Regency Christmas Wishes (9781101220030)

by Layton, Edith; Jensen, Emma

  Juliet moved farther away from him, fearing he would snatch it from her, but he remained where he was. At last the few handwritten words were quite legible. She read them aloud. “My darling Charles, I yearn for you to come to me again, and pray to be in your arms tonight. Your adoring mistress, Sally.”

  There were gasps from the onlookers, and Lady Marchwell closed her eyes. Charles stood as if carved from stone, his face ashen, his eyes tormented with remorse. The note slipped from Juliet’s numb fingers. A mistress? “Oh, Charles, how could you do this . . . ?” she whispered.

  He was stricken to the core, and his voice was choked. “If you want me to say that I am sorry, then I say it with all my heart. If you want me to say that it will never happen again, then that too I say with all my heart.”

  Something seemed to shatter within her, and her air of calm disintegrated into fury. “What I want you to say is that this hasn’t happened! That you are not the Charles to whom those words are directed! That you don’t keep some tawdry belle de nuit for your pleasure?”

  A rustle of whispering passed among the watching guests, whose numbers had now swollen to include almost everyone staying at the house, or so it seemed to Lady Marchwell. Charles was now as beyond considering an audience as Juliet. He turned away, his hands momentarily hiding his face, then he dragged them away again to make himself confront the bitter accusation in his wife’s eyes. “Oh, my darling, would that I could offer that reassurance, but I cannot.”

  “How long have you been making me the laughingstock of society?” she demanded, her green eyes shimmering with tears, her fists clenched as she forced her fingernails into her palms in an effort to cling on to the remnants of self-control.

  “I haven’t made a laughingstock of you, Juliet, so please do not think that I—”

  “Then simply tell me how long you have been indulging in this sordid liaison.” At least let him be truthful about that!

  “Not long.”

  “Liar!” she cried. “You first broke your vows at the beginning of this year, and you have clearly been doing it ever since! You’ve been making love to your doxy, then leaving her bed to come to mine! How could you? How could you . . . ?” The last two words were only whispered, for a great wave of misery washed over her and she broke down in tears.

  He stepped instinctively toward her, but she struck him on the face, her fingers leaving red marks. “I suppose the locket was a sop for your conscience, a loving trinket to allay suspicion?” Her voice was almost shrill with emotion, and the watching guests ceased to whisper but chattered loudly about the incredible fracas they were witnessing. Their voices fell away into silence again to listen to Charles’s reply.

  “Juliet, my dearest darling . . .” But he couldn’t say any more, for he was guilty. Guilty! He closed his eyes, wishing hell and damnation on the thieving bird that had brought this about.

  “I want you to leave this house,” Juliet said then, her voice suddenly becoming oddly calm.

  Lady Marchwell spoke up quickly. “Never do anything in the heat of the moment. Juliet, my dear, I know this is a horrid bolt right out of the blue, but—”

  “But it isn’t completely out of the blue, Aunt M,” Juliet interrupted, her gaze still fixed upon Charles. “I’ve suspected for a long time, and this has merely confirmed my fears.”

  Charles was tormented. “Forgive me, I beg of you! Forgive me everything, for I vow I will never hurt you again. I love you, Juliet, and if you would but give me the chance to explain—”

  “What is there to explain? You keep a mistress, her name is Sally, and she wishes you to be with her. I only hope she is worth it, because you are not welcome here. I want you to leave because I cannot bear to be with you anymore.”

  Lady Marchwell was desperate to prevent the matter sliding further into the morass of rage and recrimination. “Juliet, my dear, this is my house, not yours, and if—”

  “And if he stays here, then I will leave,” Juliet said quietly, “and it will not be to return to Somerset, for I will never set foot in Neville Castle again. Nor will I go to Grosvenor Square.” Everything she held dear had been dashed aside, and Charles was solely responsible. He had broken his vows, and with them her heart. She couldn’t and wouldn’t forgive him.

  Still Lady Marchwell endeavored to pour oil on troubled waters. “My dear, you are hurt and bitter right now, but I am sure that you and Charles still love each other enough to—”

  “I despise him,” Juliet broke in softly, for in that moment she did.

