Love's Reward

by Jean R. Ewing

  Richard watched Quentin leave.

  “Dear God, what a family!” He looked drawn, tired. “Must I apologize? I did not mean . . . You have a damnable husband, Joanna.”

  “Don’t say it, Richard. Fitzroy is everything you feared and more. He’s the most infuriating man I ever met. I don’t blame you at all for perforating him so liberally. Perhaps a little blood-letting will relieve his evil humors.”

  Joanna walked up to her brother and put her arms around him.

  “But?” Richard asked gently.

  “But it’s too late to nullify our marriage. And I want to have his babies.”

  Her brother kissed the top of her head. “Then there’s no more to be said, sister mine. If he’s to father nephews and nieces, I don’t want his death on my conscience, after all.”

  “He won’t die. I shan’t let him. Go home to Helena and Elaine and get some rest. Helena will be worried, since you no doubt rode away like a banshee bent on murder and mayhem. I’ll send word to Acton Mead as soon as there’s news.”

  “Very well. But first I shall see that you bathe, and we shall both dine. Tarrant won’t wake for hours yet, and his man will watch over him. Go, Joanna! Call your maid and take a hot bath.”

  She did as Richard bid her, merely because she was too tired to argue.

  They ate a simple meal and talked quietly about Fitzroy, about long-ago adventures in the Peninsula, and about Juanita.

  “I never understood him,” Richard said quietly at last. “He must have guessed what had happened to Juanita in Badajoz. Yet he married her anyway.”

  “Don’t you see? He married her because of it.” Joanna broke the remains of her bread into crumbs. “I don’t know whether he tried to convince himself that it wasn’t really true, or if he believed he could make amends. Either way, it was the action of a fool. Carmen was right.”

  Richard silently handed her his handkerchief, before he kissed her again and left.

  Joanna ran back to the shadowed chamber to be with Fitzroy.

  He slept on, oblivious to her presence, his face white, his breathing a little too fast and shallow.

  She paced the quiet room, thinking through everything that had happened. There were still great gaps in the story that she knew, but she didn’t care any longer.

  Fitzroy moaned and moved.

  Joanna raced back to the bedside. He still slept, one hand flung out on the pillow.

  Please, Fitzroy, don’t die now!

  She took his hand in her own and held it.

  ‘Who’ll be chief mourner?’ ‘I,’ said the Dove, ‘I mourn for my love, I’ll be chief mourner.’

  What was the nature of love?

  Joanna had discussed it once with Helena at Acton Mead.

  “Love is not something that happens to you,” Richard’s wife had said thoughtfully. “Love is something two people create. That initial fall helps, of course, when you believe you’ve met a prince from a fairy tale. Your heart lifts at the sound of his footfall. You’re entranced by the very shape of him, and the way he moves. You look at each other and feel a melting somewhere deep inside. But real passion is liberated only by trust and honesty tempered by kindness, with eyes wide open to all of his faults, as his are open to yours. Then I believe you can grow old together and still be in love.”

  “I don’t know,” Joanna had replied. “Love must be more than kindness. You make it sound so tame.”

  “I assure you that it’s not tame to be kind. Not striking back when you’ve been wounded takes every ounce of courage and conviction you have. But you must both do it. Otherwise you will burn each other until there’s nothing left but ashes. It is when the person you love behaves badly that the first test comes, and you must return generosity for pettiness.”

  “And let him walk all over you?”

  Helena had grinned at Joanna’s expression. “I don’t mean you should be Patient Griselda. Far from it! I’m talking about compassion and generosity based on mutual respect, and that’s something that’s earned. It’s what real love is, and what makes the deepest passion possible.”

  It had all seemed impossibly pious to Joanna.

  She closed her eyes. Helena was a naturally sweet-natured person. Richard was normally the soul of courtesy and consideration. Of course, they could have a civilized marriage.

  The quiet spaces of the night closed around her.

  Still holding Fitzroy by the hand, she slid her head onto the pillows next to him.

  At last Joanna slept.

