by Emma V Leech
Yet it had not been Eliza, though she was his dearest friend and confidant, the one he told of his hopes and dreams, with whom he had fallen in love. Whatever the reason, there was no denying the truth of it. He had made an error of judgement, a bad one, and now he was hurting two of the people he cared about most in the world and it was making him wretched.
“So, this is where you’re skulking, is it?”
Cassius turned to see their brother Jules in the doorway. He turned with a smile despite his despondency as he liked Jules very much. The devil-may-care attitude hid a good heart, and a fellow who took things a deal more seriously than people might have thought. Cassius stood to greet him and then paused as he saw the furious glint in his eyes.
“Jules,” he said, feeling his heart pick up as the tension in the room became palpable.
“I didn’t break your nose when you broke things off with Eliza because I understood that two years apart had changed your feelings. I knew you’d never made a formal offer, and I felt certain you’d never hurt my sister on purpose,” Jules said, walking into the room and inspecting some items arranged on a table by the door. It was a mess of paint-stained rags and brushes and empty pots, and things that had taken Cassius’s eye: a badger’s skull, a large yellow vase he’d liberated from the house, a broken mirror. Jules trailed his hand over a few things, picking up the skull and inspecting it. He tossed it back to the table and looked back at Cassius. “You’d not do that, would you, Cass? Mess about with my sisters? You’d not make them fall in love with you and then break their hearts?”
“No,” Cassius said, with a sick sensation roiling in his stomach as he knew that was exactly what he had done, what he was doing. No, he had not meant to do it. He would have cut out his heart before hurting either of them, but….
“So tell me, why is it Eliza is acting so strangely? Sweet, patient Eliza is now brittle as a Lucifer match, and about as likely to burst into flames, and then there’s Lottie….”
Jules held his gaze and Cassius felt heat crawl up the back of his neck. He could see Jules’s desire to punish him for his crimes. It burned in the young man’s eyes and Cassius could not blame him. A part of him welcomed it, felt he deserved it, but still he moved around the studio, edging towards the door. If they were going to fight—and that appeared inevitable—he’d just as soon not destroy his studio.
“I left her in the hayloft, crying,” Jules remarked lightly, though there was no doubting just how angry he was that his sister had been hurt.
“Crying?” Cassius repeated in alarm. “B-But why? What—”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
His tone darkened, the demand curt and angry. Cassius swallowed. Did Lottie regret what she’d done? Well, of course she did. It had been mad of her, mad and reckless, and would ruin her if anyone discovered it. He ought to have stopped her. He’d known that, damn it. God, Jules was right, he was an utter bastard. Had… Had she told her brother? No. No, if he knew he’d not be standing there discussing it. There would have been no prelude to violence, no chance for Cassius to explain himself.
“Jules,” he began, startled to discover he sounded a little breathless.
Not that he was afraid of a fight. He’d got himself into a few scrapes over the past years, and before that it had been a part of life, for boys at school always scrapped with each other. He could hold his own. In truth, though they were about the same height, he was heavier than Jules, who still carried the lanky frame of early adulthood. No, it wasn’t fear, it was because Jules was right. Jules was defending those he cared about, the furious desire to protect his sisters radiating from him, and how could he fight that?
“What, Cass? Are you going to tell me you didn’t meet her last night? Didn’t take any liberties?”
“No, I… I….”
Well, he might not have made love to her, but he had taken liberties. She’d been naked, for heaven’s sake.
Jules made an incoherent sound of fury and lunged at him. Cassius dodged and ran for the door.
“Come back here, you bloody coward!” Jules yelled after him.
Well, hold on now.
“I’m here,” Cassius said, standing on the lawn before the summerhouse. “And I’m not going anywhere. You can have your fight if you want it, Jules. God knows I deserve it, but I need to tell you—”
He didn’t get to say anything else as he was tackled to the floor. Jules’s shoulder hit him square in the solar plexus and he went down with such a thud the air was knocked from his lungs. Cassius hauled in a breath and had just enough wit remaining to block the fist speeding towards his nose. He twisted, dislodging Jules, but only temporarily. A fist caught him on the jaw, snapping his head sideways.
“Jules,” he shouted, trying to make himself heard, but he was short on air still and Jules was in no mood to let him catch his breath. “Jules, wait….”
In a move Cassius was not prepared for, Jules wrestled him back to the ground. Cassius broke free and struggled away, but Jules got a hold of his arm. He wrenched it up behind his back, which dashed well hurt. Aggrieved, Cassius flung his head back, not hard enough to break the fool’s nose, but enough to give them both a headache.
Jules yelled in pain and Cassius took advantage of his distraction, thrusting his free elbow into the fellow’s stomach. There was a curse, and the grip on his arm faltered. Cassius pulled free and scrambled to his feet, putting distance between them.
“Jules, wait,” he rasped, bracing his hands on his knees. “I know you’re angry, and that’s understandable….”
“How good of you to be so bloody accommodating,” Jules growled, moving in for another go.
His nose was bleeding and his clothes were awry. Cassius had fared little better; he was dirty and covered in grass stains, and the arm of his shirt had ripped at the shoulder.
