by Mary Balogh
He was still a good-looking man in a thin, bookish sort of way. He was still good company. And oh, it felt very good indeed to have a man conversing exclusively with her for all of an hour. And to be walking with her arm drawn through his. If she was not very careful indeed, she would fall in love with him all over again—and how foolish that would be at her age.
Then he asked about Cassie, and she realized that he did not know.
“It must have been distressing,” he said, “for Lady Paget to lose her husband at so young an age. Was she very fond of him?”
Alice hesitated. It was not for her to answer that question either way. Though if what he assumed had been true, of course, she would quite readily agree with him without feeling that she was breaking some confidence. She could answer noncommittally, but it was possible, even probable, that he would hear the rumors one of these days, and then he would think that she had not trusted him.
“He was an abuser of the worst order,” she said. “Any fondness she felt for him when she married him quickly died.”
“Oh, goodness me,” he said. “Miss Haytor, how dreadful! There is no man more despicable, I believe, than a wife-beater. He is the worst kind of bully.”
She could have left it at that.
“He died violently,” she said. “Some say that Cassie did it. Indeed, I believe she is notorious here in town, where the story is that she is an axe murderer.”
“Miss Haytor!” He stopped abruptly and dropped her arm in order to turn to look at her with shocked, dismayed eyes. “It cannot possibly be true!”
“He was shot,” she said, “with his own pistol.”
“By …?” he asked, his dark eyebrows arced up into his forehead. “By Lady Paget?”
“No,” she said. And when he continued to stare at her, not moving, “It could have been me.”
“Could have?” he said.
“I hated him enough,” she said. “I never thought it possible that I could hate anyone with any degree of intensity, but I hated him. A thousand times I thought of leaving to seek employment elsewhere, but a thousand times I remembered that my dear Cassie did not have the same freedom to leave and that I was almost all she had to comfort her. I could have done it, Mr. Golding. I could have killed him. He had beaten her terribly any number of times, and he was at it again that night. Yes, I could have done it. I could have taken that gun in my own hands and … shot him.”
“But you did not?” He was almost whispering.
“I might have done it,” she said stubbornly. “Perhaps I did. But I would be a fool to confess because there is no proof of who did it. Anyone would be a fool to confess. He deserved to die.”
And so much for a possibly rekindled romance, she thought as he took off his spectacles, withdrew a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and proceeded to polish them without looking at them at all. It was just a shame that there was still quite a distance to go to the picnic site. The poor man must wonder what he had walked into. He must be desperate to get away. She looked steadily and defiantly into his eyes as he put his spectacles back on and looked back at her, a frown creasing his brow.
“Lady Paget might have been forced to endure many, many more years of such violence,” he said, “if someone had not stopped Lord Paget by killing him. I cannot condone killing, Miss Haytor, but neither can I condone violence against women. Especially against a wife, who has been given into a man’s keeping so that he might love and cherish her and protect her from all harm. This is one of those situations in which rules, whether legal or moral, cannot satisfactorily decide an issue. I cannot congratulate Lord Paget’s killer, but neither can I condemn him—or her. If you did it out of love for Lady Paget, then I honor you, Miss Haytor. But I do not think you did it at all.”
And without further ado, he offered his arm again, she took it, and they resumed their walk back to the picnic site.
They must have been gone forever, Alice thought, peering ahead and being quite unable at first to see two seated figures where she expected to see them on the slope. But the next time she looked, there they were, seated side by side, the picnic basket off to one side of them.
She was feeling surprisingly hungry.
She was also feeling oddly elated. He would not condemn her if she had done it. But he did not believe she had.
And he believed women—wives—were to be loved and cherished and protected.
During tea Stephen amused himself with thoughts of what his friends would think if they knew he was sitting here now in Richmond Park, sharing a picnic tea with the infamous Lady Paget and her companion and a politician’s secretary. It was not what anyone would expect of the Earl of Merton. Indeed, there would be a number of people looking for him at Lady Castleford’s garden party this afternoon.
Yet he was enjoying himself enormously. The tea Golding had brought with him, presumably prepared by a caterer, was delicious. But picnic fare was always more appetizing than any other, he had found.
It struck him too, and also with some amusement, that if he had not inherited his title so unexpectedly, he would quite possibly be someone’s secretary by now and proud of the fact.
Everyone seemed to be sharing his enjoyment. The conversation was lively, and they all did their share of laughing. Even Miss Haytor, whose cheeks were flushed and whose eyes were bright. She looked decidedly handsome, and had seemed to have shed a year of age for every hour of the afternoon.
Cassandra herself seemed to have lost years along with her companion. She usually looked all of her twenty-eight years. Today she looked several years younger.
It was still early when they finished eating.
“I suppose,” Golding said, “I ought not to have suggested such an early hour for leaving Lady Paget’s. There is still much remaining of the warmest part of the day. It seems a shame to leave so soon.”
It was a concern they all seemed to share. They did not want the afternoon to end.
