by Jenny Brown
“I didn’t suffer long. I threw myself into the pleasures of the world, as you well know, and then, to get away from my family, I bought a pair of colors and went off with my regiment to fight the French.
“I did not see Estella again until I returned on leave to London some years later. By then some well-chosen investments had made me a wealthy man. As could have been predicted, Estella’s marriage had not been a happy one. Her husband had lost interest in her after their first few months together. They had little in common, and she had the further misfortune of discovering she couldn’t bear him an heir.
“When she saw me again, after all those years, she professed to have realized the mistake she had made in casting me off and she offered herself to me as a mistress.”
Edward stopped. He took a few deep breaths, as if steeling himself to continue. Only then did he resume his story.
“I took her up on her offer. You will not, I pray, make any sentimental excuse for my behavior. I made her my mistress not because I still cherished some fondness for her, for I did not. Far from it. I did so only because for years I had lived with one hope—that someday I could cause Estella as much pain as she had caused me when she had cast me off without giving me the chance to defend myself.”
He paused. Eliza could feel him watching to see how she responded to his confession. She schooled her features to betray nothing, afraid that if he saw any reaction there, he would explode into anger, or, worse, laugh that ironic laugh of his and walk away.
He inhaled a deep breath of the sea air, as if inhaling strength with it. Then he plunged back into his story.
“Though I felt nothing for her but contempt, I hid it from her and used what I had learned about women to bind Estella to me. I showered her with gifts. I praised her beauty. I told her I needed her. I gave her a taste of sensual pleasures that she had not known were possible. Then, when I knew she was well and truly mine, I took my revenge upon her.
“One day, when she had been expecting to depart with me for a weekend in the country, I wrote her that our connection must end. I told her I found it impossible to love her in her new role as a fashionable adulteress. I told her she disgusted me. I said other things, unrepeatable, private things chosen because I knew they would hurt her where she was most vulnerable. I was excessively cruel.”
He rounded on his heel, until he was again facing Eliza. “I am good at being cruel,” he said with savage satisfaction. “Don’t fool yourself that I’m not.”
Eliza bowed her head so that her expression might give him no hint of the compassion she felt rising within her. Despite the way he condemned himself, a heartless man would have told this story very differently.
As he continued, his voice grew more rough and uneven. “My rejection had its expected consequence. Estella was made to feel what she had lost. But I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. She began to follow me about, to haunt me wherever I went, begging me to give her another chance. I refused to respond to any of her communications, but that only drove her to more excess. She stood outside my window at night, shouting for me to come down. She followed me into my club, begging for one more interview. Disgusted with the shame she had brought upon his ancient name, her husband cast her out, and there were rumors he was preparing to sue her for divorce.
“By then I had long since tired of my revenge. Indeed, I wished I had never undertaken it. I could go nowhere without her following me. She behaved like a madwoman. When she cornered me in public she made wild scenes filled with violent accusations. I was sick of the whole affair but there was nothing I could do to end it.
“Finally, one day, a note was brought to me by one of her servants who urged me with great vehemence to read it. When I refused, he told me that Estella had threatened to kill herself if I did not. I threw it in my desk, unopened, and told him to tell her to kill herself and be damned for it.”
The pale hair on his forehead was slicked down now by sweat and tendrils of it bracketed his tormented eyes. He was breathing fast, as if outrunning a pursuer. Only after a visible struggle did he resume.
“The next morning, her body was fished out of the Thames. She had thrown herself from Tower Bridge, after loading up her pockets with stones to make herself sink. When the news was brought to me of what she’d done, I opened the note she had sent me, and saw that in it she had begged me to meet with her at a given hour at that selfsame bridge.
“In her note she told me she repented of how cruelly she had treated me when we were eighteen. She said she wanted only one last chance to explain herself, and that should I give it to her, she would leave me alone forever. She said she could not live with the knowledge of how her earlier treatment had twisted my nature into cruelty. Clearly she expected me to read the note and prevent her from destroying herself. But of course, I didn’t read the note until she was dead.”
Edward stopped in his painful recitation and looked Eliza fully in the face. “You are thinking I must have been consumed with regret that I had not read the note. You are thinking it was a tragic mistake that I was not able to go to the bridge that night and allow her to make her confession to me. You are relieved to hear that if I abetted her murder, it was only through an act of omission. You are already making excuses for me, relieved that I had no part in Estella’s murder, that I did not brandish an axe or give her a drink of poison. But I tell you, Eliza, you are wrong.”
His voice cracked. “My only reaction to hearing of her death was relief. Never again would she trouble me with her importunities. I rejoiced that I had not opened her note. I was glad she had died. And it was at that moment, when I felt that burst of utterly selfish relief that I knew myself to be no different from my father or my brother. I had killed Estella with my selfishness, just as thoroughly as if I had forced her to drink some poison, and I was glad of it. It was with a light heart indeed, or perhaps I should say completely without a heart, that, just as my mother told you, I celebrated her death by attending a ball that very night.”
