Guilty Series

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  Moore’s mockery on top of Viola’s condemnations pushed John even closer to the edge of reason. “I don’t have a wife!” he said, and struck first. His opponent parried, and the two men paused again, blades pointed down, wrists crossed. “I haven’t had a wife for eight and a half bloody years.”

  “No? If you don’t have a wife, who is that lovely blond woman who goes about calling herself Lady Hammond?” Moore pushed with his wrist, forcing their blades in an arc toward the ceiling, then he ducked past John, turned so their positions were reversed, and lunged with his blade.

  Anticipating the move, John ducked sideways and evaded it. He stepped around his opponent and, by the time Moore turned around, had him dead to rights. He planted the tip of his foil right against his friend’s chest. “A hit,” he declared, then turned and stalked away.

  “You know who I mean,” Moore went on as he followed John to the center of the room. “Petite,” he prompted as the two men faced off. “Hazel eyes. Pretty mouth. I seem to remember seeing you marry a woman of that description almost nine years ago.”

  “Two people living in separate houses and sleeping in separate beds is not a marriage.” He lunged, striking Moore’s foil with his own. “It’s a joke,” he said, and lunged again. “It’s been a joke almost since the beginning, and everybody knows it.”

  Steel slid against steel as Moore parried and spun away. When he turned, both men paused a few feet apart, breathing hard, blades poised.

  Moore looked him in the eye. “A joke, Hammond? I don’t see you laughing. Seems the joke might be on you.”

  John did not reply. He feigned left and thrust right, thinking to catch the other man in the chest again, but his opponent wasn’t fooled. Moore sidestepped the move, and John’s blade hit the wall. Before he could recover, the other man came up underneath, and John was the one caught in the ribs.

  “Hit,” Moore said. “You are not concentrating.”

  “Indeed? Yet I managed to get a hit on you moments ago.”

  The two men moved to en garde, crossed foils, and began again. For several minutes they were silent, the only sound the clash and rasp of striking blades, but it didn’t take long for Moore to start in on him again. “I have a suggestion for you.” He lunged and missed, then pulled back. “It might help you make peace with your wife.”

  “You’ve been married for, what, seven entire months?” John countered as he wiped sweat from his brow with his free hand. Now it was his turn to be mocking, and he laughed. “Wait at least that many years, then give me advice on the subject of matrimony.”

  “I am serious, Hammond.” He stepped back and pointed his foil toward the ceiling to stop their match. “Listen to me, will you? You know I do not usually interfere in the affairs of my friends, but I have a suggestion for you. You won’t like it, but it might help things along.”

  John heard the sincerity in Moore’s voice, and it made him curious. “What suggestion?”

  “Tell Viola you want to be friends.”

  That was absurd, and he showed what he thought of it by his sound of contempt. “I thought you said you were being serious. Viola and I friends? What an idea!”

  “I am in earnest. Become her friend.”

  “Good God, man,” he said with a humorless laugh, “where have you been for the past eight and a half years? Viola loathes me. You are out of your head if you think she and I could ever be friends. In the nine years we’ve known each other, she and I have been many things, but we have never been friends.”

  “All the more reason to give it a try, then. Besides, it worked for me. Grace and I were friends before we ever became lovers.”

  “She was your mistress.”

  “After she became my friend.”

  “If that is so, it was not at your instigation. I know you, Moore. It had to be Grace’s idea.”

  “It was. I loathed it, I admit, but in the end it was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

  “You were a courting couple. Viola and I are already married. The two are entirely different.” He made an impatient gesture with his foil. “Come on. Let us get back to the match.”

  “Why are they different? I am a married man now, and I do not see a difference. Grace and I are still friends.”

  “You and Grace don’t fight like cats and dogs. She doesn’t despise you.” John moved to en garde position and beckoned with his blade. “Are we going to fence or talk?”

  “Viola might fall in love with you again. Is that what you’re afraid of?” Moore mirrored John’s stance and lifted his blade to cross John’s. “Or perhaps you’re afraid you’ll fall in love with her.”

  Those words caused something inside John to snap. “Love, love, love!” he shouted, his simmering emotions finally erupting. “I am sick to death of that particular word!”

  He struck hard and fast with his blade, using every bit of his skill to drive Moore back toward the wall. Thinking of how many times Viola had thrown her love for him in his face, remembering how she had talked of his liaison with Peggy Darwin as love, he felt savage and resentful, and he took out his frustration on his opponent, attacking until he finally caught a vulnerability and jabbed his foil against Moore’s belly. “Hit.”

  The other man looked at him, clearly astonished by his vehemence. “I believe I struck a nerve.”

  Breathing hard, John stepped back and lowered his blade. He turned away. “Love. People fling that word around all the time, especially women, and what does it mean? When most people use the term, they mean simple, ordinary lust. Or idealistic infatuation. Sometimes both together. Is that love?”

  “If you do not know the answer to that question already, I cannot answer it for you.” Moore followed him to center. “I know I found it.”

  “How?” John demanded, facing him. “How did you find it? And when you found it, how did you know it was genuine? Cupid fired his arrow and angels sang and you knew? Is that it?”

