by Mary Balogh
“Tell me about the Countess of Hazeltine,” she said.
“Ah,” he said softly. “I w-wondered if that was it.”
She turned to look at him. He was sprawled in his chair, his neck cloth and cravat discarded, his shirt open at the neck. His golden hair looked as if he had passed his fingers through it one too many times. There was an empty glass on the table beside him, though he did not look drunk.
“I met her at Hookham’s Library this afternoon,” she said.
“Ah.”
“You called upon her yesterday.”
“Her and Sir Winston and Lady Frome.”
She waited for more, but more did not come.
“She had an unhappy marriage,” Agnes said. “She told me she ought to have waited to see what would happen with her first and only true love—her words. I thought she meant your brother. I thought perhaps she had loved him after all.”
“Ah,” he said again.
“Is that all you can say?” she asked him.
He heaved an audible breath, held it for a long moment, and exhaled it on a sigh. “She was sowing m-mischief,” he said. “I wondered if she would.”
Agnes wrapped her dressing gown more closely about her and sat down on a chair some distance from his. In the flickering light of the candle and the dying fire, he looked almost satanic. His head was against the chair back.
“We grew up together,” he said. “When we were both fifteen, we f-fell h-head over ears in l-love with each other. I was home from school for the summer. We saw ourselves as t-tragic figures, though, for she had always been intended for D-David and still was. He was nineteen by that time and p-painfully in love with her. Painful because he was thin and a b-bit undergrown and not at all robust, while she was already b-beautiful. She knew her duty, though, and I loved my brother. We renounced each other, V-Velma and I, thinking our love the stuff of legend. After that, we tried to stay away from each other. But David guessed. When she turned eighteen and they were to be officially b-betrothed at last, he surprised everyone and r-refused to do it. He set her free. It broke his heart.”
Flavian’s eyes were closed, and he was frowning and rubbing the side of a tight fist back and forth across his forehead as though to erase the memories.
Agnes stared at him, her heart turned to stone. Though stone did not ache unbearably, did it?
“Then they all w-wanted me to marry her,” he said, “because it was obvious I was going to be Ponsonby sooner rather than later. They were overjoyed about it, actually. They d-did not even try to get David to change his m-mind. And they did not even want to w-wait for him to d-die first. I was eighteen too. I was old enough at least to be betrothed, even if not married. I wouldn’t do it. I w-wouldn’t. I m-made David purchase me a commission instead and went off to war. I suppose I thought myself one d-devil of a noble fellow.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her then. He laughed softly and closed them again when she said nothing.
“Every time my mother wrote, it was to say David was w-weakening,” he said. “Finally, when it was clear he was d-d-dying, I took leave and c-came home to see him. I spent most of my time with him at Candlebury. I was going to stay home until he died. I r-remember that. Velma was in London—it was the Season. And then she was back home. I think she must have come because of David. But I saw her again, and I—”
He was frowning and rubbing his forehead again. Then he used the same fist to pound on the arm of his chair over and over again until he stopped and spread his hand over it, palm down.
“I can’t remember. I can’t bloody remember. Oh, dash it all, Agnes, forgive me. But I can’t remember. David was d-dying, and I thought I would die too, and yet suddenly I was in love with Velma again, and our engagement was being announced, and a big betrothal ball had been planned in London for the day before I was scheduled to return to the P-Peninsula. My mother and sister were ecstatic. So were the Fromes. I think—yes, I think they w-wanted it to happen before David died, so that the mourning period would not delay it. I suppose I wanted it too. I w-wasn’t going to leave David at all, but I ended up going to London and dancing at my b-betrothal ball, and setting off back to the Peninsula the very next day. The n-night I sailed, David d-died.”
Agnes had one hand over her mouth. Surely, oh, surely there was more to the story than that. It made no real sense. But he could not remember. She had come down here to accuse him, to force the sordid truth out of him. It was sordid indeed if it had happened as he remembered it.
