by Megan Mulry
Selina blushed and took a deep breath. “And you with me.”
“So tell me what you would have if you could have anything,” Bea prompted. “Everything.”
“In my dreams?”
“Yes, in your beautiful dreams.”
“In my beautiful dreams, it’s like this, how we are right now, walking together in a splendid morning, except Archie is right there at home, or here with us on my other arm, and you are here—when you can be, when your work doesn’t take you away. And I am here for you both, always.”
“That sounds lovely.”
“But maybe Archie is right.” Selina looked down at her boots as they peeked out from under the hem of her winter walking dress with every stride. “And I am wrong. Maybe it simply isn’t allowed.”
Bea laughed, deep and sure, and Selina was reminded of all the reasons she adored this woman. “Allowed by whom? We can live our lives the way we wish, all of us. You especially. You have no financial constraints on your behavior, as long as you live modestly, which is your natural tendency. You have no social restrictions—or at least none that you need to countenance—your parents’ cruel censure, for example. You believed you were telling Archie the truth about us before you got married. Perhaps you could have been more forthcoming about the details, but on some level he must have known what you were really asking.”
“I feel greedy,” Selina whispered guiltily. “Emotionally greedy.”
“You feel greedy for wanting your own happiness? Greedy for wanting to love a man who obviously loves you in return? Greedy for thinking you deserve my love as well as his? Well, if that’s greed, then you should be greedy, because you do deserve it. You are a light, my dear. You shine in a way that warms those around you. Archie must know that. Perhaps it is he who is greedy—wanting all of you to himself—and fearful, I imagine.” Bea sighed with something like understanding. “I shouldn’t be too hard on him if I were you. He is probably convinced that you do not have enough to give, that love is finite, or that your love for me will somehow diminish your love for him. He does not yet understand your capacity for love, that’s all.”
“You make everything sound so reasonable.” She rested her head on Bea’s shoulder and slid her hand through her arm. She felt slightly mollified, but she would never feel whole again unless Archie was there. Her voice cracked. “I wish he would come home.”
Christopher took a slow sip of his Turkish coffee and stared at Archie. “Well, well. Look who decided to rejoin the human race.”
When Archie attempted to lift his head off the pillow, the weight of his skull prevented him from doing so. “Have I been drugged?”
Shrugging, Christopher set down his demitasse and folded his arms in front of his chest. “I suppose it’s quite possible. Where have you been? You’re a complete disaster.”
He rubbed his temples and tried to compose himself. His thoughts were thick and murky. “I’ve been here in London.”
“Really? Where in London?”
“I don’t know precisely. I meandered.” He was able to get himself up to a partially sitting position. He looked around slowly and realized he was in Christopher’s bedroom, in Christopher’s bed, in a clean nightshirt. “I’m very sorry to have inconvenienced you in this manner. I shan’t bother you any longer.” He tried to sit up all the way, but the pain in his head wouldn’t let him.
“Have you seen yourself?” Christopher stood and began to pace the floor at the foot of the bed. “You have a black eye that is healing nicely.” He tossed his hand in Archie’s direction. “Abrasions on your scalp. Contusions on your ribs. I don’t even know whose shoes you were wearing when you stumbled in here last night.” Christopher quit pacing and looked out the window impatiently. “The shoes have been discarded, in case you were wondering.”
“Oh dear.” Letting his hand cover his eyes, then wincing when he realized his right eye was indeed still sore, Archie had nothing more to say.
“Yes. ‘Oh dear.’” Christopher turned and stared at him with complete exasperation. “Setting aside, for now, all the worried correspondence I’ve received from your family this week—and missing your first Christmas with your wife—what the hell got into you?”
“Week? How long have I been out?” He struggled to sit up again.
“Just stop trying to do anything but lie there, would you?” Christopher resumed pacing. “You bolted Saturday evening after that ridiculous scene at Devonshire House and it’s now Thursday morning. Five days later.”
“Five days!”
“Yes. Five days.”
“Jesus.”
Pausing, Christopher took hold of one of the turned wood posts at the end of his bed. “When I visited Camburton Castle a few months ago, you and Selina were in each other’s pockets. Then when I got news of your marriage, and having seen you in town these past weeks— Well, she’s an angel. And she obviously loves you, for some bizarre reason that I cannot possibly fathom.”
“Why do you act as if she is blameless in the failure of our doomed marriage, and that I am somehow guilty?”
“How is she to blame?”
He gestured vaguely. “She obviously wants nothing to do with me.”
“Selina wants nothing to do with you?” Christopher coughed out, as if that were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.
“She doesn’t want me. Are you deaf?”
“What gave you that idea, my brilliant friend?”
He groaned and turned his head away. “Now you’re merely trying to hurt me. She has made her choice.”
“You’re such a fool!” Christopher cried. “She has made her choice, you say?”
“Yes. That’s what I say.” A surge of resentment reignited inside him.
“She is desperately trying to see you.”
“She is?” He flipped his head quickly—too quickly—and immediately regretted it. His skull was pounding.
