by Lavinia Kent
“I am not sure, but you were coming with me even before you made your enjoyment of my company clear.”
Tristan walked away from the window. He took a sip of the cup of chocolate the maid had left for her. “It’s gone cold. Come, let me call your maid. The park is beautiful at this hour.”
What was he hiding? They had the most honest and forthright of relationships, but then he would refuse to answer the most ridiculous of questions. She tapped her toe in frustration. “If you are determined to show me the park at dawn I would rather walk.”
“It is hardly dawn and the whole point is that I would like to ride with you.”
“It is getting warm. I would rather walk.” Did she sound like a petulant child?”
“Nonsense. I chose to ride so early partially to avoid the heat.” He turned to her, finally. “Come ride with me.”
Marguerite pressed a hand to her belly. This was the moment. It was not at all the way she had planned to tell him. “I cannot.”
“Cannot? Not will not?”
“I cannot go riding. It is unsafe for a woman in my condition.”
“I will feel a fool if I parrot everything you say, but ‘your condition’?” He took a step towards her.
“I am with child.”
“You are mistaken.”
That was hardly the response she had anticipated. Still, it was not unreasonable given their history. “I did not want to tell you until I was sure. I visited Dr. Howe yesterday. This time there is no mistake.”
It was likely watching a man turn to ice. His eyes shown back at her like mirrors, reflecting all, revealing nothing. “I do not wish a child. I do not plan on having them. Why do you think I withdraw from you at the end, let my seed spill across your belly?” He turned and walked to the door. He stopped with his hand on the handle. Marguerite held her breath. He turned the handle with a quick snap and walked out into the hallway.
She heard his footsteps walk down the hall and descend the stairs. There was no hurry in his step, each one was calm and deliberate.
She stood for a moment, frozen, her hands still pressed to her belly. The sun began to pour in the window, but it held no warmth.
They had the most honest and forthright of relationships. Hah. Was she back at the beginning, alone in a world that wanted neither her nor her child? A man who used her own ignorance against her? She had never questioned his actions, taken them as merely a normal part of intimacy.
The horse’s hooves clattered from below. She walked to the window and watched the horses being led back into the stable. No one would ride this morning.
She felt numb to the core. She sat in a chair by the empty fire, staring at the blackened grate. How could this have happened? She looked at her fingers. A heavy ruby ring lay on one of them. Tristan had given it to her, not at their wedding, but later. He had smiled up at her, his head resting on the pillows of her bed and pulled it out from beneath a pillow. He had not said anything at the time, but she thought his eyes had spoken for him. They had told stories of caring and of promises for the future. He had lied.
She started to count the mosaic marble tiles that made up the border of the hearth. Four green Irish marble, two pink Tuscan – no, she would not be distracted. She pushed up from her chair. Emotions returned and they were not gentle ones.
He had no right to tell her now that he had not planned on children. Where had he been almost every night for the last months? In her bed, in her arms, in her body – no matter what he now told her. If he had not wanted children he should have told her before.
She knew she was still ignorant of much of what went on between the sexes, but she had heard enough laughter over tea, and whispers between the other married women to know that there were things that could be done when a child was not desired – French letter, sheaths, sponges and oil, and, of course, withdrawal. Gads, she was an idiot. She had heard all of them mentioned in undertone that had left her splotchy with color and eager to avoid the conversation, but she had never put them together with Tristan’s actions. And, he had certainly never even mentioned them.
She paced back and forth across the room, twice, her arms swinging by her side. Did he think she would go off to the country by herself? Take that trip to Glynwolde that had they had never taken together? If that was his plan, he was mistaken. The season might be ending, but their marriage was not – neither in name nor actuality.
He had wanted this marriage, forced it even – for his own purposes that he had never seen fit to disclose to her. She might have lured him to her bed, but he had certainly come willingly, eagerly even. If he had wanted to avoid children he should have told her. A man could not lie with a woman for over two months, smile at her, tease her, shower her with the sweetest kisses – and then – oh no, he could not and if her stupid beast of a husband thought he could he had no more – he had no more sense that the rump of that great black beast he rode around upon.
She spun, her skirts billowing out behind her, marching down the hall, and following the path she had heard his footsteps take. He had made her believe he cared, made her believe they were a family, made her believe in the magic. He could not take that from her now.
She whirled down the hallways, a frigate caught in a sea squall.
The door to his study was closed. She paused, pulled in one more deep breath, puffed out her chest, thrust back her shoulders, and pushed the door open with out even the slightest rap of a knock.
He sat at his desk, unperturbed, his account books laid out beside him. He held a sheet of paper in his hand. He looked up.
“Is there something I can help you with, my dear?” His voice betrayed not one hint of emotion.
Her sails sagged, the wind knocked out of them, then another gust caught her. She saw the tap of his foot against the edge of the desk, the rake of his fingers through his hair. He was not as calm as he would have her believe.
“I do not care whether you wanted a child or not. The fact is we – and that certainly includes you – are having one. Do you intend to deny the paternity, to claim I have cuckolded you – although I do not know with whom or when?” Marguerite had not even passed the thought before the words came from her mouth.
