To Have and to Hold

by Lily Holland

  She bows her head politely and we enter the large mansion. A manservant escorts us to the reception hall and a wave of heat welcomes us in.

  This isn’t only a ‘little party’, there are more than eighty people here and I believe Lady Harengton’s love of the ‘summer lights’ might actually be a good excuse to host the kind of event the neighborhood will talk about for weeks.

  We greet Sir Landcaster and Mr. Crowney, two of my closest friends and associates, and the evening starts wonderfully. When Lord and Lady Harengton come to greet us as the good hosts they are, Charity and the older Lady engage in a lengthy and passionate conversation about horses.

  “My husband has the most beautiful mare you might find in the region,” says Charity turning to me, a bright smile on her lips. “Isn’t it true, John?”

  I nod and let my hand travel to my wife’s back.

  “Indeed, Fabiola is incredibly fast and strongly built. She used to be a racer.”

  “Really?”

  Lady Harengton opens big dark eyes and I tell her about the different races the horse has won and how I came to buy her. When the couple moves away, Charity takes back my arm and I notice her grip is firmer. I look at her face and she smiles back at me.

  It is a beautiful evening, the food and drink is enough for everybody to have a great time and, sometimes, Charity has to whisper in my ear to make a comment or ask a question about this or that Lord or Duke she thinks she has recognized.

  I feel so much closer to her now than I have ever been that it makes my heart swell with a new happiness. When she is by my sides, I only think of her, it has been my very wish ever since we got married. I detail her sweet, luminous face for a minute and she cocks an eyebrow.

  “Do I have something on my face?”

  I chuckle and shake my head no.

  “I was only admiring you.”

  She shakes her head hurriedly and frowns but she can’t help a smile from appearing on her lips.

  “I thought we could go and see the garden later on if you agree to it,” she says reviewing the room an instant before looking back at me. “I’m sure the rose bushes are just as beautiful in the moonlight.”

  A grin stretches my lips and I nod.

  “If that is what you want.”

  “It is.”

  I chuckle as she sounds falsely affirmative and she giggles in her turn. We are sleeping in tonight, the Harengtons being so kind as to invite all of those who so desire to stay the night and use the many guest rooms.

  Thinking I will have to sleep in Charity’s bed is making my imagination run wild and I have the firm intention of making the most of it. Her proximity is driving me crazy, I want her, I can admit it to myself now and, somehow, it isn’t a problem to me anymore. Tonight, when it will be time to go to bed and we’ll slide under our covers, I will have to ask her if she might want me too. This party could be the beginning of a more traditional union between us, I find myself dreaming about it and Charity’s fingers pressing on my arm call me back to reality.

  I lean forward to kiss her cheek and she flushes as she always does. I love it, it makes a great contrast on her pale skin and she looks adorable.

  “Oh! I’m sorry!”

  Someone crashes onto us and I help Charity to gather her balance. We turn to face the intruder and end up face to face with Selina and Charles Knightley.

  “Well, my dear, did your cordial got to your head?”

  Charles chuckles at his own words and Selina flashes him a fed up glance.

  “Very funny.”

  His chuckle turns into a laugh and Selina soon softens up, her face relaxing at once and her eyes on her husband kinder than ever. She joins his laugh and gently taps her hand on his arm she is holding onto. They both exchange an amused gaze barely hiding way too much love for anyone to be mistaken on their mutual feelings.

  At Charity’s side, my entire body has tensed at once. I can’t control it, but my jaws are cramped and my breath is shorter. I feel trapped in more ways than one.

  “Lady Knightley,” says Charity in an even voice, “glad to see you. Lord Knightley, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

  Both Selina and Charles bow to us and we bow in return.

  “Lady and Lord Feaston, it is such a good surprise!” exclaims Charles.

  The four of us exchange some niceties, we talk about the weather and I use my voice scarcely, I don’t feel right. Guilt and disgust are fighting in my heart and I’m scared of which one can win. Worse than all, I’m afraid anger might arise in it again.