“I love her!” Cassius exclaimed.
“Which one?” Jules demanded with a snort. It was a fair question.
“Both of them,” Cassius replied, before quickly realising this had been the wrong answer. He spoke quickly, trying to get the words out before Jules got serious and bloody murdered him. “But I’m in love with Lottie. I want to marry her.”
That pulled him up short, and Cassius let out a ragged breath.
“I love her,” he said again, just in case Jules hadn’t understood the first time. “I thought it was Eliza, and I do love her too, but… only as a friend, Jules. My dearest friend in the world, but… but with Lottie….”
Jules held out a hand, his expression one of disgust. “Spare me the details, old man, but if that’s true, if your intentions are honourable, why was Lottie crying?”
Cassius shrugged. He was not about to tell Jules about last night, but that would not be the only reason for Lottie’s misery. “I can’t say, but… but I think this whole situation is hurting all of us deeply. Neither of us can bear to cause Eliza any further harm, but that means we can tell no one how we feel and… and that means we are lying to everyone. Lottie is wretched about keeping secrets from you all. We both are.”
Jules stared at Cassius for a long moment, obviously weighing up how badly he still wished to break his nose. He let out a breath and raked his hands through his dark hair, which was all in disorder after their tussle.
“Hell and damnation, Cass,” he muttered in disgust. “And now I’ve been dragged into it, too.”
“Been dragged into what? What on earth is going on here?”
Both men jolted as the feminine voice called them to account. They exchanged a panicked glance before doing their best to straighten themselves, for what good it did them. They turned and met Eliza’s suspicious gaze.
“Have… Have you been fighting?” she asked, staring at them in outrage.
“Only a little,” Jules said, sullen as a boy as he regarded his older sister, who was looking at him as if she intended to send him to bed with no supper.
“What on earth about?” she demanded, her astonished gaze dart
ing from one to the other and back again.
Ah, now there was a tricky question to answer.
“Well?” Eliza folded her arms, glaring at them both.
“Art,” Cassius said, as it was the only thing he could think of and about the only subject he ever got riled up about enough to lose his temper. “Jules said a lot of idiotic guff to wind me up and I reacted rather foolishly. Silly of us. All over now. No harm done.”
He did not dare look at Jules.
“It was foolish of you,” Jules retorted, a sarcastic edge to the comment that promised retribution in one form or another in the near future. “I was only ragging you. There was no need for you to act like a blasted caveman, now, was there?”
Cassius gritted his teeth.
“I apologise, Jules,” he said, knowing he owed the devil that much, no matter how annoying he was. “I behaved badly, but I will put things to rights. You have my word.”
Though, how the hell he was supposed to do that, he really had no idea.
Jules made a disgruntled sound but seemed to accept his apology.
“See that you do,” he muttered, and stalked away.
Cassius swallowed as Eliza turned her attention back to him. She gave him a penetrating stare, direct enough that he felt she could see right through him.
“I didn’t know you at all, did I?” she said, her voice full of sorrow.
“Yes, you did, Eliza. Better than anyone. We were just too young to realise we wouldn’t suit. We want different things.”
Eliza nodded, staring out over the dark water of the lake. “You want to travel, to see the world. I always knew that but… I suppose I thought it was a boyish whim, that you would grow out of it. That’s not it though, is it?”
Cassius shook his head. “No.”
“You never said.”
“You always seemed to know what was right, Eliza, and I was excited by all the plans you made for us. I know you are capable of great things and I looked forward to playing my part. You were always so certain of everything when I was unsure, I believed in your vision of the future, of the better world you want to make, but I’m a man now, not a boy. I know what I want and this…” He swept a hand at the bucolic landscape about them. “This isn’t it. At least, it isn’t yet. Perhaps one day it will be. I hope it will, but not, I think, for some time.”
“I could not live like that, always on the move.”
“I know.”
They were silent for a long moment and Cassius felt the chasm between them like a physical weight, an ache in his soul.
“I miss you, Eliza. There is so much I wish I could say to you. I want to explain everything and talk it though and listen to your sensible advice but…”
“But…” she said sadly.
“Will you ever forgive me?”
She smiled at that, a crooked, sorrowful quirk of her lips. “Yes, but my pride has taken a blow, Cass. You must wait for the bruises to fade.”
Cassius watched her walk away and wondered how on earth they could endure inflicting any more hurt.
Chapter 13
Nic,
Where the devil are you? I’m addressing this to our rooms in town in the hope that you are there, and not off God knows where and doing God knows what. I pray you are not getting yourself into trouble. You might remember you are supposed to be with me, helping me, not off sulking about whatever it is you’ve got yourself all worked up about. I still do not understand why you did not confide in me. We always tell each other everything, do we not? It is how we have survived this long. Brothers in arms, yes? I am no child and I know I have been impatient with your fussing over me like some old woman, but I confess I am hurt by the manner in which you have abandoned me. I agreed to do this even though I do not want it. I agreed that this should be my fate but I thought you would help me see it through.