“No, of course not.” Tristan set down the sheet of paper. He centered it precisely.
“Then I do not understand.” She stepped towards. “I have lost count of the number of times I have said that in the time we have known each other.
He did not smile, not even a quirk at the corner of his mouth. “I would admit to being at fault myself.” Again, he ran a finger through his hair, the golden strands lifted and held. She was reminded of Will. Why was that thought so disquieting?
She turned away, then turned back and planted her feet firmly. She would face this head on. She gazed at him trying to appear cool, although inside she was dying. She waited for him to speak, for once she would play his game.
“I have always been cautious never to father a child. I know I was careless that first night, but ever since –” He stood, the growing light from the window setting his hair aflame.
“Well, that is fine, but the fact remains parenthood is imminent.”
“Things can happen.”
“You do not mean that.” Her hands shook and she hid them in her skirts. Did she know this man at all?
“No, you are right. I do not mean it.” His tone was still measured, but deep in the swirling depths of his eyes there was a bleakness she had never seen. “I do not wish harm to you or – your child.”
“Then why do you say these things? Do you not understand the harm that words can cause?”
“I understand.” Beneath his tan his skin had paled, even his lip looked gray. “Physical injuries can be the least painful.”
“Then why –?”
“I simply have never wished for a child, or maybe never is too long. When I was a boy, even through school, I had the normal images of what my life would be.”
She was empty. She had thought she had felt pain and d
espair months ago when she fled to him, it not compare to what she felt now. Having felt the true magic how could she survive without it? She backed up until her legs hit a chair against the wall, she sank into it. “Then what happened?”
“It is not my story to tell.”
“Do you not think I have the right to know? You deny my child, our child, and think you can say nothing?” She glanced past him, frantically seeking some detail on which to focus her thoughts. There was nothing. The rug – she had examined the pattern before, she could do so again. No. It was hopeless. Her mind could not be stilled.
Tristan moved, and drew her gaze back to him. He went to stand by the window his back to her. “You are right, but it is not easy. I have never spoken of it.” His shoulders drooped forward. “My father died four years ago.”
“I have heard. But –” her voice was only a whisper.
“Let me tell this in my own fashion. I idealized him. He was both kind and firm. He managed the estates, took an active interest in the House of Lords, and still always had time for me. When I was a child he would toss a ball or spend hours leading me around on my pony. He was a man of infinite patience. When I grew older he spent hours discussing my schoolwork, explaining why it was important. He could take the smallest historical fact and explain what relevance it had in the modern world. He encouraged my every endeavor. There could not have been a better father.”
“He sounds wonderful. I never knew my own father.”
“I am sorry for that, but perhaps it would have been easier.” He combed his fingers through his hair again.
“How can you say that?”
“Because it was all a lie,” he sounded frozen. In another man emotion would have grown, in Tristan they seemed to leak from him with each word until there were none left. “He was not my father.”
Marguerite looked up from her hands twisting within her skirts and met Tristan’s gaze as he turned to stare at him. He looked more a statue than a man.
“My mother, Felicity, the darling of society and the one great love of his life, had betrayed him.”
Marguerite could only stare at him blankly.
“I had always known I didn’t look like my father. It did not seem important, even as Peter grew more like him everyday. Many boys didn’t look as their fathers. I was his son, his heir. Even as I grew to manhood I never questioned. Why should I? He continued to groom me to take over his place. All was perfect. I was the perfect son in a perfect family.
“Then he died. He was in perfect health – there is that word again – perfect. He was so alive. He was athletic. He was active. He enjoyed his life to the fullest. I can still remember the night before he died. I had moved into bachelor apartments when I reached my twenty-fifth year. My mother and he had invited me to dinner. He stood at the end of the table – where I now sit every night – and he toasted us all, but in most particular my mother. I will never forget the glow in his eye as he looked at her. It was one of the happiest nights of my life.
“He did not wake in the morning.”
“What happened? How did –?”
“Nobody knows – there was speculation: his heart, a sudden apoplexy, or perhaps he rolled over and smothered against his pillows. I even heard poison suggested – both deliberately or by mistake. The surgeons had no answer.”
“It must have been horrible.”
“That does not even begin to describe it. The center had been ripped from my life. The worst were those who hinted that I should be glad of the title.”
Marguerite rose and walked to him, even in the midst of her own pain his cut her deep. She laid a soft hand upon his shoulder. “I cannot even imagine.”
“I was surviving it, though. Even though all seemed bleak, I had learned to go through one day at a time. There was Peter to be concerned for. He was not yet eighteen and after my father’s death he started to talk of running off to war – the job of a second son and all that. Talking to him, convincing him to stay filled my days. I spent long nights talking to my mother about how to keep him with us.
“She, my mother, never seemed to waver, she offered continual support. I assumed she grieved in quiet, alone when none could see. She never mentioned my father, would in fact leave the room if his name were mentioned. I assumed it hurt too much. I thought she had loved him and could not bear it.”
“That sounds reasonable to me.”