He stopped and stood silent before her, his face rigid with self-control, daring her to assure him she could forgive him and ready to leave her forever if she did.
But Eliza said nothing. Her ability to forgive him could mean nothing to him if he could not forgive himself. That he could feel such guilt told her that he was not heartless. But the pain in his eyes told her he would not be able to hear any words that might absolve him until they came from his own heart. So she simply stayed silent, regarding him with a calm, open look, as his damning words, as hateful as anything his mother could have said to him, flowed through her, unmolested, like the sound of the waves that broke upon the shore.
His eyes continued to bore into her, daring her to protest his innocence, still waiting to discharge on her the fury such a protestation would unleash. But as the silence stretched out between them in the gathering dusk, a new look began to replace the bleakness in his eyes.
The words of condemnation he had lived with, unspoken for so long, had finally been spoken out loud. She had listened to them but no words of hers had tried to push his own words back into the gaping wound they had issued from. She had said nothing that needed to be argued with, nothing that might force him to insist that he was guilty. And now, those damning words, once spoken, were fading away into the evening air. He had told her all, pouring it into the healing womb of her silence, and in that silence the words had begun to lose their power, and she sensed that, for the first time since he had unfolded Estella’s note, Edward Neville felt a touch of hope.
“Thank you, Eliza,” he said, at last, brushing away something that glittered at the corner of one eye. “You are wiser than you know.”
With no further word, he began walking slowly down the beach, drawing her along with him. They walked along the hard-packed shingle in silence as the sun set. As its last beams faded, the moon shone forth from behind a bank of towering clouds, illuminating their edges. The water was still, except for the slightest gentle ripple. They walked a
long the pebbly shore and Edward took her hand and held it gently, his palm firm and warm against her own.
As they stood drenched in that ghostly light, feelings rose within her, but it had become impossible to speak. Edward, too, seemed to be feeling the same way. He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them tenderly. Then, as if he had heard something passing between them unsaid, he breathed her name just once and leaned over and brushed her lips with his.
Warmth coursed through Eliza’s body as if a current had begun to flow between the two of them. She felt hunger gnaw at her very core as his lips lingered and then pressed more roughly against her own. As if he’d heard her silent need, his lips parted and she felt his tongue dance gently toward hers. She opened herself to him, her whole body tingling as she gave herself up to the intoxication of his kiss. She wrapped her arms around his chest, pulling him closer, thrilling as she felt his hard muscles tense beneath her touch.
He had kissed her this way once before, in the hallway, when he’d been trying to annoy his mother with his lust, and she had thought then that he had taught her what a kiss could be. But now, the tenderness that flowed through her at the touch of his gentle lips showed her how little she had ever truly known. This must be what her aunt had feared for her so desperately, this haunting softness that crept under all her defenses and made her feel the aching pang of love. But it was too late for her aunt’s warnings. With the tenderness of his kiss Edward had swept away the last of her resistance. Now that he’d dragged out his painful story and laid it at her feet he was no longer hiding from her. He was not playing a role. His soul was in his lips and as it met hers she throbbed with the need to meld herself with him, to draw him into herself and give him the final healing he so needed. As their kiss deepened, he enfolded her in his arm and pulled her even closer, claiming her for his own. She breathed in the powerful male scent of him, hungry as she had never been hungry before. The urgency in his ragged breath told her she was not the only one whose hunger was more than they could bear.
But that realization brought with it a new terror. There was nothing feigned in the passion with which he was responding to her embrace. He was no longer holding her at a distance. She was no longer protected by the barrier he’d erected around his own heart. The long-buried guilt that had made him live as an outcast had been exposed to the light. His healing had begun. If she gave herself to him now, he would receive her. She would lose herself in him. She would be at his mercy, unsafe, as lost in her love for him as her poor mother had been when she’d given herself to Eliza’s father. But even knowing that, she could not break free.
Edward finally broke the connection, releasing her lips and stepping away from her.
“I shouldn’t have done that, but I couldn’t stop myself.”
Eliza said nothing. Her mind was in an uproar. She, too, had not been able to stop herself. Her body was still filled with the tingling craving he had awakened. She wanted to fling herself against him and cling to him as a drowning man might cling to a spar after a shipwreck. She wanted to feel his lips again, to feel his hard length pressed against her body. She wanted to lose herself in the completeness of the union she felt glimmering between them. But she wanted to flee from him, too, far away, where she would not be tormented by his touch. She hoped it was not too late, that she could still live without him, that she could get back to being the way she’d been before he’d made her crave his touch and yearn to fill herself with him, back when she’d needed no one and felt nothing. She yearned to blot out the longing he had awakened in her and knew that she could not.
She loved him. She would always love him. She could not deny it.
To her dismay, she began to weep. The tears coursed down her cheeks, unstoppable, as if they were the only outlet for the passion that had built up within her.
