The Viscount's Veiled Lady

by Jenni Fletcher

  ‘A little. It’s never pleasant reliving any painful experience, but it was a long time ago.’

  ‘So was mine, though in some ways I feel as if it was last week. What happened, what I did to my father, that’s a burden I carry with me every day.’

  ‘If you don’t want to tell me...’

  ‘I don’t, but you were honest with me. I owe you the same in return.’

  He pulled one knee up and rested his forearm on top, wondering where to begin as he watched Georgie dig a second line of moats around their sandcastles. Had he ever been as young and carefree as that? Perhaps, a long time ago, though he had little memory of it now.

  ‘My father was a difficult man.’ He started talking almost unconsciously. ‘As far as I can remember, he always was. Even when Lance and I were boys he never smiled or played or spent any time with us unless he was forced to. He was cold and remote, but our mother made up for it. She was the complete opposite, kind and gentle and loving. We adored her, but then she died when we were eleven.’

  ‘I’m sorry. What happened?’

  ‘A fever. I was there at the end. She called me to her and asked me to look after Lance and my father.’ He reached down and trailed a path through the sand with his fingers. ‘They were both so stubborn and hot-tempered, whereas I was calmer like her. She knew that they were going to butt heads and she wanted me to prevent it somehow. I promised her I would try, though I didn’t have the faintest idea how. Maybe I ought to have tried harder. Maybe the effort was doomed from the start. In any case, whatever I ought to have done, I failed. Our father became even more intractable and Lance...well, that was when he started to go wild. I felt trapped in the middle.’

  ‘It must have been awful.’ She placed a hand over his and he twisted his fingers around, lacing them through hers.

  ‘It was. Father didn’t do anything to stop Lance’s behaviour, almost as if he wasn’t interested in him. Whereas I... I was the heir, the one he wanted to mould, to shape as his idea of the perfect Viscount. My life was one long series of lectures, but I never argued, never stood up for myself. I left that to Lance. He argued all the time, right up until he ran away to join the army without even telling me. That was the very worst time in my life. I was completely alone with my father, but I still never rebelled. I did what he wanted, behaved the way he wanted me to, but I hated my life. I know it sounds ungrateful when I had so much—a home, a comfortable existence, a title at some point in my future—but I wanted more. I wanted to do something with my life, too, but my father thought a gentleman shouldn’t soil his hands with anything like work. I felt so helpless and weak and...crushed. I wanted to be a good son and my own man, too, but the two were incompatible. Then I met your sister.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her fingers twitched as if she were about to pull them away, but he closed his own around them.

  ‘I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, like a ray of sunshine in my miserable existence. I couldn’t believe that she liked me, too. I thought that if I married her then somehow everything else would be all right.’

  ‘So you proposed?’ Her voice sounded flatter than before.

  ‘No. It was never my intention to keep anything from my father. I would never have asked Lydia to wait for so long either, but then one day I said something about the future and she must have misunderstood. To this day I’ve no idea how it happened...’ He lifted an eyebrow as she gave him a strange look and then pressed her lips into a thin line. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s not nothing. What?’

  ‘You honestly don’t remember proposing?’

  ‘I don’t remember saying those exact words, no, but I must have...’ He frowned. ‘Mustn’t I?’

  ‘You know for an intelligent man...’

  ‘I can be remarkably naive about women?’ He sighed. ‘You think she tricked me?’

  ‘No-o, I wouldn’t put it quite like that. She might have anticipated you a little, but you were in love with her. I saw the two of you together.’

  He clasped her hand even tighter. ‘I suppose I was, inasmuch as I knew her. I thought that I did, but now... Now I wonder if it was all just wishful thinking. Maybe that’s why I didn’t try to talk with her more often either. She was my ideal. Maybe I didn’t want to risk spoiling the one good thing in my life...’ He grimaced. ‘That doesn’t reflect very well on me, does it? My only excuse is that I didn’t like myself very much at the time, but I wonder if it’s even possible to love another person under those circumstances? What kind of love is it when we expect the other person to make up for some unhappiness in ourselves? Love should be about giving, not taking.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, I thought that if I did everything else my father expected of me then he’d allow us to marry, but he wouldn’t even discuss it.’

