by Mary Balogh
“No, it is not aching,” the duke said impatiently. “Ah, at last.” He turned to watch two menservants carry in large pails of steaming water.
“I shall rub it down for you anyway after you have bathed, sir,” Sidney said. “Sit down and let me tackle that knot or it will be fit only to be sawn through with a knife.”
The duke sat down and lifted his chin like an obedient child.
He was eager to bathe and dress and be on his way upstairs. To see Pamela. Yes, very definitely to see Pamela. There was no one else. There would be no more of the old urge to go up there, to sit in the schoolroom and listen to her talk and turn every lesson into an adventure. From now on there would be only Pamela.
And yet he was impatient to be up there even apart from his eagerness to see his daughter. Perhaps he had to prove to himself that Fleur really was gone. In some ways she was fortunate, he thought. She would be living in a place where he had never been. There would be no ghosts. He was going to have to enter the nursery and the schoolroom, the music room, the library, the long gallery—all the places he associated with her.
But he did not want to think. He would not think. He got restlessly to his feet after Sidney had untied the knot in his neckcloth with almost insolent ease, and pulled impatiently at his shirt buttons. One came off in his hand, and he swore and dropped it onto the washstand.
“Someone must have slept on a mattress made of coal lumps last night,” Sidney said cheerfully to no one in particular.
“And someone is asking to be tossed out on his ear outside this house,” the duke said, discarding his shirt and sitting down again so that his valet could help him remove his Hessian boots.
THE DUCHESS OF RIDGEWAY was in her sitting room. His grace could hear her coughing as he approached. He tapped on the door and waited for her maid to answer it and to curtsy to him and leave the room.
She was standing at the far side of the room, between the slender pillars that supported the entablature. She was dressed in a flowing white nightrobe, her hair loose down her back. She looked as pale as the robe except for the two spots of color high on her cheekbones. She looked thin and gaunt. Surely, the duke thought as he strode toward her, she had lost weight even since he last saw her.
“Sybil,” he said, reaching out his hands for hers and bending to kiss her cheek. “How are you?”
Her hands were as cold as ice, her cheek cool.
“Well,” she said. “I am well, thank you.”
“I heard you coughing,” he said. “Is it still bothering you?”
She laughed and withdrew her hands from his.
“You don’t look well,” he said. “I am going to take you and Pamela to London, where you may consult a physician who knows what he is doing. And then we will go to Bath for a month or two. The change of air and scenery will do us all good.”
“I hate you,” she said in her light, sweet voice. “I wish there were a stronger word to use because I feel more than hatred for you. But I cannot think of any other way of saying it.”
He turned away from her. “He left yesterday?” he asked.
“You know he did,” she said. “You ordered him to leave.”
He passed a hand across his brow. “I suppose you begged him to take you with him,” he said. “Why do you think he refused, Sybil?”
“He has too much regard for my reputation,” she said.
“And he would put your reputation before your happiness?” he said. “And his own? Did you find his refusal convincing?”
“I want to be alone,” she said, crossing to the daybed and sitting down on it. “I want you to go away. I hoped you would not come back this time. I hoped you would find her charms just too enticing. I wish you would go back to her so that I would never have to see you again.”
He sighed and turned to look down at her. “Six years ago,” he said, “I would have given my life to save you from pain, Sybil. I think perhaps I gave more than that. I still hate to see you in misery. You are my wife and I am pledged to do all in my power to secure your safety and happiness. I know you are feeling a pain almost too great to be borne. But nothing can be accomplished by looking back. Can we not just go on together and try to make what remains of our lives at least peaceful?”
She laughed again without looking at him.
“A marriage works in two directions,” he said. “I am your husband, Sybil. You are pledged, too, to do all in your power to secure my happiness. Would it not give your mind something to focus on, trying to please me? I would not be hard to please. I would be satisfied with a little kindness, a little companionship.”
This time she looked at him as she laughed. But the laughter turned to prolonged coughing.
He went down on his knees in front of her, set his hand over the back of her head, offered her his handkerchief. She pushed his hand away.
“On Monday,” he said when the coughing finally stopped, “we will leave for London. In three days’ time. Instruct Armitage to start packing your trunks.”
She laughed again. “You can keep your doctors, Adam,” she said. “No doctor can do anything for me. I want nothing to do with them.” She unfolded her handkerchief and smiled at him as she revealed the bright red spots of blood on it.
He stared at them, felt the blood drain from his head, and lowered his forehead to rest against her knees.
“You must have known,” she said. “If you did not, you must be remarkably stupid. Go away, Adam. I want nothing to do with you or with any of your doctors.”
He raised his head and looked into her face. “Sybil,” he whispered. “Oh, my poor dear. Why have you not said anything before? Dr. Hartley knows? Why did he not tell me? You should not have been going through this alone.”
“Why?” she asked. “Do you plan to die with me, Adam? Or will you just hold my hand through it all? No, thank you. I would prefer to do it alone.”
She turned her head away sharply as her face crumpled before his sight.
He was on his feet instantly and drawing her up and into his arms. He held her close to him, rocked her against him, kissed the top of her head.
