by Mary Balogh
She could not stop shaking even though it was not a cold night. She had to clamp her teeth together to keep them from chattering. Snowball was sitting before her chair, gazing mournfully up at her, but she had no attention to spare her dog.
What had she done?
And if there was ever a more rhetorical question than that one, she did not know what it could be.
She had given up willpower, common sense, sanity. She had done him a terrible wrong—telling him this morning he might come this evening, telling him as soon as he arrived that he must go, inviting him to stay awhile anyway, sending him away again, calling him back, sleeping with him, sending him away yet again, telling him never to return. It was a relentless list of weakness and contradiction and self-indulgence.
Harry.
What had she done to him? She was not so vain that she imagined she had broken his heart. But she had . . . used him. And then discarded him.
It had been nothing like . . . Oh, it had been nothing like anything she had expected. Sweet kisses, sweet romance, sweet bodily pleasure, and sweet memories to wrap about herself. That was what she had dreamed of. Not hot, mindless passion and raw sensation that was pain and fierce pleasure all inextricably bound together, and naked beauty and the overpowering sensation of being possessed body, mind, and soul. Suffocated by it. Though no. No! That was unfair. And wrong. If she had felt possessed and suffocated, it was by her own desire, her own passion to love and be loved. Though that was not the right word either. Something more raw than love. More physical. If there was a word, she did not know it.
She shivered still in the aftermath of what had not been love, though she did not know what it had been. She was sore and throbbing. And yet longing at the same time. Yearning and longing. She tightened her arms about the cushion and lowered her head so her forehead rested on the top of it. She closed her eyes.
She had hated Isaiah.
What a wonderfully freeing admission, even if she was just thinking it and not shouting it from the rooftop. She had never admitted it even to herself before now.
She had hated him.
And it was not even past tense. She hated him still.
From her wedding day on she had tried and tried to please him, to make his vision and his mission her own. He must be right, she had always told herself. He was a man of God, and many of his parishioners here worshiped him as much as they did the God whose word he preached. She had made herself be one of them. For she had to be wrong in any rebellious thought that tried to invade her mind. There would be something bad about her if she did not love him. And so she did. By sheer willpower. She had had no real problem with willpower in those days. Perhaps if he had lived she would have kept on loving him and convincing herself that it was not in reality hatred that she felt. And perhaps all that was herself would have disappeared more and more into him as time went on until she vanished altogether. She almost had. Perhaps it would have been as well if she had.
But what had made her think about Isaiah now of all times? Guilt? She laughed into the cushion, and Snowball whined. Lydia looked up.
“Guilt, Snowball?” she said. “Guilt?”
She laughed again, and Snowball tipped her head to one side and looked inquiringly at her.
“I lost my virginity tonight,” Lydia told her dog. “And I am supposed to feel guilt? I am supposed to grovel before the sacred memory of my husband who was husband only in name?”
Snowball did not think so. She whined again and bounced before the chair. Lydia uncurled herself and set aside the cushion in order to lean down and scoop the dog up onto her lap.
She did feel guilt. Toward Harry. Who was beautiful. Inside and out.
How was she ever going to face him again? He wanted to call on her once more to say something. Briefly, he had said. He did not plan to apologize to her, did he? She would not be able to bear that. He was coming the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow she was going to Eastleigh with the Baileys, though she could not bear the thought of that either. How could she share a carriage with those good people and spend a day shopping with them?
But then an idea caught at her mind. A temptation, perhaps? To run away? To escape reality? To return to what was most familiar to her? Or perhaps merely a withdrawal, a chance to give herself space to sort herself out, to put herself back together so she could move forward again with the life she had set up so happily for herself during the past year?
She would not have to stay forever. It could be just a visit, to last as long as she chose. Maybe a week, maybe two. She had the perfect excuse. Her sister-in-law had just let her know that she was with child. She was excited about it and wanted Lydia to come home. She meant, of course, that she wanted Lydia to move home and stay. But a visit would be in order. Her father had been ill. They would all be happy to see her.
And she had the perfect opportunity. She would not have to wait until she wrote to Papa and he sent the carriage for her, as of course he would wish to do and insist upon doing. That would all take a week, probably longer. She could travel post from Eastleigh or even hire a private chaise. The Reverend Bailey would surely advise her upon which would be best. Papa would not like it, but he would be delighted to see her anyway.
Lydia sat for a few minutes longer, thinking. She had developed an alarming tendency lately to say and do impulsive things she later regretted. Was going away so abruptly something she would regret doing? Specifically, running away home to her father and her brothers—and her sister-in-law? Running away from Harry? Would coming back in a few weeks’ time be even harder than staying now and facing him the day after tomorrow? Would she find it impossible to come back and so slip into the old life again, her lovely freedom and independence here merely a fading memory?
Lydia sighed after a while and ran a finger between Snowball’s ears and along her spine. “You and I are going on a journey tomorrow,” she said. “Will you like that?”
Snowball waved her stub of a tail and nudged her nose at Lydia’s hand to encourage more petting.
