by Mary Balogh
The letter went on to repeat the invitation that her husband had extended in the earlier letter. It also told the news of the birth of a son two weeks before.
Mainwaring let the letter fall onto the table when he had finished reading it. He felt sick. He pushed aside the untouched plate of food and pushed himself to his feet. Then he winced and sat down again with an oath. He was forced to accept the butler's assistance to the library, where he sat, his injured leg propped on a stool, staring sightlessly out of the window.
He relived all the pain and the loss of the previous summer as if those events had happened but yesterday. Those first weeks in London had felt like hell itself. He had wandered around restlessly, contented nowhere, avoiding acquaintances, trying to decide whether he should write to her or not, whether he should try to see her or not. She had promised to marry him if he could free her from her existing marriage. And he had been so confident that Robert would raise no objection to divorcing her. He had been so sure that Robert had no feeling for her after having lived apart from her for six years. It was hard to accept the sudden reality of being alone, exiled from her. He had wanted to go to her. He was not sure that she did not wish to see him. But his powerful sense of honor had kept him away. Her husband had refused to set her free, had warned him off, and he had to accept the rights of a husband.
But he had ached for her, as he ached for her now. Elizabeth, with that rare aura of tranquillity that attracted all who knew her. He doubted if she fully realized how much she had been respected and loved by all the families around Ferndale, even though they knew her only as a paid governess and companion. He could not blame Robert for refusing to give her up. It only seemed incredible to him that he had been able to live apart from her for all that time, when they were legally married. But there was obviously a very interesting story surrounding that mystery, a story that he would never know.
Damn Robert Denning! If only she had never met him, perhaps she could have loved him, William Mainwaring. Perhaps they would have been married now and it would have been his child that she had just borne. Foolish thought! He put his head back against the rest of the leather chair in which he sat and stared at the ceiling. If she had not met Robert, she probably would not have ended up in the vicinity of Ferndale as a governess. And she would perhaps have been a different person had she not suffered in the past. In fact, he remembered saying something like that to her when he was trying to persuade her to marry him. No, things were as they were and he would have to learn to live with them.
He closed his eyes. How could he so have forgotten his love as to have become excited by that little wench in the woods? He compared the two women in his mind. Elizabeth, so mature; Nell so childlike. Elizabeth with her beauty, her charm, her social poise; Nell with her wild, untutored grace. Elizabeth's intelligence and good education; Nell's ignorance of all except the wild nature around her. Elizabeth, perfectly groomed and elegant; Nell, shabby and unkempt. How could he have? How could he have so forgotten Elizabeth yesterday as to have violated Nell and even convinced himself that it had been a good experience?
He felt repelled now by the memories. How could he have convinced himself that the girl was a sweet innocent? She was wild and promiscuous. True, she had been a virgin before he had touched her, but it was just pure chance, surely, that he had been the first. The girl would have done as much with any male who happened to come her way. What modest wench spent a great deal of her time alone in the woods? What modest girl offered such an open invitation as a shabby dress that was too small for her and that revealed a considerable expanse of bare leg? He was suddenly glad of his sprained ankle. It offered him the excuse he needed to keep away from his appointment with her. By the time he was recovered, she would have forgotten about him, in all probability. She would probably have found someone else.
Mainwaring was given little more time to brood that day. Although unable to go out himself, he found that almost every man of rank for miles around called on him during the day to inquire about his health and to commiserate with him for having to miss the several entertainments that had been arranged for the coming days.
Chapter 6
The following five days were dreary ones for Helen. She lived in a state of almost unbearable tension. Her last meeting with William Mainwaring had begun something which it was a torture to have to delay. Had she only been able to see him on the following afternoon, all the joy and the excitement of being in love and of sharing of physical relationship with her lover might have been sustained. But she found that as the days crept past she became less confident, more shy of seeing him again. Perhaps for him it had all meant nothing. Perhaps he was accustomed to such encounters. But no, she would not believe it. He must love her as she did him.
She knew from her father's conversation that Mr. Mainwaring was likely to be house-bound for a week. Apparently his leg was badly sprained and he found it quite impossible to put it to the ground. She felt quite safe, therefore, when she returned to the woods two days after his accident, in bringing her books and her paints out of the hut. She decided to paint the stream at last and spent a half-hour vainly trying to capture on paper all the shades of color and light that she had observed the afternoon she had first met William.
She finally gave up the effort in disgust. What she had painted on the paper in no way resembled what she saw in her mind. She could force no communication between mind and hand. Of, of course, she knew the reason. She knew from long experience that she could never produce anything to her satisfaction unless her whole mind was absorbed in the task. And she had not fully concentrated on her painting that afternoon. She was thinking of William. She was wanting him.
She moved to sit on the bank of the stream and rested her chin on her raised knees. She was not at all sure that this love business was good for her. Was this what it did to a person? Was one totally unable to concentrate on any other activity once one loved? Love should enrich life, not impoverish it, she thought. But of course it was her restlessness, her uncertainty that made her so incapable of doing any of the things she had always delighted in.