Christopher narrowed his eyes and held on even tighter to the bedpost, likely to prevent himself from punching Archie like everyone in most of London seemed to have done in the past week. “She loves you, you idiot.”
“She loves Beatrix Farnsworth, you ass!”
“So what?”
He spun his head back and didn’t even mind the crushing pain. If Christopher wanted to fight, he was happy to oblige him. “‘So what?’ You bastard.” He forced himself out of bed, stumbling and reaching for Christopher’s shirt, to grab him for support or punch him in the face, he wasn’t sure which.
Christopher moved out of reach easily. “You, my friend, are pathetic.”
The room tilted awkwardly as he tried to keep his balance, then he collapsed to the floor, vaguely hoping he didn’t hit his head this time on one of the many antiquities that crowded his friend’s chamber.
It was dark outside the tall window across the bedroom when next he woke. He was safely resettled in bed, and there were voices in the living room. He kept his eyes closed and hoped everyone, everywhere, ever would simply go away. He groaned pathetically into the pillow and a few seconds later the door flew open.
“If you weren’t so hurt, I would hurt you so!” Selina cried as she crossed the room, then she must’ve caught a glimpse of him in his pathetic state; she gasped and covered her mouth with one pretty dove-gray gloved hand.
“Why are you wearing gloves?”
She burst into tears and looked like she wanted to leave the room, but she stood where she was. Christopher peeked in through the door across the room. “Everything all right in here?”
“Yes,” Selina answered hotly, wiping away her tears. “Now shut the door and leave us.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He dropped a silly curtsey and closed the door.
Archie groaned again. Could this entire situation be any more embarrassing? Women weren’t even allowed into the Albany. “Wait a minute. How did you get in here, anyway?”
“As you can see.” She struck a mannequin’s pose.
He looked away from her bea
utiful jade eyes and then down at her attire. She was a very attractively dressed . . . man. Her blonde hair was pulled back from her face and tucked up into a jaunty top hat. Her coat was immaculately tailored. Neck cloth folded artfully. Snowy-white shirt. Brocade vest of the finest maroon silk. Black satin breeches. Shiny boots.
His eyes skidded back to the tight-fitting breeches. “Your legs are obscene.”
She finished wiping away her tears, and she smiled at him. “Damn you. What do you care about my legs? You don’t care about me in the least. You missed our first Christmas as husband and wife. I just had to see for myself that you weren’t dead. And you appear to be recovering just fine. So I shall leave you. Good day, sir.” She bowed just like a man, and he smiled despite himself.
Just before she turned to leave, he whispered her name, then, “Please don’t go.”
“What’s that?” The male clothes made her seem cooler somehow, less excitable. She lifted her chin. “Did you ask me something?” She had her hands behind her back and one leg slightly in front of the other, in that arrogant pose so typical of all the young bucks who swarmed around the prince lately.
“Yes.” He hesitated. “I asked you to stay with me.”
“I’m standing right here.”
His voice faltered as he spoke. “You know what I mean. I need you, Selina. You are my wife. This is what happens to me when I don’t have you.”
“Don’t you dare try to threaten me!”
“Threaten?” He laughed, or made some throaty, sickening approximation of a laugh. “Do I look like a man in a position to threaten you?”
She stomped her foot, and desire stabbed through him. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” She pulled off her stylish hat and set it on one of Christopher’s antiquities—half a broken column that he was currently using as a side table. Her hair tumbled loose as she turned to look at him, and he was quite certain he had never wanted to make love to her as much as he did in that moment: flushed, feminine and masculine all at once, quivering with emotion.
“Please?” He didn’t know what he was asking for, but he was asking nonetheless. He wanted her like he wanted oxygen.
“Please what?” She was obviously frustrated with him.
“God, I have nothing more to give you than my name, my children—if we are lucky enough to have them. I beg you to be my true wife, to spend the rest of your life with me. I feel it in my heart that we are meant to be together.”
Her nostrils flared. “I too feel it in my heart . . . I feel you in my heart.” She tugged off one of the gloves and reached for him. As she caressed his cheek, the tension in his chest loosened for the first time since he’d walked out of Devonshire House.
“So you will give her up?”
She withdrew her hand as if he were some sort of hideous leper. “You are an extortionist! Would I ask you to give up your mother? Your sister? Everyone you hold dear?”
“Beatrix Farnsworth is not your family! She is your lover!”
Selina’s eyes were brimming with fresh tears, but she did not shed them. “She is my family, and I will never give her up. You are too blind to see that I already am your true, devoted wife. That I love you—” Her voice cracked as if she were reluctant to admit it. “And yet that is not enough—not enough for you. What will happen when we have children? Will my very limited supply of love be cut in half yet again? Then into thirds and fourths? Will I be allowed to love our sons and daughters, or will that, too, threaten the love I have for you?”
He struggled to sit up straight in the bed, grateful that the pain in his head seemed to have improved somewhat. “You cannot be serious. You sleep in the same bed with her. You have sexual relations with her!”
“You have sexual relations with Christopher!”