  So did a young lady guest garbed as Puss in Boots. “Hear, hear . . .” she cried, her own husband having similarly deceived her.

  Charles spread his hands. “Please find some forgiveness in your heart, Juliet,” he whispered.

  “Were you forced to commence your liaison?”

  He didn’t want to reply, but had no choice. “No.”

  “Then I have no forgiveness.”

  “Nor I! Nor I!” cried Puss in Boots, brandishing a dainty fist.

  Lady M spoke up quickly. “Juliet, my dear, you must not be rash. Many a man strays from his marriage bed.”

  “Yes, and many a wife endures such infidelities, but I think more of myself than to allow anyone to walk over me as if I am of no consequence.” Juliet tossed a heartbroken glance at Charles.

  He was appalled by the image her words created. “I would never do that!” he cried. “I may have failed you, my darling, but I have never ceased to love and cherish you.”

  “Shame! Shame!” was heard from several of the guests, and Puss in Boots was so indignant that she had to be restrained from rushing down to confront him.

  “And never ceased to pat yourself on the back for having so cleverly pulled the wool over my trusting eyes,” Juliet replied. “Please go, Charles, I don’t want to see or speak to you again!” She struggled with her wedding ring, tore it from her finger, and hurled it at him. It arced through the air, then struck the floor with the clarity of a little bell. Shining brightly, it rolled over the tiles and came to rest beneath the table upon which stood the bowl of holly. Juliet caught up her skirts and fled toward the staircase, at the top of which the guests parted like the Red Sea.

  Lady Marchwell was unutterably dismayed. “Please don’t go like this, Juliet! Stay, I beg of you, for I’m sure this rift can be mended.”

  Charles took several steps after his distraught wife. “Don’t reject me, my darling! Let me prove that you are the one I love, the one I’ve always loved.”

  “Monstrous liar!” cried an indignant dowager whose Cinderella costume fitted her ample figure a little too well.

  Juliet paused to glance coldly back at him. “You’ve always loved me? Charles, I will never again believe you ever loved me at all.”

  She began to run up the staircase, hardly aware of those gathered at the top, and certainly not aware of Jack. The magpie was still on the garlanded rail, and had been jealously guarding the locket from any light fingers, not that anyone had dared to chance a peck from his powerful beak. Now, however, the bird’s attention wavered from the locket to the wedding ring, which shone so enticingly on the floor of the hall. He was torn between the two prizes, but his mind was made up when Charles stepped to retrieve the ring. With a fusillade of jealous squawks, the magpie abandoned the locket and flew down to whisk the ring from Charles’s outstretched fingers. This time the magpie made certain of his ill-gotten gain by disappearing with it into the adjacent grand parlor.

  In that moment Charles could willingly have strangled the unprincipled bird. All he wanted was to return the ring to Juliet’s finger, as if that would miraculously put his marriage in order again, but when he dashed into the grand parlor, set upon strangling the wretched magpie if necessary, Jack had disappeared.

  Lady Marchwell knew she must play the firm hostess, so she smiled up at the hovering guests. “Come now, ladies, gentlemen, and children too, of course. I believe this part of the entertainment is at an end. Pray come down so the ba
ll may commence.” With that she looked into the ballroom and nodded at the small orchestra she had engaged for the occasion. The jaunty but rather inappropriate notes of the “Our Love Will Never End” reel immediately began to sound.

  Lady Marchwell frowned at such a choice, but had to make the best of it. She smiled and nodded graciously at the guests as they passed, and took Puss in Boots by the arm as said young lady showed every sign of subjecting Charles to some remarkably feline scratches. “Not now, Hermione, there’s a dear cat,” Lady Marchwell murmured, steering the furious young lady into the grand parlor, and giving her into the care of a rather frail and elderly Ali Baba.

  When all the guests had gone into the grand parlor, Lady Marchwell drew Charles to one side. “Perhaps it would be better if you do as Juliet wishes,” she said with a long, sad breath

  “And leave? But if I do that—”

  “Right now she is not open to reason. Oh, Charles, why did you do it? I really thought that your marriage was stronger than this.”