“I did not even come back to England after I heard,” he said. “I stayed where I was. I did not come home until I was c-carried home. I was c-conscious, but I could not speak or f-fully understand what was happening around me or what p-people were saying. I c-could not even think c-clearly. I was d-dangerous. V-Violent. George came and g-got me eventually and took me off to C-Cornwall, where he f-found some g-good treatment for me. But j-just before I went, Velma came to t-tell me there was to be an announcement of the end of our b-betrothal in the morning papers next day, and that a few d-days later there was to be an announcement of her b-betrothal to Hazeltine. My b-best f-friend since school days. She said she was heartbroken, that they both were, but that they would f-find comfort together and w-would always love me.”
Oh.
“I understood what she s-said,” he said, “but I could not t-talk. Not even with a s-stammer. Only gibberish came out of my mouth when I tried. I was d-desperate to stop them. After she had g-gone, I destroyed the drawing room. I was d-desperate to talk to L-Len, but he did not c-come.”
“Your best friend,” Agnes said.
“They m-married each other,” he said. “She told you they were unhappy?”
“She said they lived virtually apart for the last two years of his life,” Agnes told him.
His mouth twisted with mockery, and he laughed without humor.
“I should be gloating,” he said softly. “But poor Len.”
“You knew she was back with her parents?” Agnes asked.
“My sister wrote while I was at Middlebury Park,” he said, “and then my mother. They could not call on her at Farthings fast enough.”
“Both families hoped to revive the old plan for the two of you to marry?” she said.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “The whole l-lot of them.”
“Lady Hazeltine too, I suppose,” she said. “And so you married me.”
For a moment there was a buzzing in her head, but she shook off the impulse to just faint away and so avoid facing the truth. It must be faced sooner or later.
He did not rush into denial—or confirmation. He turned his head her way and stared at her with hooded eyes, though not with his usual lazy mask of mockery.
“I married you,” he said at last, “because I w-wanted to.”
She stared back at him for a while and laughed softly.
“What a very heartwarming declaration,” she said. “Because you wanted to. You married me, Flavian, to avenge yourself upon Lady Hazeltine and upon your families, who did not stop her from marrying your best friend. And your choice of a plain, uninteresting nobody was inspired. I can see that now. No one could fail to get the point. Least of all me.”
“You are neither plain nor uninteresting nor a nobody, Agnes,” he said.
“You are right.” She got to her feet, hugging her dressing gown about her. “I am not—except in the eyes of your mother and sister and the woman you love and her family, and that is all that really matters, is it not?”
“Agnes—” he began, but she held up a staying hand.
“I am not putting all the blame upon you,” she said. “I am to blame too. Marrying you was utter madness. I did not even know you, or you me. I knew it was madness, but I married you anyway. I allowed myself to be swept away by passion. I wanted you, and finally I persuaded myself that the wanting was enough. And then, after we were married, I convinced myself that what happened between us really was enough, when in reality it was nothing bu
t base physical gratification, divorced from either mind or reason. I have been no better than a—a courtesan.”
“Courtesans feel no passion, Agnes,” he said. “They are too busy arousing it. Their living d-depends upon it.”
“Then I am no better than my mother,” she spat out.
She turned toward the embers of the fire again so that she would not have to look at him.
“Unlike her, you have not left me for someone else yet,” he said.
“Passion is a destroyer,” she told him. “It is the ultimate selfishness. It kills everything but itself. She left me when I was little more than a baby. Worse, she left Dora with all her hopes and dreams forever destroyed. Dora was seventeen, and she was pretty and eager and vivacious and looking forward to courtship and marriage and motherhood. Instead she was left with me. It was the lesson of a lifetime for a young child—or ought to have been. Passion was to be avoided at all costs. I chose wisely the first time I married. But at the first advent of passion into my life with you, I grabbed it without having any thought to anyone or anything else. Because I desired you in the basest physical way. And for that I do not blame you. Only for your dishonesty.”
“Agnes—” he said.