  “Yes, Lady Harengton is my cousin,” says Charles. “We love coming to this place, Selina finds the air of the town refreshing. Somehow it seems the acres of Clarencroft will never be enough for her.”

  Selina pouts and shakes her head.

  “You know that’s not it at all! I love it here because the garden is amazing and your cousin is the best hostess I have ever seen.”

  “If you say so, my love.”

  Selina nods and Charles look on her turns cajoling. I have to flee this place or I might end up doing something I will regret.

  “The dancing will soon start,” I say in a white voice and Charity’s eyes study me for a while.

  “Right,” says Charles taking Selina’s fingers in his hand. “Would you do me the honor, madam?”

  A little smirk appears on Selina’s magnificent face and she nods.

  “I will, but you will have to share me with the others afterward because I have promised dances to three other gentlemen tonight.”

  Charles displays a fake outraged face and he tugs on Selina knuckles. She starts laughing and he takes her away, the echo of her voice shooting bullets through my heart and her laugh making me sweat and shiver.

  I have a hard time gathering my composure but, when I finally do, many couples are engaged in dancing in the middle of the room and the others stand around chatting and observing. I need another five minutes to realize Charity has turned very quiet by my side. I review her face in a glance and what I see freezes me. She is closed, her face displaying no emotion whatsoever. She is as far from her earlier smiles than I have ever seen her.

  We observe the couples dancing around and, after thirty minutes without a single word exchanged between us, she clears her voice and turns to me.

  “Shall we go to see the gardens as we planned earlier, John?”

  I have a hard time focusing on her voice, my mind is filled with a fog Selina has placed there without knowing it. Her effect on me is too strong, too unpredictable, I hate that I can’t control the beatings of my heart when I see her face and her splendid figure.

  With a sigh, I shake my head.

  “No, I think we should wait for tomorrow.”

  I expect Charity to insist but she doesn’t. She becomes quiet again and her hand leaves my arm.

  “Shall we dance then?”

  At her proposition I grit my teeth. I shake my head no.

  “I see.”

  She stands by my side, her eyes reviewing the people around us and stopping on me a great number of times. When Lord Landcaster offers her to dance with him, she eyes me for my approval but I don’t give her any. Nor do I deny her. I am stuck in my own mind, I even wonder how I am breathing. Charles and Selina. Selina… She seemed so happy, so content. Seeing her that happy with Charles, it makes me wonder how things could have played out differently.

  Would she look at me the way she looks at Charles? Dancing and laughing and arguing with him, would she be that happy and satisfied with me? The fact that I have no way to know kills me inside. I have loved this woman so deeply, it is hard to let her go.

  After a few dances with nice gentlemen, Charity joins my side but she doesn’t add a word. The party starts winding down and I have a hard time taking my eyes off my first supposed fiancée. When Selina and Charles leave the room to head to their bedroom, I realize Charity isn’t beside me anymore. Did she go to bed? Left the party and went into the garden? I don’t know.

&nb
sp; I discuss with some gentlemen when I start feeling sleep numbing my eyelids. I head upstairs to my room and I find Charity brushing her long blond hair. I sigh as I observe her. She is only a few feet apart and yet I feel so far from her.

  She finishes brushing her hair without a single glance at me and she heads to the bed. She tucks herself under the covers and snuffs her candle. I sigh again and get undressed before joining her into bed.

  I lay on my back, looking at the ceiling and I hear Charity’s breathing change. She falls asleep by my side but the rest of the evening didn’t go as I might have thought. I snuff my candle and I close my eyes in my turn.

  I don’t deserve to have this girl sleeping by my sides, that’s the truth of it. I have just realized it tonight. Seeing Selina has helped me more than I would have thought. It is obvious to me now, she has found her soulmate. The way she looked at Charles and the way he looked at her, it is more than obvious that the rumor of the two of them being a happy couple isn’t only gossip, they are madly in love. Seeing them, no one can doubt it.

