by Dorothy Mack
“Kate, Kate darling, are you awake?”
His whisper caused two more tears to squeeze out from under her closed lids, but she continued the desperate pretence of sleep, and after a long instant of dead silence that made her nerves crawl, she was aware of a light touch as her husband pulled the blanket more securely over one shoulder. It was a prodigious discipline not to shrink away from the hand that rested warmly on her shoulder for an agonizing interval. Her senses remained stretched as she strained to follow the tiny sounds as he crossed the room and softly closed the door.
In the silence that succeeded, her own sobbing breaths rang harshly in her ears for a few minutes as she struggled to bring the hopeless weeping under control. It was hours before she succumbed to her exhaustion and slept.
Morning brought no alleviation of her misery nor solution to her problem, which was not to be wondered at since Kate had not progressed so far in her thinking as to formulate a distinct problem in her mind. She was still quivering from reaction. For the first time since her marriage, she stayed away from the breakfast parlour but she was too cowardly to question her motives. However, she had barely summoned up the strength required to order Hawthorne to choose her attire and begin the process of preparing her mistress for the day’s schedule when Nicholas entered her bedchamber. The brush in Kate’s hand halted momentarily, then resumed a slow, rhythmic motion. After one quick look she avoided his glance, feigning an absorbing interest in her task.
They exchanged quiet greetings, then Nicholas added with an assessing stare, “Mudgrave told me you returned early last night with a headache. How are you today?”
“Tolerably well, thank you.”
“The shadows under your eyes give the lie to that assertion,” he replied with seeming concern. “Promise me you’ll not try to go the pace today, sweetheart. Have a quiet day.”
“Mama invited me to lunch, but I have no other plans.”
“Don’t let your mother quack you with her eternal remedies either,” he ordered. The grin that accompanied this remark brought forth no responsive smile from Kate.
“No, I won’t,” she promised tonelessly, still concentrating on her hair brushing.
Nicholas frowned slightly. “Perhaps you had best remain home after all, until you feel more the thing. Maybe Doctor Baillie should see you.”
At this she glanced at him fleetingly, then away again. “I am fine, really, Torvil. Don’t have me on your mind.”
The viscount looked undecided and was opening his mouth to add something when Hawthorne bustled in, carrying a dress and a pair of half boots. Her presence had the effect of causing him to feel de trop as usual, and he bowed himself out hastily.
Kate placed the hair brush on the dressing table with infinite concentration while she struggled to overcome the tightened feeling in her throat, but her muscles refused to relax. Though she had brushed through this first meeting with Nicholas, it was a mere reprieve, of course. There would be daily meetings for the rest of their lives, and how was she to bear the pain of it? She stared dully at her reflection in the mirror, trying to convince herself that it would not always be like this; at present, she was suffering all the pointed agony of discovery, but this piercing pain would certainly subside to a dull ache in time. After all, nothing had actually changed. She had known of Lady Montaigne’s existence even before her marriage, and she had accepted her relationship with Nicholas as one of the more unpleasant facts of the arrangement. Nothing was different now, nothing!
Defiant amber eyes stared back at her, scorning to dignify the feeble protests of her heart that everything had changed from the moment she had become Nicholas’ wife in all respects. Suppose for the sake of argument that she had thought herself loved and in love for a couple of weeks; people got over being in love, didn’t they? Look at Deb. She had fancied herself in love several times in the past three months and had recovered each time. Kate’s fingers crept up to massage her temples. The apocryphal headache of last evening threatened to become reality, but she could not face a day of solitude with only her thoughts for company. All the thinking in the world, even from a Solomon, was powerless to alter the situation. It existed and she would have to live with it, but how could she ever welcome Nicholas into her bed again?
With dull eyes she followed Hawthorne’s deft movements as she cleverly arranged the burnished brown curls, but she was seeing instead an endless succession of empty days stretching before her. The maid felt the shudder that went through her mistress and paused with a pin in her hand.
“Did I hurt you, my lady?”
“No, Hawthorne, it was … just a momentary chill. That looks fine. Thank you.”
The abigail gazed with satisfaction upon her creative efforts, but Kate could only hope the new hairstyle would draw attention away from her washed-out complexion and bruised-looking eyes. She turned from the mirror and accepted the kid gloves Hawthorne was holding out to her, impatient all at once with her own lack of pride in allowing her misery to be written on her face for the whole world to see. She squared her shoulders and prepared to meet the demands of the day with as much dignity as she could assume.
It was not in Kate to take to her bed as her mother had fallen into the habit of doing, but she discovered in the next week a more compassionate understanding of the factors that had contributed to turning Lady Langston into the hypochondriac she had become over the years.
