He was undeterred. “Then consider it a memoir.”
“I fail to see what you have done in your life that is worth setting down in print.”
“Did I not mention that it is an erotic novel—or an erotic memoir, as it may be?”
“And you think that’s something suitable for me to publish?”
“Why not? You need books that sell, to subsidize Mr. Martin’s histories.”
“That does not mean I am willing to stamp the name of my firm on pornography.”
He leaned back, a look of mock consternation on his face. “My dear Miss Fitzhugh, everything that arouses you is not pornography.”
Something hot swept over her. Ire, yes—but perhaps not entirely. She leaned in toward him, making sure she dipped her chest enough to give him a straight line of sight down her décolletage, and whispered, “You are wrong, Hastings. It is only pornography that arouses me.”
As his eyes widened in surprise, she rose, swept aside the skirts of her dress, and left him on the chaise longue by himself.
M ay I have a moment of your time?” asked Fitz.
Helena had gone to her room the moment they’d returned. Fitz’s wife, after speaking to their housekeeper, had also started up the stairs.
She turned around. “Certainly, my lord.”
He liked her slightly arch tone. When they first married, he’d thought her as bland as water, whereas Isabelle had been more intoxicating than the finest whisky. But he’d since come to realize that his wife possessed a dry wit, a quick mind, and an ironic view of the world.
“Do you suppose it has ever occurred to Hastings,” she asked, as she descended the steps, “that cynical mockery might not be the best way to court our Helena?”
Pearls and diamonds gleamed in her hair: His countess was not at all averse to some glamour in the evening. “I dare say it occurs to him daily, but he is too proud to alter his approach.”
She ran the house from her sitting room one floor above. But when they received callers on matters of business, or when they had something to discuss, they always used his study.
She sat down in her customary chair on the opposite side of his desk and opened her fan, a confection of black lace over tortoise shell slats. Her taste in personal adornment sometimes surprised him—the fan was more than a little seductive. But he could hardly fault her for enlivening her usually prim wardrobe with an unexpected accessory or two.
She ran a gloved finger across the slats. “You want to see me about Mrs. Englewood?”
Of course she’d have guessed. “Yes.”
Did her fan tremble? He couldn’t tell, for she closed it in a crisp motion and laid it across her lap. “So you plan to reestablish old ties?”
He must have been quite transparent. “We would like to.”
She tilted her face toward him and smiled slightly. “I am glad for you. It was terrible that the two of you had to be apart for so long.”
“About our pact—” he began.
“Don’t worry about it. The last thing I want is to come between you and Mrs. Englewood.”
“You misunderstood what I was about to say: I am not embarking on an affair with Mrs. Englewood—not merely an affair, in any case. It will be a permanent arrangement and I intend to be her faithful companion.”
“I did not misunderstand anything,” she said quietly. “I expected no less of you. And I wish the two of you all the best.”
Something in her sympathetic agreement made him ache to hold her. She rarely came across as lonely, but now she did.
“Before Mrs. Englewood and I begin our arrangement, I intend to honor our pact first.”
The fan slid from her fingers and hit the floor with a hard thud. “What do you mean by honoring it first?”
He retrieved the fan and handed it back to her. “It would be a dereliction of duty on my part otherwise. It also wouldn’t be fair to you and your family—for me to accept this great fortune and then not even try to give you a son to inherit the title.”
Her usual keenness seemed to have deserted her. “You want to give me a son,” she echoed slowly.
“It’s only fair.”
“But we don’t know how long it would take for me to produce an heir. You might have to wait for an indefinite period of time.” She came to her feet. Her voice rose two octaves. “What if I am infertile? What if I am one of those women meant only to have daughters? What if—”
She broke off in midsentence, as if realizing that she was reacting in a most uncharacteristic manner. He was transfixed: He hadn’t seen her display this much emotion since their honeymoon—and then it had been because he’d been in danger of ruining both his health and his mind.
She swallowed. “My assessment of the matter differs from yours.” Her voice was once again modulated—under control. “I understand perfectly that your arrangement is to be a lasting one and I applaud it. And I think that after all the years that have gone by, you should not waste any more time.”
An appalling realization stole upon him: She didn’t want him to touch her. Even with their marriage transformed by friendship and affection, the thought of sleeping with him still upset her as much as it had when she’d first proposed their pact.
“It won’t be very long,” he said. “Six months. It doesn’t matter whether you conceive or not and it doesn’t matter whether the child is a boy or a girl: six months and the rest is the will of God.”
“Six months,” she repeated faintly, as if he’d said sixty years in Siberia.
On any given day, he could recite her schedule by the minute. Yet her heart was like a walled garden, invisible to one not granted entrance.
“I know the real reason you’d prefer our pact never come to pass,” he heard himself say. “You wanted to postpone it several months ago, before we even learned of Mrs. Englewood’s plans to return.”
She stared at him, as if afraid of what he was about to say.
“You don’t mention him but I haven’t forgotten. There was someone you had to give up to marry me.”
She gave a queer little laugh. “Oh, him.”
