by Cari Hislop
She shook her head again making him feel sick. “I can’t marry you, you’re not my Geoffrey.”
“I am!” He thumped her desk sending several letters floating to the floor. “You know full well that you as good as betrothed yourself to me when you agreed to correspond. Your servants either think you secretly engaged or my lover.”
“I agreed to correspond with a friend. You have no right…”
“I have every right to claim your hand Tolerance; you love me!”
She winced as if he’d hit her. “Don’t raise your voice at me Geoffrey, I’m not one of your servants.”
“I don’t need to shout at my servants, they do as they’re told.”
“That is a pathetic lie. You’re rude, arrogant and thoughtless to your dependants and I can only imagine how you’d treat a wife. I’ll not willingly subject myself to a marriage of thoughtless tyranny unless it becomes my only means of survival. You are a selfish hardened sinner with no thought for anyone but yourself. I’m nothing more than an object you wish to own. I will not become the property of a man incapable of respecting my person or loving his own children.”
Geoffrey let out a ragged breath as pain smashed through crusts of filth entombing his heart. He was once again unwanted and unloved only this time he was rejected by the only person who’d ever loved him. He swallowed the harsh words springing to mind and glowered into sad eyes. “Is that your final word Madam?”
“I love you more than life, but you don’t know how to love. It would be utter madness. You’d hurt me and I’d only have myself to blame.”
Her words rang over a still room as Geoffrey’s rage inflamed the pain in his skull. The sane half of his brain begged him to leave without another word and return and try again another day. The injured angry half wanted to lash out and return the pain. “My friends call me Lyndhurst; you will address me as Your Grace.”
She stared up at him as if he’d hit her. She didn’t try to escape as he stood up and gently captured her face in-between his hands. His soft slow kiss held her salty lips captive until he felt her succumb to his touch and her hands reached for him. He abruptly pushed her away and fished a hand into his pocket. A silver shilling dropped onto her desk with a soft chink and rolled off the wood onto the floor. “I believe that’s the going rate for a kiss.”
She swayed as the blood drained from her face. “Leave and don’t return until you’ve purchased some manners.”
Pain flooded Geoffrey’s senses. He was being banished. Lonely months stretched into the horizon. He opened his mouth to tell beg her forgiveness, but Graysons didn’t beg. He could only feel horror at what he was saying and continue blindly towards the edge of the cliff. “Are you sure a larger coin wouldn’t purchase a few minutes in your bed, Madam?” Geoffrey blanched from pain as her hand struck his cheekbone with force.
“Leave!”
“As you wish Madam; you know where I sleep if you change your mind.”
“Get out of my house.” He clenched his fists and strode from the room leaving his heart behind him on the floor.
Chapter 19
Geoffrey stormed into his ancient narrow house past by the strange yellow parlour with the sun clock and headed for the only corner of the world still familiar. He stepped into his study and scowled at the ever present ghost of his forgotten self. “Howarrrrd, my study!” He poured himself a large glass of port with shaking hands as the shuffling steps of the old Butler caught up with him. “Shut the door Howard.” The old man waited patiently as he watched his master pace back and forth with his glass. “You’ve known me a long time…”
“Eighteen years Your Grace.”
“I’m going to ask you a question and I don’t wish to be fobbed off with the usual servile platitudes.”
“As you wish, Your Grace.”
“Would you say I’m a rude, thoughtless tyrant? I want the truth.” The servant took a deep audible breath. “Well?”
“Some might use those words to describe you, Your Grace.”
Geoffrey scowled in disbelief. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “I know my mother would use them. As one who’s known me intimately for years, would you say that I’m a tyrant?”
“If I give notice this instant, will I still receive a good reference Your Grace?”
“Am I that bad?”
“You had improved greatly over the last two years Your Grace.”
“How?”
“You started saying please and thank you quite regularly, and hardly ever threw things. You’d sometimes ring the bell when you needed help instead of shouting and would often give advance notice that you’d need your carriage or if you wished to dine at home. You even let us go to bed by ten most nights.”
“Are you saying I’m a thoughtless tyrant?” Geoffrey watched in disbelief as the old man cringed.
“Yes Your Grace.”
Geoffrey turned his back on his servant and stared out the window over the weed infested grass in the small back garden. “That will be all for now Howard…thank you!” The old man shuffled from the room and quietly closed the door. As Geoffrey stared at the blurry patch of weeds behind his house he saw the image of his father, a handsome large blonde man with cold pale blue eyes. When had he turned into his father? He drained his glass and raised his arm to throw it into the fire. The word thoughtless flashed into his brain. Some maid would have to clean up the broken glass. He lowered his arm and defied the description by setting it carefully on the mantel.
