He made a soft, high, womanly moan, so real to what she might have sounded like that she brought her hands to her ears to block it out. “I didn’t mean to act that way,” she said. “If I did, it’s because you made me.”
“You may tell that lie to yourself as often as you like, but we both know it’s not true. As for your loss, your sadness, know this, Lady Wescott. If I could go back in time by some magic, I would have left you where you stood in your damned wig and dress and given you up to that fire.”
His words were so curt, so cold and cruel that she couldn’t think of a retort. She burst into tears instead, into loud, awful sobs. “I wish I’d died too,” she cried. “It would have been better, wouldn’t it?”
He stared at her, his lips tight and trembling. “Damn it, Ophelia. I didn’t mean what I just said.”
“You’re saying that to be polite. You did mean it.”
“Of course I didn’t.”
His voice was strained, and his eyes wide. She couldn’t bear to look at him through her tears. He hated her. Why wouldn’t he? She was so terrible and disappointing, and so bad a wife. Everything she touched was ruined, just like her dreams where she lit everything on fire.
God help her. She needed air. She couldn’t breathe. She pulled her robe tight around her waist and ran for the door. She heard him call behind her, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t be near him now, couldn’t be near someone who hated her so much.
You hated him first, her mind whispered. You started the argument tonight. Look where it ended up.
She ran blindly down the hallway, past still, quiet rooms, until she got to one of the tower doors. She flung it open and started climbing, only to expend the emotions roiling inside her. The ancient stairs rose in a twisting circle, the stones worn by generations of treading feet. She heard Wescott call behind her, but she couldn’t stop fleeing now that she’d begun. She wouldn’t stop until she was out of this cursed manor house, out on the parapets beneath the chilly night sky.
“Do not follow me,” she called back to him. “I want to be alone.”
He was just behind her, reaching to catch her robe. “What are you going to do up there?”
She paused on the stair. “Do you think I’ll throw myself from the battlements? I despise you, but not enough to take my own life. Leave me alone. Pretend for a while that I did die in that fire, so you can feel some joy for precious moments.”
“Ophelia—”
She reached the top of the stairs, all out of breath, pushed the door open, and hurried through to get away from him and his gruff, exasperated voice. It was colder up on the roof than she’d imagined, but not too dark. The night was lit by a full moon.
She ran to the roof’s edge, which wasn’t really an edge. Battlements lined the perimeter, rectangular barriers that looked small from below, but were as tall as she was. She leaned against one and looked up at the sky. O Moon, silver Moon, in the deep, dark sky. Another song, another opera. The words had been in Latin, although she’d learned them in English too. O Luna, Luna, Luna...
It had been a song about a maiden’s lost love, and she had pretended to weep as she implored the moon to shine on the earth and find him. She’d been so young when she sang that song, not realizing how destructive and confusing real relationships could be. She leaned back into the solid stone and let it hold her as she looked up at the night sky. What had she done? What had she shouted at Wescott in her impassioned hysteria? The same sort of awful things he’d shouted back to her.
Oh, she wished she could be anywhere else.
She heard Wescott to her right, just as she realized her feet were freezing in her slippers.
“Come inside,” he said. “Don’t punish yourself because we argued.”
“I’m not punishing myself. I need to be up here. I can’t breathe.”
He took a step closer, tightening his robe across his chest. “You can’t breathe because it’s cold. You can come up here during the day, when the sun’s out.”
She shook her head, holding him off. “During the day, I won’t be able to see the stars.”
She heard his quiet sigh, then only silence. He didn’t leave, not even when she turned her back to him. Now and again, she wiggled her stiffening toes.
“I’m trying to understand you,” he finally said. “I’m trying, Ophelia. I didn’t think things would be so bad between us.”
She hugged herself tighter. “They’ll always be bad, because of how…how we began.”
“We need to let go of that. We need to move forward as husband and wife—”
“But this isn’t what I wanted.” She pressed her palm against her heart. “Now I can’t go back.”
“What is it you want? What is it you think you’ve lost, that I’ve taken from you?”
“What might have been,” she said wearily.
“You wanted to travel? Fine, we can travel. You can still sing, although you don’t seem to want to.” He sounded tired. “You could stay safe and easy here. Most English women are happy enough with a life of leisure, with tea parties and dances, and trips to the theater, and pretty gowns and jewels.”
She turned back around to face him. “I suppose you think something’s wrong with me. Maybe there is.”
He stared back at her with an unfathomable expression. She wasn’t sure if he wanted to embrace her or throw her from the battlements.
“I’m not giving up on this marriage,” he finally said. “And there’s nothing wrong with you except for your penchant for emotional tirades. You ought to be spanked for dragging me up here, with both of us in our damned night clothes. It’s too late tonight, but at some point in the future, a reckoning shall be made.”
She lifted her chin. “I’ll run away, then.”
“Yes, Lady Drama, I don’t doubt you will, but as I said, it is too late tonight. Let’s go down and go to bed.”
She hugged herself against a sudden breeze. “I’d rather not. I want to sleep up here.”
“Of course you do, but it’s not possible.”