  He ran his hand agitatedly through his hair. “Pathetic as it sounds, I was jealous of my friends’ freedom to do as they pleased.”

  “If that is your reason then you are far more immature and feckless than I ever dreamed.”

  “I don’t love Sally, nor does she love me, although she is determined to keep me simply for the kudos of having a titled protector. She has been threatening to tell Juliet if I try to end things.”

  Lady Marchwell raised a scornful eyebrow. “Oh, poor you.”

  He colored at the sarcasm, and returned to her. “I suppose I deserve that.”

  “Yes, you do, sir. I suppose your next whine will be that the liaison never meant anything and so you ought to be granted absolution.”

  His flush intensified. “Well, it didn’t mean anything, it was something I started then could not stop.”

  “How very unfortunate for you.”

  “I know I have sunk in your estimation, but—”

  “But nothing, sir, for you have sunk almost without trace,” Lady Marchwell said tartly. “How dare you say this year-long liaison has meant nothing! That response has been the bleat of faithless males throughout the ages. Why is it that men regard as irrelevant a physical act their wives deem an expression of love? A woman does not give herself lightly, but it seems the men think nothing of it. Why then should your wife think you’ve ever meant any of the kisses you shared with her? Reason tells her you didn’t.”

  “But I did! Damn it all, Lady M, I adore Juliet!”

  “Oh? Yet you have acquired a mistress. But I was forgetting, she means nothing to you, does she? It is a veritable torture for you to lie in her arms, and anyway, it’s all of no import.” Lady Marchwell pursed her lips and eyed him. “Tell me, Charles, if the shoe were on the other foot now, and it was Juliet saying all the things you are saying, would you accept that it meant nothing and take her back into your arms?”

  “Well, I . . .”

  “The truth, sir, no shilly-shallying.”

  Charles took a long, unhappy breath, and shook his head. “No, of course I wouldn’t.”

  “Exactly. You would be crushed to a point you would fear was beyond redemption, and you would certainly need time to recover from such a blow to your heart, your pride, and your faith. So kindly have the grace to accept how Juliet feels right now. I’m afraid you will simply have to wait and hope that she comes around.”

  He looked anxiously at the older woman. “She will, won’t she? I—I mean, she won’t spurn me forever?”

  Lady Marchwell didn’t know the answer. “That is in the lap of the gods, Charles. One thing I will say is that you have much growing up still to do. Boys do not make good husbands, and I fear that your particularly infantile behavior has forced Juliet to reassess everything. Maybe you stand no chance of winning her back until you are a man in every meaning of the word.”

  “If I leave, where should I go? Back to the Retreat?”

  “Certainly not, for that is Juliet’s territory.” Lady Marchwell’s mouth twitched. “Your present destination is your problem, sir, but if you wish there to be any hope of a reconciliation with Juliet, I suggest you stay well away from your mistress. Grosvenor Square will not do for obvious reasons, so I suggest you hie yourself back to Somerset. Neville Castle is a bolt hole par excellence.”

  “So is Hades itself,” he remarked in a wryly resigned tone.

  Lady Marchwell smiled. “I think you are already in that particular place, Charles. If there is to be an ultimate destination, I pray it will be somewhere that will guarantee you mature from the callow boy you reveal yourself to be right now. Whatever you do, I cannot emphasize enough that you rid yourself of your unpleasant mistress, whose blackmail can surely hold no threat now that Juliet knows the worst. Who is this other woman, by the way?”

  He responded reluctantly. “Her name is Sally Monckton, and she is an actress at Astley’s.”

  Lady M recoiled. “Astley’s? Oh, Charles! You might at least have had the discernment to find someone at the Theatre Royal or Covent Garden!”

  “I would have thought a mistress was a mistress, no matter whence she came.”

  “Your words, not mine. Now, be gone, for the sooner you are no longer beneath this roof the better.”

  “I will return tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.”

  “I cannot prevent you, but if Juliet requests me to have you ejected, you may be sure I will carry out her wishes. I have always liked you, Charles, but I am first and foremost Juliet’s aunt, and she is my sole consideration in this particular matter.”