“I am going back to Inglebrook,” she said. “It will not make any difference to you. You are stuck with me for life anyway, and that will be enough to feed your revenge. You cannot also marry her unless I die. I am going back to Dora. I ought never to have left her. She deserved better of me.”
“Agnes—”
“No!” She swept around to look down at him. “No, you will not talk me out of it. When you think about it—if you ever do stop to think, that is—you will find yourself glad to have me out of your life. I have served my purpose, and I am going. Tomorrow. And you need not concern yourself. I will go on the stage. I have enough of my own money to pay for a ticket.”
Suddenly his mask was firmly in place—hooded, lazy eyes, slightly twisted mouth.
“Agnes,” he said, “you are a p-passionate woman whether you wish to be or not. And you are m-married to me whether you wish to be or not.”
“Passion,” she said, “can and ought to be controlled. And when I go home, I can forget that we are married.”
He raised one mocking eyebrow, and she wanted nothing more than to sink to her knees before the hearth and curl into a ball and sob her heart out. Or stride toward him and smack him hard across the cheek.
She had been married for revenge against the woman who had once hurt him beyond bearing.
But what about the woman who loved him?
What about her?
18
His wife’s bed had been slept in, Flavian could see—or lain upon at least. The dressing table had been swept bare of everything that had adorned it the last time he been had been in her bedchamber, however, except for the two candlesticks with their burned-down candles. Nothing littered the room.
Flavian might have feared she had gone already, if the sound of muffled sobs had not been coming through the partially open door to her dressing room.
He had not been to bed. He had spent the night in the book room, sprawled in the chair where she had found him sometime after midnight. He had not slept either. He had not got up to rekindle the fire or to pull his coat back on, though he had been aware that the room was chilly. He had not got up to refill his glass. Experience had taught him that drunkenness would only deepen his gloom, not lighten it or obliterate it. He had never had much success with liquor. He sometimes envied happy drunks.
He was aware that his evening shirt was horribly wrinkled, that his hair was hopelessly disheveled, that he was badly in need of a shave, that his eyes were undoubtedly bloodshot, and that he probably did not smell all that pleasant. He could not be bothered to go and change and get cleaned up. Besides, she would probably be gone before he had made himself presentable.
It was still dashed early, but then, daylight was all she had waited for, he guessed.
His life could not possibly be more messed up if he had tried.
He went to the doorway of the dressing room and set his shoulder against the frame after pushing the door a little wider. She was dressed for travel. All but one of her bags were packed and closed up. The remaining one was ready to be closed. It was not she who was sobbing, though, he discovered. It was the skinny little maid.
“Madeline,” he said when she looked up and spotted him. “W-Will you leave us, please?”
She had probably just been dismissed, her services no longer needed, poor girl.
“It just isn’t right, it isn’t,” she said, glaring at him with watery accusation.
“Madeline.” Agnes, her voice quiet but firm, cut the maid off from explaining exactly what it was that was not right. “Leave us, please. I will talk to you before I go.”
Still glaring from reddened eyes that did nothing to improve her looks, the girl passed him in the doorway.
Agnes set her brush on top of the still-open bag and closed it. She straightened up and looked at him—with a pale, composed face and empty eyes.
“Do you realize,” he said to her, “that yesterday was our f-first anniversary? Our one-week anniversary?”
“Would that I could go back and obliterate that week and take a different road,” she said. “But it is not possible. One can only move forward.”
“Are you not trying to go back anyway?” he asked her. “In time as well as in place?”
She seemed to consider her answer.
“No,” she said. “A short while ago I held a faint hope that I might marry again someday and perhaps even have a child or two, and that I would be as contented with my new marriage as I was with the old. Now that hope has been wiped out forever. Apart from that, though, my life will return to what it was until I made such an impulsive and disastrous decision. I will be with Dora. I believe she draws as much comfort from my company as I do from hers.”
“I think you will s-sadden her,” he said.
She laughed, though she did not sound remotely amused.
“She always said she did not trust your mobile left eyebrow,” she said. “I daresay she will not be altogether surprised to be proved that she was right.”