She tried to picture William's face. It was very handsome, long and rather thin, with a straight nose and firm mouth that gave one the early impression that he was a stern and perhaps humorless man. She had never liked dark eyes. She had always admired blue or light gray. Even her own eyes were too dark a gray to please her. But William's brown eyes suited him. They gave a depth to his glance so that when he looked fully at her, she felt that she was gazing into his very soul. He wore his hair rather longer than was fashionable. It was thick, shiny hair, the sort that made one's fingers itch to touch it. And his smile! It was so unexpectedly warm. It so transfigured his face. Helen smiled and hugged her knees. She remembered the look on that face when it had been close to hers, dreamy with passion.
Suddenly she was on her feet and darting lightly to the hut. A minute later she was outside again, a sketchpad and a piece of charcoal in her hand. For the next hour everything was forgotten: surroundings, loneliness, even longing for William Mainwaring as she sketched his face. Finally it was completed to her satisfaction, though she still wrinkled her nose as she held it at arm's length to view the total effect. She had pictured him smiling. He looked very boyish, not at all the dignified gentleman of her first impression. Was this really he? Or was the other? How could she possibly capture the complete man in one picture? Helen had never been interested in portraiture before. She now began to understand some of the frustrations and challenges involved.
However satisfied or dissatisfied she might be with the sketch she had made, its resting place for that night and the nights that followed was beneath her pillow.
She did not go back to the woods for the next three days. She could not face going there until there was a chance that yet again William would come. Her father reported that he had still not gone out. Her mother too was becoming increasingly cross over her absences during the afternoons, when she might be expected to h
elp entertain guests or to accompany her sisters on visits to various neighbors. For three days she was almost a model daughter.
But finally she could stay away no longer. Mr. Mainwaring was moving around with a cane, the vicar had informed them the previous afternoon when they had paid a call at the vicarage. It was unlikely, of course, that he would attempt to walk all the way to the woods for several more days, but she could not stay away when there was the remotest chance of his coming.
She had three more days to wait.
***
William Mainwaring's disgust with Helen did not last for many days. The feeling became turned more against himself. He loved Elizabeth. Her letter had hardly left his sight since he had received it, and it had been read over and over again. But Elizabeth was unattainable. And such a love did little to satisfy all one's baser cravings. He found more and more as the dreary days dragged on that his thoughts were returning to Nell.
He despised himself. He had always despised sexual activity that was devoid of love. He had always been determined that he would never be guilty of such a sin himself. Yet he could not get her out of his mind, his little wood nymph. He longed to see her again, to talk to her. He found her fresh and rather naive view of the world quite delightful. She was like a breath of fresh air in a rather stuffy world. He wanted to touch her, to wind his fingers in that wild tangle of hair, to kiss that warm, soft mouth. He wanted to possess her again.
Damn! He tried to repeat the arguments he had used after first reading Elizabeth's letter. He tried to convince himself that in reality Nell was probably little better than a slut, that he was degrading himself associating with her. But it was no good. The craving was too strong to be denied. He was being ruled by pure physical passion, by sheer lust. But he I not shame himself out of his determination to see her again as soon as he was able to hobble as far as the woods.
For two days after he was finally able to get around again he felt obliged to spend his afternoons repaying the visits that his neighbors had been kind enough to pay him during his confinement to the house. He drove himself in a curricle so that there might be less pressure on the still-painful ankle.
He found the visit to the Earl of Claymore rather uncomfortable. The whole family was gathered in the drawing room when he was announced, with the exception of that elusive youngest daughter, and he was faced with all the embarrassment of having to converse with Lady Melissa, remembering how he had begun to set in motion a courtship of the girl just the week before. His injury had put a halt to that, keeping him away from the ball at which he was to have partnered her for the opening set, and preventing him from making a definite appointment to ride with her. But the injury had proved a blessing in disguise. His entanglement with Nell and his feelings for Elizabeth had totally destroyed his plan to court Lady Melissa.
Yet he suspected from the behavior of the ladies that he was being treated almost as the accepted suitor of the girl. He was seated beside her on a sofa; her opinion on everything he uttered was eagerly solicited by her mother, and she always agreed with what he had said. She managed yet again to introduce the topic of riding into the conversation, and there was an awkward little silence when he failed to pick up the cue. He left as soon as good manners allowed him to do so, feeling both relief and alarm. Had he really aroused hopes that he might be honor-bound to revive? He sincerely hoped not. He could not now imagine how he could ever have entertained the notion of marrying the girl.
Finally Mainwaring felt that he was free to spend an afternoon as he wished. His leg felt strong enough. He could walk now without thinking about it. Only the occasional twinge reminded him that he must be careful for a while. Even the weather was cooperating. After a few days that were dull and overcast, the sun shone and only a slight breeze ensured that the day would not be unbearably hot. If only she were there when he came. He had hardly considered the possibility that she might not be. But he had to take the chance.
