She had avoided Constantine on her own account, though he always smiled at her and would have approached, she knew, if she ever gave him the slightest encouragement. She could have avoided him for the rest of the Season, she supposed, especially as she was going to be away from London for the next week or so. But avoidance had never been her way of dealing with life. When he returned Cecily and Kate to the box and would have returned to his own party, Vanessa leaned forward in her seat. Elliott was talking with a few of his male acquaintances.
“And will you walk with me too, Constantine?” she asked.
He smiled warmly at her, and it struck her that it was a great pity she had lost a cousin so soon after finding him. He was undoubtedly capable of great charm. He bowed to her and offered his arm.
“It would be my pleasure,” he said. As soon as they had moved away from the box, he bent his head a little closer to hers. “I thought you had fallen out with me.”
“I have,” she said.
His face was grave, but his eyes laughed in the lamp-light as they turned onto a broad avenue. He raised his eyebrows, inviting an explanation.
“It was not well done,” she said, “to introduce Mrs. Bromley-Hayes to me and my brother and sisters and Cecily at the theater. And it was not well done to bring her to Cecily’s come-out ball. I expected better of you. You are our cousin.”
Some of the laughter had faded from his eyes.
“It was not,” he agreed. “I apologize, Vanessa. My intention was never to hurt you or your family. Or Cece.”
“But you did,” she said. “Cecily and Stephen and Meg and Kate do not know that they were exposed to a tasteless indiscretion for all the ton to see. But I do. And I was the one most affected, apart from Elliott, whom I assume you deliberately set out to embarrass. Did you assume, Constantine, that I would not confront Elliott with what I learned from Mrs. Bromley-Hayes the day after the ball, though she lied to me? Did you assume that our marriage would be damaged from deep within, rather as a tumor might silently destroy the body? If you did, you assumed wrongly. My marriage has not been destroyed and my happiness has not been dimmed. Though it has in one way. I was happy to discover you when we came to Warren Hall. I instantly loved you as a cousin and I soon liked you as a person. I would have been your friend for the rest of your life and welcomed your friendship for the rest of mine. We could have been family. But you maliciously destroyed any such chance, and I am sorry for it. That is all I have to say.”
All the laughter was gone from his eyes now as he maneuvered her to one side of the path so that they would not be mowed down by a boisterous group that was approaching from the opposite direction.
“Anna spoke to you?” he asked. “She told you that she was still Elliott’s mistress, I suppose? She would not have expected that you would confront him with your knowledge and discover her lie so soon. I am sorry.”
She looked reproachfully at him but said nothing.
“And I must confess my lie,” he said after a short silence. “For of course I did hear about your meeting with Anna in the park. She told me herself. I am sorry, Vanessa. I really am. My quarrel is with Elliott, and I chose to embarrass him without ever considering the harm I would be doing you too. Believe me, that was never my intention.”
“You have a quarrel with him because he knows you for who you are,” she said. “I side with him, Constantine. And your apology means nothing to me. I hope I will never see you again. I will never voluntarily speak with you again.”
“Who I am,” he said with soft emphasis as they stopped walking. “A thief and a debaucher, I suppose.”
A debaucher? Was there something else Elliott had not told her, then? But if there was, she did not want to know.
“Yes,” she said. “And you cannot deny the charge.”
“Can I not?” He smiled, a tight, mocking expression.
She gazed up at him as someone jostled her in passing, hopeful that against all reason he would offer some explanation.
“You are quite right,” he said instead, making her an elegant bow. “I cannot deny either charge, Vanessa, and will not. And so I must stand a villain in your eyes. And you are at least partly justified in your opinion of me. I will return you to your box, if I may. I do not suppose you wish to walk farther with me.”
“I do not,” she said.
They turned to walk back the way they had come, not touching or speaking. But they had not gone far before Vanessa could see Elliott striding toward them, a frown on his face.
“I return your viscountess unharmed,” Constantine said when they came up to him, all the mockery back in his face and his voice. “Good evening to you, Vanessa. And to you too, Elliott.”
And he strolled away without a backward glance.
“It was I who invited him to walk with me,” she explained. “I have been avoiding him. But I realized I needed to tell him how disappointed I was with his behavior at the theater and at Cecily’s come-out ball. I needed to tell him why I will not speak to him again except as strict courtesy dictates. And I needed to tell him that I know about him. He mentioned debauchery as well as theft.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, taking her arm and leading her off the main avenue onto a narrower, more shaded path. “But you need not know about that, Vanessa. Ah, but I suppose you do. There are young women in the neighborhood of Warren Hall, some of whom were once servants at the house, who are now bringing up their illegitimate children alone.”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes, I am afraid,” he said. “But let us not speak anymore of Con, Vanessa. Tell me about Hedley Dew instead.”