  * * *

  Strong fingers tightened around her own. She opened her eyes.

  Fitzroy was gazing down at her.

  Sunshine streamed in at the window. It was morning. And very possibly late morning, the dawn chorus was obviously long over.

  How long had she slept while Fitzroy watched over her?

  “Well, Joanna,” he said with an infuriating grin. “Now your brother has suitably chastised me, am I forgiven?”

  His pulse beat against hers, quick and fast.

  She sat up. “I don’t know. I don’t know what our marriage means. What about children?”

  “Ah.” He closed his eyes. “I know what I said. Petty, malicious words, aimed only to hurt. I felt such rage at my father for forcing my hand and making me face my destiny. Can you forgive me for that, too?”

  She felt an infinite distress. Too much yet lay unresolved, didn’t it?

  “You said I look like Juanita. I can see how hard that must have made things.”

  “No, Joanna. You’re nothing like her.” He opened his eyes and studied her face. “I know you want to be an artist and don’t want children. Your mother told me. If you don’t abandon me as I deserve, and will still allow me into your bed, I can be careful, sweetheart. There won’t be babies. But, dear God, I should be honored if you would bear me a child. Crazy as it may sound, I like children.”

  “I know. I saw you with little Tom. I do want to paint, but I don’t see why I can’t have babies, too. I should like a son. He would be as black-browed as we are, and just as difficult.”

  He gazed at her with open astonishment. “And if we have daughters?”

  “They will run away from school with ineligible rakes. But children alone don’t make a marriage, do they? And what kind of father would they have? How dare you take it for granted that we have a future together?”

  Someone made a slight noise behind her. Joanna turned to see Lady Mary at the door.

  “Is Fitzroy—?”

  “Come in, Mary.” Fitzroy held out his hand. “I am.”

  * * *

  Joanna left Fitzroy alone with his sister. Lady Mary came down half an hour later to say that Fitzroy was asleep again, and to share her own news.

  “I’m still to go to Switzerland,” she said, smiling shyly. “But the doctors are confident now of my complete recovery. Indeed, they say that, although I have suffered some inflammation and weakness, there seems to be no permanent condition of the lungs, after all. A stay away from all this smoke and damp is sure to send me home perfectly well.”

  Joanna felt the joy of it like a bright quaff of champagne.

  “Oh, Mary! I’m so very glad. But still, I have something for you.”

  She led Lady Mary to her studio and unveiled the portrait.

  Fitzroy laughed back at them, lighthearted, filled with joy.

  “I hoped it would cheer you, if I painted him like this.”

  “But it’s wonderful! Perfect! Joanna, you’re a genius, truly.”

  Joanna gazed at the painting she had labored over so hard.

  She had thought she was in love with it. Now it seemed shallow, like a watercolor wash that was unfinished. Yet it wasn’t a lie. It was just a partial truth.

  With a certain sense of revelation, Joanna realized that the whole truth was what she wanted. A portrait complete with depth, shadows, and layers of complex glazes.

  If only she could find her way there.

  * * *

 
A steady stream of visitors came all morning.

  Knowing that Fitzroy still slept, drugged with opium, Joanna dealt with them all in the formal drawing room, refusing them permission to wake him.

  Lord and Lady Evenham, stiff, awkward in their mixed commiseration and pride. Lady Acton, shrewdly watching her daughter, but saying very little. A Lord Grantley, who apparently had been Fitzroy’s contact in the government.

  The only exception was Quentin. He stood immobile, facing her, and refused to go away, when all she wanted was to be left alone to go back to the bedside.

  “I don’t care if he’s asleep, Joanna. At least let me sit by him for an hour. I know how you must feel about me, and I don’t blame you. But in my ramshackle way I’ve only wanted to help you, because Fitzroy—”

  He choked and stopped.

  “What?” she asked.

  His eyes were bleak. “There is no one else, except Mary, that I love in this world.”

  So Joanna allowed Quentin to go up to the sick room to keep vigil alone. It took all of her forbearance to do it.