His head pounding, he sat in his chair and stared at his ebony desk centred on a pale blue and red Abusson carpet. Against the black surface sat some of his favourite treasures; the silver Elizabethan inkstand shaped like a ship once thrown at his head by a shrew, the silver wax-jack in the shape of a scantily clad nymph holding the wick in her hand, the rare Civil War silver candlestick that never looked the same after being flung into the fire, and the chipped ruby glass paperweight holding down unpaid bills gleaming like a large drop of blood. Staring at them he realised they gave him no pleasure. They were meaningless objects that would never make him feel loved and now the angel would never love him either…not after he’d given her a taste of life with the Devil’s Corpse. He tried to relieve the numb pain in his chest with a deep breath, but it mutated into a sharp lonely ache. How long would she refuse to see him; weeks, months, years? The thought of having to wait a whole day to hold her in his arms caused a blinding rage…no, it was remembering the last look on her face and the coldness in her voice. He’d been banished. He could almost taste her lips after his last kiss. Why hadn’t he pulled her back into his arms, where she clearly wanted to be, and beg her forgiveness? She might have relented. She might have agreed to a trial marriage. She might have stood there kissing him for hours.
He was a fool. He’d broken his angel’s heart and damned himself to a living hell. The ache in his chest started to burn. If she’d accepted his offer he might have been making sweet love to his Duchess instead of sitting alone without a friend in the world. He slumped forward, his hand pressed to his sore cheek.
This was his fate; to die unloved. He could hear his father laughing. Geoffrey hunched in fear as he half listened for his dead father’s footsteps. If only he’d lost the memory of being summoned to his father’s deathbed, but no it was still there as if it had happened that morning. He’d expected a half-hearted confession of remorse. Covering his ears couldn’t silence his father’s last poisonous words. ‘You’re a contemptible worm. I should have smothered you in your cradle.’ Had he really become the man he hated? He could remember far too many of his sins to deny it.
He couldn’t face endless years without his angel’s sunlight. Numb, he climbed the stairs to his bedroom and slowly striped down to his shirtsleeves. He grimaced at the bed. The sheets hadn’t been changed since the angel’s departure. Once again his room smelled like a used close-stool, his food was over cooked, and his bath water appeared incapable of attaining any temperature above tepid. His servant’
s had obeyed the angel’s orders to the letter. If he was such a tyrant why didn’t his servants ever do their work properly? The question only made him miss her more as he crawled in-between clammy bed linen. He lay there a few minutes wondering if they’d become his winding sheets. Would they bother to wash his body and put him in clean clothes? Would anyone attend his funeral? Would the angel miss him? The woman already thought of him as dead. She’d be able to mourn for him properly and then get on with her life loving some worthier worm. “Howarrrrrd!”
Five eternal minutes later the shuffling footsteps entered the room and softly closed the door. “You rang Your Grace?”
“The laudanum Howard…pour the bottle on the chest of drawers into half a glass of water.”
Howard dripped several large drops into the water and poured the rest of the opiate down the wall behind the chest of drawers out of sight of him employer. “You realise this will induce a permanent sleep Your Grace?”
“Do I look like I’m killing myself for a thrill?”
“No my Lord, but Mrs Spencer will be heartbroken.”
“Mrs Spencer hates me. I asked her to marry me. She refused.”
“It would be hell to have one’s beloved wake up and not know one. Perhaps if you gave her time…”
“I lost my temper. I kissed her and paid her like a whore.”
“That won’t have helped your suit.”
“I see you haven’t lost your gift for understatement in the last four years.”
“No Your Grace…perhaps death might be more agreeable than trying to win her forgiveness…”
“Give me the laudanum. I got in bed to die not hear a lecture from my manservant.” Geoffrey sat holding the glass as he pondered his worthless life. No one was going to say they were glad Geoffrey Lindsey Grayson had been a part of their life, not even the angel. An invisible fist punched him making his eyes water. Determined to end the pain he drained the glass and handed it back to his butler. “Aren’t you going to cry Howard?”
“No Your Grace, a butler should never have red eyes. The other servants might suspect I sample your wine with indulgence.”
“You’ve been a good servant. I’m sorry I’ve been a tyrant.”
“Thank you Your Grace, but tyranny is the expected behaviour for a Duke.”
“I was a good boy. I could have been a good man.”
“Yes Your Grace.”
“Why did I waste my life being a worm?”
“I couldn’t say my Lord.”
“You mean you wouldn’t…if Mrs Spencer asks after me…she won’t, but if she does, tell her to remember me as the man she loved…whoever the hell he was.” Geoffrey lay back against his pillows and waited for death, grateful that the old man remained in the room. Geoffrey’s eyes were heavy as panic erupted in his brain. What had he done? He was going to die. He’d never see her again. “Howard, you need to tell her…that I…that I…love… His thoughts were blurring. He tried to fight off the pleasant numbness creeping over his skin. He’d never get to hold his angel and tell her that he loved her. When had he lost his heart? How had it happened? He slipped into darkness as a solitary tear ran down the burning hand print on his cheek.