***
On this occasion Mainwaring was the first to arrive at the stream beside the hut. He was disappointed. He hoped that she was merely later than usual in coming, not that she was not coming at all. He wandered to the hut and put a hand on the door, which hung crookedly on its hinges. But he removed the hand again. It would not be fair to look inside when she had been so anxious that he should not. And he had made her a gift of the old building. It would not be right to trespass on her property.
He looked around him. The small clearing among the trees almost breathed her presence. The old oak tree would be forever hers. It was in its branches that she had sat the second time he saw her. And it was its trunk she had hugged the last time just before he had touched her. And the stream, where she had been "learning water" the first time he saw her-had she finally decided what color it was?
He wandered to the edge of the bank and gazed down at the water flowing past. She was quite right. It was really not one color or one shade at all. He stooped down and finally sat on the bank. How had she come to notice that when she was but a wild and untutored little thing? But then, he supposed that one did not need an education to observe the world around. He had never thought of really looking at objects of nature until he met Nell. And he had never considered touching in order to learn. Who but she would have thought of leaning her whole body against a tree just so that she might feel its life?
She was probably a girl of some intelligence. She would doubtless respond with eagerness to the chance to learn from books. He could teach her perhaps. She would be an apt pupil. He could probably open up for her a new world as she had done for him. The thought was tempting.
"Hello," she said from behind him. Her voice was breathless.
He turned and smiled. "Hello, wood nymph," he said. "I have missed you."
She moved forward and seated herself beside him. “You hurt your foot," she said. "Is it better now?"
"Yes," he replied, "and it was a great annoyance, Nell, because it kept me from you."
She colored and looked at him bright-eyed.
He leaned forward and took one of her hands, which were lying loosely clasped in her lap. "Nell," he said, "I know so little about you. Tell me about yourself."
The perfect opportunity! All she had to do now was to tell him that she was not what he had thought. He would ask what she meant and she would tell him that she was the third daughter of the Earl of Claymore, the one he had not met. He would not mind. He was in a sympathetic mood.
"There is really nothing to tell," she heard herself say, and she shrugged her shoulders and smiled. "My life has been very ordinary. Tell me about yours. It must have been very exciting, I think."
"And you would be very wrong," he told her. "I have a great deal, do I not, wood nymph? Wealth and property and social status. It must seem to you that I cannot fail to be happy."
"And you are not?" she prompted, unconsciously squeezing the hand that still held hers.
"I had a lonely childhood," he said. "My parents died when I was an infant, and my grandfather brought me up in Scotland. He was a recluse long before I came to him. I was educated at home by him-fortunately, he was a learned and an intelligent man. He would not allow me to make companions of any other boy in the vicinity, and he did not wish me to go away to school. He and his housekeeper, who had been with him for years and years, were almost the only human companions I knew until I grew to manhood."
"Poor little boy," she said, her eyes suspiciously bright as they looked into his.
He laughed. "I am not trying to spin a tragedy," he said. "It was a lonely childhood, yes, but there were compensations. I loved my grandfather and I believe he loved me. Even his refusal to let me out of his sight came, I think, from a fear that he would lose the one link with life that had come to him in his old age. It was a very secure childhood. It was not until long after he died and I decided that I should venture out into the world that I realized how ill-equipped I was to become a part of it."
"Where did you go?" she asked.
; "To London first," he said. "I found life hard there. It is not easy for me to meet and converse with new people. I find myself frequently tongue-tied."
"Yet you can talk to me," Helen said.
He smiled and took her hand in a warmer grip. "Yes, little wood nymph, I can talk to you," he said, "because I know you are not sitting in judgment on my conversation and my manners. I always used to feel the same way with… with someone else."
"With a lady?" she asked.
"I had one good friend, too," he said, not answering her question. "He was everything I am not: charming, at ease in any company, never at a loss for words. He helped me a great deal."
"Why have you come here?" she asked.
"I wanted a little peace and quiet, wood nymph," he replied. "I thought to find it here. Maybe I am more like my grandfather than I care to admit."
"Have you found it?" she asked. "The peace and quiet, I mean."
His eyes wandered over her face for a while before he answered. "To a degree," he said finally. "I have met you, Nell, and with you I feel I can relax. I can forget that there are such things as balls and assemblies and dinner parties and afternoon visits to be made. You do not realize how fortunate you are not to have to worry about such things."
She smiled. The moment for her great revelation seemed to be slipping farther into impossibility. His hand left hers and reached up to cup the side of her head. His thumb stroked her cheek.
"I have missed you, Nell," he said softly. And he meant it. He knew that he should not mean it, that he should even now be making an effort to remain aloof from her. But the magic was there, as it always was when he was with her. She sat so quietly and earnestly listening to him, this girl who was very beautiful despite the shabbiness of her dress and the untidiness of her hair. Desire was rising in him and he did not have the will to quell it.
