by Karleen Koen
"Let me decide what I will and will not do. I will escort you to the carriage, if you please. And then, since it is your desire, you may go home alone."
She was silent, meek almost, as he gestured for her to precede him.
Outside, at the carriage, he leaned one foot on the carriage step and watched her. Her face was very pale where the rouge did not cover it, and she was holding on to Hyacinthe's hand, as if she were a child and had just been punished. He could not help smiling, and she looked at him, and then quickly away because the passion in his eyes burned her so. And there was Philippe. Always Philippe between them. Even today, he was between them.
"I was proud of you," Roger said. "You displayed courtesy and far better breeding than the prince. Try to understand his irritation. A man who fancies himself in love at his age is often a fool."
Her other hand was lying in her lap. Gently, he picked it up and smoothed open the palm against his knee. He looked down at it. "I do love you so," he said. And he lifted her palm to his lips and kissed it. She could feel the pressure of his lips leap through her entire body. Once, so long ago, he had kissed her palm thusly at St. James's Square, when she had been young and foolish and crying. Now she was older and just as foolish, only there were no tears. She cupped his cheek with her palm. I loved you, too, she thought. Sweet Jesus, I loved you.
"We could deal better together than we have," he said harshly, and his eyes were the color of the summer sky above them. What was in them, what was in her, frightened her. She was not yet ready. She snatched her palm away. Her gesture did not seem to bother him in the least.
"Go on to Tamworth, Barbara. I must go to London. I will write to you. There is much I have to say, and some things are easier said in a letter. And I am going to say them, one way or another. You cannot run from me forever."
"Go, John," she said to the coachman, and Roger stepped away and shut the door. She leaned out the window but did not look at him. "Thank you for today." The carriage lurched away.
He stared after the carriage, growing smaller and smaller as it rattled down the oak–lined lane that led from Richmond Lodge. Finally, he walked away, and as he walked he began to whistle softly, as if he were satisfied.
* * *
Philippe sat in the shade of some bordering trees that overlooked the fine tender green lawns of Richmond Lodge. Every feeling was numb, as they had all become the moment he had seen Roger beside Barbara this morning. Under the numbness, he was aware of a great pain, yet for now it was blessedly deadened. I understand, he thought slowly. It was as if all his thoughts, everything about him, even the blood flowing through his body, were moving with a stately slowness. Every detail—the green of the lawn, the sun dappling through the trees, the myriad tiny lines upon his hands as they lay quiescent in his lap—was significant. I understand it all now. He wants her, just as he wants all beautiful things. And he will have her. And I am to be the sacrifice. She has won. She does not even know it. But she has won.
* * *
At the end of the lane, Barbara's carriage lurched to a stop. She leaned out to see her aunt's carriage pulled to one side, Mary jumping down and lifting her long skirts, running toward hers. Not now, thought Barbara. She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes.
"Bab. I have to speak with you. Open the door."
She motioned to Hyacinthe, and Mary climbed in. But instead of speaking, she fidgeted with a bow on her gown.
Barbara watched her through half–closed eyes. "Have you come to run away with me to Tamworth?" How normal her voice sounded. "Do so, and I will have Thérèse show you how to make up your face so that all the young men swoon at your feet. I will show you how to laugh and smile and, flirt. They will be putty in your hands—" Her voice broke. She took a deep breath.
Mary stared at her.
"Never mind me. I have had a bad day. Several bad days, in fact." Those words were flippant, curt. Mary flinched. Go away, thought Barbara, Go away before I hurt you.
"I am a fool,'" Mary said, staring down at the shredded bow in her gown. She looked up at Barbara and said with the same abruptness Tony often displayed. "But I have to know. Do you love Charles Russel?"
Barbara closed her eyes. She wanted to claw her little cousin's face suddenly. She wanted to scream at her and kick and stamp her heels on the floor like a child.
"Dear me, no," she said, and her voice was cutting. "He was amusing….for a while. You are a sweet dear to worry over me." Now go away, Mary, before I begin screaming and do not stop.
Mary leaned forward and hugged her. Her blue–gray eyes, clear and limpid like Tony's, gazed into Barbara's. "I had to know. I love you. Be well, Bab. Please."
I will not cry, Barbara thought, as the carriage jumped forward. I will not.
* * *
Carlyle, in the Richmond Lodge stable yard waiting for a groom to bring his horse, looked up and saw Roger, about to mount a horse, sag suddenly against its side. He broke into a run, all affectation gone, to reach Roger and take him by the arm.
"Roger! What is it? Are you ill? Where is your carriage?"
Roger raised his face. It was drained of color, and the sight of it frightened Carlyle.
"Barbara…has it," he said slowly, as if speaking each word hurt. "I am fine. I–I felt a small pain."
"Let me call another carriage for you. You sit there on the steps, and I will—"
"No. Tommy. I will be fine. I…I am feeling better already." With an effort, and to Carlyle's horror, he hoisted himself into the saddle. His face was pale, and there was a sheen of perspiration suddenly all across it.
"I…must be getting old," he said, looking down at Carlyle.