“Perhaps,” Miss Haytor suggested, “Cassie and Lord Merton would care to go for a stroll while you and I guard the blanket and the picnic basket, Mr. Golding.”
“Oh, that would be pleasant,” Cassandra said, getting to her feet before Stephen could offer either his assistance or his opinion. “After eating all that food, I am in dire need of some exercise.”
“There are some trees to climb,” Stephen said with a grin as he got up to join her. “But perhaps it would be more sedate to walk instead. Ma’am?”
He offered his arm, and Cassandra took it. Miss Haytor was regarding him with some severity as they turned away. Perhaps he ought not to have made that remark about climbing trees in her hearing.
“I believe,” he said when they were out of earshot, “the picnic must be deemed a success.”
“Alice,” she said, “has been positively glowing, has she not? I have never seen her quite like this. Oh, Stephen, do you think—”
But she did not complete the thought.
“I do indeed,” he said. “I think they are very pleased with each other. Whether anything more develops from the connection remains to be seen and is up to them.”
“The voice of caution,” she said with a sigh. “I hope she does not get hurt.”
“People do not always get hurt,” he said. “Sometimes they find love, Cass. And peace.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “Do they? Do they really? I will wish those things for Alice, then—love and peace. And partly for a selfish reason. I will feel less guilty for having clung to her all these years.”
Instead of going down the slope and walking along the grassy valley as the other two had done, he led them along the crest of the rise, winding their way among the ancient oaks, dipping their heads to avoid branches. He liked the view from up here, the seclusion, the shade from the brightness of the sun. He liked the proximity of trees.
They walked in a silence that was companionable while he counted days. There had been the day in the park when Con had pointed out the black-clad widow and remarked that
it must be as hot as Hades beneath her black clothes and veil. There had been Meg’s ball the evening of the following day and their first night together. There had been the drive in the park and the second night. There had been the formal visit yesterday with Meg and Kate to take tea with Cassandra and Miss Haytor. And … there was today. No matter how he counted, back from today or forward from that ride in the park, the total was the same.
Four days.
That was as long as he had known Cassandra. Not even a week. Not even close.
It felt as if he had known her for weeks or months.
And yet he did not know her very well at all, did he? He knew almost nothing about her.
“Tell me,” he said, “about your marriage.”
She turned her head sharply to look at him.
“My marriage?” she said. “What is there to say that you do not already know?”
“How did you meet him?” he asked her. “Why did you marry him?”
Their steps had slowed and now stopped altogether. She slipped her hand from his arm and took a few steps to the side so that she could lean back against a giant trunk. He followed her, though he did not stand too close. He rested one arm on a low, sturdy branch. The trunk itself would have hidden them from the picnic blanket. But a glance over the top of the branch assured him that they were out of sight anyway. They had walked farther than he thought.
“We never had a fixed home,” she said. “And there was never stability or security in our house. There was no lack of affection, but it was carelessly given. My father was very sociable, and he often invited gentlemen back to wherever we were living at the time. Always gentlemen, never ladies. It was of no concern to me until I was fifteen or so. Indeed, I always enjoyed the company and the occasional notice the gentlemen took of me. I enjoyed having my father sometimes set me on his knee while he talked to them all. But after I started to grow up, I had to endure leers and risqué remarks—and a few surreptitious touches and pinches. Once a kiss. My father would not have allowed any of it had he known, of course. He had illusions about sometime giving me a Season and seeing to it that I met all the right people. He was a baronet, after all. But he did not know what was happening under his own nose, and I never told him. It was never bad enough to be dangerous, though it got worse as I grew older.”
“You ought to have told him,” he said.
“Perhaps.” She shrugged. “But I had nothing to which to compare my life. I took it as normal. And Alice was always there to offer some protection. Then one day Baron Paget came home with my father, and he kept coming. He and my father were friends—they were about the same age. He was different from the others. He was kind and invariably courtly and gentle in manner, and he started to tell me about his home in the country, where he spent most of his time, and about the park surrounding the house, and the village and neighborhood. As far as I knew he did not gamble. Then, one day, when we were alone together—my father had left the room for some reason—he told me it could all be mine if I would do him the great honor of marrying him. He knew I could bring no dowry to the marriage, he told me. It did not matter. All he wanted was me. He would make a generous marriage settlement on me, and he would love and cherish me for the rest of his life. At first I was dismayed—but only for a short while. You cannot understand, perhaps, the great temptation his offer was to me—for a life of security and stability in a rural heaven. He seemed to be a man like my father but with all the flaws stripped away. I suppose I married him more as a father than as a husband.”
“What went wrong?” he asked after a longish silence.
She spread her palms against the trunk on either side of her.
“Nothing at all for six months,” she said. “I will not say I was blissfully happy. He was an older man and I was not at all in love with him. But he seemed a good man, and he was kind and attentive to me, and I loved the country and the neighborhood. I was with child, and I was over the moon with happiness about that. I was very contented, perhaps even happy. And then one day he went to visit a distant neighbor and did not come back for three days. I was frantic with worry and made the mistake of going to look for him. He was sweet and kind when I got there and called upon his friends gathered there—all men—to witness how much his new wife loved him. He laughed heartily with them and came home with me. He was quiet in the carriage. He even smiled at me a number of times, but I was frightened. I realized he must have been drinking, and I did not recognize his eyes. After we arrived home …”
She swallowed and paused for a while. When she resumed, she sounded breathless.