But she pushed away from him as soon as she had regained some control. “I want to be alone,” she said. “I want to die alone. If Thomas is not here to hold me, then I will die alone. No!” She turned sharply as he moved his hand toward her. “You do not have to do the generous thing and send for him. That is what you were about to offer to do, isn’t it? I can read you like a book, Adam.”
He said nothing.
“I know he would not come,” she said. “He would not come if I were healthy and you offered me with a million pounds. Do you think he would come to help me die?”
“Sybil,” he said, reaching out a hand to her.
She laughed more harshly than she had laughed before. “Do you think I do not know the truth?” she said. “Do you think I have not always known it deep down? But it does not make me hate you any the less. I hate you for being so noble and so understanding. I hate you for being always so willing to take the blame. I am glad I have consumption. I am glad I am going to die.” She turned her back on him.
“I will not let you go without a fight,” he said. “There are treatments that can help your condition. If only you had told me sooner, or the doctor had—I suppose you swore him to secrecy—we could have been doing something already. A warm climate helps, so I have heard. I shall take you somewhere where it is warm. Spain, perhaps, or Italy. We will go there for the winter. By next summer you will have recovered. Sybil, don’t give up hope. Don’t give up your will to live.”
“I want to lie down,” she said. “Pull on the bell rope to summon Armitage, Adam. I am tired.”
He did so immediately and turned back to her. “I am going to nurse you back to health,” he said, “whether you like it or not. And whether you hate me or not, I am going to keep you alive and with me. And with Pamela. Think of her, Sybil. She needs you alive. She worships you.”
“Poor little darling,�
�� she said. “She will be an orphan indeed when I am gone.”
“She will always have me,” he said. “Her father. And she will have you too. I will have Houghton work on arrangements for a removal to Italy for the winter.”
The maid came into the room at that moment.
“Her grace is unwell and tired,” the duke said. “Help her to her bed, if you please, Armitage.”
He watched his duchess, fragile and lovely, lean heavily on her maid’s arm as they disappeared into the dressing room. He resisted the impulse to scoop her up into his arms and carry her to her bed. He knew that such a gesture would not be appreciated.
TWO DAYS AFTER THE duke’s return, Peter Houghton was sent to London to consult with the duke’s lawyer and Lord Brocklehurst’s to see what he could arrange for Fleur’s comfort. And he was to purchase a pianoforte to send her as a gift to the school. Fleur must have a pianoforte, his grace persuaded himself.
One gift. That would be all. One gift and no more communication ever.
He spent part of the morning of his first day at home taking his daughter and her dog for a long walk. He promised her that in the afternoon they would ride to Mr. Chamberlain’s house so that she could play with the children.
“I will ride with you, Papa,” she said carelessly.
“Not a bit of it,” he said, laughing. “You will ride your own horse, Pamela. I thought you had recovered from your fears.”
“But I will not have Miss Hamilton to ride on my other side,” she said.
“You do not need any assistance,” he said. “You can ride quite well on your own now. I must see about finding you another governess, one who will enjoy going into Italy with us.”
“I don’t want another governess,” she said. “I want Miss Hamilton.”
“Well,” he said, stooping down to scoop the dog up into his arms to carry through the house and up the stairs, “Miss Hamilton has moved on to another life, Pamela. She is teaching a whole schoolful of children.”
“She didn’t like me,” she said, pouting. “I knew all the time that she didn’t like me.”
He set a hand on her head and rubbed hard. “You know that is not true, Pamela,” he said. “She loved you.”
“Then why did she leave?” she asked. “And she did not even say good-bye.”
He sighed and was glad of the diversion caused when the dog leapt from his arms at the top of the stairs and raced for the door into the nursery. Pamela giggled and raced after it.
He strode outside to the stables and had his horse saddled. And he rode for the next few hours, completely forgetting about luncheon, cantering up over the back lawns, through the trees, past the ruins, avoiding the park at the front of the house.
He tried to keep his mind focused on his plans for the future. He would take Sybil to London before they left England. They would find out what the most skilled physician had to say about her condition and her chances of recovery. And then they would go to Italy, at least for the winter months, and he would make sure that she soaked up sunshine every single day.
She was twenty-six years old. Far too young to die.
It was strange, he thought, how a person could know something perfectly well in the far recesses of the mind, and yet not know it at all. Had he known or suspected that Sybil had consumption? All the symptoms had been there, glaring him in the face. But no one had said anything. He would have thought that the doctor, at the very least, would have informed him.
Thomas had mentioned that perhaps she was consumptive. But he had denied the possibility.
Perhaps his own denials had been similar to Sybil’s. She had known the truth about Thomas all along, she had said the day before. And yet at the same time she had not known, or had denied the knowledge even to her own heart.
She was coughing blood already. That meant that the disease was in its final phase, did it not? That there was no hope of recovery?
But he would nurse her back to health.
If only, he thought, she were willing to accept his care, his companionship, the affection he was still willing to give her. But she was not.