She sank down against the wall, finding a smooth expanse of rock to support her back. She pulled her feet beneath her and held her robe closed. “Perhaps the fresh air will be good for my emotional tirades,” she said with a sniff.
“Such a spanking,” he replied, so quietly she could hardly hear.
She wouldn’t go down with him now, not with that hanging over her head, even though she probably deserved to be punished. “I wish to sleep up here,” she said again. “You may go down.”
“Oh, may I?” His voice dripped with forbearance. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you in my life. Fine, I’ll go for some blankets and pillows.”
She hugged her knees and waited for him to return, looking forward to getting her cold toes warm again. When he came back, he had armfuls of blankets. A baffled footman followed behind with pillows.
“You can’t sleep so close to the edge,” he said, putting the blankets down near the stairwell door. “Come over here.”
She was too drained to argue with him any longer. She went where he pointed and curled up in the blankets. Now she could look up at the sky all night, at the twinkling, bright stars. “You don’t have to stay,” she said, when he laid down next to her.
“I plan to stay.”
She wondered if the sky over Wescott Abbey always looked so clear and cloudless, or if tonight was a special case. When her eyes started to close, she wrenched them open again. She wanted to stay up in the bracing night air, but the blankets were warming her tense muscles, and her husband had gone silent and still beside her. She stole a glance at him, to find him staring back at her, his expression pensive.
“Go to sleep,” he said, his head propped on his hand. “You wanted to sleep up here, so sleep.”
* * * * *
Ophelia woke in her bed, and for a moment, she thought the previous night’s events might have been an especially vivid dream. She hadn’t shouted at Wescott, had she? And run up to t
he roof, and demanded to sleep there? Because she was here now, under her own covers.
No, not her own covers. She was still wrapped in the thick down blankets Wescott had carried up to the roof. He must have carried her back down and deposited her here once she slept, or worse, asked a footman to do it. How embarrassing.
Well, it was her fault. She threw off the heavy blankets and found she was still in her night robe also. So yes, all of it had happened. The memories came back to her, the fighting and accusing and running away. Why, she’d gone so far beyond the pale of proper wifely behavior that Wescott hadn’t even stayed after he brought her here.
Not that she was disappointed. It just wasn’t like him.
She turned toward the sun streaming in the window, and noticed a note propped against her pillow. She dreaded to reach for it. Was it a lecture by pen? A summons for a punishment as soon as she awakened? She picked it up and angled it toward the light.
Dear Ophelia,
I’m sorry, but it was too cold to let you stay the entire night on the roof. I brought you down just after you fell asleep.
By the time you awaken, I will have left for London with Augustine and Marlow, as I have some business to attend to there. My parents and sisters will stay with you until I return. My mother will listen for any nightmares, so you needn’t suffer your fiery terrors without help.
I’ve left word with the staff that you’re forbidden from sleeping on the roof while I’m away. I advise you to obey me in this, as I still haven’t decided on a consequence for your behavior last night.
Regards,
Wescott
She read it again, then again. That was that, then. He’d left her to run off to London with his friends, leaving her under his family’s care for added humiliation. He claimed to have some business to attend to there. She’d heard nothing about such business until now. She imagined instead he would do whatever his bachelor friends did—drinking, gambling, and socializing with immoral women.
It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To be free of his company?
She tossed the note aside and turned over in bed, hugging herself and willing away tears. She would not cry again, even if she felt embarrassed and rebuked by his sudden departure. Well, perhaps she’d cry a little, since she was alone, and she’d have to put on a brave expression soon to face the servants and Wescott’s family.
Which would be difficult, for she felt unaccountably hurt. She’d pushed him away and denied his advances, and been an unpleasant wife in every way, but she hadn’t expected him to desert their marriage so quickly and go to visit...visit...well, that awful word. Whores.
She tried to cry quietly, muffling her sobs in her pillow, but soon she was weeping in earnest, so her eyes and her head hurt. He’d said he wouldn’t give up on their marriage, but maybe, as he carried her down the stairs to put her in bed, he’d changed his mind. She’d been such a trial, such an ornery grump, as he said. She wouldn’t have fought with him if she’d known how close he was to abandoning her.
Now she’d broken everything, set everything on fire in a way that might never be fixed.
Chapter Thirteen: Doomed
“For God’s sake, look at him go.”
August’s wry words carried across the echoing studio, as Wescott hacked away at a practice dummy that had long since lost its head and arms.
“Perhaps settling down to married life in the countryside disagrees with him,” said Marlow. “I sense a great deal of pent up angst.”
“Pent up something, that’s certain,” August agreed.
Wescott spun on his friends, pointing with his sword. “You said you would be quiet. Get out.”
“We’re not leaving you alone with that poor clump of straw and canvas.” Marlow crossed his arms over his chest. “Next you’ll be attacking the bloody walls. It’s been three days, friend. When are we going to do something fun?”
“Yes, something fun. Wine and women.” August glanced at the tattered dummy. “It would be good for you. Might help you cool your head.”
“And your temper,” Marlow added.