He closed the distance between them. She never wore perfume, but her soap smelled of the lavender from their estate—along with a hint of something softer, sweeter. So that when combined with the warmth of her body, the other-wise austere scent of lavender became subtle. Interesting. Sultry, even.
He placed one hand on her shoulder. She trembled almost imperceptibly at his touch—he hoped it was surprise and not revulsion.
“Millie—I think I may safely call you Millie, no?”
She nodded.
“We are friends, Millie—good friends, furthermore. We’ll get through this together. And when it is all said and done, I won’t be the only one free to pursue old dreams. You will be able to go after yours with all my best wishes.”
She looked away. “I scarcely know what to say.”
“Say yes, then.”
“You won’t—you won’t require that we begin tonight, will you?”
His pulse raced. Of course not, but the very thought of it made him hot everywhere.
Then he realized why she would think him capable of such an abrupt, indelicate demand: His fingers hadn’t been content to remain in one place, but had roamed up the column of her neck to explore the tender place just beneath her ear.
In a motion that might be called a caress.
He hastily withdrew his hand. “No, not tonight.”
“When, then?” Her voice was barely audible.
He stared where his hand had been, her smooth, bare shoulder, her slender throat, her dainty earlobe. “A week from tonight.”
She said nothing.
“Listen to me: It will be fine. And who knows? You might conceive right away.”
She averted her face, but even from this oblique angle, for him, who’d studied the subtle gradation of her expression for years, it was easy to see she was trying very hard not to grimace.
He was hesitant to t
ouch her again so soon, but it was unthinkable that he should not comfort her.
“It will be all right,” he said, pulling her into a loose embrace, “I promise.”
I t would be all right for him, not for her.
Could he not understand what he was asking of her? To become his lover knowing that she would be set aside at a specific date, knowing that even as he lay with her, his heart and mind were already contemplating his blissful future with Mrs. Englewood?
Tell him. It’s nobody’s fault but your own if you don’t tell him.
He kissed her hair.
Stop. Don’t touch me.
But she loved their rare instances of physical contact. When he’d lifted her and spun her around, when he’d danced four waltzes in a row with her, when he’d wrapped his arm around her shoulder upon the airship. And of course, that night in Italy. Those were the memories she savored over and over again, every detail polished to a high sheen, each sensation savored to the full.
Even now her body yearned to be closer to him. She wanted to press her nose into his skin and inhale hungrily—he always smelled as if he’d just taken a walk across a sunny meadow. She wanted to rub her palm against his jaw to feel the beginning of stubbles. She wanted to slide her hands underneath his shirt and learn every single shape and texture, with the fierce dedication she’d once put into mastering the Grandes Études.
There is no one else. I love you. I have loved only you. For pity’s sake don’t make me do this.
He kissed her on her ear, a close-lipped, chaste peck. Desire charred her all the same. She was burned to the ground, reduced to rubble.
“It will be over soon,” he murmured. “It will be over before you know it.”
And for the rest of her life, she would be only an afterthought in his and Mrs. Englewood’s radiant happiness.
I can’t. I can’t. Leave me alone.
“I will be the most considerate lover. I promise.”
A small sob escaped her despite her best efforts to the contrary.
He embraced her more tightly. She could scarcely breathe. She wanted him to never let go.
“All right,” she said. “Six months, a week from tonight.”
“Thank you,” he whispered.
It was the beginning of the end.
Or perhaps, it was only the end of something that was never meant to begin.
CHAPTER 5
The Honeymoon
1888
There was a giant in Fitz’s head, tirelessly wielding a sledgehammer the size of Mount Olympus. He twitched, the floor hard and cold against his aching body.
“Get up!” shouted the giant, his bellow like a nail driven through Fitz’s skull. “For the love of God, get up!”
It wasn’t the giant who yelled, but Hastings. Fitz wanted to tell him to shut up and leave him alone—if he could get up he wouldn’t be on the floor like a common drunk. But his throat seemed coated in sand and grit; he couldn’t push a word past.
Hastings swore and gripped Fitz by the back of his shirt. They were of a similar height but Hastings was brawnier. He dragged Fitz along the floor, the motion making Fitz’s stomach queasy and his head hurt, as if it were being batted against a wall.
“Stop. Goddamn it, stop.”
Hastings didn’t care. He hauled Fitz into something resembling a vertical position then dunked him, fully dressed, into a bathtub full of scalding water.
“Jesus!”
“Get clean, get sober,” growled Hastings. “I can only keep Colonel Clements waiting for so long.”
Colonel Clements can go fuck himself.
Then Fitz remembered, as the sledgehammer came down again, that it was his wedding day. Time stopped for no one, least of all a young man who only wanted to hold on to what he had.
He wiped a wet hand over his face and opened his eyes at last. He was in a bath with peeling brown wallpaper, straggly scum-green curtains, and a dented mirror frame that was missing the mirror inside. His town house, he realized, cringing.
Hastings had no sympathy for him. “Hurry up!”