Ten
He was quite adamant at Christmastime,” Viola, Marchioness of Dorchester, said, “and he had not changed his mind when he wrote in February. He does not like being in town, especially during the Season, and he has no plans to come here this year.”
“I daresay,” Jessica, Countess of Lyndale, said, “he knows very well that if he comes here we are bound to arrange something for his birthday. He would hate it. Poor Harry.”
She laughed, and Elizabeth, Lady Hodges, laughed with her.
“Poor Harry, indeed,” she said.
“He wrote the same thing to me, Aunt Viola,” Jessica added.
“And to me,” Matilda, Viscountess Dirkson, said. “What a provoking boy he is, for sure. Though Charles keeps reminding me that he is no longer a boy.”
“He is a provoking man,” Mildred, Lady Molenor, said.
The five ladies, as well as Anna, Duchess of Netherby, and Louise, the dowager duchess, were gathered in the dining room at Archer House on Hanover Square, the Duke of Netherby’s London home, to discuss the matter of Harry.
“Plan B it is to be, then?” Anna said. “We will go to him since he will not come to us?”
“There was a wistfulness about him at Christmastime,” Viola said, frowning. “Marcel says I was merely imagining that Harry is not happy living all alone at Hinsford, like a hermit. He points out that it is the life Harry has chosen quite freely. But Camille agreed with me, and so did Abigail. Even Mary did. My sister-in-law,” she added in case any of her Westcott relatives had forgotten.
“Wistfulness?” Elizabeth asked.
“Oh, he enjoyed himself,” Viola said. “He did not even mind being mauled and pestered by all the children. He joined in every activity with enthusiasm. He scarcely stopped smiling. He seemed more reluctant than usual to go back home and even went with Abigail and Gil to Gloucestershire f
or a few weeks. I believe he felt his aloneness.”
“It is possible to feel more alone in a crowd than in solitude,” Matilda said. “No, Mildred, that is not nonsense, though you roll your eyes. Harry is lonely.”
“It is also possible to be alone yet not lonely,” Elizabeth said.
“But Aunt Viola says Harry looked wistful,” Jessica reminded her.
“He also enjoyed Christmas,” Louise said, “even though the house must have been very crowded and very noisy. He will enjoy a birthday party to cheer him up.”
“I hope he will enjoy it,” Viola said. “He will at least see that we all care.”
Mildred patted her shoulder, for she was desperately trying to hold back tears.
“I will never forget,” Anna said, “how gravely ill he looked when he arrived back from Paris and we all went down to Hinsford to see him.”
Matilda blinked her eyes, cleared her throat, and took charge—something at which she excelled. Their meetings, when they had a particular object in mind, did have a tendency to lose focus as various tangents were followed and one led to another.
“We need to divide up the list of letters that need to be written,” Matilda said.
Seven blotters had been spread around the table, with a neat pile of paper and an ink bottle and a quill pen above each.
“The letters do not have to be long,” Matilda continued. “We sent a copy of both plans to everyone concerned after Christmas—and that took us a long time. Now all we need do is instruct everyone to ignore plan A and familiarize themselves with plan B. Dates and times and important details are clearly stated there, and we must emphasize that everyone should follow those details to the letter. It is very important in particular that we all arrive on the same day. Better yet, we should all aim to arrive during the afternoon, within three or four hours of one another. We wish to surprise Harry, and we can do that most effectively if we all descend upon him at as close to the same time as possible.”
“Poor Harry,” Jessica and Anna said in unison, and they all laughed—even Matilda.
“Louise,” Matilda said, “write to Mother and Aunt Edith, if you will. They are coming to town soon, of course, but it is important that they arrive in time to rest for a day or two before going down to Hinsford.”
“Ought I also to mention Aunt Edith’s niece and nephew?” Louise asked. Miranda Monteith, Aunt Edith’s niece on her late husband’s side, was one of the three young ladies chosen for Harry’s perusal, though no one in the family except Aunt Edith herself knew the young woman, and even she had not seen her since she was a girl of fourteen.
“Yes, do,” Matilda said.
Viola would write to her brother, the Reverend Michael Kingsley, and his wife, Mary; Matilda to Mrs. Kingsley, Viola’s mother; Anna to Camille and Joel; Jessica to Abigail and Gil; Elizabeth to Alexander, her brother, and Wren; and Mildred to Cousin Althea, Elizabeth’s mother.
Estelle and Bertrand Lamarr, the Marquess of Dorchester’s adult twins, were not yet in London, but they were expected within the next day or two. Viola undertook to make sure they were ready to follow plan B.
Mildred took it upon herself to speak with Mrs. Leeson, mother of her eldest son’s new fiancée. Miss Leeson had a younger sister, another of the chosen three possible brides for Harry.
“Since Boris’s betrothal was announced on Valentine’s Day, when none of us were in town, Aunt Mildred,” Anna said, “we really ought to celebrate it as a family while we are all together at Hinsford. Especially if Miss Leeson’s mother and sister are to be there too.”
“That is a brilliant idea, Anna,” Elizabeth said, beaming at her.