  “How disdainfully you speak of love. I never realized just how deep your cynicism runs, Hammond. You are more contemptuous of love than I ever was, if that is possible.”

  “I am not a cynic about love, nor am I contemptuous of it. I just—”

  I just don’t know what it is.

  That realization froze him in place. He stared at his friend, looking through him as if he were not there. In his mind, he saw his wife holding a baby in the air and laughing. That queer, empty feeling returned, the emptiness that had been haunting him like a ghost for the past week. Emptiness inside himself that he had always pushed aside and covered up, but had been there ever since he could remember.

  “Hammond?” Moore’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “What?” John blinked, staring at his friend, trying to think.

  “You’re standing there, staring at me, looking dumbstruck. Are you unwell?”

  “No,” he answered, forcing himself to say something. “Perhaps. I don’t know.” He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. “Let’s end for today.”

  What was love, really?

  He asked himself that question as the two men put away their blades, retrieved their coats, and left the fencing gymnasium.

  The beautiful May afternoon had turned into a cool, cloudy spring night. As he and Moore stood on the sidewalk outside Angleo’s waiting for their carriages, his friend spoke again, all mockery gone from his voice. “Hammond, think about what I said. Suggest to Viola that the two of you become friends.”

  “And as I told you, she will never agree. She will probably laugh in my face.”

  “At least make the suggestion. It might help the two of you get along better if you could convince her to be friends.”

  John gave his friend a wry, sidelong glance. “A man and a woman getting along out of bed leads to them getting along in bed, is that it?”

  Moore grinned at him. “That depends on how good a friend you can be, now, doesn’t it?”

  Despite his black mood, Moore
’s sardonic wit was infectious, and John couldn’t help a laugh at that as the other man’s landau pulled up in front of Angleo’s, its top up against the chance of rain. “You really are a devil, you know.”

  “Of course I am,” Moore answered as he stepped into his carriage. “I may be married, but I still have a reputation to maintain.” His landau pulled away, and he left John standing on the sidewalk.

  Dylan leaned back on the seat of his carriage, smiling to himself. A devil he was, indeed. He knew full well what Hammond was feeling at this moment, and it was about to get worse. The viscount was just desperate enough to give friendship with Viola a try. Poor fellow. Friendship with a woman you wanted to bed so desperately was hell on earth.

  Still, one usually had to go through hell to get to heaven. In the end, Hammond might get the son he wanted, but more important, he might gain back a loving wife. Dylan knew the worth of that was beyond measure.

  He liked Hammond, had a great deal of affection for Viola, and hoped they took his suggestion to heart. They might find themselves happily married for a change.

  That thought made him want to laugh. Dylan Moore in the idealistic role of matchmaker. Who would have thought it? He couldn’t wait to get home and tell Grace.

  The notion of friendship was not what was running through John’s mind as he waited for his carriage. It was instead the notion of love.

  What was love? Poets wrote about it, people like Moore made music out of it, everyone was constantly falling in love or talking about it or suffering for it, but what was it?

  He thought of Moore. Of all the men in the world, he would have picked Dylan as the one man who would never marry. Yet, he had. He had married his mistress. John could not fathom what it was about Grace that had caused England’s most notorious rake to fall in love with her. She was a beautiful woman, certainly, and a kind, loving sort of person. But Moore was mad about her, crazy in love with her in a way that was almost frightening in its intensity.

  John’s carriage pulled up to the curb. He started toward it, then stopped, and on impulse waved the vehicle away and decided to walk home. It was a long way, but he felt like walking. The evening was cool and the bracing air felt good against his skin. He could always pick up a hansom cab if it started to rain.

  There were different kinds of love, he supposed.

  He thought of his sister, Kate, dredging up memories of when he was a small boy, vague memories of her hugs and her laughter and the terrible hole inside him when she died. He had loved his sister. He knew that much.

  He thought of Percy and Constance, friends he had always cared about, who always cared about him, friends whose affection and trust were beyond question. He had spent a lot of time not thinking about Percy, because when he did, it hurt like an open wound. It hurt because he had loved his cousin like a brother. He loved Connie, too, with an affection and respect he gave to very few, but had he ever been in love with her? He thought of her words to him at Percy’s funeral, and knew the answer had to be no. When she married his cousin instead of him, he had gone on a seven day drinking binge, whored around for several months, and gotten over it. If that was real love, true love, did a person recover so easily with such shallow methods? Surely not.

  Ahead of him the sidewalk broadened into a wider thoroughfare, and that sight brought him out of his reverie. He came to a halt, and realized he was going the wrong way. He should have turned east at Brook Street, but instead he’d turned west and now was staring straight at the imposing wrought-iron gates that surrounded the park at Grosvenor Square.

  Damn. Hadn’t he had enough of this place? If he had any brains, he’d leave now, walk away, go find himself a woman who would welcome him into her bed.

  But instead of turning around, John ventured forward into the square until he was at the park gates. He wrapped his hands around the bars, staring between them at the place beside a wrought-iron bench where his wife had been holding Nicholas a week ago today.