  He nodded. “I understand.”

  Minutes later he had ridden away from Marchwell Park and returned to London, not to the Grosvenor Square town house but White’s club in St. James’s, where his lack of female companionship could not only be guaranteed, but could be confirmed by any number of witnesses. It had also to be said that being an all-male preserve, the club was free of those feminine touches that were bound to make his pain and remorse all the worse.

  He gave Sally her congé that very night. It was a disagreeable meeting, during which she revealed that behind her charming exterior there lurked a common vixen who had managed to stay completely out of his sight until now. She berated him as being every vile thing under the sun, except that her vocabulary was far more shocking and colorful than that. It seemed that Astley’s Amphitheatre was nothing if not educational.

  The past faded and it was 1819 again. Juliet placed her empty cup on the little table beside the sofa, next to the decanters of sherry and brandy that were always kept there, then she leaned her head back. Had she been foolish to refuse all Charles’s pleas six years ago? Had she been a mule not to listen to Aunt M’s commonsensical arguments? Would he have been faithful ever after if they had been reconciled? Or would he have known her for an incurable gull and broken that same commandment again and again?

  It was too late for answers now, because he had gone to Bengal—Madras itself, she believed—and before leaving he had intimated that he did not intend to ever return to England. For several minutes more Juliet gazed into the fire, dwelling on it all. She was warm and drowsy from the flames and the hot chocolate, and gradually her eyes began to close. As she slipped into sleep her last thought was to wonder what had happened to the wedding ring that Jack had hidden so securely that it had never been found.

  4

  Charles paused at the library door to glance back at the entrance hall. For a moment he saw again the misty figures of 1813, like actors placed upon a stage, with their audience of Christmas guests gazing down from the top of the staircase. He took a defiant breath. Those events had not brought the curtain down on his marriage, but had merely been a temporary setback.

  There was only firelight inside as he entered the library, which to his relief was deserted. He became aware of the slow ticking of the long-case clock as he closed the door behind him, then looked around at the holly-decked shelves where gilt-embosse
d book spines shone in the dancing light. Had any of the more learned tomes been opened since Lord Marchwell’s demise? Probably not, for Lady Marchwell preferred novels. He almost feared to let his eyes wander above the fireplace, where the portrait of Juliet had always hung, but at last he gazed again upon the gentle face that haunted him.

  It was so exquisite a likeness that the living, breathing woman might be on the point of stepping down into the room. She was wearing a low-cut white silk gown and the emerald drops and necklace that had been his wedding gift. Behind her the grounds of Marchwell Park reached to the Thames, where Magpie Eyot and the Retreat were clearly depicted. He went closer and reached up to touch the canvas. “Oh, Juliet, my dearest darling, I was such an eeyot; such a very great eeyot . . .” he murmured.

  A slight movement in the corner of the room made him turn sharply, fearing he wasn’t alone after all, but all he saw was Jack the magpie perched on the lip of a silver tray endeavoring to dislodge the stopper of a decanter of dark amber liquid. For a moment man and bird looked at each other in the firelight, then the latter returned his attention to the stopper.

  Suddenly finding himself face-to-face with his old foe—or should that be face-to-beak?—Charles was surprised to realize that his animosity toward the magpie was not as virulent as might have been expected. “So you’re still around, you plaguey old cyclops, and still possessed of a taste for Lady M’s best sherry.”

  Jack ignored him, the stopper being of infinitely greater importance, and Charles watched resignedly. What point was there in blaming a magpie for his woes? If he, Charles Neville, had not strayed so shamefully from the marriage bed there wouldn’t have been any unsavory secrets to expose. As this thought struck him, he went to the table, removed the stopper, and poured a measure into one of the crystal glasses on the tray. “There you are, since you’ve probably been wrestling with that decanter for the past hour or more you deserve a reward for your endeavors. Merry Christmas and pax vobiscum for the New Year.”

  The magpie blinked his one eye, as if fearing to awaken at any moment and discover the stopper wedged in more tightly than ever.