“Splendid.” Matilda added it to the bottom of her copy of plan B. “And I will let Sally’s mama know that we will definitely be going to Hinsford.”
Sally Underwood was the third prospective bride. She was a niece of Viscount Dirkson’s first wife, a pretty, vivacious girl, though Matilda admitted she did not know her well.
There were other details to be discussed, including exactly what information they must send to Mrs. Sullivan, Hinsford’s housekeeper. But for now they all applied themselves to the task of letter writing. For the next half hour all that could be heard in the dining room was the scratching of pens and the occasional exclamation from Louise, who declared crossly at one point that her pen must have been made specifically to produce one ink blot for every ten words.
* * *
* * *
Harry did not even know that Lydia had left until after she returned.
He called on her twice on the day he had told her he would. The first time, late in the morning, when she did not answer his knock on the door, he assumed she was out. But when she did not answer during the afternoon either, he guessed that she was deliberately avoiding him. She had, after all, begged him not to return, and she was doubtless reluctant to come face-to-face with him just yet. But it must happen sometime. He had spent a couple of almost sleepless nights wondering if he had impregnated her.
She would not know yet, of course. His questions could therefore wait. If she was inside there now, holding her breath, hoping he would go away without making a fuss, he would not make things worse for her by knocking again. If she was not inside—and actually it was likely she was not, since there was no sound from the dog either—then he would be wasting his time trying to force an empty house to answer his summons. She had probably made good and sure to be away from her house all day.
He would give her a week and then try again.
But one week stretched into two.
During that time he avoided the village as much as he could, since he did not want to encounter her anywhere else but the cottage. He even missed church two weeks in a row though it was Easter. When he did socialize, it was mostly with neighbors outside the village. He dined with the Raymores one evening and went riding with Lawrence Hill and his sisters a couple of times. Lawrence rode over to Hinsford late one afternoon and stayed for dinner. Harry did walk into the village by the back way one day to spend an evening with Tom and Hannah, but there were no other guests. Just two men reminiscing about their boyhood and one long-suffering woman sewing quietly and smiling a few times and shaking her head a lot. Actually Hannah could reminisce with them over several memories, as she too had grown up at Fairfield.
Harry and Lawrence went to Eastleigh one day as escorts for Rosanne Hill and Theresa Raymore. While the ladies shopped and Lawrence looked at horses, Harry called upon the physician whom he had brought to Hinsford a while ago to have a look at Timmy Hack, and persuaded him to pay a second visit. Harry had called at the Hack cottage after his conversation with Lydia and found the situation just as she had described it. Timmy was indeed pale and listless and not recovering as well as he ought. Harry had been startlingly reminded of himself as he had been for almost two years in the hospital and convalescent home in Paris, the helpless victim of those who would have killed him with good intentions if he had not finally put his foot down and insisted upon returning to England and then upon being left alone at Hinsford to manage his own recovery. That was something Timmy could not do. He was still a child.
Harry spent most of those two weeks alone, however, reading inside the house on wet days, wandering about the park, admiring the spring flowers and the new foliage on the trees when the sun shone, or out on the home farm helping wherever he could, especially on the renovations to the old barn. He was, if the truth must be admitted, more than slightly depressed, and he did not like the feeling one little bit. He had fought suffocating, debilitating depression during the years that followed the Battle of Waterloo, first overseas in Paris and then here at Hinsford when it had seemed to him that he would never recover his full health and strength, that he would never be himself again. He had fought and won the battle. He resented the fact that it needed to be fought all over again now.
He ought not to have gone to B
ath for Christmas. Or, if he had, he ought to have come back home immediately after, as he had originally planned. And he ought not—damn it—to have gone to bed with Lydia Tavernor. Against all his better judgment. Against the principles of a lifetime. Against what he knew were her principles. But like a couple of brainless idiots, with no control whatsoever over their lusts and passions, they had gone and hopelessly complicated their lives.
Someone needed to take a horse whip to him.
The solitude and contentment he had so coveted and so enjoyed for four years were suddenly feeling like something far worse, and he did not appreciate it.
Late one morning he was sitting on a stone slab beside the lake, a picturesque spot beneath a weeping willow tree, warming himself in the dappled sunlight and trying to convince himself that this was very idyllic and peaceful and all was right with the world. Instead he was feeling neglected. By his family.
It was the ultimate idiocy on his part.
Those letters from his mother, Jessica, and Aunt Matilda, all of which had touched upon the question of whether he intended to spend any time in London during the upcoming Season, had not fooled him for a moment. For their motive had been glaringly obvious. They wanted to lure him to town so they could put on some sort of grand party in celebration of his thirtieth birthday. And they very probably wanted to do some aggressive matchmaking at the same time. He knew the Westcott family as of old—or so he had thought. He had fully expected to hear from a few more of them soon after with the same question buried amid other news, or perhaps even with some definite reason why he ought to come or really must come.
He had indeed received more letters—one from his grandmother, and one from Anna. Neither one had made even a whisper of a mention of his going to London. Or of his birthday. Or, for that matter, of his very single state.
