Someone to Care

by Mary Balogh

  “I am not renowned for tramping about my fields admiring my crops,” he admitted, “a faithful hound panting at my heels.”

  “How can you look about this valley,” she said, indicating it with one sweeping arm, “and not feel something . . . here?” She tapped her heart.

  “I would rather look at the woman in the valley,” he said, his eyes following her hand.

  “Would you?” She gazed at him, his face harsh and cynical, his dark, hooded eyes unfathomable, and despite her earlier resolve, wondered what lay behind them. Or who lay behind them.

  He set his hands at her waist, drew her against him, and kissed her openmouthed and at some length. His mouth was hot in contrast to the uncomfortable coldness of her person.

  You must not fall in love, an inner voice of reason cautioned. You really must not.

  Oh, but there is no fear of that, she protested silently. I am merely enjoying a brief escape from my life.

  “There is a law of duality,” he said, “that insists, as laws often do, that what goes up must come down. Sometimes, however, when one least wants the law to reverse itself, it does.”

  She looked up the hillside to the cottage, so idyllic and picturesque among the trees and ferns, climbing plants adorning its walls. It also looked welcoming with the one bedchamber window wide open and a line of smoke rising out of the chimney. Some of the leaves about them were changing color.

  “It does look like rather a long climb,” she admitted.

  She was out of breath halfway up and had to pause and cling to a tree trunk while pretending she had stopped to admire the view. She was out of breath again at the top and puffing inelegantly. He was breathing as though he had just taken a leisurely stroll along Bond Street in London—except that his boots had lost some of their luster.

  “Your cheeks are becomingly rosy, Viola,” he said. “And so is your nose—perhaps not quite as becomingly.”

  “Gallantry is really not your forte, is it?” she said.

  “As I warned you,” he reminded her. “I believe it would be more accurate to describe your nose as adorably rosy.”

  “Oh, well-done,” she said, and turned to precede him into the house.

  “Never let it be said,” he murmured from behind her, “that I do not think quickly on my feet.”

  She laughed.

  Ten

  After a week at the cottage, Marcel discovered with something of a surprise not only that he was still deeply immersed in this new affair of his, but that he was also thoroughly enjoying himself. Not enjoying just the affair—he would expect that. It never took him any time at all to put an end to any liaison he was not enjoying. No, he was enjoying . . . himself.

  When he had thought of coming to the Devonshire cottage, it had seemed to him that it was the ideal place for the uninterrupted conduct of the affair. He had pictured them cozily ensconced in the house, the valley merely the secluded background that would cut them off from prying eyes and the distractions of civilization and the normal course of their lives. His family would not in a million years think of searching for him there, even if for some unfathomable reason they should consider searching at all, and her family would not even know of its existence.

  He had not considered the place in terms of wild natural beauty and fresh—sometimes cold—air and bracing walks and conversation that stretched his mind to its limits. The very thought would have given him pause.

  He had been right in his main expectation. They enjoyed long nights of sensual pleasures, which had not yet even begun to pall upon him. Quite the contrary, in fact. He was even growing slightly uneasy at the possibility that they never would, though he was being ridiculous, of course. Any day now he was going to grow restless, not just to return to civilization, but to regain his freedom so that he could look about him for some new source of pleasure.

  The sexual delights, however, had been confined to the nights, while their days had been filled with almost nothing but the bracing outdoors, God help him. They went up and down the steep valley sides on both sides of the river as other people might ascend and descend stairs within a house. They walked pathways and no pathways and rough headlands. They almost got blown to glory one afternoon while tramping along the top of towering cliffs overlooking the sea, the wind in their faces before they turned back to be blown home. One morning they walked up to the village and through it to descend a steep flight of rough-hewn steps and an equally steep fall of large rocks and smaller pebbles to a small sandy cove. All they got for their pains on that occasion was sand inside her shoes and caked on the outside of his boots, and sand inside every piece of clothing on their persons and even in their hair. Oh, and there was the enormous pleasure of huffing their way back up to the village afterward and from there back to the cottage.

  “Are you trying to wear my legs down to the knees, Viola?” he asked when they were almost home. But she just laughed at him. She did a lot of that during the week—laughing at him. Oh, and with him too.

  He took great delight in her laughter. Even more in her smiles.

  “I want to walk along beside the river to the sea one day,” she said. “I hope you will not be worn down to the knees, Marcel. You would be shorter than I am, and I should dislike that.”

  “I would think you would enjoy the sense of power towering over me would bring you,” he said, and she laughed again.

  And they talked. They were standing in the middle of the bridge one day at the end of their first week there and she had executed her long-promised pirouette and made the expected comments upon the breathtaking beauty of their surroundings. Actually he agreed with her, though he did not fling his arms wide, an ecstatic look on his face, as he turned once about. He would have been quite content to stand there in silent companionship with her with all his senses alive. Good God, he had senses he had never even suspected before. But she decided to talk.