“I thought so too. I worried about her. I had spent some time in the country overlooking the estates, being sure that everything would continue as my father had desired. I could not be at ease, however. I continued to be troubled by mother. I had been hearing disquieting rumors of her behavior. So, I returned to Town unexpectedly – I wanted to be sure she was not in need of comfort and that Peter had not done something stupid.
“I came into this house, to this very room, my father’s room and here I found her – “
“Surely, that is not unexpected.” Marguerite watched as her husband paced the room. She stood still, not sure what aid to offer. He showed no expression, but his movement betrayed his agitation.
He stopped and turned towards her. “She was not alone. I came through the door, eager to see her and found her in the arms of – of,” his voice caught, but he continued, “my gardener. I had never considered the man. I saw him frequently, he was always about, my mother professed a fondness for roses. I had even seen my father talk with him on many occasions. And there he stood, my mother tight in his embrace.”
“I am so sorry.”
“I have not finished. I stood in the doorway frozen, trying to understand what I saw. Then he turned and the light caught his eyes, they burned silver in the afternoon sun. I knew those eyes. I look at them every morning in the mirror. I had watched this man for years, seen him move about the outskirts of my home and never recognized him for who he was. I suddenly knew why I had no resemblance to my father.”
Torment shone clear in every unmoving muscle of his face. He might pretend not to feel, but the very lack of animation betrayed him. Marguerite longed to walk to him to offer him solace, but her own wound was too fresh, too raw.
“What did your mother say?” she asked.
“Do you think I waited for her explanation? She’d clearly told me lies my whole life, my father and me. Do you think I would listen to her now? It’s not like I was alone in my belief. I learned afterwards that there was gossip about them throughout society.” Tristan turned and faced her, his eyes turned deep and story like the swirl of the sea in the midst of a tempest.
“But, if you never let her explain –“
“Explain what? I know what I saw. I have avoided communication with her since that day. I have left balls because she arrived. The only time I wrote to her was after talking with my solicitor.”
“Why?”
“I had wanted to know if the estate and title could be turned over to Peter, no one looking at him could doubt his paternity – my own inquiries revealed there were plenty of rumors of branches in our family tree, even if none would speak of the details.” Tristan picked up an ornament of a shelf. He held it, turning it in his hand.
Marguerite could see the strain in his arm, sense his desire to throw it against wall. She walked over and took wrapping her fingers about the ornament, took it from him and placed it on the table.
He turned a bitter smile to her. “You are right. I destroyed enough when I first knew. It did not help then. It will not help now.” He ran a finger over the ornament. “The answer was ‘no.’ My father had recognized me, delighted in me, I was his son in the eyes of the law. The only way for the entail and title to pass on was through my death. I even considered it.” He lowered his head, and all she could see was the fall of his hair.
Marguerite moved to a chair and sat. Her mind spun with the images of this proud man, not as he was now, but as he must have been four years earlier. At twenty-five he would not have been young, but he must have been less cynical, more open to the world. Tristan had loved his fa
ther greatly, almost worshipped him. What would it have done to him to find this out? He must already have been in such pain from his death. She could not imagine. Her own father had died before she could remember, but she remembered clearly Rose’s reaction when her first husband died, the despair that had followed. And he had been sick, the death not unexpected. What must it be to lose a beloved parent so suddenly? And then to be confronted with this betrayal.
Tristan’s voice drew her from her thoughts. “All this should be Peter’s, by birth and by right.” He gestured with his arm, then picked up the ornament again. This time he held it with great care. “Yes, every small thing should be his.”
Marguerite’s mind careened, taking her back to the first time she had sat before him in this room. “That is why you said it was rumor not fact that paternity was the requirement in having an heir.”
He nodded his head.
“And it is why you do not wish children. You want Peter to inherit it all.” She tapped her fingers together. “Then why marry me knowing my child would be your heir. You would take it all from Peter a second time.”
He started to answer, but she cut him off, “You said that Peter was terrified of your dying and leaving him the estates. He does not want it. That is the irony of the situation, is it not? He might be the true heir, but you are the one with the desire and will to manage it, to take a marquess’s position in society.”
“It is merely that he was not trained to it.”
“You sound as if you try to convince yourself. Peter is a dear man, but he has no more desire for all this than a dog might wish to ride a horse – forgive me I do not mean to compare your brother to dog.”
Tristan did not say anything. He walked behind his desk and sat, his hands flat on the surface in front of him.
Marguerite flattened her own hands on her lap. “You married me so that Peter would be spared the inheritance. I still do not understand why you should be so against having your own child if your brother does not want the title. I do not see how that helps anything.”
Tristan looked away from her. He stared at the bookshelves. Did he count the titles? He certainly seemed distracted as he spoke. “It serves my own sense of justice. In your meetings with my mother surely you have heard her discuss her lineage, her vaulted bloodlines. Do you think I would give her the satisfaction of having what she wants when she has betrayed all? If Peter had wanted it, wanted his children to have it, I would have put that aside. He is without fault in this, but he does not want it and I will not let her win under those circumstances.”