“Colonel Clements—” He sucked in a breath. It felt as if someone had stuck a fork into his right eye. “He isn’t supposed to be here until half past ten.”
The wedding was at half past eleven.
“It is quarter to eleven,” Hastings said grimly. “We have been trying to get you ready for the past two hours. The first footman couldn’t even make you stir. The second you threw across the room. I managed to get you into your morning coat and you had to eject your ill-digested supper all over it.”
“You are joking.” He had no recollection.
“I wish I were. That was an hour ago. Your morning coat is ruined; you’ll need to wear mine. And if you ruin mine, I swear I will set my dogs on you.”
Fitz pressed damp fingers into his temple. It was quite the wrong thing to do: Barbed wires of agony dragged through his brain. He hissed with pain. “Why did you let me get so drunk?”
“I tried to stop you—you nearly broke my nose.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your behavior last night, Lord Fitzhugh. One of the girls Copley hired ran off, by the way, screaming that she could not possibly perform the unnatural acts you wanted of her.”
Fitz would have laughed if he could. Twenty-four hours ago he’d been a virgin—he might still be one, for all he knew. “That’s impossible,” he muttered weakly.
“It happened,” said Hastings, his expression a mix of impatience, sorrow, and futility. “Enough, you need to pull yourself together. The carriage leaves at eleven—we should have reached the church at eleven.”
Fitz covered his eyes. “Why is this happening to me?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Hastings’s voice caught. His hand clamped hard over Fitz’s shoulder. “What can I do?”
What could he do? What could anyone do?
“Just—leave me alone for now.”
“All right. You have ten minutes.”
Ten minutes.
Fitz buried his face in his hands. How could he pull himself together, when his entire life had fallen apart? Not in ten minutes, that was for certain. Not in a hundred and ten years.
M iraculously the groom’s party arrived before the bride’s party, but only by mere seconds. Hastings tried to get Fitz to run into the church, so that he wouldn’t be seen still outside when the bridal carriage drew up. But Fitz could not have broken into a sprint had someone held a knife at his back.
He pushed away Hastings’s hand. “I’m here. What more do they want?”
The church was only ten minutes by carriage from his new town house. He should have been at the church at least an hour ago, cooling his heels in the vestry until it was time to stand before the altar.
And he would have been, God, he would have been, were he marrying Isabelle. He’d have risen with the sun and made ready before any of the ushers. He’d have been the one knocking on their doors to make sure they got up on time and dressed properly. And had there been loose women at the party to commemorate the end of his bachelorhood, he’d have steered them to his classmates—it was not for him to sully his body the night before his wedding.
But here he was, sullied, ill groomed, and late—and for all that, more than good enough for the ceremony that would seal the sale of his name and, eventually, his person.
A relentlessly bright sun made his head pound harder. The air in London was nearly perpetually dirty—sometimes one could taste the grit. But all the torrential rains from his dreary final week of freedom had washed it clean. The sky was a wide-open, cloudless blue, stupidly lovely, perfect for any wedding except his own.
Miles of white organza had been jammed into the interior of the church. Thousands of lilies of the valley, too, their smell thick as incense. His still-fragile stomach shuddered.
The pews were seated to capacity. As he started down the aisle, a sea of faces turned toward him, accompanied by a roar of whispers—no doub
t comments on his almost unforgivable tardiness.
Yet as he progressed toward the altar, row by row, they fell silent. What did they see on his face? Revulsion? Grief? Wretchedness?
He could see nothing before him.
Then all he could see was Isabelle, rising from her seat in the pews and turning toward him.
He stopped and stared. Her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks sharp, her skin pale as ice—and she was beautiful beyond measure.
She gazed back at him. Her lips parted and formed the words Run away with me.
Why not? Let Henley Park rot. Let his creditors stew. And let the Graveses find someone else to shackle to their daughter. This was his life. And he would live it as he pleased.
All he had to do was stretch out his hand. They’d find their own place and forge their own destiny, take life by the horns and wrestle it to the ground.
He lifted his hand an inch, then another. Forget honor, forget duty, forget everything he’d been brought up to be. All they needed was love.
Love would make a pariah of her. She would lose her family, her friends, and all her prospects. And should something happen to him before they both came of age—he’d have condemned her for life.
He dropped his hand.
Hastings gripped his arm. He yanked free. He was the man he had been brought up to be. He needed no one else to drag him to the altar.
His eyes still locked on Isabelle, he mouthed, I love you.
Then, head held high, he marched the rest of the way to his doom.
N ot once did Millie look at her bridegroom during the wedding ceremony.
At appropriate times she would turn her face toward him, but behind the veil, she stared only at the hem of her wildly extravagant gown—the beading as heavy as her heart. And when he lifted the veil to kiss her chastely on the cheek, she concentrated on his waistcoat, mist grey with the subtlest weaving of checks.
Now they were man and wife, and would be for as long as they both drew breath.
The congregation rose as they began their walk toward the church door. None of the groom’s friends extended a congratulatory hand to him. No one even smiled at the new couple. A clump of ladies, their heads bent together, whispered and pointed.
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