  “Why do you think we were born?” she asked, her arms resting along the waist-high parapet of the bridge as she gazed down into the water. “What do you think is the point of it all?”

  If any other woman had asked him such asinine questions, he would have bundled her into his carriage without further ado, sprung the horses in the direction of London, and lost her somewhere in its busiest midst, never to be found again.

  “I suppose we were born because our parents fancied each other one night nine months or so before it happened,” he said. “And the point of it all is that thereby the world will remain populated and we will not expire as a species.”

  She chose to take his flippancy seriously. She was no longer looking down into the water or up at the valley sides surrounding them. She was gazing at him instead, and he was beginning to believe his colossal lie that her rosy nose was adorable. “But why?” she asked. “Why deliberately perpetuate something if it has no inherent value?”

  Her words were a bit chilling if she meant that human life really was not worth living. He had not given much thought to the matter. Not for many years anyway. He did not particularly want to break that habit.

  “You had children,” he reminded her.

  “Yes,” she said, “because it was expected of me. It was my duty. Camille was a disappointment to Humphrey because she was not the heir he had anticipated. And after Harry, Abigail was a disappointment because she was not the spare to go with the heir.”

  “It was only duty?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, no.” She turned to gaze with a frown along the river in the direction of the sea, which was not visible from here. “They were my joy.”

  “Your only joy?” he asked. “The only things that have given meaning to your life?”

  She considered her answer, her gloved fingers rubbing back and forth over the stones. “Yes,” she said. “Almost. But why did I feel joyful when I was merely delivering them to all the pains that awaited them in this life?”


  “Their lives have been nothing but misery, then?” he asked.

  “Camille was an unhappy child,” she told him. “She wanted what she could not have—her father’s love and approval. She is happy now. So happy that I almost fear for her. Harry insists that being in the Peninsula being constantly shot at is a great lark while I wait at home in constant fear of what the news might be when I next hear from him—or of him. Abigail is sweet and quiet and serene, and I fear what lies beneath it all and what the future holds for her.” With that, she turned to him abruptly. “Why did you have children, Marcel?”

  “Because I was young and married and it happened in the natural course of what young married people do,” he said. And he had been so fiercely joyful that he still could not bear to think about it.

  “Do you ever feel weighed down by the burden of fatherhood?” she asked him. “Not because you do not love them but because you do?”

  He really did not want to be talking about this. This was not why he had come here. He had run away with her for a week or three of pleasure. Mindless pleasure. He had come because he did not want to go home and see evidence of his own failure as a father and as a human being. They were almost grown-up, Estelle and Bertrand, those much-adored babies.

  They were almost grown-up.

  He stared back at her, resentment mingling with something else he did not try to analyze. She lifted both hands and cupped his face with them. She brushed her gloved thumbs over his cheeks. For one moment he feared they were wet, but they were not.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “your face turns hard and your eyes turn opaque, and I am almost frightened.”

  “Of me?” he said.

  “Of not being able to see you,” she said.

  He did not ask what she meant. He did not want to know.

  “I was not fit to raise my children,” he told her curtly. “I still am not, though there is not much raising left to do. They are seventeen.”

  “Who does raise them?” she asked.

  “Their aunt and uncle,” he told her. “My late wife’s sister and her husband. And yes, they were fit and are fit and my children are fine young people who will be fine and worthy adults.” It was not often he admitted that Jane and Charles had been good for his children.

  “Do you love them?” Her voice was a mere breath of sound.

  He grasped her none too gently by the wrists and removed her hands from his face. “That is a typical woman’s question,” he said. “I fathered them and have seen to it that they have the proper care. I have provided a home and the means for them to grow up according to their station in life. I have visited them twice a year since they were one year old. I will see to it that they are suitably established in life, and then my job, such as it has been, will be done.” He was still gripping her wrists.

  “You were on your way to see them.” Her eyes, damn it all, had filled with tears.

  “They will still be there when—”

  “When we are finished?” she said when he stopped abruptly.

  “I resent this, Viola,” he told her. “We came here to escape, to put our everyday lives behind us, to enjoy each other’s company, not to bare our souls.”

  “I have enjoyed your company,” she said softly.

  “Past tense?” It had not occurred to him that perhaps she would tire of him before he tired of her. Arrogant of him, that. And alarming if it was true.

  “No,” she said, “not past tense. When I asked about the purpose of life, I was not really expecting an answer. I asked because sometimes one can be happy, so vividly happy that there seems a point to everything. So happy that one is fiercely glad one was born. Happiness that intense never lasts, of course, and even what there is of it often comes at the expense of conscience and responsibility. I have been very happy with you.”

  He felt that unease again and released his hold on her wrists. She was still using the past tense.