“After we arrived home, he took me into the library and told me very quietly that I had shamed him in such a way that he did not know how he would be able to hold up his head with his friends ever again. I apologized—more than once. But then he started to hit me, first with the flat of his hand, and then with his fists and even his boots. I cannot talk more about it. But two days later I miscarried. I lost my child.”
Her head was back against the trunk, her eyes closed. Her face was barred with light and shade. It looked to have not a vestige of color.
“And that was not the only time,” he said softly.
“No,” she said. “Not for either the beatings or the miscarriage. He was two men, Stephen. No one could ask for a kinder, gentler, more generous man when he was sober—and sometimes he was sober for months at a time. In fact, usually he was. When he was drunk, there were no signs except for his eyes—and his violence. One of the neighbors, who once saw me when my eye still had the violet remains of a beating, told me that she had always suspected he had killed his first wife. She died—officially—after a terrible fall from horseback when she was trying to jump a high fence.”
He did not know what to say, though he wanted to tell her that it was a good thing she had killed Paget before he could kill her. Good God, the man had killed three of her babies.
“I used to think it was my fault,” she said, “that he was so angry with me. I used to try to please him. I used to do all in my power not to do anything I thought might displease him. And when I knew he was drinking, I used to try to hide, to stay out of his way or … Well. None of it worked, of course.”
There was a lengthy silence.
“There,” she said eventually, turning her head to look at him, a wan smile on her lips. “You did ask.”
“And no one ever helped you?” he asked her.
“Who?” she said. “My father died within a year of my marriage. He would have had no right to intervene anyway. Wesley did not visit often, and he never saw Nigel’s bad side. I never told him about the beatings. He was just a boy. The only time Alice tried to intervene, he cuffed her and shut her out of the room and locked the door and then redoubled his efforts on me because I was not wife enough to face up to my shortcomings and the punishment I deserved.”
“His sons?” he asked.
“They were almost never there,” she said. “I daresay they knew him of old. Though I suppose the first Lady Paget was tougher than I to have borne the three of them. Or perhaps in those days Nigel’s sober spells lasted longer.”
He would not ask about Paget’s death. He had upset her too much as it was. He supposed he ought not to have asked at all. This had been a carefree afternoon until he had asked his question.
But his need to know her better and to get her to open up to him—or to someone—had outweighed his desire to keep the atmosphere of the afternoon light.
“And talking of climbing trees,” he said softly after a short while, as though nothing had been spoken of between them since they left the picnic site. “Have you ever done it?”
She tipped back her head to look upward into the great spreading branches of the oak above them.
“I used to do it all the time as a girl,” she said. “I think I must have been born dreaming of escaping into a blue heaven or falling into it. This tree is a climber’s paradise, is it not?”
She pulled free the ribbons of her bon
net and tossed it to the ground. She eyed the lowest branch, clearly considering the best way up onto it. He cupped his hands as if to help her mount a horse, and almost without hesitation, she set her foot in them and he hoisted her upward. He scrambled up after her.
It was easy after that. The branches were wide and sturdy and more or less parallel to the ground. They climbed without talking until, looking down, Stephen realized they had come quite a way.
She sat sideways on one branch, her back against the massive trunk, and then drew up her legs and hugged them with both arms. He stood on the branch below and held a branch above while wrapping his other arm about her waist, beneath her own arms.
She turned her face to him, smiling and then laughing.
“Oh, to be a child again,” she said.
“One can always be a child,” he said. “It is just an attitude of mind. I wish I had known you when you were younger—before you armored yourself in cynicism and scorn to hide all the pain and anger. I wish you had not had to live through all that, Cass. I wish I could will it away or kiss it away, but I can’t. I can only assure you that you will harm only yourself if you remain closed against all the possible goodness the world and life have to offer you.”
“What is the guarantee,” she said, “that life will not punch me in the eye again?”
“Alas,” he said, “there is none. But it is my belief that the world is far fuller of goodness than it is of evil. And if that seems rather naive, let me put in another way. I believe goodness and love are far stronger than evil and hatred.”
“Angels are stronger than devils?” she asked, smiling.
“Yes,” he said. “Always.”
She lifted her arms and set her hands gently against the sides of his face.
“Thank you, Stephen,” she said, and kissed him lightly on the mouth.
“Besides,” he said, “you know more about love than you realize. You became my mistress not just because of your own poverty, or even primarily because of it. You have a companion who is perhaps too old to find satisfactory employment, and you have a maid who is probably unemployable if she tries to keep her illegitimate child with her. You have the child herself. And the dog. He is a member of your family too. You did it all for them, Cass. You sacrificed yourself for love.”