  A few hours later he came down and stood in the doorway.

  “He’s asleep again,” he said.

  She leaped up. The last of the visitors had just left. “He woke?”

  “For a moment.”

  “Quentin, what’s wrong?” Joanna rushed up to him. His expression terrified her. “Is he worse?”

  He pushed a hand over his face as if to knead away his distress. “No, no. It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I asked Fitzroy if there was anything I could do to make amends. I told him I would do anything.”

  He paused for a moment, then with obvious reluctance met her eyes.

  Ice touched her heart. “What did he want?”

  Pushing away from her, Quentin strode to the door. He glanced back and spoke just once more before he left.

  “He asked me to stop drinking,” he said. “It’s the one thing I cannot do.”

  * * *

  Later that afternoon a note arrived. It was sealed with scented wax. The handwriting was florid.

  Joanna put it away in Fitzroy’s desk, knowing perfectly well that it was from Lady Reed.

  The next letter that arrived truly surprised her, for it was addressed to her and not to Fitzroy.

  She tore open the seal and spread out the sheet.

  “Madam: When I take on a pupil it is forever, knowing that I have gloried in the enlargement of her mind and the perfection of every faculty, inculcating the highest standards of moral and virtuous behavior in my young ladies. I beg, therefore, to offer your ladyship my most sincere felicitations on your most happy and blessed union. Your ladyship’s most humble servant, Eliza Able.”

  Joanna gazed at this in astonishment for a moment, and then she began to laugh.

  Sitting alone at Fitzroy’s bedside, she laughed until she cried.

  * * *

  Fitzroy still slept.

  Joanna sat beside him, watching and waiting. He seemed feverish and uncomfortable, tossing and turning, filling her with fear. She didn’t want to eat, and she couldn’t bear to leave him.

  The doctor came again and insisted that Joanna take the air, before she too became ill.

  “This won’t do, your ladyship. A turn around the gardens before you spend another moment at the bedside.”

  The garden was quiet, still and calm. Joanna walked through the trees. Somewhere in the distance a church bell sounded, marking the call to the evening service.

  All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing when they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin.

  As she came up to the pigeon loft, she saw George scattering grain into the little troughs and closing the birds up for the night. He smiled at her and asked after the master before touching a finger to his forehead and walking away.

  Joanna sat on the top rail of the yard fence and watched the light die away in the west.

  Cock Robin.

  A young man, filled no doubt with immense conceit and confidence, who had believed he could solve any problem just by wishing it so. Yet his motives had surely been driven by compassion?

  What had happened when that young man almost died at the hand of his first wife to become the Fitzroy Mountfitchet she had met at the Swan?

  Had it been inevitable that such simple faith would be broken against reality? If she had a lifetime of study, could she ever understand the rogue he had become? What was she to do now?

  For she too had begun her journey with such simple beliefs, and discovered a cruel world she hadn’t dreamed existed.

  A rustle and the whirring of wings.

  Joanna glanced up, shading her eyes against the dying sunshine.

  Dropping in a rush of feathers from the sky, a pigeon landed on her upraised hand. Attached to its leg was a little leather pouch.

  With trembling hands she tore open the packet. A small slip of paper lay inside.

  “Success. Plot foiled. All safe.”

  She set the pigeon carefully into an empty cage and gave it grain and water. Then she raced into the house and up the stairs.

  His valet met her at Fitzroy’s door. “His lordship just woke, my lady.”

  Joanna ran inside.

  “Look!” she cried. “It worked. Wellington is safe.”

  The dark eyes bored into hers.

  “Then I have achieved that, at least.” He sounded infinitely empty. “Though it would seem that everything else I have done has left only desolation in its wake.”

  “Has it? I don’t see why.”

  “If I’ve learned nothing else, Joanna, it’s that damage once done cannot be undone. Cruelty masked as cleverness is still cruelty. Oh, dear God!”

  “What do you mean?”