She turned her face toward him in the darkness.
“About Hedley?” she said, sounding surprised.
“After I spoke to you about my father,” he said, “it struck me that you now knew a secret part of myself that you ought to know as my wife. Hedley Dew is, I believe, the secret part of yourself and perhaps there is more about him that you need to tell me.”
The path had narrowed, and he released her arm in order to set his about her shoulders and draw her against his side. She was slender and warm, and it occurred to him that he had come to find her body infinitely enticing. Her hair smelled of some subtly fragrant soap.
“He was delicate and dreamy all his life,” she said. “He always preferred to sit in some secluded, scenic spot outdoors and talk than to join the other children in their boisterous games. I befriended him at first because I felt sorry for him—I would rather have joined in the games. But he knew a great deal—he was intelligent and he read voraciously—and he dreamed big dreams. As he grew older, he included me in those dreams. We were going to travel the world and immerse ourselves in the cultures of all sorts of people. He . . . He loved me. He had the loveliest smile, Elliott, and eyes one could fall into. He had dreams one could fall into.”
They came to a wooden seat beside the path and he drew her to sit on it. He kept his arm about her.
“And then one day I woke up from those dreams,” she said, “to the realization that reality was a far harsher thing. He was ill. He was probably dying. I think I knew that before almost anyone except perhaps him. And he wanted me. He loved me. I loved him too, but not in that way. My parents had always told me that I would probably never marry because I was so much plainer than Meg and Kate and other girls from neighboring families. I wanted to marry, though, and of course Hedley was a dazzlingly good catch—he was Sir Humphrey Dew’s son. He lived at Rundle Park. I do not think even so that I would have married him if he had not needed me. But he did. Marrying him was one thing I could give him, one dream of his that I could bring true for him. It was so obvious that none of the others would come true.”
She was shivering and her hands fidgeted in her lap. There was pain in her voice. He withdrew his arm from about her, shrugged out of his evening coat, and set it about her shoulders, holding it in place with his arm.
“I did not want to do it,” she said. “He w
as ill and dying and I was neither. I ...did not find him attractive despite his great beauty. I have felt so much guilt over that. I told so many lies. I told him over and over again that I adored him.”
“And you regret that?” he asked her.
“No!” she said vehemently. “What I regret is that I could never make it the truth. Oh, that is not quite true either. I did adore him. I loved him with all my heart and soul. But I did not love him.”
Even just a few weeks ago he would have shaken his head with exasperation at such muddle-headedness. Now strangely he knew exactly what she meant. He could understand the fine distinctions between different kinds of love.
“What you did give him,” he said, “was the best of all loves, Vanessa. It was the pure gift of a love that gave and gave and took nothing in return.”
“Except that I did take too,” she said. “He gave as much as I did, Elliott. He taught me so much about living life one day at a time, about finding joy in small things and laughter in the face of tragedy. He taught me about patience and dignity. And he taught me not to cling. He taught me how to let go, how to ... He told me before he died that I must love again and marry again and be happy again. He told me I must always laugh. He—” She swallowed, and he could hear the gurgle in her throat.
He buried his nose in her hair and kissed the top of her head.
“He loved me,” she said. “And I loved him. I did. I am sorry, Elliott. I am truly sorry. I did love him.”
He set his free hand beneath her chin and lifted her face to his. He kissed her, tasting the salt of tears on her cheeks and on her lips.
“You must never apologize for that,” he said against her lips. “And you must never deny it to yourself. Of course you loved him. And I am glad you did. You would not be the person I have come to know you as if you had not loved him.”
Her hand came up to cup the side of his face.
“You are not still terribly sorry you married me?” she asked him.
“Was I ever?” he asked her.
“I think you were,” she said. “You would never have chosen me left to yourself. I am plain, and I quarreled with you a number of times.”
“I suppose you were something of a pest,” he said, “now that you remind me.”
She choked with laughter—as he had intended.
“But never plain,” he said. “Just beauty in disguise. And no, I am not sorry, terribly or otherwise. I am not sorry at all.”
“Oh,” she said, “I am so glad. I have made you comfortable, then? And a little bit happy?”
“And a little bit pleasured?” he said. “All three in fact, Vanessa. And you?”
“And I am happy too,” she said, kissing him softly on the lips with the old pucker.
It never failed to arouse him.
It was time for some grand declaration, he supposed. It was the time when, if he were not already married to her, he ought to go down on one knee with a flourish, take her hand in his, declare his undying love, and beg her to make him the happiest of men.
Since they were already married, he ought to—
There was a loud crack and whoosh from somewhere close by, and his thoughts were shattered as Vanessa shot to her feet.
What the devil?
