by Decca Price
“Love can forgive many things, Claire. You can’t assume Edward will be so cruel.”
“That’s just it, Simmie. I don’t think he loves me. I’m not sure why he married me. He is solicitous, but he hardly spends any time with me. Even as he sees how it pains me, he cuts me off from every pursuit that ever gave me enjoyment. He frowns when I wish to ride, he discourages me from calling on my friends, he’s taken management of the household out of my hands. And he so obviously avoids touching me that I must repel him. If he wanted to drive me mad, he’s on the right path!”
“How can I help you?
“You can’t, Simmie. You have the school to think about now, and your partnership with Lina. I don’t think we should even call on one another now. The scandal will be horrendous when it comes out.”
“I still think you are misjudging your husband, Claire. He is a proud man. If anything, scandal will be the one thing he’ll want to avoid. Perhaps you could go abroad for a while. Together, I mean. Until after the baby is born.”
“Oh, Simmie. You don’t understand. I don’t want to stay with him. He is hard. He preaches at me constantly and he treats me like a child. My own Papa was never so condescending. To live with him after he learns this will be to have no will of my own ever again.”
Her voice dropped so low Simmie barely caught her next words.
“I’ve done a terrible thing, Simmie, the one thing I said I’d never do. I married a man I don’t love.”
They sat silent for many moments before Claire began to speak again.
“I admired Edward, but I know now that wasn’t love. It was Josiah all over again. His behavior these past weeks wouldn’t upset me so much if I loved him. It would make me sad, not angry and afraid. How could I have gotten it so wrong twice?”
“Claire,” Simmie said firmly. “I think it’s time you told me what happened the day Mr. Latimer proposed to you. Or did it start before then?”
“It?” Claire laughed hollowly. “What is ‘it?’ My inability to control myself? Josiah saw it the moment he laid eyes on me. He saw it, too. Is my wickedness written on my face, Simmie? Is that why Edward shuns me?”
“Let’s leave your husband out of this for the moment, Claire. ‘He?’”
“You’ll force me speak his name? Surely you can guess. There could be no one else.” A piece of wood popped in the fireplace as Simmie waited.
“I won’t lie, Simmie. It was Lord Montfort. It stormed and we took shelter in the oast house.” She griped Simmie’s hand fiercely. “I knew what I was doing. I wanted to. I used to lie awake night after night thinking about what it would be like. My imagination was a feeble thing, as you can imagine. He was—”
Without meaning to, she dug her nails into Simmie’s hand. “The making of this child was the most glorious thing I’ve ever known! I never wanted it to end. And I want this child now with every fiber of my being, even as it means my ruin forever.”
Claire withdrew her hand and folded herself into her arms. “Afterward, we quarreled. We said terrible things to each other and he left me there. On the way home I overheard some farm hands sniggering about how he planned to seduce me to get Oak Grove back—their language was coarse and degrading! Then I killed Dickon. The next day Carey said Rhys had gone abroad. I felt such a fool. And there was Edward. Courteous. Strong. Speaking the words I needed to hear.”
She laughed. “Shall I tell you what we quarreled about? He wanted me to go abroad with him, to be his mistress. I was too high and mighty—too proper—to realize what he was offering me.
“I wish now I had said yes—not because of the baby. He may not have wanted being saddled with a squalling bastard—but I would have had a few months more of happiness to look back on before slinking into oblivion.”
Simmie went to a cabinet on the far side of the room and returned with a small bottle. Taking Claire’s cup she poured a jot into the cooling tea and handed it to Claire.
“Brandy,” she said. “Drink a good swallow and come and sit down. Let’s get past the drama and start sifting through the practicalities. This is life, Claire, not a melodramatic novel. You’ve made some dreadful mistakes, I’ll give you that. But it’s not the end of the world. We just need to examine your options and decide the best way for you to get on with your life.”
