by Mary Balogh
It was a reassuring observation, and Chloe felt herself begin to relax. She looked downward and immediately, by some unfortunate chance, saw a familiar and unwelcome figure. Baron Cornell, as handsome and elegant as ever, quizzing glass raised to his eye, lips pursed, was watching a young lady in one of the lower boxes whose bosom was fairly spilling out of her low-cut bodice. And she was watching him.
Chloe waited for the pang of hurt and humiliation that thoughts of Lord Cornell usually aroused in her even though she had known for a long time that he had never been worthy of her affections. But she felt . . . nothing.
She raised her eyes and looked along the galleries opposite, one tier at a time, to see how many people she recognized. There were a few. Two or three of them acknowledged her glance with an inclination of the head or a raised hand. No one glared or looked affronted. And then, just as she was about to turn her head away to ask Ralph if it was almost time for the play to begin, she saw movement in the box opposite—the one that had been empty until now. Two couples stepped inside, an older and a younger, and then a third couple a little way behind them.
There was a swell of sound from the audience, but Chloe did not even notice it. Her attention was riveted upon the third lady, who was dressed all in dazzling white and who even to Chloe’s own eyes looked like a younger version of herself, complete with a head of piled bright red hair.
Chloe turned her head sharply toward Ralph. She smiled brightly and asked if it was almost time for the play to begin.
“Past time, I would think,” he said curtly. He was looking pale and tense and grim. His eyes were fixed on the empty stage.
And then a buzz of shushing noises from a few members of the audience quelled the swell of conversation. The play—one of Shakespeare’s comedies, As You Like It—was about to begin at last.
Was the older gentleman in the other box the Marquess of Hitching? But Chloe dared not look in that direction again. She would not recognize him anyway. But she felt no doubt whatsoever that the red-haired lady was Lady Angela Allandale.
It was not difficult to predict what the chief topic of conversation in the drawing rooms of polite society would be tomorrow.
The play was beginning, and Chloe set herself the difficult task of concentrating upon the action and enjoying herself. She was not the only one not succeeding, though, she realized after several minutes had passed. Although she did not turn her face away from the stage for a while, she could almost feel the silence of Ralph beside her. Well, of course he was silent. The whole audience was. But he was . . . silent.
Finally she turned her head to look at him. He was gazing at the stage, apparently intent upon what was happening there. But he felt her eyes on him and transferred his gaze to her face. Even in the near darkness she could see that his eyes were blank. He did not smile at her. She set the fingertips of one hand lightly upon his sleeve and leaned a little closer.
“Forget Lady Angela’s presence,” she murmured. “I am not upset about it.”
He frowned at her. “She is here?”
She stared back at him. He had not noticed? He must be the only person in the theater who had not.
“What is the matter, then?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” he said. “Watch the play. It is why we are here.”
Lord Trentham was looking at them with some concern. Chloe smiled apologetically at him and turned her attention back to the stage. Or, rather, she turned her eyes toward it. Her mind did not follow suit. She had kept her hand on Ralph’s sleeve. Beneath it his muscles were tense.
But he had not noticed the arrival of Lady Angela Allandale.
He was courteous, even charming, during the interval, when several people came to their box to commiserate with his loss and to congratulate him on both his new title and his marriage. He presented Chloe to those who were unknown to her, setting a hand that felt both warm and protective against the small of her back. She met, among others, Gwen’s cousin, the Marquess of Attingsborough, and his wife, and Lady Lyngate’s nephew, the Earl of Ainsley, and his countess.
No one mentioned Lady Angela, and Chloe did not look again in the direction of that particular box. It was impossible to know if the lady had seen her, though how could she not have done? What rotten bad luck it was that she was back in London this year. They were going to be dodging each other for the rest of the Season, yet it was inevitable that they would be invited to many of the same events.
As would the Marquess of Hitching.
By the time the play was over an hour or so later and all the thanks and good-night greetings had been said and Chloe and Ralph were on their way home in the carriage, she felt exhausted.
“It was a pleasant evening,” she said.
“It was,” Ralph agreed.
Gone, it seemed, was the light, almost teasing conversation in which he had engaged her earlier to relax her before they arrived at the theater. His curt response merely deepened the chill inside the carriage. Chloe listened to the rumble of the wheels, the rhythmic clopping of the horses’ hooves. She watched as the interior of the coach was illuminated occasionally by the flare of torches in the streets outside.
“What is the matter?” she asked after a few minutes. “What happened?”
It was not the fact that Lady Angela Allandale had been at the theater.
“Why do you ask again?” His voice was cold and irritable. “I have already told you that nothing is the matter. If I am not forever smiling inanely and laughing mindlessly and chattering aimlessly, must something be the matter? That is not the way I am, Chloe. You must not expect it of me.”
He was being grossly unfair. When had she ever suggested that she expected smiles and laughter and chatter from him? What had she done to incur this irritation?