I must tell you I have discovered Eliza and Cassius were to be married. Though nothing was formally announced, it was acknowledged in the family to be their intention. Cassius has since told Eliza that he does not wish to marry her after all. For my part it is a relief, for had I known he was my rival I should not have felt easy in my mind. I like him and should have regretted making an enemy of him. However, Eliza appears to have taken it hard. She is not at all the serene, happy young woman she was when we arrived. I am doing my best to revive her spirits but even I cannot mend a broken heart. Fear not, though, brother. I will do my duty and make her forget him.
―Excerpt of a letter from Louis César de Montluc, Comte de Villen to his half-brother, Monsieur Nicolas Alexandre Demarteau– translated from the French.
14th July 1838, Holbrook House, Sussex.
“Everyone is arriving, Papa!”
Lottie looked up from the copy of The Lady’s Magazine she had been forcing herself to attend to, easily distracted by Cat’s excited announcement. Her father, the Marquess of Montagu, withdrew his gaze from the letter he’d been writing and caught his wife’s eye. She smiled at him, such an intimate smile Lottie felt she ought not to have seen it, nor especially the answering light of wickedness that danced in the marquess’s eyes. Still, he put his letter aside and got up to stand by his daughter at the window.
“So they are. Will you burst with excitement before tonight, do you think?”
“It is possible,” Cat replied gravely. “I cannot wait.”
“Are you going to attend?” Lottie asked in astonishment, to which Cat replied with a gurgle of laughter.
“Of course not, silly. I’m far too young to attend a ball, which is so unfair, but Mama said I might watch from the balcony.”
“For a little while, if you were very good,” her father amended, with a stern tone that did not match the look in his strange, silver eyes, which shone with amusement.
“Oh, but I have been, and I will be,” Cat said, her little face solemn as she gazed up at the father she clearly idolized.
Montagu nodded his approval. “Shall we go down and greet them, then? I believe that is Helena and Gabriel’s carriage, so your friends are here.”
“Yours too,” Cat said excitedly, taking her father’s hand and dragging him from the room. “For Gabriel is your best friend, I think, even though he vexes you dreadfully. It’s just like with Emmeline, you see. I do like her, but she makes me so cross sometimes….”
Montagu chuckled as his daughter towed him away and Lottie watched his wife, Matilda, as she stared after them, her adoration obvious. How must it feel, to be married to a man you loved so deeply, to have weathered storms, to have raised children and experienced years together, and to still feel just the same as you had years earlier? Would she always feel this mad jittering in her heart whenever she saw Cassius? Would her breath always catch and her pulse race with giddy excitement? She believed it would, and so this feeling would not simply go away, and if Cassius felt the same….
They could not keep their secret indefinitely. They had kept quiet to save Eliza pain, but what if she found out anyway? How furious she would be to have been kept in the dark again.
Oh, what to do?
Cassius and Jules had nearly ruined everything with their stupid fight last week, for which she was still beyond vexed with them, the idiots. Why did men always think that going around hitting each other was a valid method of solving problems? They were imbeciles both, and so she’d told them, though in truth she’d been touched to discover Jules would ride to her rescue without a second thought. Yet Eliza had come upon them and only some quick thinking from Cassius had defused the situation. Lottie could not help but wonder if they had done right, if they ought not to have confessed all from the start. Oh, lud, what a coil.
“You must be excited for this evening.”
Lottie looked up again, torn from her tangled thoughts by Matilda’s soft voice.
“I remember the excitement of a ball, of getting ready and looking forward to seeing all my friends, and wondering if I would see a certain gentleman, of course,” she said with a smile. “Will yo
u dance with Cassius?”
Lottie drew in a sharp breath. Oh, Lord. She knew.
Matilda shook her head. “Don’t look so appalled. I’ve not said anything, and nor will I, though I don’t think you will keep your secret for long. You wear your heart on your sleeve and you look at him like he hung the moon for you.”
Lottie swallowed.
“Eliza is too preoccupied to notice, or she would have done by now. I cannot help but feel it would be better if you just told her the truth. She is your sister.”
“I c-can’t bear to hurt her,” Lottie said. “I wish I didn’t love him. I wish I could make it stop, that it could be anyone else, but….”
Matilda returned a smile of such understanding Lottie’s throat grew tight. “But love comes where it will and we may not understand the why of it, only that it is.”
“Yes.”
“I know,” Matilda said with a sigh. “I remember as if it were yesterday. I hated Lucien for such a long time, but there were so many secrets, so many lies and things I did not understand. The truth made it so much easier to love him, even though it was far from easy.”
She rose to her feet and smoothed down her gown. “And now I had better think about getting ready for the ball this evening. It is sad to own, but it takes me far longer than it used to.”
“I cannot believe that,” Lottie said, meaning it. “You’re beautiful, and so very elegant.”
Matilda flashed a dazzling smile. “Why, thank you, child. You’ve made the evening quite perfect before it has even begun.”
“It’s true, and thank you,” Lottie said sincerely. “For your advice. I shall think on it.”
Matilda nodded, moved towards the door, and then paused.
“Did you take a dare?” she asked.
Lottie flushed as she remembered, but nodded.