The dusky colors of an early-fall sunset painted the sky as Claire drove back to Oak Grove. She’d left three letters with Simmie—for she knew sending and receiving this correspondence from Oak Grove would be fatal to her plans. Her husband exercised his right to supervise every parcel, every note, every caller, that came to his door, and she hoped to keep her flight secret until the last possible moment. For that was the course she was determined to follow.
One letter went to Mr. Chambers to see what recourse she might have in obtaining a maintenance income from the estate, with or without her husband’s cooperation—a slim chance at best. One letter went to her mother, informing Lady Henry of her daughter’s irretrievably broken marriage and begging her to speak with her father. The third letter, to be delivered a few days after her mother’s, was a request to Sir Henry for Claire’s £5,000, the sum that had seemed so magnificent once and now was likely her only feeble hope of escape and a new life with her child.
Claire was later than she wanted to be. She stood in the brightly lit hall expecting a dressing-down from an irate husband.
Instead, he approached almost placatingly.
“We have visitors,” he said. “It’s a business matter, however, so if you’d like to go up to your room rather than join us at dinner, you may do so. In fact, I’d prefer it.”
Through the drawing room door on the left, Claire spied two figures clutching crystal glasses that rang as they toasted one another with vigor. Josiah’s claret was of the best and these men—from the city, judging by their dress—were enjoying it heartily.
“I should be introduced, Edward,” Claire said. “If you told them I’m indisposed—as you seem to have been telling my friends in the village—it will be clear now that you fibbed. And they must be important or you wouldn’t be serving them our finest wine in our best glasses.”
He bristled at her sharp tone. “You will take a tray in your room. After I introduce you, you will excuse yourself.”
Claire handed her wraps to the waiting Noonan and checked her hair in the large pier glass beside the door. Taking Edward’s arm, she formed a proper hostess’s smile and let him escort her into the room.
“Gentlemen,” he said as the two men stopped speaking and turned to bow to Claire. “May I present Mrs. Latimer. My dear, this is Mr. Scott”—he nodded—“and this other gentleman is Mr. Hodgeson.” The man raised his glass to her in salute.
“Scott and Hodgeson, that’s us,” the first man said with forced bonhomie. “Estate agents par excellence, if you’ll pardon my French.” He laughed loudly. “That was a joke, that. French, wot?”
“Very pleased to meet you, ma’am,” the man indicated as Hodgson said. “I hope Mr. Latimer conveyed our apologies for our mistake in arriving a day early.”
“Claire?” Edwards said sotto voce.
“Welcome to Oak Grove, gentleman,” Claire said. “I hope your stay will be comfortable. If you will excuse me, though, I’ve had a long day, and I’m told you plan to discuss business at the dinner table.”
She tugged on Edward’s arm as she turned toward the door. “My dear. Since I’ve been out, please give me a moment of your time to go over the arrangements you’ve made for our guests. I want to be sure nothing was overlooked.”
Edward carefully shut the door behind them as they left the dining room.
“Edward,” Claire hissed, dropping his arm as soon as they were alone in the hall. “Why have you brought estate agents here? And where is Mr. Carey? He knows Oak Grove better than anyone. If you’re thinking of making changes or—God forbid—raising a mortgage, you’d be wise to leave the arrangements to him.”
“Yes,” Edward responded. “I�
��ve noticed you rely on Carey to an unseemly degree. But no matter. I’ve decided to sell, and what happens to Carey after that will be up to the new owners.”
“Sell!” Claire all but shouted. “Oak Grove generates a fine income. Why would you need to sell any of it off?”
“I no longer fancy living in Herefordshire, if you must know. I’d like to see a bit of the Continent again and, come spring, I’ll purchase a villa suitable for a small household. France, perhaps. Normandy is cheap.”
“We don’t need cheap. We have everything we need here!”
“An estate like this eats up coin at an alarming rate. You’ve plowed nearly its entire income for the year into these so-called ‘improvements’ Montfort cozened you into. You’re a poor manager, my dear, as evidenced by the way you conduct yourself with your inferiors. It’s one more item for the tittle-tattle that fuels what passes for society around here, and I’ll not have my wife laughed at.”