Hours of dark nonsensical visions passed before his eyes and then he found himself standing outside an old wooden gate. He looked down to see he was wearing white trousers, but he was barefoot. He ran his hands down the front of his white linen shirt open at the neck. It was soft, as if he’d worn it for years. Inhaling the scent of grass and damp earth, the gate creaked open as he followed the path through a tunnel of shaped yew out into a profusion of greens framing a collage of colourful flower beds while above the vaulted sky was a stunning blue with white fluffy clouds floating by.
He couldn’t be in hell. Hell couldn’t be so pleasant, but he couldn’t believe he’d some how landed in heaven either. He nervously took seat on the carved wooden bench circling a large willow tree, stretched out his long legs, folded his arms and waited for something awful to happen. As song birds performed an off key concerto Geoffrey leaned back and watched the blue sky through the whispering branches. His punishment was probably to sit alone forever. It was better than he deserved, but with his arms longing for the angel it would be hell enough. Resting his head against the tree he closed his eyes and tried to remember how she’d looked that morning after the second kiss. Her eyes had shone with that allusive emotion he’d been longing for all his life. He sat up in alarm as he heard the gate creak. Was someone coming to take him to hell? His mouth fell open as a woman who looked like Tolerance stepped into the garden.
“Geoffrey?” Standing up to greet the woman running towards him, Geoffrey stared at the straight white blonde hair flowing down over her hips in disbelief as he was jolted back over a decade to a lonely winter night at an inn. He was sitting off to the side of the fire in the cool shadows with his feet on a footstool near the flames when the door to his private parlour opened and closed. Soft mutterings and tapping footsteps echoed off the wood panelled walls. It was easier to keep silent and wait for the intruder to leave than shout at them to go away. The footsteps walked in circles behind him then approached the fire. All he could see for several minutes was the outline of a white muslin gown and long tangle of white blonde hair that draped over the child’s arms to her hips. She warmed her hands and let out a despondent sigh before turning towards him and jumping in surprise. She wasn’t ugly, but she’d never be pretty. She was thin with a look of hunger that recalled unpleasant memories of his youth, but there was no fear or anger in her eyes as she reached out and hesitantly touched his sleeve. “I’m glad you’re not a ghost…”
He was amused by her relief. For a man contemplating death by boredom she was a welcome diversion. “Are you?” His voice made her jump again.
“I thought the room was empty. Did I wake you?”
Her voice brought to mind a faint memory of his mother sneaking into the nursery to kiss him goodnight as a small child. “The Devil never sleeps.”
“Are you ill?”
“No. What are you looking for?”
“A green silk hair ribbon about this long…” She held out her arms. “Mother says if I don’t plait my hair I won’t get any dinner. I asked Nurse if I could have a new ribbon, but she says I don’t deserve dinner. I think it’s sinful to deprive someone of their dinner when they haven’t done anything bad. I won’t punish my daughter for losing a ribbon; now if she uses one of my best silver spoons to dig holes in the garden or cuts all the heads off my favourite flowers or…what’s so funny?”
“Why didn’t I ever think of cutting all the heads off my mother’s flowers?”
“Probably because it would have been very wicked.”
“You must be an angelic child.”
“I’m not a child! I’m twelve years old; I’m practically a woman.”
“You’re young for a woman. Does this mean you plan on playing an early harp in heaven?”
“I’d first like to marry a man who doesn’t beat his wife and have lots of babies. I love the way babies smell…”
“Does your husband need to be handsome?”
“Mother says I’ll be lucky to marry a man who looks like the back end of a horse. As long as he doesn’t beat me I don’t care what he looks like, but it’s just a dream. I’ll probably die an old maid. There aren’t many men keen to pay for the privilege of having a plain penniless wife. Father says he’ll receive payment for all the food and clothing wasted on me over the years or I’ll end up in the kitchen turning the spit. It wouldn’t be so bad if Old Betty wasn’t such a witch. She’s our cook. She doesn’t like me because I won’t scream curses when she pinches me. She says she’s cast a spell that I’ll marry the Devil. She’s mean…that roasting pig smells so good it hurts. Where did that wretched ribbon go? I’m so hungry I could eat my shoes.” Her attention suddenly switched from her stomach to his ring. “Is that a real ruby? I didn’t know they made them so large.” She stepped over and bent do
wn to get a closer look at his pale hand resting on the arm of the chair. “Mother has a pretend ruby. I overheard father telling her not to be daft, that people wouldn’t think it real, but I thought it was real. Yours is more…sparkly.” Geoffrey’s lips twitched in amusement as the child nonchalantly picked up his hand and gently moved it about watching the firelight play off the stone. “What an elegant hand. If I were you I’d wave it about and pretend I was a Duke.”