  ‘Not at all?’

  ‘I tried persuasion at first. I told him that I was in love, but he refused to listen. Then he told me about the agreement he’d made with Violet’s father—without consulting either of us, I might add—for a marriage based solely on money. I thought about an elopement with Lydia, but there was the promise to my mother... I felt as though I’d already failed her in regard to Lance and I didn’t want to fail her with my father as well. I couldn’t let the whole family fall apart.’

  ‘I doubt she would ever have asked if she’d known the strain it would cause.’

  ‘I don’t think she would have either. You know it’s funny, but on that last day she told me that I was the strong one.’ He laughed as if the idea were genuinely amusing. ‘Me...as if I had some quality my father and Lance didn’t!’

  ‘Maybe she was right. You lived with all that pressure for a long time.’

  ‘But I failed in the end. I ran away, too.’

  Her fingers tightened around his. ‘Why did you?’

  He drew in another deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘There came a day when I decided enough was enough. I’d been to your house that afternoon. You were painting in a corner—a picture of horses, if I recall correctly—and I was just one of Lydia’s many admirers. I couldn’t bear for things to go on like that any longer so I made a decision. I went home determined to speak with my father, to demand that he let me live the life that I wanted, but he wasn’t in his study as usual. He was in the drawing room in his armchair by the fire, drinking whisky and looking at miniatures of me and Lance as boys and crying. I’d never seen him cry before. I sat down and asked him what was wrong and we talked. It was the only real conversation we ever had, all about Lance and my mother and me. I realised that he wasn’t such a monster after all, not deep down. He had feelings, only most of the time he had no idea how to open up and show them. That was his tragedy, I think. I told him that I wanted to marry Lydia and he agreed. He even gave me his blessing. It was the best night of my life.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘I went to bed happier than I’d felt in ten years. When I came downstairs the next morning I was filled with a new sense of joy and purpose. It was a beautiful summer’s day and I was going to propose, properly this time, to the woman I thought I loved.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he denied everything. He refused to accept the conversation had ever happened. He was so convincing that I even started to wonder myself. He told me that if I married Lydia then he’d disown me as well as Lance and disinherit us both. That was when I saw red, I suppose. I told him that I didn’t care about the title or the house or the money, any of the things he thought were so important. I said that I’d marry Lydia without his consent and marched out of the house determined to do just that.’

  She lifted her eyes to his with a look of sadness. ‘And that was when you saw her with somebody else?’

  ‘Yes. I realised then what a fool I’d been.’

  ‘But why didn’t you speak to her?’

  ‘There was no point. She wasn’t
the woman I’d thought she was, perfect or otherwise. If my heart broke, it wasn’t over her. It was over a figment of my imagination.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was a strange look on her face. ‘But then I don’t understand. Why didn’t you go home again? If you realised all that, why did you still run away to sea?’

  Chapter Twelve

  Arthur lifted both of their hands and looked at the interlaced fingers. He’d told Lance and Violet what had happened to him that day, but was he really going to tell Frances, too? Did he trust her so much?

  ‘That morning...’ he forced himself to speak ‘...something inside me just seemed to snap. I was afraid that if I went back to my father then I’d never be able to break free from him again. I’d be under his control for years, possibly decades. I found myself at the harbour even before I realised where I was going. I’d always loved sailing so I climbed into our boat and took it out by myself. It was a clear day. There were gannets and puffins and cormorants on the cliff tops, screeching loudly enough to drown out all thought. I remember sitting on the prow, looking out at the water and feeling a strange sense of peace, as if all of my worries, all of the strain I’d been under didn’t matter any more. Lance was gone, my father had renounced me and Lydia had found someone else. I’d done my best, but it was over. I’d failed, but I didn’t owe anything to any of them any more. So I stopped thinking and just felt...peaceful. And then, somehow, I was in the water. It felt soft and comforting, as if I were being embraced by the waves.’

