by Jenny Brown
Then without another word he took her hand and led her back toward the path.
Chapter 13
He abandoned her when they reached the house, fleeing into his room and calling his man to him there. Eliza made her way alone to her attic room and once again reached into her flowered satchel for Lord Lightning’s well-worn chart.
Could it really be true? The certainty that had gripped her by the sea had fled. Could her Edward have really driven a woman to her death and danced when he heard the news? Could he have been that heartless? Had her Sagittarian optimism betrayed her into seeing goodness in him where there was none? The day was taking on the feel of a nightmare. The chart she held in her hand seemed to change as she looked at it, the familiar signs revealing sinister meanings she had never seen there before.
The Moon conjunct his Mars, which she had interpreted as anger against his mother, had other meanings, too. Was it not placed in the House of Death? She had interpreted that to mean that he had a strong sexual nature, for that House was also the place of Sexual Congress. But it also could point to murder. She shivered. Had she simply seen what she wanted to see, seduced by Edward Neville’s sensual beauty?
And his Saturn. She had given it little weight in her earlier readings, taking it to mean he’d had a difficult childhood; but now it seemed to glow from the paper with a stark malevolent glare. It was placed in the House that described both childhood and love affairs. So it could also be read as permanent hard-heartedness. As coldness to lovers. And because it opposed his fiery Leo Sun, missing only by a few degrees the damaging square to his Moon and Mars, she had interpreted it to mean that his mother’s anger had blocked his ability to express a fundamentally loving nature. But there were other more troubling interpretations of the aspect. It might mean, as he had claimed all along, that he really could not love.
But why would she only see this now?
Had she first read his chart after meeting him, she would have blamed her lack of objectivity on her own involvement with him. But he had been a complete stranger when she had first read his horoscope at Violet’s behest. There had been no reason for her to delude herself then when she had seen his need to love.
Or had there been? Overwhelmed by a sense of foreboding, she heard her inner voice speak the truth she had been hiding from all along. There was a reason why she was looking at his chart, not her own. A reason she had been hiding from herself.
She forced herself to extract her own nativity from the satchel. The well-worn parchment was all too familiar. How often had she and her aunt pored over it. How often had her aunt warned her of what now stood out so painfully as she confronted it.
Lord Lightning was not the only one under the sway of unruly Uranus. It conjoined her natal Jupiter, the planet of excess. It stood in the House of Lovers, too, the place where that excess would play itself out in her life. And if that were not bad enough, both Jupiter and Uranus trined her natal Sun—that Sun which was placed in the alarming House of Sexual Relations. How could she view with objectivity a man who excited all that she found most fearful in herself?
“The universe is a mysterious place,” Aunt Celestina used to tell her, “and we are not meant to know all.”
But she must know all, and swiftly. Was she falling in love with a cold-blooded destroyer? Had her aunt been right that Eliza’s impetuous nature would lead her into ruin far worse than that which had befallen her poor mother?
Perhaps she had.
Lord Lightning was everything her Aunt Celestina had feared she might become. Had that been what made him irresistible? Hedged about as she had been by so much constraint, she had been bewitched by the freedom he had appropriated to himself. But under the sway of that enchantment had she overlooked the obvious? That a man who did not feel himself bound by the trivial rules that governed society might easily go further and ignore the serious ones—and cause a woman’s death.
The suspicion tortured her. And yet, even as she felt the cold settling around her heart, a voice rose within her and cried out she was being unjust. The man for whom she felt such affection was not just Lord Lightning. He was Edward Neville, too, the sad boy trapped behind the burning eyes that begged her not to leave. And it was not just his willingness to transgress the laws of society that drew her to him. There was much more to him than that.
She must find out the whole truth before she abandoned him forever. Too much was at stake to do anything else. If she was wrong and he was guilty of the crime with which he charged himself, she would accept the judgment of the stars and leave him to live out his life heartless and alone. But only when she was certain. ‘Til then, she must find courage and not let her own fears doom the two of them.
She threw herself on the bed, still dressed in the clinging damp clothes she had worn into the sea, but too exhausted to do anything about it. As the evening drew on, knowing she must sleep, she did what she could to calm herself. Breathing deeply, she imagined herself rocked by the ocean’s surge, bathed in the light of the cold, implacable stars. But when she finally fell into a troubled sleep her dreams were fitful and disturbing. At long last the light of dawn glimmered at the attic room’s small window. She stripped off the salt-stiffened gown and did her best to clean herself off before dressing herself again in one of Violet’s silky garments. Though its touch should have repelled her now, oddly, it didn’t. It lent her courage.
She would need it.
When she went downstairs an hour later, she discovered that Edward had already left and was not expected back until evening. His man offered her the full purse his master had directed him to give her and offered to attend her to the public coach that departed in an hour for London.
She refused the purse, waved off his offer of assistance, and left him to watch, openmouthed, as she strode out of the house. She was afraid to stay a moment longer and risk hearing any words his master might have commanded him to speak, words that might shake her from her determination to remain. She passed the day walking on the shingle alone, her thoughts in turmoil.