  I wasn’t deserving of her love, I was a second choice, a second best. I am no more deserving of Charity’s love. She is so kind, so pure and soft, she deserves way better than a man like me.

  No, I’m pretty sure of it, I don’t deserve any love at all.

  Chapter 7

  John

  The week following the Harengton’s party isn’t the best of my life. Out of the blue, Charity has turned as cold as ice to me. When we go to the library after supper, she barely talks to me, hardly looks at me. When I ask her a question, she sighs before answering in short, sharp sentences. The morning after the party, when we were about to go back home, I have asked her if we might go and see the rose bushes she felt so strongly about. She simply looked at me and shrugged.

  “No need,” she answered and we came back to Mooreshire.

  I suppose her mood has to do with my reaction to Selina’s presence at the party, but she doesn’t say a word about it. Did I say anything wrong? Have I behaved ungentlemanly toward my own wife to deserve such a cold woman staring back at me when I only inquire if she had a good night? I don’t know and that’s the worst of it. It only confirms that I don’t deserve Charity’s attention, just like I didn’t deserve Selina’s. Somehow, it all makes sense to me now.

  One September night, drafting letters as Charity reads on the sofa, I decide time has come to discuss the matter.

  “Charity.”

  She gazes above her book and glares at me. She squeezes her eyes but lowers them down to her page. So cold, so unlike the girl she used to be a few weeks ago. She never smiles these days, I hate it. I miss her kind smile…

  “I would like to talk.”

  She sighs heavily and rests her book on her lap, her finger stuck between the pages to mark the page. She looks at me and I guess she won’t speak.

  “Is everything okay these days?” I ask as smoothly as possible. “I am under the impression something is bothering you.”

  She smirks and tries to hide it in a mask of stillness.

  “Nothing is bothering me.”

  She nods and lowers down her head to resume her reading.

  “Charity!”

  My aggressive tone startles her and her eyes jump up to meet mine. I close my eyes to gather my composure and I clear my throat.

  “I am your husband and I only wish to know what is troubling you. Would you oblige me, please?”

  She studies me for such a long moment that I feel she will never answer. Her eyes detail my face, she seems to be looking for something that she cannot find. When a huge sigh passes her lips I understand something is broken inside her. She swallows and clears her throat before shaking her head.

  “Nothing of importance is troubling me,” she announces.

  She stands up and puts her book on the table next to her.

  “I have a headache, I shall go to sleep. Good night, husband.”

  I frown as I try to understand the underlying meaning of her words but she moves away.

  “Charity, wait!”

  I call after her but she doesn’t stop and leaves the room. I am left alone in this poorly lit room and I pass my hands on my face. I don’t know what is the matter, what she might consider is so important or grave that it cannot be discussed. I don’t know and it kills me.

  I try to refocus on the letters I have been writing but my mind runs in an opposite direction. I am tempted to go after Charity, to grab her and ask her directly what her problem is but I decide against it.

  Her gaze as she left the room… Was she sad? Was she hurt? I don’t know. She is my wife and I have no clue what is the problem with her. I am failing her in so many ways it turns me into a brooding imbecile unable to guess what is to be done to make her smile again.

  Charity

  I reach my bedroom and rest my back against the door. How can he be so blind? I have been avoiding him, openly mean to him many times already and he wonders what is ‘bothering me’…

  How can he have no idea? What wife can remain unfeeling seeing her husband is so taken with another woman nothing can make him look away even for one dance?

  I have seen his gaze as he looked at Charles and Selina Knightley, and it wasn’t only made of pain and heartbreak. It was rancor, pain and anger mixing to make him bitter inside. How can I ever hope to become of importance to him if only seeing the girl he used to love is hurting him so much? Does it mean we should never go on social calls? Should we remain here, prisoners of this beautiful and grand estate to have one chance at marital peace? But what if one day in a business trip to London he meets her? What then?