“Oh no, Eliza,” he said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It wasn’t that,” she said when she could speak again. “I didn’t know a kiss could be like that.”
“Have you only read about kisses in your books then, too?”
She nodded.
“It does not go into words well, kissing,” he said, gently stroking her cheek.
Eliza dried her eyes, rubbing them with the back of her hand. “Was it like that for you, too, when we kissed, or did it overwhelm me only because I’m so old and have never been kissed with such tenderness before?”
“It wasn’t just you. I have never before felt like that with anyone. I don’t know how I shall keep from kissing you again.”
“But you must keep from doing it,” she said sadly. “It is part of our agreement, is it not?”
“It is. Though I regret it.”
He broke from her and strode on ahead of her down the beach. As he moved away she felt as if something inside her was being tugged after him. Some connection had been made that could not be broken. She wondered if she would still feel it if he were out of sight. If he were gone. If he were dead. It was frightening to feel herself so bound to him. So at his mercy.
She suddenly felt a chill. The breeze had sprung up and was blowing in to shore from across the water. It pushed the clouds swiftly across the sky, until they obscured the face of the moon. The sky darkened. Only a diffused dim glow remained of the moonlight. She hurried to catch up with him, suddenly afraid of the dark. His face was turned away from her when she came up beside him, his expression impossible to read. She shivered.
“We must go back. It’s going to rain,” he said. “The weather changes so quickly by the sea.” As he spoke a thick drop spattered against her cheek, and then another.
By the time they reached the carriage they were soaked. The coachman said nothing as they got in but merely flicked his whip at the horses and started them on their journey home.
Edward held her close as they rode back, enfolding her in his arms to protect her from the cold, but even so she could not stop shivering. Though they were safely out of the rain, sheltered in the carriage, drops still spattered down her cheeks, and when she tasted them as they rolled down to her lips the taste was sharp with salt.
Chapter 14
It was quite late when they arrived back at the house. Lady Hartwood had retired and the servants had gone to their beds. Eliza, too, would have gone upstairs had Edward not begged her to rejoin him in the library when she had changed out of her wet clothing. After some hesitation, she had agreed. He was not sure why it seemed so important to him that she spend the rest of the evening with him. He had given her what she had demanded. He’d told her his shameful story. He had given in to the emotion that had risen within him in the aftermath of his confession, but he had controlled himself admirably and somehow avoided disaster.
There was no further reason for her to remain. And there were all too many reasons why, if he knew what was good for him, he would go into his room, bolt the door, and not come out until he knew for certain Eliza had returned to London.
He knew himself too well to doubt what would happen if he didn’t. Like any accomplished rake, he recognized the subtle signs that indicated a woman had lost her ability to withstand him. Eliza had given him those signs in their last long, searing kiss by the shore. It was too much to expect him to hold back now. Like a dog trained to the sound of the horn, he would respond. He would close in on her and finally make her his. He doubted he could withstand the temptation of Eliza’s pulsing lips and fervent body much longer. But as unprincipled as he was, he must withstand it. Rake though he was, he was determined to adhere to that one principle he had left. The one that had hitherto kept her safe from him.
But it wouldn’t be easy. The scene on the beach where he had uncovered his shame to her replayed itself over and over again in his mind. He kept remembering the warmth in her eyes, how open and accepting they had been, and the beauty of her silence. He wondered still at how she had refused to judge him, how she had just stayed with him and accepted him for who he was with all his failings—all! How with her silence she had shown
him, as no words could ever have, what love might be. That love she had insisted he was born for.
He twisted in his chair, trying to retreat to that comfortable place within himself where he didn’t care and everything was a joke. But he could not. Hope had entered his heart. It whispered that he could learn to love and begged him to explore the possibility.
It was wrong! Like Eliza. Dangerously wrong.
He leaped up out of his chair, unwilling to think about it any longer. He would go up to his room. He would bolt the door. He would give instructions that Eliza leave on the morrow and, by God, this time he would make sure they were carried out. He would not give Black Neville’s son the chance to seduce and abandon her.
But before he could put any of his plans in train, his valet interrupted him to deliver the parcel containing the volumes he had bought for Eliza at the lending library and hand him some letters that had come by the late post. One letter in particular caught his attention with its unfamiliar seal.
It was written on a cheap paper that contrasted strongly with the imprint of the heraldic crest with which it was sealed. The handwriting was that of an educated man, but the letter was written as if in haste, and the hand was difficult to read. Even when he managed to make it out, the words were disjointed and confused. He had to read the letter through twice before he felt he truly understood it.
When he did, he was aghast.
The letter was from Eliza’s father. He sent his compliments and explained that he had only recently discovered from Lord Hartwood’s man of business the identity of his benefactor and the further circumstance that that benefactor had taken his daughter, Eliza, under his protection.
Edward read these words with irritation. What could his man of business have been thinking of to let Eliza’s father know she had gone off with him? He would have thought the man had more sense.