matter what you knew. Believe me, I’m unhappy enough o
n my own account. I’d feel that much worse if you insisted upon claiming a share.”
Lucy couldn’t quite follow Anna’s logic, but she felt as if her burden of guilt had lightened, at least a trifle. “I wish it hadn’t happened,” she said. “I wish you were happy.”
“So do I!” Anna exclaimed with a rueful noise that was half laugh and half sob. “And perhaps I shall be, in due course. I haven’t surrendered all hope yet. As for you—please do find a way to make up your quarrel with James and make him happy. I want to think of the two of you filling this house with laughter—and babies, soon. I should dearly love a nursery full of nieces and nephews to visit when I come back.”
“There’s nothing I’d like more,” Lucy said. “Only, I don’t know that he’ll let me.”
And suddenly they were both crying on each other’s shoulders. Dimly Lucy heard the door open with a barely perceptible creak. She turned her head to find James regarding them, troubled and amazed.
James hadn’t forbidden Lucy to have visitors—he hoped he wasn’t such an ogre—but he had never imagined that she would receive Anna, of all people. So he had been shocked when Thirkettle had told him that Mrs. Arrington was upstairs with Lady Selsley, and now he stood aghast to discover those two women, who in their separate ways had brought him to a level of heartbreak and misery he had never suspected was possible, seated together in an embrace of shared unhappiness and consolation.
He stared at them, and for a long silent moment they stared back out of red, wet eyes. He ached with love for both of them, beloved sister trapped in wedlock to a heartless, faithless cad, and dear wife, who had only done what she in her inexperience and ignorance thought best. Sebastian Arrington’s victims, both of them. And James understood then that he did still love his wife, despite everything, and he admitted to himself that of course Lucy had acted with the best of intentions for all concerned. Lucy didn’t have a cruel or selfish bone in her body.
She deserved forgiveness, certainly. But when he looked at Anna, his sister, blood of his blood, and saw her mute misery, he didn’t know if he had the strength to give Lucy what she deserved. How could he live at her side, day and night, and not be tormented by thoughts of Anna’s unhappiness, and of Lucy’s kinship to and innocent complicity with the man who had brought it about?
He didn’t think he could. Yet somehow without his really planning it his feet carried him into the room. He sank to his knees between Anna and Lucy and held out his arms. They swayed against him—Anna first, Lucy more hesitantly—and soon all three of them were locked together in a knot of silent grief and affection. The women wept freely, and James’s own eyes stung.
After a few minutes, Anna drew back, and James and Lucy followed suit. “James,” Anna said. “I should like to speak with you in private, if I may.”
“Of course. We’ll go to the Little Parlor.”
Lucy shook her head. “You needn’t do that. I’ll go to my room.”
She got to her feet, not quite meeting his eyes, but he caught her hand and pressed it for a moment. He was still racked with uncertainty, but he hoped to convey at least something of the restored warmth and forgiveness he was beginning to feel. She smiled tremulously and returned the pressure.
“Thank you, Lucy,” Anna said.
“You’re welcome. Please come and see me before you leave.”
“I will.”
Lucy slipped out into the corridor, closing the door behind her with a quiet click. James took the chair she had vacated, and he and Anna regarded each other awkwardly for a moment.
“I’ve been considering—” he began.
“James, you really must—” she said at the same moment.
It broke the tension, and they laughed ruefully. “You first,” she said.
“Very well.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve been considering your situation. If you wish for a separation—and I think it the wisest course—you may stay with us here until we can make arrangements.”
“James. I don’t wish for a separation.”
“But…you’re unhappy. I can tell. I’ve never seen you like this before.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I haven’t been wed a fortnight. I’m not abandoning my marriage that quickly.”
“It needn’t be a formal arrangement,” he pleaded. “Just don’t sail for Lisbon with him. Nine brides in ten wouldn’t follow the drum even if their marriages were happy. Stay here with us. You can write each other, and if you want to try again when he returns, I’ll support you. But let your family take care of you.”
“No, James,” she said. “I must do this if I’m to have any chance at all at a normal marriage. If I’m to prove—” She shook her head, cutting the sentence off unfinished. “If I go with him, I have a chance. If I don’t go…well, then I might as well go back to Dunmalcolm for good now.”
“You, prove something to him?” James said. “He’s the one who’s not worthy of you. If you had any notion what sort of man he is—”
“I think I do,” she said quietly. “I’m beginning to have a very good understanding of his character.”