  He sighed and pressed his hand to his eyes. “I could have confided in Quentin, asked for his help. Instead I disdained him, my own brother. You wouldn’t have done so with yours.”

  “With Richard or Harry or John? No, I suppose not. But perhaps it’s different between men.”

  “Perhaps it is. Yet in spite of everything, I’ve never really been a rake. I was faithful to Juanita, even when I knew she was not so with me. I did not take Lady Carhill, nor Lady Reed, nor Lady Kettering, to my bed. But I let them be used in this foulness, Joanna. I guessed they were just pawns in some deeper game, but I didn’t spare them.”

  Her joy died away. So it was not over.

  “Lady Reed has written to you. I’ll fetch it.”

  A few minutes later she handed him the scented missive. Fitzroy read it through once.

  “The candle,” he said.

  Joanna handed him the flame and watched him burn Lady Reed’s letter.

  “The doctor left this for you.” She took up a draught laced with opium. “You must drink it.”

  He looked at her with that old sarcastic ferocity. “Am I safer unconscious?”

  It is when the person you love behaves badly that the first test comes, and you must return generosity for pettiness.

  “Absolutely,” Joanna said. She grinned. “More polite, at least.”

  She watched him drink the laudanum, and saw his eyes close again, before she laid her head onto the pillow next to his.

  For a long time she stared dry-eyed at the ceiling.

  * * *

  When she awoke again, he was still asleep.

  A shaft of sunlight fell across the pillow, casting highlights of deep sienna in his hair, and throwing bold shadows over the planes of his face.

  Joanna slipped from the bed and rang for Fitzroy’s valet.

  While the man took over the vigil, she went to her own room to bathe and change and order breakfast. She came back to find her husband sitting up, gazing across to the open window.

  “My man has done his professional best to make me into a gentleman,” he said. “I am shaved, washed, and bandaged once again in pure linen. But the important attributes remain unchanged. I have made light of what is se
rious, and the only question I care about remains unanswered. Do you forgive me, Joanna?”

  “I don’t know.” She stood helpless, staring at him. “I don’t know.”

  His lids dropped again, shielding the black well of pain in his eyes.

  “I don’t blame you. Do you want to be free of me?”

  Joanna thought of all the paintings she had tried and destroyed. He was so lovely to her. Why did she still feel so much confusion?

  “I don’t know that either. Fitzroy, why didn’t you tell me what was going on? Why did you let me go on believing that everything that happened was just your whim? It was cruel.”

  “Perhaps I am cruel, Joanna.” The words were barely audible. “Merely through carelessness and my own bloody conceit.”

  “And your talent— Why has it gone wasted?”

  “Did I require things to be as they have been? Don’t you think that I’d rather have painted than do what I have had to do? Dear God, I could not do both! If that’s cowardice, I freely confess it.”

  Joanna’s confusion crystallized into the one vital question, the question she hadn’t been able to face before, let alone formulate. Knowing that she risked everything, that the answer would finally reveal what she had to understand, she forced herself to ask it.

  “What would you have done, if Juanita had not stabbed you? Would you have risked yourself to save her from the partisan’s bullet, or would you still have let her die?”

  He looked up at her with his midnight gaze as still and deep as the night ocean.

  “I have spent two years asking myself that question. What would you have done?”

  Joanna walked blindly up to the bed. Fitzroy caught her hand and held it, pulling her down beside him. His pulse beat under her fingers, fast and strong.

  “If I discovered that you were a traitor? That unless you were stopped, you would escape to the enemy with vital information? Oh, Lord!”

  “It might have meant so many of our soldiers lives, you see, and yet I loved her. I don’t know the answer. I shall never know. I can only be grateful that the choice was taken away. It was her only real gift to me, and I believe that may be why she did it.”

  Joanna sat in silence for a moment, studying his face.

  She knew every line and shape of it. She loved him. Quite suddenly she saw why. Not just because he was brilliant and handsome and passionate, but because of this. He could not save Juanita from her demons, but he had wanted to. He even hoped that she had stabbed him so that he would not be faced with choosing life or death for her.