by Michelle Cox
Resolutely, he turned down Mozart toward his family’s modest bungalow instead of north toward Palmer Square, deftly avoiding a rather large puddle as he did so. He promised himself that he would definitely go tomorrow. He tightened his coat around him, satisfied with his decision, and hurried now to get home. The problem, the way he saw it, was that the Von Harmons didn’t seem to need him much anymore, and whether Stan realized it or not, he needed to be needed.
Chapter 9
Clive took a deep puff of his pipe as he watched the English countryside rolling by. Henrietta was asleep, leaning against his chest, and his arm was wrapped protectively around her. It was beginning to go numb, but he wouldn’t for all the world disturb her. She had been bright and eager earlier this morning when they had docked at Liverpool, delighting in seeing a new country, and they had had just enough time to take tea at the Adelphi before catching the train to Derbyshire. After a couple of hours, the initial excitement had worn off, however, and the rocking of the train had momentarily lulled her to sleep.
Clive bent toward her now and breathed in her sweet smell, distributing a quick kiss. He could not remember being this happy in his whole life, but with that glorious feeling came the fear that it would be just as quickly taken away. Henrietta had confessed to him on the ship that she felt the same way, and they had both taken comfort, then, in their shared trepidation, as if because they both feared to lose each other, it would somehow prevent it from happening.
Henrietta continued to delight him, to swell his heart to the point he thought it might burst. He knew the danger of letting his emotions run this free, of allowing himself to feel this deeply, but he was past the point of return now and there was nothing for it but to go forward, to allow himself to be enmeshed in his joy and simply hope for the best and to try not to think about what might happen, what could happen, all the ways she could be taken from him and how he could prevent it. This tangled line of thinking, with its myriad of variables, often led to a very dark place, so he tried not to let his mind go there and instead concentrated on Henrietta herself, on pleasing and spoiling her.
He delighted in showing her, on the journey over, things she had never seen or heard of before, like shuffleboard or baked Alaska or sighting whales off the starboard bow. She was amazed at how huge the ship was—a floating town, she called it—marveling at the tennis courts, hair salons, lecture halls, ballrooms, dining rooms, and swimming pools, and she was forever getting lost or turned around. In her rapturous enthusiasms she was almost like a child, and he laughed along with her as if he were a schoolboy again. But at night in their first-class honeymoon suite, she was anything but a child; she was a woman in every sense of the word. She seemed to delight in exploring his body as much as he did hers, and their nights were spent in lovely passion such as he had never felt before. There was a true emptying of himself when he was with her. Somehow in her arms he felt more the child than her, the injured boy needing to be healed, needing to be filled, and she seemed always to know now how to do that for him, how to answer the sorrow and the angst that was never very far from the surface. Sometimes she still cried after it was over, from happiness she said, and though it distressed him immensely to see her tears, they seared her to him in a way he couldn’t explain. With each day that passed, he felt love’s tendrils reach out and further encircle his heart, and rather than fight this encroachment now, he willingly gave in to it, knowing he would be held captive by it for the rest of his days and not caring. Indeed, he desired to be held here forever.
And, if he was honest, there was an additional pleasure in being in society with her, showing her off as his wife, and he took pride in the fact that she seemed to stun so many. He was very much aware, as they sat each night at the captain’s table or as they made their way to the dance floor, of how many men gazed at her, hoping to catch even a few utterances fall from her pretty lips or perhaps even just a lingering glance. But his heart positively ached when he correspondingly observed how utterly unaware, or uncaring, at any rate, Henrietta seemed of the attention of these other men and how her eyes never strayed from his.
There was only a small blip on their happy abandonment, however, which occurred on their very last night at sea. Clive, appreciating that this was their last night of truly being alone, knowing that the weeks ahead would be full of family obligations once they arrived at Castle Linley, ordered the ship’s oldest bottle of champagne to be delivered to their stateroom. Later, as they drank it in bed, they reminisced—again—about their wedding day, turning it over and over to make sure they had found every jewel to hold on to. Despite the romantic nature of their discussion, however, a dark thought suddenly crept into Clive’s mind—a memory from that day he somehow hadn’t remembered until now. He uneasily recalled that he had seen Randolph, Julia’s husband, dance with Henrietta and that she had seemed so distressed by him that Clive had felt obliged to step in. It was all coming back to him now. After he had rescued her, as it were, she had declined to say what it was about, saying that it was nothing, that she didn’t want to spoil the day by discussing disagreeable things. In the day’s euphoria, he had obeyed her wish, wanting on their wedding day to do anything for her, fulfill even the slightest request of hers.
But now, as they lay in each other’s arms, he was bothered by the image of Randolph bent close to her and Henrietta pulling away, looking pale. Clive asked her, his fingers entwined with hers, if she might tell him now what had transpired between them. Clive unmistakably felt Henrietta’s body tense, but she didn’t move away.
“It was nothing, darling,” she tried to say absently.
“I’d very much like to know,” he said, running his finger along her shoulder.
“Just the usual leering, that sort of thing.”