  She leaned sideways, rubbing her shoulder against his as if to comfort him. ‘Did you want to drown?’

  ‘No. I can see why you might think so, but, no. I wanted to be free, but I never wanted to die. I was just moving by instinct, swimming and swimming further away from the shore. I had this strange idea that it would all be all right, that somebody would find me, which luckily they did.’

  ‘The fishing boat?’

  ‘Yes, on its way back to Scotland. I was half-conscious by then and they probably thought I was either mad or a criminal on the run, but they let me work on the deck anyway. It was hard labour, but I enjoyed it. Bizarre as it sounds, it felt like a kind of rebirth. I was a man without a past, without a name, but it was who I wanted to be.’

  ‘Because you were free?’

  ‘Yes. For nine months, it was as though the rest of the world didn’t exist. Then one day, we made port in Newcastle and I decided to join the others for a drink in the harbour. We sat outside a tavern and listened through the open window to the owner telling a story about a family near Whitby, a viscount and his twin sons.’ He ran a hand over his head at the memory. ‘I heard the truth by chance, all about my father’s death and Lance being shot in Canada.’

  ‘Oh, Arthur...’ there were tears in her eyes now ‘...that must have been terrible.’

  ‘It was. I felt as if I’d been living in a dream and I finally woke up to find all the things I’d put out of my head for months crashing down on me like a wave. That time, I really did feel as if I were drowning.’

  ‘But you came back.’

  ‘Yes...’ He cleared his throat as his voice cracked. ‘I didn’t want to, but I had to find out whether Lance was still alive. I hurried back as quickly as I could and broke into Amberton Castle in the middle of the night. It scared him and Violet half to death. They thought I was a ghost at first—understandably, I might add. It wasn’t easy, explaining that I’d gone mad for almost a year.’

  ‘You weren’t mad. That’s not the right word.’ She tipped her head, laying her cheek against his shoulder.

  ‘That’s what Lance says.’ He turned his own head slightly, breathing in the scent of her hair. ‘But most people would say I belong in an institution.’

  ‘Most people don’t understand what it’s like to go through something like that, to feel as if your whole world has been turned upside down.’

  ‘So they’re all wrong?’

  ‘They’re all judgemental. Anybody might have snapped.’

  ‘Not anybody.’

  ‘How do you know?’ She lifted her head again indignantly, narrowly avoiding head-butting him in the chin. ‘How does anybody know how they’ll react in any situation? None of us do, no matter what we might say or think about ourselves. The main thing is that you came back. That proves that your mother was right about you.’

  He smiled half-sadly, half-affectionately. ‘Frances, how can it be strong to lose your senses?’

  ‘Because you regained them! And when you did, you came back and faced what you’d done. Listen to me!’ She glared at him as he started to shake his head. ‘You were the one who just said that beauty isn’t real beauty until it’s been tested. Well, maybe strength and courage have to be tested as well. Some people would have given up completely. Some would have kept on running and never come back. Maybe you’re stronger now because of what happened.’

  ‘At the cost of my father.’

  ‘Your father was as much to blame for the situation as you were! Yes, you gave him a terrible shock, but you never intended to hurt him. Whereas he must have known the pressure he was putting on you. He was the one who refused to let you live your own life!’

  ‘You sound like Lance and Violet.’

  ‘Well, doesn’t that tell you something? We can’t all be wrong. You should listen to at least one of us.’

  ‘I know. Rationally, I know it, but if I could go back...’

  ‘If you could go back, then you’d still be faced with all the same choices. You’d still have to choose whether to live your life his way or your way. And if you’d chosen his way, then everything would be different. Lance and Violet wouldn’t be married and you wouldn’t have a nephew or niece on the way.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ He drew his eyebrows together thoughtfully. He’d never looked at it that way before...