When she returned, near suppertime, she found a gentleman dressed in clerical garb waiting in the vestibule, seated on a side chair. His foot tapped uneasily on the flowered carpet. When he saw her enter, he began to rise and bow politely toward her, but as she came closer, his eyes narrowed as they took in her clinging gown with its low cut front and he sank back onto the bench with a small shudder, as if horrified by how close he had come to treating her with politeness. She hurried past him, too perturbed already to wish to dwell on what he must think of her, but he called out, “Stay, woman. I must have a word with you,” and reached out one hand to arrest her further progress. When she stopped, he cleared his throat, blinked his eyes twice and kept them shut for a moment as if he was searching inside their lids for the text of the sermon he was about to preach. Then he addressed her.
“Young woman, do not meddle in the affairs of your betters! You have presumed on Lady Hartwood’s goodness. You have gone too far. Yet even now, so great is her Christian charity that she has found it in her heart to give you one last chance. She has asked me to find a place for you, a retreat where in a humble manner appropriate to your station, you might repent of your sins and toil for God’s forgiveness. Her kindness to you is inestimable, but her patience is limited. If you would escape the punishment you so richly deserve, I urge you take up her offer, now.”
“I have no desire to change my situation.”
“Your reply is just as I told her it would be,” he said with complacency. “I will no longer lower myself by having further commerce with you. You are a shameless hussy and she will be well rid of you.”
Just then Eliza heard footsteps coming toward them down the hallway. The clergyman stood up just as a servant appeared at the doorway and beckoned him into the parlor where Lady Hartwood awaited him. Eliza withdrew into the library, her mood even more somber than when she had arisen. She reminded herself that Edward had promised that no harm could come to her, but the re
sentful tone of the clergyman’s admonition had chilled her. For the first time in a very long time, she found herself wishing she were back in Aunt Celestina’s parlor.
She retreated to her own small room in the attic, alone with her uneasy thoughts, until necessity forced her to venture out. She made her way downstairs, where she almost stumbled into Lady Hartwood who was making her way through the foyer, her interview with the clergyman over. Catching sight of Eliza, she smiled a smile that had no good humor in it. Eliza thought of making a dash for the doorway, but it was too late. There was no way to avoid her.
“I see that my son has begun to tire of you already,” Lady Hartwood observed with obvious relish. “It is all around the household that he left you here alone last night and made his way to a gambling club that is famed for its accommodating women.”
Eliza’s face must have shown some of the distress that Lady Hartwood’s revelation caused her.
“You have served your purpose,” Lady Hart wood continued inexorably. “He has used you to infuriate me and now he will cast you aside. You were a fool to have fallen in love with his handsome face despite my warning. Though it doesn’t surprise me. They say there are women who write love letters to the prisoners awaiting execution at Newgate.”
Her tormentor’s argument, sounding so much like the voice of her own fears, brought out the fight in her. “If your son really was a murderer, would he not be awaiting execution at Newgate, too? Even a nobleman cannot kill and walk free. I cannot believe that your son truly killed anyone, though you seem dearly to wish to believe that he did.”
“You are in love with him,” Lady Hartwood said with satisfaction. “Most foolish of you.”
“I cannot believe him guilty of what you accuse him of.”
“But he is guilty.”
“There must be some explanation. Did the woman you refer to die in childbed?” If he, like his brother, had impregnated some woman only to have her die in childbed, it would be dreadful, but it was not the same as murder.
“You’d like that to be the explanation wouldn’t you?” Lady Hartwood snarled. “But it will not serve. I owe you no explanation. You are an unrepentant harlot and deserve the fate that awaits you.”
“But I must know what it is that makes you hate your son so much,” Eliza cried out in frustration. “What has he done to put him beyond all hope of forgiveness?”
“Why should you care? You’d be as much in love with him whatever his crimes might be.”
“I am not in love with him. But I must know what kind of man he is, for my own peace of mind.”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Lady Hartwood said grimly. “Why not ask him how he enjoyed his visit last night to the brothel.”
Eliza looked up and saw a familiar burst of pale golden hair at the doorway, as Edward strode angrily into the foyer. His icy gaze swept from one woman to the other.
“My visit to the brothel was quite pleasant, Mother, thank you. Have you any other questions you would address to me?”
“None! None at all,” his mother snapped. Then she slowly turned and made her way out of the foyer, leaning on her ebony cane. As her halting steps vanished down the hallway, Eliza found herself alone with Edward.
He stood by the newel post at the foot of the stairs, observing her with the distant, ironic look she had learned was his defense against showing pain. “Why are you still here?” he demanded. “I left more than enough money for you with my man.”
“I told you I wouldn’t leave until you tell me the truth about the crime you accuse yourself of.”
“Why should it matter? Why isn’t it enough that you know I’m guilty of such a crime?”
“Because I must understand you. I cannot leave with so much unanswered. I may have been wrong about what I saw in your horoscope. I’m willing to accept that. But I must know where I erred, so I may learn from my mistake and not make another like it again.”