Wescott frowned and turned his back to them, his mind churning on many frustrations, first and foremost his failing marriage. He’d practiced with his teacher for the last two days, until the man walked out in disgust. A swordsman requires control. We’ll spar again when you’ve regained yours.
“Did you sleep last night?” August asked, persistent. “Or the night before? Perhaps you ought to go back to the Abbey and try to straighten out whatever’s driven you away from Ophelia.”
“I’m not sure it’s straighten-able.” He drove his sword into the dummy’s heart for the twelfth time. “My wife hates me. Do you understand? She hates being married to me and never lets me forget it. All of this because I tried to do a good deed, and save her from a bloody fire.”
“You slept with her, too,” Marlow reminded him.
“Because I thought she was a damned actress.”
He drove his sword into the dummy’s heart a thirteenth time and left it there. His arms ached and sweat dripped from his forehead. He pushed his hair back and strode to the window, shoving it open to cool his face in the crisp night air. Yes, he’d behaved badly that night. He’d been lustful and lecherous, and taken advantage of an actress he’d rescued, who was really a lady.
But how long must he pay for it? How long would she hate him for that “crime”?
“She won’t sing for me,” he said. “Did you know that? She’s a damned singer but she won’t sing a note for me, even though she has a celebrated voice.”
“Perhaps her voice is still healing from the fire,” August said.
He took up the sword again, stabbing the dummy in the groin this time. “No, it’s because she hates me. I’ve heard her mouthing words beneath her breath when she doesn’t know I’m around, as if the songs are trapped inside her. I’ve done that. I’ve taken that joy from her. She doesn’t sing to spite me.”
“Come now,” said Marlow. “I don’t think she’s known you long enough to really hate you, the way the rest of us do.”
“This isn’t a time for jokes,” August said, shoving him on the shoulder. He turned to Wescott. “I’m sure she doesn’t hate you.”
“She hates me.” He stopped flailing at the dummy and leaned against the wall, blowing out a breath. “She’s so beautiful. So alluring. I want to do so many things to her.”
“Then you ought to. Hurry home to Oxfordshire and spend all your time doing things to her. You did say that was the only time she hated you...well...slightly less.”
Wescott answered his suggestive grin with a frown. “If you must know, gentlemen, the only intimacy I’ve shared with her since our marriage is a handful of spankings—and not the fun kind.”
August’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said—”
“I did, but I lied to you. Do you think it’s easy to admit you’ve had no success bedding your own blasted wife?”
Marlow and August exchanged glances. “We’ve come to the crux of the problem,” said August. “The source of all the frustration.”
“Nothing at all?” Marlow looked shaken. “You were always such a treat for the women at Pearl’s. Doesn’t your lady know what she’s missing?”
“Well, she knows,” August said. “Unless things didn’t go so well that first time, when you thought she was an actress?”
Wescott stared at his reflection in his sword’s blade. “Things went fine, except they resulted in a marriage she didn’t want, so now she refuses me.”
The men fell silent in commiseration with their friend. He was relieved they didn’t rib him, or play it all for a laugh.
“Whatever.” He lowered his sword’s tip to the ground. “I’ll figure it out. I’m just taking some time to think.”
“If you’d like to ‘think about things’ with a more accepting woman,” said Marlow, “we’ll have to find someplace besides Pearl’s. It’s still not reopened, though August and I have been making di
screet inquiries as to the location of Misses Ellie and Berta while the parlor’s being rebuilt.”
Wescott dipped a cloth in the water, massaging the back of his neck. “I barely married Ophelia a week ago,” he said bitterly. “It’s too soon to take myself off to whores.”
“Then bed your wedded wife,” said Marlow with a shrug. “If you can destroy a half dozen canvas dummies with a sword, you can bed one reluctant woman. Romance her, and show her that Wescott charm. If she still refuses you, spank some sense into her and get on with things. A sound spanking always works with the girls at Pearl’s.”
“You keep referencing Pearl’s.” Wescott gave the dummy one last, desultory whack. “I fear you have a vastly misguided view of the marital state. Wait until you marry, and try to treat your wife like ‘the girls at Pearl’s.’ She’ll have something to say about it.”
“Not with my cock in her mouth.” Marlow made a vulgar pantomime of his comment. “I think you’re letting her talk too much, and not demanding enough respect.”
“Demanding things from women is a tricky business,” said August. “Unless you’re paying them some amount of money.”
“How do you approach her in the bedroom?” Marlow asked, ignoring August’s comment. “Are you demanding? Kind? Patient?”
“Damn it, of course the man’s patient,” August retorted. “He hasn’t got relief in over a week.”
“I have to hold her at night.” Wescott picked up the dummy’s head and replaced it on the wooden frame. “She has nightmares about the fire, so I hold her until she quiets. I hold her right against my body.” He remembered the close embrace he subjected himself to every time she woke up screaming. “I can feel every curve of her body against mine, every breath. But I can’t...”
His two friends waited. Then August said, “Why can’t you?”
“Because she doesn’t want me to. I...” He tapped the point of his sword into a crack in the floor. “I believe she’s afraid.”
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