“Oh, I do not expect any such thing,” she said, her tone as careless as she could make it. “You made it very clear from the start that there would be no emotional bond between us, no friendship, no warmth, no confidences, no real communication. It was foolish of me to imagine that something had upset you merely because you were unnaturally quiet at the theater.”
“One is not expected to chatter and disturb other audience members when a play is in progress,” he told her as though she could not have guessed as much herself. “It is considered bad manners.”
“I suppose,” she said, “you refer to the whispered exchange that I initiated and to the fact that it disturbed Lord Trentham.”
“If the glove fits, Chloe,” he said, “then I would invite you to wear it.”
“Is it ill-mannered, then,” she asked him, “is it idle chatter to show concern for one’s husband and question him when one can sense that he is upset?”
“When I am upset,” he told her, “I shall burst into tears, and you may exercise all your tender sensibilities in devising a way to comfort me. When I am merely trying to enjoy a play, I would prefer not to have my concentration broken by an overimaginative female begging to know what is the matter with me.”
Chloe stared at the dark outline of his profile for a few moments, her mouth open. He should have been joking. He should have turned to her, some sort of twinkle in his eye even if the darkness made it difficult to see.
He was not joking.
. . . an overimaginative female . . .
Not even an overimaginative wife.
She closed her mouth with a clicking of teeth and directed her attention to the darkness beyond the window on her side of the carriage.
“I am sorry I expressed concern,” she said. “It was foolish of me. It will not happen again.”
She half expected him to break the silence, to offer some sort of apology for his churlishness, or to show some sort of concern for the dismay and embarrassment she must have felt when she realized Lady Angela was also at the theater. But they rode the rest of the way in loud, injured silence. He did not bre
ak it and she would not. She would not break it ever again—not until he spoke to her first, anyway.
He handed her down from the carriage when they arrived home and offered his arm to escort her into the house. She took it simply because it would have been childish to refuse. Besides, the butler would have noticed and chances were the whole staff would know before morning that the duke and duchess had had a falling out.
She permitted herself to speak inside the hall since it was the butler who spoke to her. No, she told him, she did not wish for any refreshments. She was tired and intended to retire without further ado.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later, ignoring the fact that she was thirsty and a little hungry, she dismissed Mavis, climbed into bed, and burrowed beneath the covers, head and all. He was cold and unfeeling and unreasonable and bad-tempered, she decided, and a lot of other nasty things along the same lines. He was . . . no different from what he had said he would be. He had not promised any warmth, any intimacy, any real companionship in their marriage. In fact, he had promised the absence of those very things. And she had agreed quite readily. Indeed, she was the one who had first suggested their bloodless, emotionless bargain. There was no point whatsoever in being upset with him now because he had not wanted to share with her whatever it was that had disturbed him this evening—or because he had shown no concern for her upset feelings about being exposed to the one woman with whom she dreaded coming face to face.
There was no point in punishing him—and herself—by never speaking to him again.
What if he did not come tonight? She felt a bit sick at the thought—and then a bit sicker at the realization of how much she had come to depend upon his nightly lovemaking and presence in her bed all night. It was all just a physical thing, of course. It was just sex, to use his own stark, emotionless word. It was not his fault that it had become a little bit emotional too for her.
But whatever had happened at the theater to make him look so cold and remote and . . . empty? To make his muscles tense and unyielding? Something had happened, but she had promised not to ask again.
Well, she would not either. She would live her own life and let him live his. Just as they had agreed to do.
He might go to hell as far as she was concerned, she thought with shocking irreverence.
Something had happened to her, when Lady Angela Allandale arrived. The whole audience at the theater had reacted, but he had not even noticed or shown any interest when she had told him. She might be suffering dreadfully for all he cared.
She swallowed several times and willed herself not to dissolve into self-pitying tears.
17
Ralph was lying on his wife’s bed, one arm draped over his eyes, one leg bent at the knee, his foot flat on the mattress. He lay still and breathed deeply, hoping he would slip back into sleep, knowing he would not.
He had come here to apologize—for two separate wrongs he had done her. He had not noticed that Lady Angela Allandale was at the theater. He had not even been looking for her or Hitching. He had made some tentative inquiries during the day, but no one had seen either of them in town this year. They must have arrived within the last day or two—as had he and Chloe. He had not noticed when the woman had arrived at the theater tonight, and he had not noticed that Chloe was upset about it. And surely there had been some reaction from the audience at seeing Chloe and Lady Angela, in the same place. He had not noticed, and—worse—he had not shown any concern for his wife even when she had told him. He had been too wrapped up in himself.
She, on the contrary, had noticed his distress. She had asked about it and shown concern for him, both at the theater and in the carriage. And he had thanked her by biting off her head. He had offended her and hurt her. He had shut her out. But, damn it all, he wanted, he needed to be left alone. Marriage was a damnable institution.
