An Inconvenient Wife

by Megan Chance

  “I appreciate your concern, Millie,” I said coldly. “But you’ve misspoken.”

  Her lips pursed. She adjusted her hat, reached for her shawl. “Very well. I’ve done what I can.”

  Her resignation caught at me, and my annoyance over her words dissipated. I touched her arm as she went to gather up her things. “Please don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”

  She looked up at me and sighed. “For your sake, Lucy, I hope you do.”

  I tried not to think of Millie’s words past the time she left. When Victor came back, he gave me a searching look, but I only shook my head and said, “Millie’s worried about me,” and laughed it off as gaily as I could manage.

  The late afternoon grew hot; I could barely feel the slight breeze coming off the sea. Victor and I had accepted an invitation to a party tonight at By-the-Bay; Julia Breckenwood’s husband, Steven, had at last come to spend the weekend with his wife. But there were hours until I had to start preparing. I stared out at the water and thought of how good it would feel to bathe in it. I had not done so since Victor had arrived. When I said as much to him, he motioned to the waves lapping against the beach below the rocks and said, “Get your bathing costume. We’ll go now.”

  “Oh, not here,” I told him. “The currents are too unreliable.”

  “Then where?”

  “Bailey’s Beach. But it’s long past eleven.”

  “What does time have to do with it?”

  I thought of the crush of the fashionable eleven o’clock hour, the crowds of people, the women delicately dipping a toe and then stepping back. I turned to Victor with a smile. “Nothing at all.”

  It was not far to the beach. The guard was too well trained to show surprise at the lateness of the hour. He opened the gate for us, and I hurried off to the pavilion and changed into my bathing costume of heavy dark flannel.

  When I came out, Victor was nowhere to be found. He was no doubt changing still. The beach was empty; of course it would be now. The waves beat steadily but limply against the shore. I spread the blanket I’d brought. I went to the edge of the water, which was deliciously cool as it wet my slippers, as it wicked up my stockings. I moved farther and farther out, until the water was at my waist and the flannel grew heavy and wet, and then I set into an easy lap along the shoreline, never so deep that I could not put a foot down.

  The water was cool and luxurious. I felt strong and good, buoyed by salt. I didn’t know how long I swam, only that I tired and stopped and walked back to the beach while the water surged and pulled against me. I broke from its grasp to the shore. The sand drew away beneath my feet with the tide. The flannel weighed on me now that it was no longer borne by water.

  Along the shore walked a man wearing trousers with no shoes, and no hat, and no coat over his boiled shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled to his elbows. I watched him idly before I realized it was Victor.

  “Where’s your bathing costume?” I asked as he drew near, and I saw the fine veil of sweat on his forehead.

  “I haven’t one,” he said.

  “You haven’t?”

  “They weren’t necessary where I come from,” he said with a wry smile. “We wore our union suits when we jumped into the East River. Or nothing at all. I didn’t think that would be approved of here.”

  “Oh.” The image momentarily distracted me. Together we walked to the blanket and sank down onto it. “You should have said something. There’s one of William’s in the attic. I’m sure it would fit.”

  “No,” he said, and there was a harshness to his voice that made me pause.

  “It’s only a bit of flannel,” I said.

  “And you’re only his wife.”

  I was surprised by the quiet force of his words, by the jealousy I heard behind them, and pleased too. “Because you want me to be. If you said the word, I would leave him.”

  He stared out at the water. His toes dug into the sand.

  I couldn’t help thinking of William. This was where he’d proposed to me. Until this summer I had never spent a moment on this beach when I didn’t remember that day and yearn for his touch, just that way—again. Now it seemed so ridiculously civilized, so unreal, such a little passion. I’d experienced so much since then that it was hard for me to recall how much I’d wanted him, how frustrated I’d been.

  Victor looked out toward the tangle of seaweed at the mouth of the bay. I laid my hand on his arm, which was hot from the sun, darkening, it seemed, even as I watched it.

  “I don’t want you to leave him,” he said without looking at me. “Not yet.”