  ‘And who’s to say that your father wouldn’t have collapsed if you’d stayed? It might have happened anyway.’

  He drew his brows even tighter. She was right. His head knew she was right, but knowing and feeling were such different things...

  ‘He was still my father. I loved him despite everything. I wish I could have told him that much at least.’

  She squeezed his fingers again. ‘Is that why you won’t go back to Amberton Castle? Because you feel guilty?’

  ‘In part. It’s not easy going back to a place with so many memories, but it’s more than that. It’s because...’ he paused, wondering how much of the truth to tell her ‘...it’s because I made a choice. I made it the moment I got into that boat. I could have gone home after I saw Lydia, but I didn’t. I can’t go back now as if nothing ever happened.’

  ‘And that’s why you won’t sit in that armchair by the fireplace?’

  He nodded, surprised by her acuity. ‘It was his chair. I don’t belong there.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No!’ This time he lifted his spare hand to forestall her. ‘I’ve made up my mind about this. I’ve inherited the title, there’s nothing I can do about that, but I want Lance to have everything else. His family, too, after I’m gone. I don’t deserve any of it.’

  ‘But what about your family? Your future children?’

  ‘We’ve already established that I’ve been a bad son, bad brother and bad fiancé. Something tells me I’m not cut out for marriage and parenthood either.’

  ‘Well...’ she gave a cynical-sounding laugh ‘...that makes two of us.’

  He nudged his boot into the sand, feeling even guiltier than usual. He’d told her the truth, though still not all of it. Self-reproach and a need to punish himself were only two of the reasons he couldn’t go back to Amberton Castle. But how could he tell her the third, the biggest reason—that he was afraid of losing his mind all over again? She’d revise her opinion about him being the strong one then... But if they were being truly honest with each other... />
  ‘The tide’s coming back in.’ She broke the silence before he could decide. ‘And Georgie looks as if he’s finally finished his masterpiece.’

  ‘So he has.’ He looked at the chain of sandcastles and smiled appreciatively. ‘What a shame the water has to come back and destroy it.’

  ‘I don’t know. He’ll be sad for a while, but then he’ll forget and start all over again with even bigger plans next time. Isn’t that what we all have to do when things get knocked down and broken? We mend them and carry on.’

  ‘Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to tell me something?’

  ‘Because you’re not the only philosopher here. Besides, friends support each other.’

  ‘So we are friends, then?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ She paused for a moment and then turned serious again. ‘Thank you for telling me what happened, but you should know that Lydia never meant to hurt you. She has no idea that you saw her that day.’

  ‘I know. It’s strange, I’ve been angry at her for years, but now I wonder if it was more at myself. I think I wanted to be in love with her more than I actually was. I wanted something good and positive in my life, but it wasn’t fair to use her like that. No matter what she thinks, she had a lucky escape.’

  ‘Maybe you ought to tell her that. She has too much time to think at the moment, trapped in the house like a prisoner. It might help her.’

  ‘Maybe I will.’ He looked down at her fingers, still held between his. They felt long and delicate and fitted perfectly between his own, as if they belonged there, as if the two of them belonged together. And what on earth made him think that?

  It must be the situation, he told himself. The shared confidences, the murmur of the sea in the background, the little boy playing happily beside them, the warm sun and gentle breeze, not to mention those large, almost-black eyes, so deep that a man could drown in them if he wasn’t careful, which in his case was a dangerous metaphor indeed... All of those things were conspiring against them, forcing them into a romantic situation that neither of them wanted. They weren’t made for romance. Hadn’t they just spent the last hour deciding that, telling each other the various reasons they didn’t want or believe in it any more? They were both carrying deep scars in that regard, had both decided on solitary, independent futures without romantic entanglements. She might be holding his hand, but she’d been offering him comfort, that was all. And he was comforted. Her words were like a balm to his soul. So why did friendship not seem like enough any more? Why did he still want to kiss her? And why did the idea of living on his own seem so less appealing suddenly?