“I b-believe she likes me,” he said.
Agnes looked him over and laughed again. He wished he had at least buttoned his shirt to the neck. He must look the wreck he felt, not to mention disreputable.
“Don’t g-go,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows—both of them.
“It has been only a w-week, Agnes,” he said. “Since we are m-married anyway and nothing can change that, ought we not at l-least to g-give m-marriage a ch-chance?”
He thought suddenly of Ben once saying that he often wished he could just drop his canes and walk away from them without even thinking—or stumbling or falling. Flavian wished he could just open his mouth and say what his mind was thinking, without tripping and stumbling over his words—especially when he was most agitated.
“But it never was a marriage, was it?” she said. “Except, of course, that there was a ceremony binding us for life, and there was the consummation. Those things do not make a marriage, however, except in law. You married me so that you could hurt Lady Hazeltine and your family and hers as they hurt you years ago. And I married you because I—well, because I lusted after you. Now you have had your revenge and I have sated my lust, and it is time for me to go home. You are not going to try to stop me, are you? You are not going to try asserting your authority and order me to stay?”
She lifted her chin, and her jaw hardened.
“I w-want to be m-married to you,” he said. “I c-cannot explain why, and I am not going to s-spout reasons you would recognize as f-fabrications. But it was not revenge, Agnes. Or at least not . . . That w-word never entered my head. I w-wanted to be s-safe. I do not even know what I m-mean by that, but I felt it when you said yes, you would m-marry me, and I felt it when we m-married and walked out of the church. I felt s-
safe. That may not s-seem very flattering, but it is the truth. And it was you I w-wanted to marry, not just any woman. And it was not just lust on your part. You would not have m-married me just to be bedded. You b-belittle yourself when you say that. You wanted me, not just my body. You wanted me, Agnes.”
“I do not even know who you are,” she said.
“But you knew I was s-somebody,” he said. “Somebody you w-wanted to know. Somebody you wanted to spend a l-lifetime getting to know. It was not just lust.”
“More fool me, then,” she said. “There was nobody worth knowing inside that beautiful body after all, was there?”
He flinched and swallowed.
“Don’t go,” he said. “You may r-regret it. And I know I would.”
“Your pride would regret it,” she said.
“Probably,” he admitted. “And all the rest of me too.”
She stared at him, her face stony, her eyes blank.
“W-wait another week,” he pleaded. “Give me that much time. Stay for s-seven more days, and then I will t-take you to Candlebury if you s-still want to leave me. We can say we are going d-down there for Easter, and you can r-remain there afterward, and anyone who s-says you ought to be presented to the ton as my v-viscountess may go hang. You may have your s-sister come to live with you if you wish and if she wishes. She will find music pupils enough if she w-wants them, and you will find enough wildflowers to p-paint to last a lifetime. But g-give me a week first.”
She had not moved and did not now.
“Or if you must leave t-today,” he said, “then l-let me take you to Candlebury now. I’ll not s-stay if you do not want. I’ll never go near the place again unless you invite me. Agnes?”
“Do you still love her?” she asked.
He expelled his breath audibly, tipped his head back against the doorframe, crossed his arms, and gazed upward.
“The f-funny thing is,” he said, “and I think it must be funny because it makes no sense whatsoever—the funny thing is that I am not s-sure I ever did. I mean, I want to be honest with you because I think it is my only chance. I must have loved her, mustn’t I? But I c-can’t remember how it was or how it felt. And when I saw her again the day you and I arrived here, I d-didn’t know if I loved her or hated her. I still didn’t know when I called on her yesterday. I was afraid I loved her. But I did not want to. I do not want to. I w-want to . . . I want to be married to you. I want to be safe with you. And I could not sound more selfish if I tried, could I? I want, I want, I want . . . I would like to try to m-make you h-happy, Agnes. I think it would be good to make someone h-happy. I think it would be the best feeling in the world. Especially if it were you. Don’t go. Give me a chance. Give us a chance.”