  “Not ever?” I asked.

  He closed his eyes. “Not . . . yet,” he repeated. “I must think. This has gone so much further than I intended.”

  “Than you intended?” I asked, afraid. “Don’t you love me, Victor? Tell me you do. Tell me you don’t want me to stay William’s wife forever.”

  “No,” he said violently. He twisted, reaching for me. His hand tangled in my hair, which I’d plaited for the swim, and which was rough and stiff with drying salt. “You are not William’s but mine. I created you.”

  He held me close, so tightly I could barely breathe. He ravaged me with his mouth, and I let him. I went weak for him. I would have let him take me there on the beach, for anyone to see. And when he released me, his gaze went beyond me, freezing to some point over my shoulder. I turned to follow it.

  There was William standing just beyond, booted and jacketed, as he’d been the day he proposed to me on this very beach. William, arrived two days early and come to look for me here, where he knew I could always be found.

  Chapter 23

  I pulled away from Victor, and he let me go; his hand dropped from my hair as if he had lost sensation. We sat there like statues as William came toward us. His face was expressionless. It was only when he came near that I felt the shuddering chill of his fury.

  “I came early,” he said quietly. “I thought you would be glad.”

  I didn’t know what to say; I could only stare at him.

  Victor said, “William—”

  William cut him dead with a look. “This is a public beach. Anyone might see.”

  It was a reminder, a warning: We might have been heedless enough to display our affair at Bailey’s Beach, but William was civilized. He would not brawl there; he would not give us the chance to appease him, or even the satisfaction of his anger.

  “I saw David outside with the landau,” he said tonelessly. He held out his hand to me. “He’s waiting to go home.”

  I got to my feet, and Victor unfolded himself. I took up the blanket, bundling it, sand and all, my fingers trembling. I looked to Victor for support, but his features were etched in taut relief; his tension was unbearable. I turned back to William, who said to Victor, “You’ll come with us.”

  Victor said, “Of course.”

  “I’ll let no one accuse me of leaving a houseguest to walk the distance home. After all, I’m a generous man. Generous to a fault, some have said.” He laughed shortly. “Generous enough to offer up even my wife, it seems.”

  “William,” I said.

  He turned, his nostrils white, his hands fisted. “I don’t want to hear a word from you.”

  It was not until I’d endured the horrible, silent ride home that I realized I’d left my gown behind in the bathing pavilion, that I was still wearing my bathing costume, that my skin was dry and sticky with salt. Once we were at Seaward, William dismissed David with a curt word. Sadie was in the kitchen, in the midst of putting together tea. He told her to go home for the evening, that we had no more need of her today.

  It was only when they were gone that William turned to me and Victor.

  “Who else knows?” he asked me. His voice was slow and quiet and deadly.

  “No one,” I rushed to tell him. “No one. It’s not what—” I stopped, unable to say the words It’s not what you think. Because it was exactly what he thought, and I could not make myself lie.

/>   He nodded shortly. “I understand we’ve accepted an invitation to By-the-Bay for supper tonight.”

  I could not bear his civility. I felt like crying. “Oh, for God’s sake, William. Please don’t do this.”

  “Have we accepted the invitation?”

  “Yes. Yes. But I’ll send our regrets right away.” I turned to go to my desk.

  “No,” William said. He was looking at Victor, who stood expressionless. William’s face was terrible in its humiliation and rage. “We’ll go tonight.”

  I was stunned. “Are you mad?”

  “We’ll go tonight,” he continued. “And we will enjoy ourselves as if nothing has happened. Victor will enjoy himself. I want him to remember how much. I want him to revel in it. Because it’s the last time he’ll ever attend such a thing.”

  I stared at him, aghast. “What do you mean?”

  William ignored me. He smiled at Victor. “Victor, my friend, after tonight, your career as a ‘brilliant’ neurologist in this city will be over. You won’t be welcomed in any home. If I were you, I’d return to Leipzig. When I’m finished with you, it will be the only place that will have you.”