“Nothing else?” he asked after a pause.
Henrietta remained silent for a few more minutes, during which Clive patiently waited. Finally she spoke. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it …”
“What was it?” he asked quietly.
“If you must know …” she began hesitantly. “He said that now that I’m in the family, I’m fair game and to watch myself,” she finished, exhaling a deep breath and looking up into his face now.
“Did he?” Clive answered, his voice governed, trying to control the fury beneath. “And what did you say?”
“Just that he was a wretch and that I could take care of myself. Of course he just laughed and said he very much doubted it.”
“And?”
“Oh, Clive. Let’s just forget about it. I’m not worried in the slightest.”
“Tell me,” he said more sternly than he meant to.
Henrietta gave him a look of surprise and went on. “He just said that he’s used to taking what he wants and that … that you’re away a lot … that Julia is a frigid bitch”—she added, almost in a whisper— “and that it isn’t really his fault if he occasionally needs some amusement.” Henrietta looked at Clive apprehensively now.
“Bastard!” Clive said, bringing his fist down onto the mattress. He hated Randolph. He always had. He had never understood why his beautiful sister would have agreed to marry him. He knew his parents had pressured her, but still, he had thought she would have had more fortitude than to give in to them so easily. He had spoken to her before the wedding, pleading with her, but she hadn’t wanted to hear it. “Poor Clive,” she had said, touching his face briefly, which had utterly confused him. Wasn’t she the victim here, not him?
He had been proven right, though, Randolph showing himself to be every bit the cad Clive had predicted him to be. As the years had passed, he was pretty sure that Randolph was violent with Julia, but he couldn’t prove it. He had confronted her about it one Christmas Eve when he had had too much to drink, but she had denied it, of course. Even if he could prove it, he had realized morosely, what would he do?
He thought back now with fresh fury to the night before the wedding when he had gone to the major’s home, whom he knew had felt
obliged to give him a bit of a do as the best man. Little did the major know that having spent years now in what he felt was eternal bachelorhood, Clive had no desire to hang on to it, no desire to savor and prolong the prison it had become. Rather than glorious freedom, bachelorhood represented an aching loneliness that had seemed to stretch out forever. By contrast, a life with Henrietta, even bound by the societal confines of marriage, seemed a blissfully freeing and heavenly prospect. How appropriate, then, he had mused as he dressed for the major’s soiree that evening, that he should spend the last night of his awful bachelor-hood with the likes of Randolph. He had hated having to ask him to be a groomsman, but etiquette suggested it, considering Julia was to be a bridesmaid. He had so few friends left, most of them having died in the war, and when he had come back, he hadn’t bothered making any new ones. Asking anyone on the force was out of the question, accordingly to Mother, anyway, so he had turned to his former CO, whom he looked up to almost as a second father, and which had left Randolph as the next obvious choice for a groomsman.
They had been playing billiards, Randolph already having drunk quite a lot, as he leaned against one of the bookcases and coolly looked on while Clive banked a shot. Randolph took the opportunity of congratulating Clive, not only for bagging the ball, but for bagging Henrietta as well, he had said crudely.
“She’s rather fetching, Clive,” he slurred suggestively. “But I suppose you know that already,” he said, swaying slightly. “You’ll have to be careful there,” he grinned. “That things don’t go astray, I mean. You’ll have to keep a tight hold, that’s my advice to you. There will be a lot of foxes around that chicken, let me tell you,” he laughed, looking over at the major for encouragement, but whose face was instead quite dark. “Let’s hope you’ve still got enough to, well, keep her rooted, one might say.”
Clive was tempted to thrash him right there, but it would be unseemly, not only because he was a guest in the major’s house, but because Randolph was his brother-in-law, as well as his groomsman, with the wedding being the very next day. Instead, Clive, his cue stick in hand, calmly walked toward Randolph and stood briefly in front of him, holding the stick dangerously close to his throat.
“Don’t ever let me hear you speak of her again in that manner or tone, Cunningham. She is to be my wife, and I will not have her disparaged in any way. I’ve been waiting years to have a real reason to thrash you, so please give me one, and so help me God you won’t thank me for it.”
“Steady on!” Randolph tried to laugh as he leaned back from the cue stick with an exaggerated motion. “I didn’t mean anything!”
The major coughed in the background. “Here now, let’s have none of that. I think we all need a drink,” he said, moving toward the decanter.
Randolph had laughed in earnest now, further infuriating Clive.
“Yes, Clive, just teasing, you know,” Randolph said lightly, though he swallowed hard. “Don’t be so sensitive. You’re behaving like a nervous woman! Isn’t that right, Major? We’ll put it down to wedding jitters and leave it at that.”
As Clive watched Randolph saunter over to where the major stood, he felt the hatred rise up in his throat, but he forced himself to let it go. This was definitely not how he had wanted to spend the night before his wedding, but he had no choice but to play the part of the gentleman and get on with it.
He looked down at Henrietta now, who had nestled back into the crook of his good shoulder, and he swore yet again to protect her, especially from men like Randolph.