“Your logic is preposterous. I don’t love Christopher!”
She barked a cruel laugh. “And you think that is more honorable! To use your friend’s body for some heartless carnal satisfaction? That is better in your mind than my loving, physical relationship with Beatrix?”
“No. Yes. No!” He shook his head in exasperated frustration. “The point is moot, because I have not had sexual relations with Christopher since you and I were married.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear it. That’s your loss. Or maybe not, since you confess to having no real feelings for him—”
“You are twisting my words! I meant— I intend to honor the integrity of our marriage, that you can trust in my fidelity.”
“And you can trust in mine, damn it. I promise I will never be with any man but you. Never!”
His nostrils flared. The sound of those words filled him with such desire and pride and then . . . frustration. “You should promise never to be with any person but me, damn it.”
She pulled the glove back on and took a deep breath. “That I will not do.” Hesitating and giving him a narrow look, she continued, “While we have been together these past few months, has it felt like you only received some fraction of my attention? Some shoddy portion of me?”
“No—”
“Do you want me as much as I want you right now?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Then you, my lord, are a fool.”
Selina picked up the top hat and was almost to the door when he said, “You have no respect for the rule of God.”
She wheeled around and glared at him but did not walk back to the bed. “Don’t you dare speak to me of the rule of God. The rule of God put me in a prison in Yorkshire with other evil sinners who masturbated or refused to marry a lecher twice her age, or didn’t obey her parents’ wishes when they called for silence after the neighbor’s son raped her sister! That is your rule of God, Lord Camburton. I want no part of your rule of God. I love Beatrix. I love you. And even after all that, I will have room in my heart for all the children we might create—or might have already created.” Her hand went protectively to her belly. “And since it seems you do not have room in your heart, I bid you good-night, sir.”
“This can’t bode well if you are leaving his side this quickly—with no alteration to your sartorial splendor . . . other than your hair.” Christopher was resting languidly on the green velvet chaise near the fire. “Which is quite becoming with the top hat, I do declare.”
She tossed the damnable hat onto a chair, and pushed his feet aside so she could sit at the other end of the chaise. “He’s impossible.”
“Is that news?” Christopher took a drink of his scotch and then passed her the tumbler.
“Thank you. I could use a sip.” She took a sniff and then wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Perfect. Now I can’t even have the pleasure of a stiff drink.” She returned the glass untouched and leaned her back into the pillows behind her. “I shan’t give up on him, damn it. He’s clinging to some notion that I must abandon Beatrix if I’m to be his ‘true’ wife, whatever that means. He used words like ‘integrity’ and ‘fidelity’ and the ‘rule of God.’”
“I daresay it’s not merely a notion. You are going up against centuries of religious doctrine and social law.”
“It’s all hypocrisy.” She kept her voice level. “So if we were some typical tonish couple, and we married, and I gave him an heir and then he set up a lady love in town—or even if he visited you, discreetly of course—”
“Of course,” Christopher agreed amiably.
“Then that would be in accordance with the social order?”
Christopher nodded slowly.
“But because I want to be open and honest and true from the outset—that makes me the rebel, the troublemaker . . . the sinner?”
Christopher shrugged. “Yes. I’d say that fairly sketches out the situation.”
“But he is the Marquess of Camburton, damn it.” She slammed her fist into her palm.
“And you the Marchioness of Camburton,” Christopher added helpfully.
She sighed. “He is one of the richest, most powerful men of our time—and therefore arguably free
of social constraints. Yet, still he persists with this nonsense.”
“Come now. These are not merely social conventions as far as Archie is concerned. He is incredibly possessive, desperately in love with you, and despises competition of any sort. How can he possibly contend with Beatrix in any way other than to attempt to eliminate her from the field?”
Selina stared at her gloved hands. The male cut of the gray suede was far more comfortable than the tight-fitting narrow cut of her usual kid gloves. She stared at the excellent workmanship and contemplated the gloves for quite some time. “Men have designed this world to suit them.”
“Better than designing the world in some unsuitable manner,” Christopher joked.
She looked at him, and he set down his glass when he saw the depth of her seriousness. “Why can’t he see that I will only grow to resent him if he forces me to part from Beatrix?” She shook her head. “Not that I ever would—or could—part from her. Why does he feel he must claim me like some territory, to stab a flag in me and declare me his?”
“Because that is what we were all taught to do, my dear. Especially Archie.”
“He was not raised to—” Selina made to defend Vanessa and Nora, as if Christopher were implying that they were somehow to blame for raising Archie to be that type of man, but Christopher held up his hand.
“Hear me out. His sister, Georgiana, was always the wild one. Archie was the reliable one. And those were not just roles that were assigned to them, either. He is reliable. If you only knew the amount of research that is happening right now because of his anonymous generosity, the distribution of educational pamphlets throughout the country, the good charitable works that are taking place—all solely because of him. He is so damned good. You must know that.”
“Yes, I know. He is very good.”
“He loves you and you love him, and he doesn’t understand anything beyond that. You confound him.”