  “William,” I said. “You can’t—”

  He leveled a look that both silenced and stilled me. “You’re wrong, Lucy. I can. And I will. Tomorrow. Tonight you will do what I want for once. I won’t be humiliated. We will go to By-the-Bay. We will be the happy couple, and Victor will be our grateful houseguest. You will be my obedient wife. No one will know about this. I won’t drag your name into the mud, darling, nor mine with it.”

  For a moment I thought insanely of Robert Carr, of how he’d gone to London to bring his wife home from an affair with an English baron. Of how she’d come. Of how they played the happy couple at her blue supper.

  I looked wildly at William, and then at Victor, who continued to stand silently. Why had he said nothing? “I won’t do this,” I said. “I won’t go tonight. I can’t.”

  Victor said, “Lucy, do as he asks.”

  William said sarcastically, “Yes, Lucy, listen to Victor. Do as he tells you. How well he controls you. Better than your own husband. Tell me, Victor, did you summon her to your bed, or did she come of her own accord?”

  Victor looked away.

  “I trusted you, you bastard.” William’s control looked as if it might snap. Then he struggled, his teeth clenched; he calmed himself.

  I felt sick. “William, please, don’t do this. Scream at me if you must. Be angry. Just don’t be this way.”

  “I’ve had enough of passion,” he said. His pale gaze made me shiver; I knew he spoke of me, of what I was, of who I was. “Get dressed for Julia’s supper, Lucy. You look a sight.”

  I turned away, unable to face him or to bear Victor’s stolid acceptance of his fate. I did as he asked; I went to dress for supper.

  By-the-Bay was alight and glorious. The middle of the dining table had been made into a pond that held pink water lilies; everyone said the soft-shell crabs and roasted partridge were sublime, though it was impossible for me to try even a bite. There was plenty of champagne, and William drank more than he usually did so that his cheeks were faintly reddened, and his eyes were glassy with a good humor that held cynicism and pain beneath it.

  He kept me hard by his side most of the night, forcing me to smile, to pretend that all was well, to fight the tension that made me feel ill, that made my head pound. He caught every glance I threw to Victor, who showed no ill effects of this afternoon; he was circulating, smiling, his usual charming self. Desperate for instruction, I wanted to ask him what he wanted of me, what my role should be, but William made sure that such a meeting was impossible. I had no hope of rescue. I was paralyzed by the weight of my future.

  “Victor seems to have enraptured them all,” William whispered to me. He took a great swallow of wine. “You didn’t tell me he’s become the darling of Newport.”

  “Yes,” I said absently. “He’s quite requested.”

  “Why?”

  I nodded toward Victor, who was talking animatedly to Gerald Fister. “He’s worked magic among them. They adore him.” William’s mouth tightened. I said to him, “I’m asking you not to destroy him. I’m begging you.”

  “I’ve given you everything you’ve ever wanted, Lucy, but I’m done with that now.” He frowned, his gaze passing across the room. “What’s going on?”

  I saw that Victor’s magic was happening already, as it always did after supper, when it was quite late, and everyone was too drunk to dance and too awake to go home. Victor would be talking, and someone would find him, touch his arm, whisper into his ear. Across the room two chairs would already be facing each other, ready for the night’s entertainment.

  I saw the touch, the whisper. I saw the chairs set up where the orchestra was packing up their instruments and readying to leave. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. I looked back at Victor to see that he was staring at me, so intently that I looked down, trying to warn him with my inattention. I felt William put his arm around my waist. He staggered a little with the movement; he was quite drunk.

  “What is it?” William asked. “Where are they going?”

  “It’s Victor,” I said, wanting to leave.

  “Victor?”

  “You once asked how he hypnotized me. Now is your opportunity to find out.”

  William frowned but went with all the others, and because he did not release his hold on me, I went too. There was muttering and the growing sound of laughter, of suspense. There were those in this crowd who had just come to Newport and not yet seen Victor’s performance. And it was to be a good one. I saw Victor’s charisma in full force. I wondered how he could be so calm, knowing that everything would be gone tomorrow. That I would be gone.