"Not you," Carlyle said quickly. "Never you. Roger, go home and rest. Promise me."
Roger smiled. The smile was a grimace. "I will." Carlyle shivered and stared after him until someone cursed at him angrily to move out of the middle of the stable yard.
* * *
The carriage lurched crazily over the dried mud ruts on the road to Tamworth. Barbara was silent in a corner, her feet tucked under her, both dogs asleep in her lap. Hyacinthe rode outside with the coachman, and Thérèse, sitting opposite, understood her mood and said nothing. They would have to stop in another hour or so at a tavern to spend the night; they had gotten away from Richmond too late to reach Tamworth until tomorrow afternoon. Barbara leaned her head against the corner of the seat and carriage side. How weary I am, she thought. Bits and pieces of the day kept flashing in her head: the expression on the Frog's face as he watched her advance with Roger; the way she felt when she walked into her parlor and saw Roger this morning; the brief glimpse she had caught of Charles's face; the way her heart hurt at the mere sight of Philippe, the ugly memories his presence ignited; Mary's question…we deserved to end so much better than we did, she thought…oh, Charles. And then there was the numbing fact of Jemmy's death. His death haunted her, perching on her shoulder like a black crow. He was so young…
"Hello, stop! Stop the carriage!"
The words penetrated her thoughts. Thérèse was leaning out the window.
"Three men," she said tersely. "On horseback. One of them is trying to stop the carriage."
Barbara began to jerk off rings and bracelets, looking for a place to hide them. She slipped a ring down the front of her gown.
"Not there!" cried Thérèse. "Your shoe. Put them in your shoe—"
And then both of them looked at each other and said, "Hyacinthe!" at the same time. If John should fire off his pistol, if the highwaymen should have firearms—Barbara pushed the dogs from her lap. Thérèse was already half out of the window. Barbara moved across the seat to hold her waist and legs to steady her. She saw a horse and rider go by. The carriage began to slow down. It stopped. Thérèse fell back into the carriage. Her face was white and pinched about the nostrils. Hyacinthe leaned over, his head upside down in the window. He grinned at them.
"Lord Charles," he said. "It is Lord Charles."
&n
bsp; Barbara wrenched open the door and stepped out into the dirt of the road. One rider had the reins of the carriage horses. Another two were just riding up. She recognized Charles immediately.
"How dare you stop my carriage in this way!" she yelled at him, fright making her shrill. "You are fortunate John did not blow your head off!"
Charles leaned down toward her, his face strained, a smear of dirt across one thin cheek.
"Listen to me. I have to speak with you. We cannot leave things as they are."
"There is nothing left for us to say—"
Her words ended in a gasp, for he put one arm around her waist, and with her dangling like a sack of meal, trotted away toward a small copse of oak trees. The horse's gait, the way Charles's arm clasped her waist, knocked the breath from her.
She almost fell down when he let her go. He dismounted and tried to take her in his arms. She stepped back.
"Forgive me," he said, and his wide, sensual, beautiful mouth was so grim it was a thin line, but not any grimmer than the expression in his eyes. "Say you forgive me."
"You killed him—"
"God, Barbara, do you think anything else has been on my mind since the moment I saw him fall? Do you think I have no feelings at all? I have to live with the knowledge of what I have done for the rest of my life. But I cannot live knowing you hate me."
"Oh, Charles, I do not hate you."
He took a step toward her, but she turned and leaned into a thick tree trunk, her cheek against the rough bark.
"How could you do it, not only to Jemmy, but to me?" she said, and her voice was trembling. "Can you not see? It is over."
"I will not believe that," he said quickly. "We both have much to regret. But we can change, Barbara. If we only try…"
He put his arms around her. She did not lean back into him, as once she would have done, but she did not pull away either. He rested his chin on the top of her head as he spoke softly, gently, persuasively.
"I love you. I love you in a way that frightens me. I could not stand the idea that another man had touched you. I was wrong. Drunk and crazed. Never have I humbled myself as I am doing now. Say you forgive me, Barbara. Say you love me. I need to hear the words."
She turned around and looked up at him. His eyes searched her face. It is too late, she was thinking. I do care for you. But there has always been Roger between us, though you did not know….there is so much you do not know, Charles, and now there is Jemmy, and the hurt and shame there is so deep atop too many other hurts.…It is too late for us. Oh, God, I am no different from Roger, allowing you to love me that way he allowed me. Oh, God….
"There is someone else," she said slowly, her face white, as if all the blood had drained from it. "There has always been someone else—"
He stepped back, the angles of his face changing, so that for a second, she might have been facing Roger. But he was not Roger. He never would be.
"What a fool I am," he said, moving now toward her, anger, more than anger in his face. "I am nothing to you. Nothing at all. Goddamn you—"
She stepped back at the expression on his face, but the tree trunk was behind her, and he was before her, shaking her shoulders savagely.
"I may have to live with killing him, but you have to live with his lovemaking and what that makes you! Go on! Run away to wherever it is you are going, and when enough time has passed, crawl back to the safety of that husband of yours, if that is what you plan, for it is certainly what he plans! But you will miss me, and by God in heaven, you will need me! Because I am young, like you. And he is old, and I love you. As much as—or more than—he does. And I am the better man….God, I would like to strangle you!"