Sybil had always been her own worst enemy, he thought. Undoubtedly her experience with Thomas, a pregnancy outside wedlock, and the compulsion on her to marry Adam though she did not love him had all been searing indeed. He would not belittle the pain she must have lived through. How could he when he was living through much the same pain himself? But she could have helped herself.
If she had really known deep down that Thomas had cruelly abandoned her, she could have made an effort to make at least something of her marriage. She could have lavished all her love on Pamela, even if not on himself. Since all happiness had been taken from her, she could have concentrated on giving happiness to other people.
But Sybil’s character was not a strong one. Had she been given happiness, doubtless she would have remained sweet all her life. But she was a taker, not a giver, and once everything she held dear had been taken from her, there had been nothing left in her life except bitterness and hatred and a desperate reaching out for sensual gratification.
He could only feel deeply sorry for her. And obliged to help her through this new and worst crisis in her life. It would be too sad for her to die so young and without ever having discovered that there was a great deal to give to life.
It was not easy, of course, to turn one’s back on the pains of the past and give all one’s energies to the present and the future. Not easy at all.
He found himself after all turning his horse’s head for the front of the house and cantering over the rolling lawns of the long park. And then galloping, urging Hannibal on to ever faster and faster speed, never quite able to outdistance his thoughts.
He turned almost by instinct to his left after a couple of miles and leapt the gate into the pasture. And he drew up on the reins and patted his horse’s neck. And looked back and saw her in memory sailing over the gate after him with a foot to spare. He bent his head forward and closed his eyes.
No, it was not easy. He had had a sleepless night, his arms and his body aching for her. And he remembered again the softness and fragrance of her hair, the smooth silkiness of her skin, the fullness of her breasts, her small waist and flaring hips, her long, slim legs, her hot and eager mouth, her warm and wet and womanly depths.
And he remembered her quiet and sleepy and warm in his arms between lovings, smiling at him in the dim candlelight, words between them quite unnecessary. And holding his hand in the carriage, her shoulder resting just below the level of his.
Fleur. God. Fleur.
If Sybil died, the thought came unbidden, he would be able to marry Fleur.
He shook his head violently and turned his horse for the long walk up through the pasture. He was not going to let her die. She was his wife and ill and unhappy. He was not going to let her die.
He was not going to think of Fleur. He had no right to think of her. He was married to Sybil.
He followed the route he had taken on a previous occasion with Fleur. And yet, after passing through the gate back into the park, he took a different direction until his horse stepped out onto the path on the south side of the lake, opposite the pavilion on the island.
Where he had waltzed with Fleur during the outdoor ball.
Just there. On the path. She had been terrified of him, terrified of his touch. She had closed her eyes very tightly. And then the music and the atmosphere had caught her up in their magic as they had caught him up, and they had waltzed as if they had been made to dance together all their lives.
Beautiful, beautiful Fleur in her plain blue gown and with her glorious fire-gold hair.
He stared at the spot where they had danced. But there was no music, no lanternlight. No Fleur.
Just a sunlit path and the sounds of the breeze in the trees and of birds singing.
He swallowed twice and turned his horse for home.
Sybil had gone into Wollaston that morning. He must go to her to see that she
was safely back and none the worse for her outing. It was such a beautiful warm day. Perhaps she would like to take a short walk, leaning on his arm.
And perhaps hell would freeze over too.
THEY WERE TO LEAVE at the end of September, more than three months after Fleur had left Willoughby Hall. The Duke of Ridgeway was thankful to have at least part of the autumn in England. He wandered about his land, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, sometimes alone, sometimes with his daughter and the collie if they were on foot glorying in the changing colors of the leaves and the many-colored carpet underfoot. Pamela liked to walk on the crisp leaves with him, crunching them underfoot.
He knew that he would miss it all during the winter. He was reminded of the long months and years of the campaigns against Bonaparte and his homesickness then as he traveled about with the armies.
But they must leave. Sybil did not want to go, and stubbornly declared that she would not do so. But this was one matter on which he would exert his authority and insist on obedience. If she had no will to live, then he would have the will for her. He would inject his own strength into her and make her well again.
She did not show many outer signs of her illness. With her guests gone, she was restless again and constantly out visiting, sometimes taking Pamela with her, though more often going alone. When she invited guests to the house—he rarely did so for fear of overtiring her—she sparkled and was gay. Duncan Chamberlain looked distinctly uncomfortable one evening when she chose to flirt with him.
But there were times—sometimes whole days together—when a high fever and the coughing kept her confined to her own rooms.
The duke visited her there daily, asking after her health, trying to draw her into conversation. She was not to be drawn.
And she would not go to Italy or see any of his doctors, she declared whenever he raised the subject.
She kept to her rooms the day before that set for their departure. Peter Houghton took her mail there to her late in the morning, including a letter from a friend in London with whom she often corresponded.
It was a cold and blustery day, one that constantly threatened rain. It was high time they were on their way to warmer climes, the duke thought as he left the nursery, where all was excitement and half-packed trunks, and made his way downstairs to pay his daily call on his wife. She had not come to luncheon.