  I shake my head and start undressing as I head to my dressing table. I brush my hair for a long, unnecessary time and I slide into bed. Did he even notice how sad I am? No, I would suppose not. He doesn’t seem to notice anything that isn’t Selina Knightley. I try—and almost succeed—to hate the beautiful woman with her jet black hair and big blue eyes (a darker shade of blue than mine), but she is only a woman who married the man she loves. Her husband loves her, a simple glance at the two of them shouts it to the world.

  Why can’t it be the same when John looks at me? His eyes have been kind on me before, I know, but in love? I very much doubt it. Maybe he can’t forget about Selina, maybe the first love is the strongest of them all and no matter what, it can never be equaled.

  I try to stop the wave of tears from spilling from under my eyelids but it is no use. I end up sobbing and crying at the sound of my own heart breaking into a thousand pieces. The only mistake I have ever made was to fall in love with my husband. It’s a good thing the irony of the situation won’t prevent me from crying myself to sleep. I know what I have to do but I am afraid to do it. Leaving him, running from John and going back to my mother’s home, that is an idea and, the more I cry, the more it appears as the only viable one.

  Chapter 8

  John

  I go down for breakfast early and Charity isn’t up yet. This morning, I have a business meeting at Sir Landcaster’s estate. It isn’t far from Mooreshire but at first I intended to ask for my wife to come with me. I know she would have liked seeing the great house and luxurious garden and alleys my friend like to take so much care about. Yet I don’t ask her. After the non-discussion of yesterday, I can’t really.

  I’ve thought about it tonight, about what might have triggered such a coldness from her and what would be reason enough for such a kind woman to turn quiet and reserved all of a sudden. I haven’t reached any satisfying conclusion.

  I get to Sir Landcaster’s domain before ten and we work on our last common business for a few hours. He invites me to join him and his wife for luncheon and I accept.

  “Have you heard?” says Lady Landcaster after discussing last week’s party. “It seems that Lord and Lady Knightley will soon be adding to the family.”

  She smiles and takes a sip of her wine.

  “How do you mean?” I wonder, wiping my mouth with my napki
n.

  “Well, isn’t it obvious? She is pregnant of course! Apparently, she has told Miss Foster who told Mrs. Aldrin who told Lady Marham and…”

  Her voice fades from my ears and I have a hard time focusing back on the words coming out of her mouth. Across the table, Sir Landcaster flashes a scolding gaze to his wife. He was one of the few men aware of my affection for Selina and he has repeated many times he was sorry for the way things had played out for me but that, unfortunately, it was what life was made of.

  “The baby should be born next Spring, if I remember correctly,” says Lady Landcaster. “I’m very happy for them both, I have heard Miss Foster say they were over the moon with joy when Lady Knightley told Lord Knightley.”

  Sir Landcaster clears his throat to call his wife’s attention and he purses his lips.

  “Good for them. I see gossiping remains one of your favorite activities these days.”

  Lady Landcaster laughs and chases the air in front of her to dismiss his comment.

  “Call it gossip if you want, Philip, but I call it keeping myself informed! If it is a boy, we might start planning for a marriage between him and Victoria.”

  My friend rolls his eyes and he sighs before digging at his plate of pudding. I don’t add anything for the rest of the meal and I leave soon after three o’clock.

  I have time to think in the carriage and it’s only then I realize I have been wrong for a long, long time. Selina is pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant, and it is Charles’s son or daughter she is carrying, not mine. Never mine, it could never be mine. Not me, it could never be me in Selina’s heart, how come I haven’t seen this clearly before? I knew it, of course, but today I feel it in my bones. She was in love with Charles all this time, even when she talked to me, flirted with me and when I hoped she might have become my wife. I wanted her but she was lost to me before I even met her.

  The realization lifts a heavy weight from my chest and I inhale a deep, rejuvenating breath. I have been so stupid, so senseless to lose my reason over this woman’s choice. Yes, she is beautiful and witty, but so are many other women. She belongs to someone else and, more importantly, her heart belongs to another man. I have been an idiot right from the start.