“And when were you going to tell me?”
“When you needed to know. It’s your own fault, Claire. Consider that when you go running back to your governess to cry on her shoulder like a child. I should forbid you visiting in that quarter, but since we’ll be leaving this place soon, it hardly signifies. Now go to your room. Mr. Scott and Mr. Hodgeson will be wondering what’s keeping me.”
Claire climbed the stairs slowly, wondering what she had to be angry about. This development would simplify her plans. She could say nothing to Edward—until he needed to know, she thought, wrinkling her nose. She’d play the obedient wife and they could go their separate ways with few in Abbot Pyon the wiser. All she had to do was be patient for once.
To tell oneself to be patient and to actually be patient are incompatible, Claire acknowledged to herself as she paced down the hallway from her room to the top of the stairs for the fourth time. Edward and the estate agents were still shut in the dining room. She wanted to talk to her husband again before he retired, partly to learn what had transpired and partly to assure him that she would not be difficult after all.
By 9 o’clock she had forced herself to sit and read. She chose the dullest book she had at hand—Josiah’s abandoned copy of L’Île mystérieuse, retrieved from the library when she still answered to Miss Burton and since forgotten. Settling uneasily by the fire, she left her door open a few inches the better to hear Edward when he came up. She was confident there would be no repeat of last night’s conjugal performance.
Claire picked up her paper knife, opened the first few pages and started reading. Following the technical French Mr. Verne used to describe the scientific processes employed by the castaways helped her to focus her attention. If she were to live abroad—though “cheap” Normandy would be out of the question for her, she supposed—brushing up her French would be a good idea.
To her surprise, the story engaged her. How fortunate those men were, free to build a new world and write their own rules. And the dog Top was so amusing and heroic. Claire pictured Kip, snug in the kitchen with Mrs. White. How he would love bounding through the virgin forests of Mr. Verne’s Lincoln Island.
Giving him up turned out now to be another helpful step toward her departure. The page before her blurred momentarily as she thought of Kip, Toddy, the suffering Dickon, and then mentally strayed across the fields and orchards of Oak Grove. Leaving them should be easier than the tug in her heart suggested.
She blinked and sliced a few more pages, not wanting to hurry the tale. Of course, there would be no women on the mysterious island. The novel was written by a man, after all. Men all seemed to think women spoiled their fun. So she tried to imagine herself in the role of the young boy, Herbert, and how differently she would approach the problems the struggling band faced—assuming she had a similar degree of scientific education, that is. Could she be that self-reliant and resourceful when she arrived on her own spiritual island in an exile she had engineered?
The loneliness of the men’s situation struck her as pitiable. Women crave society. Not tea trays, gossip and diversions, but the mutual sympathy that comes with sharing their daily trials and triumphs. Claire lifted up a silent prayer of thanks for Simmie. Without a caring friend to help carry the burdens of her heart, Claire would be worse off than Mr. Verne’s stranded heroes.
But soon Simmie and everything familiar would be as lost to her as the homeland of the island heroes. From the shores of her distant island, Claire told herself, she would have a choice—to gaze across a sea of time longing for the past or to turn her hand to the hard labor of building a new life, even a new identity.
The thought opened an unsuspected world of possibility that slapped down the self-pity rising in her heart. Once free of Edward, she could make a new beginning and put her mistakes behind her. It would be a new life. Two new lives...
Shouting on the ground floor jerked her back to the present. She made out Edward’s carrying voice above the din, trained as it was for the pulpit. The voices of the two London men, unfamiliar, blended together. And there was another voice, one she was sure she recognized.
L’Île mystérieuse fell from her fingers, its pages splaying face down on the floor. Claire flew to the hallway and listened again. The roar continued, and one voice rose above it, clear and commanding. She rushed to the top of the stairs.
There, in the hallway, Edward remonstrated with Lord Montfort, while the two strangers milled about, appealing first to one combatant and then the other to come back to the dining room. Edward grabbed Montfort by his coat lapels and attempted to drag him toward the partially open door, while Noonan hovered nearby, clearly uncertain whether to pull the door back or shut it. Claire shouted, too, but no one heard her.