  He thought of his parents, who had never had any love, nor even affection, between them, and the irony of how his marriage had turned out was not lost on him. The coldness of his mother and father toward one another was something he remembered from his boyhood with vivid clarity, and despite all his efforts these last nine years to be as unlike his father as possible, he had managed to make his marriage exactly the same loveless sham his father’s had been.

  It began to rain, a light drizzle that dusted his coat and dampened his linen. The air was decidedly chilly now, and he knew it was stupid to stand here. He should go back before the rain changed from a light drizzle into a downpour and he got soaked.

  He turned around, but instead of leaving, he leaned back against the iron bars and stared up at the lamplit drawing room of Tremore House. A glint of gold hair passed the window. Viola’s hair.

  He thought of the girl she had been nine years ago, the open, vulnerable, passionate girl who had adored him in a way she had defined as love. He had wondered then, and he wondered now, how anyone could fall in love in one night, after two dances and a bit of conversation, without any knowledge of the other person. That couldn’t be love because it wasn’t real. He hadn’t trusted it then. He didn’t trust it now.

  He knew from the start he’d had a power over her, but to this day he did not understand it. He did not understand her. Against the wishes of her brother, knowing he was stone broke, knowing he was irresponsible, knowing his wild, ne’er-do-well reputation, she had married him three months after meeting him, when no woman with sense would have married him at all. Because she had loved him. He thought of Percy down on his knees in the mud threatening suicide if Connie didn’t marry him. All because he’d loved her.

  John raked a hand through his wet hair and rubbed rain off his face. What was it about love that made people lose all their common sense?

  He remained standing by the park for a long time, lost in drizzle and mist, looking up at the windows of Tremore House, and for the life of him, he could not find an answer.

  Chapter 11

  Viola went to bed early. Anthony and Daphne had gone to a ball, but she had a headache and decided to stay home. She took a warm bath, drank a cup of the cook’s willow bark and peppermint tea, dressed in her nightclothes, and crawled into bed at nine o’clock. But though the tea soothed her head, falling asleep proved more difficult. Accustomed to the late hours of the season, she could not fall asleep. After an hour of tossing and turning, she gave up and went downstairs in search of Quimby. She told the butler she would be in the library and asked him to have a dish of ordinary tea prepared for her and sent up.

  She then went to the library, accompanied by a footman who made up a fire for her against the damp chill in the air. His task done, the footman departed, and Viola took a book from one of the shelves. She curled up in a corner of the settee, thinking to read until she got sleepy.

  But she had no chance to get sleepy. The steam had not even cooled on her tea, and she was only on page two of a Dumas novel, before a voice interrupted her. “Hullo, Viola.”

  Startled, she looked up to find John in the doorway. She snapped her book shut and jumped to her feet. “What are you doing here?”

  “Getting warm and dry.” He leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb, and as she watched him, she realized how disheveled he looked. He was not in evening clothes. He was still dressed in a morning suit. It was rumpled and damp from the light rain outside. His hair curled at his collar the way it always did in damp weather, and his linen was limp. He had not even shaved. The shadow of beard on his face was something she hadn’t seen for years. Not since the days when they had slept together and she woke every morning to the raspy feel of his cheek against her shoulder.

  She had spent all week avoiding him, and now, just at the moment she let her guard down, here he was. She knew she ought to tell him to leave, but instead she just looked at him, remembering the burn of beard stubble on her shoulder when he used to kiss her awake.

  He might hav
e come to get warm, but she was beginning to feel the heat, and it had nothing to do with the fire in the grate. She brushed back a tendril of hair that had come loose from her braid and curled her toes into the lush softness of the carpet beneath her bare feet, keenly aware of her own state of dishabille. “Quimby should have announced you.”

  “Don’t be cross with Quimby. He is a most excellent butler. He tried to tell me you were not at home, but I knew that wasn’t true. Since your brother isn’t here to prevent it, I pulled rank on the butler and came upstairs anyway. Terribly rude of me, but there it is.”

  “How did you know I was home?”

  “Because I’ve been down by the park for the past two hours. I saw you in the drawing room earlier, just as it was getting dark, before the maids drew the curtains.”

  “Two hours!” Viola stared at him in astonishment. “By the park, in this weather? Whatever for?”

  “Can’t you guess?” He straightened away from the door and came into the library, but stopped some distance from where she stood. “I was working up the nerve to come and say let’s make up.”

  He wanted to make up. She knew what that meant. He looked sorry. She knew that meant nothing. Before she could speak, he did.

  “When we quarreled, you said you don’t trust me, and you have every right. I just—” He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if trying to think of what to say next. “I just wanted to see you.”

  “That’s what you came up here to say?”

  “Yes.” He smiled a little. “Very tame, I know, especially after spending two hours in the rain working on it, but I was getting cold.”

  That warmth began spreading through her like warm honey, and she tried to remind herself it was all just words. He could say anything and make it sound like God’s truth. How could she ever believe anything he said? She wanted to believe it, though. She did.

  The seconds ticked by. The clock struck half past ten.