“I think he beats her,” Henrietta said quietly, her fingers entwining themselves in his chest hair. “I’m not supposed to tell you,” she said guiltily, looking up into his eyes.
Clive felt his stomach clench. So it was true after all. “How do you know?” he asked, trying to keep his voice controlled.
“She told me. It was the day we had lunch together before I went back to the city. I had planned on asking her for advice about the wedding night,” she smiled at him, “even though the groom was her brother, but she ended up telling me all of that instead.”
“Fucking bastard,” Clive said loudly. “I knew it! I’m going to kill him.”
“Shh!” she said, putting a finger to his lips. “That’s why she doesn’t want you to know. She doesn’t want you to do something foolish.”
“Why doesn’t she leave him, then?” he said angrily.
“And go where? Do what?” she asked. “What about the boys?”
Clive thought about this and let out a deep breath.
“Some men are just cruel, I suppose, Clive. I don’t understand why, but you of all people will have seen that. In the force. And in the war.”
“Yes, but this is my sister!” he said despairingly.
“We’ll think of something, dearest,” she said, running her fingers through his hair now, which soothed him immensely. “We’ll find a way to help her, but killing him isn’t it.”
He felt angry and deflated at hearing this about Julia and Randolph, but it wasn’t really a surprise—he had always suspected it, and yet he felt uncontrollably sad. So many good men died alongside him, and yet vile creatures like Randolph Cunningham had lived. It was difficult at times to fight down the feelings of gross injustice that sometimes welled up and threatened to choke him. For years after the war, the injustice of the world had filled him with something close to rage, but now it felt more like simple sadness, bordering at times on despair. He turned on his side toward Henrietta, who was looking at him, concerned, as she brushed his stubbly cheek with her hand.
“I love you, Inspector,” she whispered.
He secretly loved it when she called him that. He gazed at her— his Henrietta, his love, his own wife, and felt a surge of love for her, a burning need for her. He desperately wanted to make love to her, yearned to, in fact, but he paused, wanting to make sure he correctly read a matching desire in her eyes. He would never force himself on her. As if she read his mind, she ran a hand lightly down his chest and lower still, and at her touch, a moan from deep within escaped him. He pressed his lips to hers and began to kiss her—fiercely, passionately—as if to quell whatever ghosts still haunted him, running his hands along her body and swiftly moving on top of her.
He made love to her quickly, almost wildly, his own pain and his despair hovering near, and she rose in kind to meet him, opening herself to him completely. When he finally collapsed on top of her, he was surprised that he was shaking. “Oh, God, Henrietta, did I hurt you?” he asked, still panting.
Her response was to gently kiss his mangled shoulder. “Of course you didn’t hurt me,” she answered, her voice still thick with passion.
Clive lay back on the bed, breathing heavily, and stared at the ceiling, deep in thought. Finally he spoke. “You’re not afraid of me, are you, Henrietta?” he asked, looking over at her now.
“Of course I’m not. What a silly question,” she said lightly.
Clive sighed and looked back at the ceiling.
“I can’t imagine what that might feel like, though,” she murmured. “To always live in fear of the person you’re supposed to love.”
Clive did not say anything, but he embraced her then, drawing her near him, and they drifted off to sleep.
Henrietta woke now, sitting up and stretching, smiling ruefully as she did so. “Sorry. Are we almost there?” she asked, moving stiffly to the seat across from him and peering out the window of their first-class carriage on the train.
“Nearly,” he said, puffing on his pipe again. They were rounding through Derbyshire, headed toward the little village of Cromford, where hopefully Bradwell, Lord Linley’s chauffeur, would be waiting with a motor to drive them to Castle Linley. The hills were more rolling here, and endless sheep dotted the green spaces, which were compartmentalized into neat little squares and bordered by what looked to Henrietta like ancient fences of stones piled up on top of each other. Henrietta wondered how they didn’t fall over. She looked across at Clive, who, his
arm free now, had picked up a newspaper and was beginning to peruse it.
“We should be there in less than an hour, I should think,” he said, not looking up. Henrietta thought he looked every bit the English gentleman in his tweed suit and waistcoat and derby hat. She had been careful as well in her toilette this morning, donning the dove gray pinstripe traveling suit by Piguet with a fur stole and thin gray hat pulled down over one eye that Antonia had instructed her to wear upon meeting the Howards for the first time. To this ensemble, Clive had added a small white rose picked up at a florist in Lime Street this morning as they had hurried by.
“Clive!” she said, pretending to be annoyed. “Aren’t you ever going to tell me about the Lord and Lady Linley? Or what the house is like?”
Clive peered across the top of his paper.
“You keep putting me off, telling me that you’ll tell me when we get closer, but I think we’ve reached the limit now, don’t you think?” she pleaded. “I must know something of the place before we arrive!”
“Quite right, darling,” he said in a passable English accent. He could adopt one prettily easily, having spent many childhood summers here. “But there’s not much to tell, really.”
“You always say that, and then there is.”
“All right, then,” he said, folding the paper haphazardly. “What do you wish to know?”