Then, with a mighty shove, Montfort pushed Edward to the floor. “I’m warning you, Latimer,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. “What I said just now is God’s own truth. I’ll come back tomorrow, when you’re willing to see reason.” He tossed a packet of papers onto Latimer sprawled on the cold marble. “Take a good look. And lest you think you can just throw those deeds on the fire, know they are copies.
He picked up his hat from the floor, dusted it off and set it on his head.
“Gentlemen,” he said to Scott and Hodgeson, “I recommend you return to London first thing in the morning. I guarantee you’ll have no business here.” Pausing at the door, he spun back on his heel and looked up Claire. “Good evening to you. Mrs. Latimer.” Then he disappeared into the night.
Claire considered going down to her husband, but only for a moment. “Noonan,” she called out to the butler just shutting the door behind his lordship. “I think our visitors are ready to retire. Please show them to their rooms.” In a twirl of heavy skirts, without waiting to see whether Noonan obeyed her as before, she returned to her room, breathless with excitement.
She closed her door this time and walked toward the fire, her thoughts racing. She stumbled over the damaged book lying on the floor and a cream-colored piece of paper slipped from between two partially cut pages well toward the back of the volume. Pulling it out, she saw it was part of a letter.
The handwriting was feminine and well formed. Josiah’s name leaped out. A billet doux from another of his many lady friends, no doubt. She crumpled it and prepared to throw it into the fire, then paused. Josiah had never cut any of the other pages of the novel. He had died before he had the chance. The volume was otherwise untouched until she began to read it tonight. Why cut one page and insert this letter?
She flattened it out and saw it was signed “L.” Then she noticed Edward’s name. Was the letter from Lucy? She read the letter in its entirety, then got up and locked her door, horrified. The first page was missing.
... on your mercy. (This page began.) He punishes me. He comes to my room at night and does terrible things to me, things I hardly know how to describe. He hurts me and says it will teach me to keep away from men. I hate myself and the things he makes me do. He tells me it’s all my fault and then says I can’t help it I was ma
de the way I am. A snare to tempt men, he calls me, but only in the night when I’m forced to listen to his whisperings and can’t hide from his cruel judgment. During the day he is all loving kindness, just what a brother should be.
Claire blinked tears away, though one fell on the page and blurred the ink. “Snare” became “snow”
I used to be so happy, Josiah! Now my health is giving way—I can’t keep food down in the morning and I’m weary all the time. He looks at me in the morning as if nothing has happened in the darkness. Then he prays with me for hours asking God to chastise my heart and make me obedient. Who will chastise him for his wickedness? I know he must be wicked for all that he weeps and begs my forgiveness after he hurts me.
I am tainted now and hardly dare show my face in decent society. George, my dearest friend in the world, abandoned me when Edward told him what I was. Please, please, Josiah, don’t abandon me, too! I have nowhere else to turn. He’s cut me off from everyone I loved. I must get away from here. Please help me.
L.
Scrawled at the bottom of the page in Josiah’s broad hand were the words, “Too late!”
The page drifted to the floor as Claire rushed to the wash basin and retched. Her stomach heaved until nothing more came up, but the dry gasping continued. No wonder Lucy had run away. Lucy couldn’t explain what was happening to her—the poor girl. But Claire—how could she not recognize the brutality, the tears, the apologies, she’d witnessed in her husband?
Where was Lucy now? Had her child—for Claire had no doubt what Lucy’s sickness meant—survived, or were both mother and babe resting somewhere in an unmarked grave? Did Edward even know the extent of what he had done to his half-sister?
Claire picked up the letter and read it again, hoping she had somehow misunderstood. A troubled, motherless girl, trusting for love from a rigidly moral man like Edward, how bleak her life must have been! But there was no mistaking it. He comes to my room at night... He hurts me. During the day he is all loving kindness... can’t keep food down...