For there was no denying that first day was difficult, and the ones that followed grew no easier. Kate got through them one at a time by mustering up the pride necessary to keep her head high and present a serene appearance in company. The radiance was gone; that was beyond mending, but she felt she managed to maintain an air of smiling good humour before others. This was actually less of a strain than that of carrying through her pose of normalcy with her husband. Though she tried not to make it obvious, she cudgelled her brains to devise ways to avoid his society because she was aware that she was unable, despite her frequently taken resolution, to relax in his presence. She was aware, too, that Nicholas was watching her closely behind a formal manner. For a day or two he had been concerned for her health, but her nervousness in his company and the physical withdrawal she could not suppress must have become evident almost immediately because he was at first puzzled, and very shortly, cold and watchful. He had come to her room that first night and, though despising her cowardice, she had pleaded a remnant of her headache as a reason for needing unbroken sleep. Nicholas had been tenderly sympathetic and had kissed her gently before withdrawing. Despite her resolve to remain unmoved she must have stiffened slightly, because he had searched her face intently before straightening up. To avoid a visit from the doctor the next day, it had been necessary to abandon the headache once and for all. However, her attempts at brightness had only served to intensify his quiet study of her, and the tension between them built slowly and wordlessly until Kate almost hoped for an explosion to clear the air.
There were times when she would have loved to scream and hurl accusations at him, but what accusations, and to what end? Unfaithfulness? She had always known he did not intend to be faithful to a bride he had had no hand in choosing. Should she then accuse him of not loving her? He had never said he did, she recalled now with bitter clarity, despite his behaviour to the contrary. Their bargain had never mentioned love and fidelity. Hopefully, she possessed too much pride to charge him with the one thing he was indeed guilty of — having caused her to fall in love with him and thus expose herself to certain heartbreak. It was unlikely he had even intended any such unhappy result. Piqued by her indifference, he had probably been challenged to compel her acceptance of a conventional marriage of convenience for his own comfort and incidental pleasure. So Kate levelled no accusations and created no scenes. She and Nicholas met daily at breakfast and appeared at previously scheduled social functions together, but they no longer discussed future plans. Nothing further was said about spending the summer in the isolation of Sussex. In fact, nothing p
assed between them that did not pertain directly to their daily activities.
In the midst of this strained situation, Kate returned from a boring round of social visits late one afternoon to find among her usual pile of calling cards and invitations two personal notes. Recognizing Deb’s schoolgirl hand on one, she laid it aside for the moment and commenced to break the seal of the other as she wearily climbed the curving staircase and walked down the carpeted passage to her sitting room. Glancing at the signature, she ascertained that the writer was her brother-in-law, but she had to read the brief communication twice before the meaning penetrated. Lately she was finding it difficult to concentrate on anything outside her own problems. Robin had written:
My Dear Kate,
I’m afraid I lost that race I told you about last week. If you can let the bearer have one hundred and twenty pounds, I will be eternally grateful. I shall need it by Friday at the latest, since I am leaving that evening for Ireland to look at some hunters with Wolford. With many thanks to my dear sister, I remain your obedient servant,
Robin
She looked up from her second reading and frowned. This was Friday, and it was already almost evening. With her hand on the bell pull, she desisted from her first impulse, which was to question the servants as to why she had not received this note before today. It was advisable surely to avoid calling something to their minds that they might later report to Nicholas. She had promised Robin that she would not reveal his breach of the promise he had made to his brother. For that reason, she also dared not dispatch one of the footmen with the money. She must go herself, and there was very little time in which to accomplish her errand. She should be dressing for dinner within the hour. With no wasted effort, Kate located the key to the tooled leather jewel case in which she had laid aside the sum Robin would need over a week before. In order to free both hands, she put down the post which she still carried. Deb’s note took her eye. She had intended to ignore it for the moment, but it occurred to her that if for any reason Deb had requested her presence at home, she would have provided herself with a reason to order the carriage. Quickly she skimmed over her sister’s letter, noting with satisfaction that Deb desired to show her the new ball dress that had just arrived from the modiste’s. Her sister would be surprised to find her invitation accepted so quickly. She pulled the bell to order the carriage brought round again and made swift repairs to her hair and face while she waited for this to be accomplished. It would never do to drive to Robin’s lodgings in her own carriage, of course. She must send John Coachman back to Albemarle Street from her mother’s house and hire a hackney cab to take her to Robin’s and return her home. Her mother’s footman would find the hack for her with no questions asked. She would tell her own coachman that she would return in Lady Langston’s carriage and trust to luck to slip in unobserved.
As it turned out, everything went quite smoothly with Kate’s careful arrangements, except that she hadn’t taken her sister’s chatty disposition into account. Deb kept prattling on about her new gown and then insisted on modelling it for Kate. At her sister’s feeble protests that she herself should be changing at that very moment, Deb laughed merrily and offered to shoulder all her brother-in-law’s wrath at the delay. Kate produced the expected smile at the very idea of Nicholas being angry with his adorable sister-in-law whom he indulged prodigally, but she was hard pressed to conceal her impatience to be gone. Fortunately, she had requested the footman to order a hack on her entrance. As he had glanced in some surprise at her carriage going off down the street, Kate rapidly invented a friend to whom she had lent the conveyance, mentally reflecting that the practical difficulties attendant on a career of deception must keep more people on the straight and narrow path of virtue than their consciences.