“The fireworks!” she cried. “They are beginning, Elliott. Oh, do let us hurry and go and see. Look!” She pointed upward to a fountain of red sparks that had appeared above the treetops. “Have you ever heard or seen anything more exciting in your life?”
“Never,” he said with a grin as she found his hand in the darkness and drew him—in his shirtsleeves—along the path at a smart trot.
23
THE day before her brother and sisters left for the country, Katherine moved into Moreland House, from where she would continue participating in the activities of the Season with Cecily under the chaperonage of Cecily’s mother until Vanessa returned. She was quite cheerful about the move, though part of her wished she were going home with everyone else, she told Vanessa and Margaret.
Vanessa sat down in her bedchamber to have a private word with her just before leaving the following morning. She wanted to warn her sister to be careful of Constantine, though it was a difficult thing to do as she did not want to disclose specifics of her misgivings about him.
“He is a number of years older than you, Kate,” she said, “and very handsome and charming. He is an experienced man about town. I fear he may be something of a...Well, something of a rake. It would not be wise to trust him implicitly just because he is our second cousin.”
“Oh, you need not concern yourself, Nessie,” Katherine said with a laugh as she seated herself in the middle of her bed and hugged her raised knees. “I know you have not liked Constantine lately because Lord Lyngate has a quarrel with him. I do not know what that is about, and I do not want to know—it is between the two of them. But our cousin is as strict a chaperone as you could possibly be—or Meg or Lady Lyngate.”
Vanessa raised her eyebrows in some surprise.
“Chaperone?” she said.
“Cecily can be a little wild when she is out of her mama’s sight or yours and Lord Lyngate’s,” Katherine said. “She expected that when she was with Constantine she would be able to stop and talk with any gentleman with whom she has even the slightest acquaintance and walk with him while I stayed with Constantine. I even suspect that some of those chance meetings were trysts that had been arranged beforehand. But our cousin will have none of it, and though he is very good-humored and never makes Cecily cross, he makes it quite clear that she will not do anything in his company that she would not do in her mama’s. And he has been concerned enough to point out to both of us those gentlemen whose advances we ought not to encourage. Perhaps he is a rake when in different company—many gentlemen are, I believe. But with us he is always the soul of honor and propriety.”
“Is he?” Vanessa said. “I am glad to hear it.”
And she was more than ever sorry that his quarrel with Elliott had provoked him into such spite against her. She was sorrier still that he had behaved so dishonorably at Warren Hall when Jonathan was alive. But of course he was not a monster and she must not expect him always to be villainous.
“Don’t ever allow yourself to be alone with him, though, Kate,” she said.
“He would never allow it even if I would,” her sister said. “Besides, Nessie, he too is going away within the next few days. He has purchased a house and land in Gloucestershire and is going to settle there.”
“Is he?”
“I will miss him,” Katherine said. “I like him exceedingly well.”
He was certainly not poor, then, Vanessa thought. But surely his father had not left him a large enough fortune to enable him to buy an estate of his own. Then she remembered the money and jewels he had stolen, and she sighed aloud.
“He had a talk with Stephen when they were riding in the park together one morning,” Katherine said. “He advised him to return to Warren Hall and apply himself to his studies and to learning all there is to know about the running of his properties and the responsibilities of his position. There will be time enough later, when he has reached his majority, to sow a few wild oats, he told Stephen, and to enjoy his life to the full. Though he must always remember that he is the Earl of Merton and strive to be worthy of the position. Stephen told me all about it. And then the very next day Lord Lyngate also suggested to him that he go back home. Stephen admires and respects them both enormously. Is it not a shame that they hate each other?”
“Yes,” Vanessa said with another sigh.
Would she ever understand Constantine? It was so much more comfortable to be able to divide people into heroes and villains and expect them to play their allotted part. What happened when someone fit into both categories?
But it was one of those unanswerable questions with which life abounded.
“It is time to go,” she said, getting to her feet and hugging her sister when she scrambled off the bed. “
Elliott will be waiting for me. We will be back within a week or ten days. Do enjoy yourself until then, Kate. I will miss you.”
“And I you,” Katherine said, clinging to her for a moment. “I often think of that day when Tom Hubbard brought word to the school that there was a viscount staying at the inn in Throckbridge and I hurried home to tell you and Meg and to speculate on why he was there. And then we went to the assembly and he danced only with you. And the next day he came to the cottage to change all our lives. I sometimes wish none of it had happened, Nessie, but life cannot be held back from taking its course, can it? And everything has certainly turned out happily for you.”
“It has,” Vanessa agreed.
“And sometimes I am not sorry at all,” Katherine said. “Sometimes I think that this new life will turn out happily for all of us if we just have the courage to grasp what it offers.”
First Came Marriage Page 34