  He began with Millie, who smiled and giggled nervously, like a girl, as he called her name. She went to the chair and sat, pulling her saffron skirts around her demurely, looking at him expectantly as Victor took the seat before her and held her thumbs in his.

  “I must ask for silence,” he said. I knew these words so well, this performance so intimately. “Complete silence.”

  The crowd went dead. Beside me William went taut. His fingers stiffened against my waist.

  It went as it always had, every move perfect. Millie’s trance, the stiff arm, the pinprick. Victor varied the hallucination, as he sometimes did. This time Millie went to the table, which was being cleared, and moved aside the glasses and silverware as if preparing for bed. Then she crawled onto it and lay down, pulling up imaginary blankets, fluffing nonexistent pillows. When he woke her, she heard a flute on the porch.

  William was astounded. “Is this what he does to you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Leonard Ames, dancing attendance on Alma, was next. William watched with unease. Finally I felt him snap. His hand tightened on my arm as he pulled me from the crowd. His voice was clipped when he said, “We’re going home.”

  I could not stop him. He was an immovable force, and he took me from that room as if I were a child. The others were too enraptured by Victor to notice our absence. I could only stumble after my husband, who jerked me so relentlessly that my arm felt wrenched from its socket. “William,” I said. “William, please.”

  But he did not slow as he took me from the room and down the hall out to the porch. He bit off an instruction to the servant to fetch the carriage.

  “I don’t understand.” I grabbed William’s arm to stop him. “What happened? I don’t understand.”

  He shook off my arm as if he couldn’t stand my touch. “Is that how he does it?” William spat. “Does he control you so easily? My God, they were like puppets. Puppets! And you’re the worst of them.”

  I wanted to cry. What was happening now, it was not real, it couldn’t be real. “Don’t be absurd, William. He—”

  “He’s like a god in there, creating people. I was right. Damn it, look what he’s done to you.” William nearly sho
ved me into the carriage. He put his fist to the ceiling, and we were off. I huddled in the corner until we were at Seaward. When we went into the house, William took my arm and yanked me up the stairs, and I was so miserable and confused that I let him. I said nothing when he propelled me through the door of our bedroom and slammed it shut behind us. Even when I realized how he planned to punish me, I did not fight him.

  “Did he spend the night with you in our bed?” he asked me, pushing me back upon the mattress, tugging off his coat, jerking upon his collar.

  I turned my face away from him.

  “How long has it been going on, my sweet angel? How long have you been his whore?”

  He was on me. He shoved up my skirts, and I lay there, numb and still, and let him. He was naked—I had felt him that way only once before, on our wedding night.

  He muttered more, other obscenities, so wretched and horrible that I stopped hearing him. I could not even feel him. When he was finished, he lay there for a moment longer, covering me, and then he left. I did not hear him or know where he had gone. I moved my head and felt a warm wetness on the pillow beside me. His tears, I realized in a slow burn of regret. My own eyes were dry.

  Notes from the Journal of Victor Leonard Seth

  It is over. My experiment with Eve is over. Her husband has removed her from my care, and I find that I have no choice but to relinquish her. Dear God, to lose her this way . . .

  I tell myself it is for the best: I have done the research required for my paper; I have no doubt that when I present it to the Neurology Association this fall, it will receive the accolades it deserves. And it is best to withdraw from her now, before I begin to question my motives in keeping her. I must ask myself why I continued to work with her when I had succeeded in doing what I set out to do. I have felt desperate at the thought of losing her, and my rational mind says this should not be so. She is a patient, nothing more. My worries these last days, when I have felt her questioning, beginning to withdraw; when I have seen suspicion in her eyes, suspicion planted by her friends, by the man who calls himself her husband—suspicion of me, who has saved her!—I have not been myself. She remains my creature. And yet perhaps I did not completely see. Experiments flourish best in a controlled environment, and Eve’s environment is not within my hands.