“Then why stay with him? Why not go straight home to Dunmalcolm?”
“Because I don’t care for a life of nunlike seclusion.”
“It needn’t be nunlike if you’re discreet,” James pointed out.
Anna’s eyes flashed. “I don’t care for that, either! I don’t want a—a tawdry life of sneaking about to meet with my lovers and hiding any children I happen to bear, any more than I want to live at Dunmalcolm as a perpetual not-quite-maiden aunt to Robin’s children. I want to be a proper wife, with my own household to manage and my own children to bring up. You were right about Sebastian, and I was a fool to marry anyone in such haste. But he’s the only husband I have, and the only way I can have the life I want is to find a way to make the best of it.”
“But, Anna—I can’t bear to see you so unhappy. I want to help you escape.”
“I know. But it’s my life, and you can’t live it for me. You can’t manage all of us, James—you cannot truly manage anyone but yourself.”
Was he so interfering? He was afraid he might be, but he must be sure she understood the consequences of staying with her husband. “You do realize that it might be harder for you to separate from Arrington in a few years than it is now, even if you’re still unhappy. If you were to have a child—”
“James. I realize that. I think you’d find me as clear-thinking as you could wish, now. But it’s a chance I must take.”
He studied her for a moment. Despite her obvious unhappiness, she looked calm and full of resolve, and James realized that his sister had become more woman than girl. If only she hadn’t had to pay so high a price for maturity! But he also saw a certain stubbornness, a spark in her eyes that told him he’d been wrong to think her husband had broken her spirit. Anna’s inner fires had only been banked, not extinguished. For that reason he forbore to plead with her any longer. Besides, he had pushed her too hard before her marriage, which had only brought out the Gordon stubbornness, making her more determined to have her own way. He should have known better. But, as ever, he’d lacked subtlety.
She was right. He had to let her go, let her fight her own battle to overcome her mistake and build a worthwhile life for herself. But if she ever wanted his help…
“If you change your mind,” he said, “if you want to leave him, or if you ever need my help for anything, you must write to me that instant.”
She smiled. “I will.”
“I’ll move heaven and earth for you. I’ll come to the Peninsula myself to bring you home if I have to cross a dozen battlefields to do it.”
Anna laughed, though her eyes had grown suspiciously bright. “I doubt it will come to that. But, James, if I may ask you to do one thing for me?”
“Anything.”
“Make up your quarrel with Lucy. Let me have the satisfaction of knowing that one of us is happy.”
“It’s not as s
imple as that.”
“Nothing ever is, is it? But do it anyway.”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“No, unless it’s something to do with Lucy feeling so guilty that she didn’t try to stop Sebastian and me from marrying.”
Surely Lucy hadn’t revealed the broken engagement. What good could it do now? “She—what did she tell you?” he sputtered.
“Simply that she had knowledge of his character that would’ve proved him an unsuitable husband, and that she wished she’d spoken. Of course I assured her I wouldn’t have believed her.”
Anna didn’t know the whole of it—and James wondered if she would be quite so calmly forgiving if she had. But it still pricked him with guilt to realize Anna had been more willing to offer forgiveness to her sister-in-law than he had been to his wife. “I wish she’d spoken, nonetheless,” he said.
“James, don’t. She couldn’t have known. None of us could, though I was a fool to be so hasty. For God’s sake, don’t make yourself miserable on my account. I know you’re fond of Lucy, and I think you’re well suited. You balance each other.”
“I love her,” he said quietly.
Anna shook her head with a rueful laugh. “Then why are you still here talking to me? Go and tell her so.”
Of course that was what he should be doing. But—“And leave you alone?”
“I didn’t come solely to say my farewells,” she said. “I need to sort through the things I left here—determine what to take with me and what to leave with you. I’ll ask Mrs. Ellis and some of the maids to help me, so I won’t even truly be alone.”
He was on his feet almost before he’d planned it. “I’ll—we’ll join you as soon as—” wait, that was too certain, what if Lucy didn’t forgive him? “—that is to say, if…”
Anna grinned, looking for a moment like her old self. “I understand. Run along, now.”
He obeyed.
Lucy paced her room in an agony of hope. He had held her while they wept, he had looked upon her with kindness in his eyes, he had pressed her hand. Had he forgiven her? If James forgave her, she believed she could forgive herself.
A Marriage of Inconvenience Page 29