He let go of her contemptuously, and she almost fell. He looked down at her.
"All summer you have been playing a dangerous game, Barbara. Yes, you hate me at this moment for saying the truth. Well, I could not keep myself from loving you in spite of it, which only makes me a fool. But what does this summer make you?"
His words were flames in her mind, crackling and burning, and too close to truth to be borne. She wanted to kill him for saying them. She had run away from Richelieu not to become so and yet here she was and there was the gleam of Philippe's white, even teeth as he smiled at what was achieved, slowly but surely, if one only waited long enough. She grabbed Charles's cloak and twisted it in her hand, pulling him to her, surprising him with her surge of angry strength.
"In my life, I have known only four men, and one of them just died for it, and perhaps that does make me a whore, but I don't think so. And I mean to be so much else! You will never know all I mean to be! And Roger, for all you despise him, would never have killed a boy, no matter what I had done! Which makes him the better of us both! You will never be the man he is, not if you live a thousand years! And I will never love you the way I once loved him!"
She dropped the cloak, panting, and Charles stared at her, and all that was in his face hurt her. But she could not stop. Not now. The anger and despair and his words were all too much.
"You go away," she told him. "You go far away and marry, as your mother keeps urging you! Some sweet, docile girl who has no fears and hurts and so can never disappoint you as I have done! You are right in one thing, Charles! I hate you for saying the truth! And I always will!"
Her words carried clearly. The men who had come with Charles looked down at the ground, and Thérèse put her hand to her mouth and accidentally leaned against the carriage door so that it opened, and Harry and Charlotte went leaping out, yapping and barking, straight to their mistress. They sniffed Charles's legs, and even though he was familiar to them, they growled at him. He kicked at them.
"Goddamn you!" screamed Barbara. "You leave my dogs alone!"
He turned and walked away. She knelt down and gathered Harry and Charlotte into her lap. They whined and licked her face.
"Good dogs," she whispered. "Good dogs."
She wiped her face. She was crying. Damn him.
Chapter Twenty–Four
The Duchess was inspecting her beehives, or rather, she was watching her doddering beekeeper (as old, as ancient as she was) inspect the hives, sheltered in specially built sections of a garden wall constructed in her great– grandfather's time. The spring had been cold, and she and the beekeeper had used tried and true methods to keep the bees thriving. They had fed them honey boiled in rosemary in little wooden troughs put near the hives; they had fed them toast soaked in ale; she had ordered more thyme and lavender planted nearby—although there was already an ancient wisteria vine that had attracted them years ago—and lamb's ears and soapwort and Queen Anne's lace and mint and violets, surely more than enough to tempt any capricious bee's driven little heart. But the queen was new and the Duchess and her beekeeper wanted to ensure that the colony expanded itself properly and continued to make sweet, mint–flavored honey, a Tamworth specialty.
The bees were her new interest, an interest necessary these last years. She had Tony to keep her going, and he had, especially when Barbara had not returned amid such terrible, wild rumors reaching them from France and Hanover. But Tony was a man, and to protect that manhood, the Duchess pushed him to depend on no one, herself least of all. And so, she had her bees. It ought to have been Barbara. Any fool with one eye in her head could see she was not well when she appeared this spring, but Barbara was a woman now and bent on her own way. Something had happened to her in Paris, but had she come home, home to Tamworth where she belonged and where the Duchess could have nursed and cared for her? No. She had racketed about the city of Paris with some rascal called the Duc de Richelieu and earned herself quite a reputation in the bargain. And a year later, she had handled her father's death and burial and sending of the body home by herself, without so much as a word to the family, other than a terse letter informing them of the death. And still she stayed away. And so the Duchess busied herself with her bees, demanding, exacting little creatures, temperamental, apt to move their hive if it became too crowded or
the herbs and flowers nearby did not suit them. They had to be treated carefully, fed their special diet in a cold spring. Bees would not thrive if they were quarreled over; they had to be informed when a death in the family occurred. They were nervous, busy creatures who would sting you in a second if you disturbed them improperly, even though it meant their own death.
Lately, death had been much on her mind. All the deaths—Kit's, Richard's sister Elizabeth's, Cousin Henley's, her own. For it was coming. She had lived far past her prime; she was a doddering, nearly toothless old hag. She never knew when her legs would fail her and she would have to be helped about by a footman, like a cripple. (Now, for example, at a discreet distance, was the latest in a series of footmen Annie assigned to watch over her. She hated it, but her body was failing her more and more, and there seemed to be nothing she could do. She was a prisoner inside it. Some mornings she woke and felt young again, but then, as she struggled out of bed, she knew the truth. She was very old.) It was time to let go and fade away. No one needed her anymore, and that was the plain, simple truth of it. She had outlived her usefulness. Just the other day, she had been discussing it with Richard, which was another sign of her old age. She talked out loud to him now and did not care a sixpence who heard her.