He owed her a double apology and had come to make it.
She had been in bed when he arrived, however, facing away from him, all but the top of her head beneath the covers. It had been impossible to tell if she was awake or asleep. He had not wanted to wake her if she was sleeping. So, with a marvelous lack of logic, he had extinguished the candles, moved quietly around the bed, lain down beside her, and proceeded to have sex with her. He had even fallen asleep afterward.
Now he was wide-awake again, dealing with the dreaded sensation of having hit bottom with no further down to go. He had thought himself over such intensity of feeling. He had fought for years to level off his emotions, to avoid extremes. He had almost forgotten—until now—the needle-sharp regret he had felt at first that he was not dead, killed in battle, blown to bits with his friends, as he would have been if he had been in the front line of the cavalry charge with them. Instead, unusually, he had been in the second line and so had had a front-row view as they had disintegrated before his eyes in showers of red, just like the most spectacular of fireworks displays at Vauxhall.
He swallowed and kept his eyes closed and then clenched them even tighter in an attempt to blot out the visual memory. If only he had been killed then. If only he had been able to get at that medication here in this very house soon after he had been brought home. If only . . .
He had almost forgotten what this felt like. He had almost forgotten how to control his breathing when he did feel it, how to turn his thoughts from the blessed lure of death to the weary business of living on. He had almost forgotten how to claw his way out and up.
He had to think of life as a gift, however unwanted. Yes, that was it. For whatever reason, his life had been spared that day and restored to him over the months and years following it. There must be a reason. If, that was—and it was a very large if—one believed in some sort of divine plan.
He thought back unwillingly on the events of the evening.
The visit to the theater had been George’s idea, though it had seemed a brilliant one. Chloe had not wanted to come to town. After her experiences last year and six years ago, she was skittish about mingling with the ton again. She would do it, of course. She had shown remarkable courage in the last few days. But here was a chance to ease her in gently, to allow her and the ton to see each other, but at arm’s length, so to speak. And the guests George had suggested asking to join them seemed perfect for the occasion. Chloe already knew and liked Hugo and Lady Trentham, and Kilbourne was the latter’s brother. His countess had always seemed like an amiable lady. George had described Lady Lyngate as reserved but charming.
It had promised to be a pleasant evening. Ralph had made a special effort during the carriage ride to the theater to help Chloe relax and had found himself relaxing too. He had been starting to feel more comfortable in his marriage than he had expected.
He had looked around the theater before the play began and acknowledged a few familiar figures with a nod. There was scarcely an empty seat apart from one box across and a little down from theirs. Shakespeare’s comedies were always popular. Chloe was looking around too, he had noticed, after an initial tendency to restrict her attention to the occupants of their box as if she was afraid that everyone was looking at her—as everyone no doubt was for a while.
He had been about to transfer his attention to the stage, where the action must surely be about to begin, when his eyes alit upon one particular box opposite and one tier up from theirs and upon one of the two couples who occupied it.
His heart had turned over. Or stopped.
He had looked hastily away but had the feeling that the lady had turned her eyes upon him just as he turned his own away. He had not glanced that way again for the rest of the evening, and he had not suggested leaving the box during the interval, a decision made easier by the fact that a number of people called there, most of them with the purpose of shaking Ralph by the hand and meeting his duchess.
He was not certain he had been seen. Perhaps he had not. The theater was crowded, after all, and he had been half hidden behind Chloe. Or
, even if he had been seen, he might not have been recognized. He had changed in eight years.
Nevertheless . . .
How long did they intend to remain in London? Were they here on a brief visit, or had they come for the whole Season? Could he avoid them that long?
There was no chance of getting back to sleep. Ralph pushed back the bedcovers on his side of the bed at last, got up as quietly as he could so as not to wake Chloe, whose soft breathing told him she was asleep, and looked down at his dressing gown. He should go to his own room, get dressed, go down to the library. Pour himself a drink. See if he could lose himself in a book. Or in a bottle, though drunkenness was a form of forgetting in which he had never indulged. But somehow, alarmingly, he could not bear the thought of being quite alone. The sound of Chloe’s breathing was like a dose of some mild drug, just barely holding him back from the brink of a deep darkness that threatened to swallow him.
He left his dressing gown where it was and went to stand, naked, at the window, the curtains slightly parted. The square outside was in darkness. The night watchman must be elsewhere on his rounds. It was too early for any tradesmen. The room behind him was dark. No one would be able to see him standing here even if anyone were to look up. He braced his hands on the sill, bent his head, and closed his eyes.
It might have been ten minutes or half an hour later when he felt a slight warmth along his right side. She did not say a word. And she did not touch him with her hands. A blanket or a shawl came about his shoulders, making him instantly aware of the chill of the room, and her forehead came to rest against the edge of his shoulder.
God! Oh, God! He clenched his eyes more tightly closed and bent his head lower.