At last she was seated in the musty-smelling hired vehicle for the short drive to Robin’s lodgings. This time, her errand was dispatched quite promptly. She found Robin on the point of coming to see her himself and explained about not receiving his message until that afternoon. He escorted her to her waiting hack with profuse expressions of undying gratitude tumbling from his lips, accepted her wishes for an enjoyable stay in Ireland, and on impulse flung an arm about her shoulders and pressed a grateful kiss on her cheek as they said goodbye. Robin watched the hack start up and then went back into the house. Neither he nor Kate had noticed the figure of a man who had halted abruptly on the flagway a scant fifty feet away to watch the leave-taking. The man now turned and retraced his steps so that he did not pass Robin’s house after all.
Kate settled back in the cab and acknowledged the tiredness that came sweeping over her in a flood tide now that the need for sudden action was over. Lately it was an enormous effort just to get dressed for each day’s pointless round of activities. She was weary in the depths of her soul. Part of it was the feeling that matters could not continue long as they were. Nothing was being said between Nicholas and herself at present, but sooner or later the situation would explode around them. Or would it? Perhaps the fates had decreed that she and Nicholas would simply spend the rest of their lives making polite conversation when others were about and lapsing into tense silence when they chanced to be alone. She shuddered violently at the thought, but at the same time knew there was nothing she would be able to say to her husband about her feelings.
At this stage of her unhappy musings, she became aware of the cessation of motion and her brain began to function normally again. She was able to pay off the jarvey and dismiss the hack without attracting any attention from inside the house. With that little adventure successfully completed, she steeled herself to ignore Hawthorne’s reaction to her lateness and began a necessarily hasty toilette. By leaving her hairstyle untouched and scrambling into her gown, she was able to congratulate herself on being only five minutes late for the dinner gong.
On the point of leaving the room, she froze as a knock sounded at the door connecting her bedchamber with her husband’s. He entered before she recovered animation and said evenly, “I should like a few minutes of your time before we go down.” He nodded dismissal to the abigail and kept his eyes on her as she left the room soundlessly.
Kate was experiencing a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. So, the reckoning between them had come at last! One glance at Nicholas’s rigid jawline and glittering eyes had warned her that the limits of his patience had been reached. He was going to demand an explanation of her coldness, and there was nothing she could say. Her pride refused to grant him the satisfaction of knowing she had been mortally hurt by his continuing liaison with another woman. Could she have been assured of the requisite composure to inform him she knew of his infidelity without revealing her own misery, she would have allowed herself the revengeful pleasure of seeing him squirm at being found out long since, but she had known with dismal certainty that she would betray herself in the telling.
As the door closed behind Hawthorne, Nicholas turned to study his wife’s pale, set face; he flicked a lambent glance to her white knuckled hands gripping the back of the chair that had been the nearest object to her at his entrance and returned his gaze to her face. The cold contempt in his eyes caused her own to drop, though deep within she was furious at her inability to bear that scorn without flinching. After all, she was the injured party, not Nicholas. Some tiny spark of courage animated her chin and eyes to raise both to return his stare calmly.
“Sit down.”
She ignored his curt command and remained standing, looking steadily back at him.
“I prefer to stand,” she replied quietly.
Nicholas’s voice was also quiet and so even that at first Kate did not take in the full sense of his next words.
“I’m here to correct a slight misunderstanding you seem to be labouring under concerning the terms of our bargain. If you thought I would be so complaisant as to countenance unfaithfulness on the part of my wife, arranged marriage or not, you were never more mistaken.”
In the silence that followed this bombsh
ell, Kate’s gasp was clearly audible as was the ticking of the bedside clock. She could not be hearing correctly. It sounded as though he were…
“Are you accusing me of being unfaithful?” she croaked. Her eyes never left that dark, cold visage staring relentlessly at her as she groped her way around to the front of the chair and sank onto its seat.
“Do you intend to deny it?”
She could, with great pleasure, have slapped the unpleasant travesty of a smile from his lips and she curled her fingers into her palms to prevent them from stiffening into claws.
“Of course I deny it; it is utterly preposterous!”
“You’re a cool one, I must admit,” he said with what sounded absurdly like grudging admiration, “but it won’t wash, my dear. I saw you with my own eyes.”
“You saw me?” Kate floundered, not understanding him at all.
“Very well done,” he applauded with mock appreciation. “Your pose of bewildered innocence would be quite convincing had I not witnessed that tender parting just now.”
Kate was still completely at sea. “What parting?”
“Oh, come now, my dear, a good actress never overplays a scene.” He paused suggestively, but his taunting suavity had succeeded in rousing in Kate an anger as great as the one he was concealing. She gritted her teeth and glared wordlessly at him, refusing to swallow the bait.
He looked away from her and once again the rigidity of his jaw struck her.
“Neither you nor Robin was aware that you had a witness this afternoon, but —”
“Robin!”
The involuntary exclamation brought his dark, opaque stare back to her face and he did not miss the two spots of colour that flared on her cheekbones.
“Did that jog your memory, my dear?”
“Stop calling me your dear in that odiously sneering way!” she cried raggedly. “You must know I am not having an affaire with your brother!”