“So you would force me to divulge my secrets so you might become a wiser astrologer?”
“So that I might become a wiser woman,” she replied softly. “If you are truly what you say you are, and if I have made myself blind to it, I am in danger, even as your mother claims. I must learn to see the truth, no matter how ugly.”
He hunched his broad shoulders as if her words had struck him. “Even now you are the earnest philosopher. Any other woman would be drenching me with tears.”
“Why should I shed tears?”
“Why indeed.” His voice was controlled, ironic. “You assured my mother that you do not love me, and I know you abhor dishonesty—at least in me. So it must be true. But I told my mother the truth, you know. I did visit a brothel last night after I left you.”
“What affair of mine is it if you did?”
“Does it not make you jealous?” A look hard to interpret played across his features.
Eliza bit her lip, unwilling to let him know how closely his barb had hit home. She twisted her left hand in the fabric of her skirt, waiting for the pang his words had caused her to die down. “I have no claim upon your fidelity,” she said at length. “You are Lord Lightning, famed for your inconstancy. It is only to be expected that you would tire of a pretend mistress and seek out a real one instead.”
Edward reached out and took her hand in his, stroking her fingers softly. “Ah, but you forget, Lord Lightning never does the expected. So your assumption was wrong.” He dropped her hand. “Though I did indeed go to the brothel, it was not to ease myself on some poor wretch, but to finish my conversation with Tamworth. It was the one place I could be sure of encountering him.” He drew forth his jeweled snuffbox and made a show of busying himself with a pinch of snuff while observing her reaction from the corner of his eye.
Eliza hoped her relief was invisible. “Why did you seek out Tamworth?”
“I wished him to know that though I had spared his miserable life, my patience would be exhausted were he ever to forget himself and speak of you again in such an insulting way.”
“And you did that, even though you believed I would be gone this morning?”
“That made it all the more important. Now that you have the reputation of having been my plaything, you would be in the greatest of danger should it become known you were now on your own.” He brought his fingers up to his face as if to inhale the snuff and then stopped. “But you have not left me,” he observed, with a strange look.
“No. I told you I would not leave until I heard the whole of your story.”
He blew the snuff from his hand and then slowly put away the glittering snuffbox. “I cannot buy you off,” he said in a wondering tone. “I cannot frighten you. I cannot even make you jealous. I suspect you would just stand there and put up with any enormity I might serve you with, and just keep staring at me like a Sphinx until you got what you wanted from me.”
She nodded, unable to speak.
He sighed. “I have not the energy, then, to outlast you. I suppose I must give you what you want, else you will bribe my mother or interrogate the servants until you find out what you are determined to learn.”
She would have called the look on his face amusement, except that the roughness in his voice suggested that he was barely suppressing a much stronger emotion.
He held out his hand to her. “Come,” he said. “If you insist on knowing the worst about me, we will walk out along the shore where we can talk in peace, and I will tell you all.” He drew in a long breath. “Perhaps then you will leave me alone and I can go back to being the man I used to be.”
“If that is truly what you wish, Your Lordship.”
He did not correct her use of the distancing honorific, though she had seen him wince when she used it. For a moment their eyes locked, and again she saw the pain that lay hidden under the cool ironic façade.
“I no longer know what I wish,” Edward said. “You may take credit for making that much of a change in me.”
***
They drove in his carriage down the
cliff road to the place he had shown her the day before. He gave orders for the coachman to wait for them there. Then he led her down the steep path to the beach.
They walked along the hard-packed shingle in silence. Again the wind was blowing fitfully. His pace was brisk, almost as if he were trying to outpace a pursuer, and Eliza could barely keep up with him. At last, when they had neared the headland, he stopped.
He stared out at the waves for a moment, marshaling his thoughts, then in a calm, measured tone he began to speak.
“I was seventeen when my mother forced me to take the blame for the ruin of the girl who died while attempting to bear James’s bastard child,” he began. “I told you that. What I didn’t tell you was that shortly before that event, I had contracted an informal engagement with the daughter of a neighbor, Estella Hartington.
“Estella was my age and we had grown up together. She was very beautiful and I fancied myself in love with her. Her family was not wealthy and they were not enthusiastic about her attachment to me, as I was only a younger son. But I promised her I would earn enough on my own to make our marriage possible. I even gave her a ring as token of my commitment. We planned to marry when I had attained my majority.
“But when the word of my shame got out, Estella ended our engagement by post, sending me back my ring and refusing to communicate any further with me. I attempted to see her again, to explain the true situation to her. But my efforts were futile. Though she had claimed to love me enough to be my bride, her feelings for me could not withstand the gossip that surrounded the death of James’s victim. A few weeks later, I learned she had engaged herself to marry a wealthy viscount—a man far older than herself.
“I was a young man then, and my heart was still tender. I won’t bore you with a description of my feelings when Estella cast me off. Suffice it to say that it isn’t only women who feel pain at a rejection.” He dug into the hard pebbly sand with one booted toe and then kicked the ground savagely.