  “Oh, you must not fear,” she said with a fleeting smile. “I have just admitted that I know it cannot last. But are fleeting moments enough anyway, Marcel? Are times like these sufficient to make the whole of life worth living?”

  He sighed and set his hands on her shoulders briefly before gathering her loosely into his arms. “Up and down, down and up, light and shade, happiness and unhappiness,” he said. “They are life, Viola. Why we are so seemingly helpless in the face of these opposites, I do not know. I am no philosopher. But seeking happiness—or pleasure—while avoiding pain is human nature. There is nothing selfish about it.”

  “Happiness and pleasure are the same thing to you,” she said. “Is seeking them never selfish? What about duty?”

  “I suppose,” he said, “indeed I know that you spent more than twenty years of your life ignoring the fact that Riverdale was a scoundrel of the first order and keeping up appearances before your family and the ton. Doing your duty. Being unselfish. And unhappy.”

  “Foolish, was it not?” she said. “I ought to have had an affair with you. I wanted to, you know.” She rested the side of her head against his shoulder.

  He was arrested for the moment by her admission.

  “No, you would not have,” he said. “That was not who you were, Viola. And it was not who I was. You would not have had an affair with me because you were married—apparently married—and had young children. I would not have had an affair with you because you were married. I would have done no more than flirt.”

  “You would not?” She drew back her head to look into his face. She sounded surprised. “You did have some principles, then?”

  Something in him turned cold. “Precious few,” he said. “Principles are tedious, Viola. They interfere with personal gratification.”

  “But sometimes they are part of who a person is,” she said. “You have never seduced a married woman?”

  He raised both eyebrows. “I have never seduced any woman,” he said. “It just happens for some reason I have not quite fathomed that a flatteringly large number of them wish to share my bed without having to be seduced there. No, I have never bedded a married woman, except my wife.”

  She smiled fleetingly again but did not take the opening he had unwittingly offered her. She did not ask about Adeline.

  “It may seem strange,” she told him, “but I do not believe I was actively unhappy during all those years of my marriage. Not all the time, anyway, or even most of the time. It was only afterward, when I knew what an empty shell the whole fabric of my life had been, and when my children had been irreparably hurt, that I saw the emptiness of those years. I was forty years old, more than half my life gone in all probability. But if I could go back and relive it, I cannot think that I would live differently. What havoc I would have caused to so many lives, my own included, if I had behaved just as I wanted. And I would never have been happy. Now is a little different.”

  “Only a little?” he asked.

  “There are still people to be hurt,” she said.

  “This is but a brief idyll, Viola,” he reminded her.

  “Yes,” she said. He held her close and kissed her deeply, sensing that somehow this was the beginning of the end. Not the end yet. They had still not finished with each other. But some corner had been turned, and they had begun the journey back to where they had started.

  “I do not believe I am willing to wait for tonight,” he said against her lips. It was approaching the middle of the afternoon. They had come down here after luncheon.

  “I am not either,” she told him.

  And so the affair resumed as it had been proceeding for the past week and more—except that they did not often make love in the daytime. They climbed the hillside together to the cottage and went to bed and made slow, skilled, wonderfully satisfying love.

  With perhaps just an edge of desperation.

  * * *

  • • •

  The
weather turned overnight. It grew chillier and more blustery. Clouds hung low over the valley, and there were frequent sharp showers. More trees were turning color.

  “Autumn always makes me feel a bit sad,” Viola said at breakfast one morning during a brief sunny break. “It is so beautiful but so very fleeting. One knows that winter is not far off.”

  “And spring not so far beyond that,” he said with a shrug.

  “True,” she said. “But sometimes it seems very far off.”

  “Viola,” he said, reaching across the table to take her hand in his. “There is much to be said for winter. Rainy days, snowy days, cold days.” He grinned suddenly, and her heart turned over. “Nothing to do but remain indoors and love.”

  He meant make love, of course. He did not know much if anything of love. Though that was perhaps unfair and not necessarily right. She would have said it of him a week or so ago with some confidence. Now she was not so sure. He did not want to talk about his children or about his brief marriage as a young man. His very reticence suggested to her that there was pain there. And where there was pain, perhaps there was love. He had neglected his children since they were infants—not materially, but in ways that mattered. He had visited them twice a year. It was a strange verb to use of time spent with his own children. And the word suggested a stay of days or brief weeks rather than of months.

  Humphrey had neglected his children. He had not loved them. She had always thought he was scarcely aware of their existence. Sometimes, when she and they were at Hinsford and he was elsewhere—London, Brighton, or wherever he went during his frequent absences—he would not return home or even write for weeks on end. He missed first steps and first teeth and birthdays. She wondered if Marcel’s neglect of his children was of that nature, but suspected it was not. Perhaps that was because she did not want to believe that his neglect stemmed from indifference. She wanted to believe that there was a person hidden behind the handsome, harsh, often cynical exterior that had so captivated her.