by Susanna Ives
“I admit I laughed behind your back.” Tears dripped down her cheeks. “There. I wrote those stories using your name and then I would change it to the sultan before I gave it to the publisher. I didn’t know you. I didn’t know I would fall in love with you. You wanted to find me a husband. But I…I wanted to…this is hard to explain… I wanted to know something true. I wanted to love a man for his lovely spirit. And it was you. And I couldn’t see it all those years. I was ashamed. So I redeemed the sultan in the next chapter.”
“Now I need redeeming,” he quipped ruefully as she rummaged through her wardrobe. She returned to him, holding pages. There was his Colette in Lilith’s handwriting. The evidence was damning. Colette, the fictional lady who had taken him from his troubles all these months, who articulated his emotions, mocked him. He was a big, dumb joke.
“You are just brilliant,” he whispered, broken. His father would be ashamed at his weakness. “Go to Lord Charles. You belong together.” He tossed the pages on the bed.
“But we’re engaged—”
“As you aptly pointed out, the false me is responsible. The real me…” Of course he would marry her. He had given her his word and now he was trapped in this painful joke. All his life, his strivings, reduced to a silly character on a page for the amusement of others. It wasn’t the false George who turned and headed for the door.
“That’s right, leave.” Her cold tones stopped his progress. “I should’ve known better than to love you. How foolish I am. I should have thought, So he drew a few pictures as a boy? So what? He’s a Maryle. He will leave. He speaks of loyalty, yet he has none when it comes to me, a lowly, scorned Dahlgren who doesn’t merit loyalty.”
He turned, his temples throbbing. Lilith’s eyes were dark and shiny as wet obsidian.
“For every so-called scrape you pulled me from,” she spat, “for every penny of my own money that I had to beg for, I was told how irresponsible and addle-minded I was. How I burdened you. I was never good enough for you or this family. I do not say this out of feeling pity for myself. I merely can’t explain why I spent my entire young life being hidden away.”
“You misunderstand.”
“No, I do not,” she fired back. “You did not want me at this party. This annual house party. It is by the trickery of Lord Charles that I am here. Even in our betrothal…” Her voice thinned to a high, brittle pitch. “You made contingencies on our marriage that I behave, meaning if I wasn’t me.” She clutched the thin fabric over her heart. “And do you want to know the truth?”
“There’s more?”
“The truth is, you came to my parties because you had to. Because deep down, you wanted to belong to my world. I know that now. You didn’t come to scold me. You came because you needed to be there. Don’t deny it.”
How naked he felt under her penetrating gaze. “Enough of your artist mumbo jumbo! I certainly don’t need your silly artist friends and your ramshackle mode of living.”
“Just go, then! How stupid I was to think things could change. How stupid I was to give myself to you because you drew a few pictures.” She screamed the last words.
“For God’s sake.” He flung up his arms. “Of course I’m going to marry you. I have to. I gave you my word. You couldn’t honestly believe that I would leave you. ”
She laughed through her tears. “What a lovely marriage this will be. I’m another responsibility and duty. Maybe you can give me a separate house, so you won’t have to see me. I can beg for money every month during my allotted fifteen minutes. It will be the way it was before. Wasn’t that wonderful? I…I…” The mocking tone drained from her words. Her body convulsed with sobs. “I wanted a true home. Where I was wanted. I thought you would g-give—”
“Lilith.” He grabbed her gown from the bed and draped it over her shoulders. “Get dressed and come down to the ball. We will pretend that nothing happened and then we will talk. Calmly.”
He tried to cup her chin in his hand and draw her gaze to his face. But she resisted. “I’m sorry. I’m not so good at pretending.”
“Really?” He gave a snortlike chuckle. “Because you pretended for pages and pages.”
She lowered her head. Her gown fell, puddling on the floor by her feet. He felt like an arse for being cruel. There was enough pain already.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Please come down.” He had to stop the shedding of further emotional blood. “We will find a way through.”
Tears rolled down her face, dripping off her chin. Her sadness muted his anger. He wished this moment had never happened and he had remained in ignorance. He gently brushed away a teardrop with the pad of his thumb. He said her name, savoring the rush of air over his tongue.
In a quick motion, she clasped her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his coat. He shuddered and drew her snug, trying to keep her from floating away in the fast, invisible current of their pasts that rushed through the room, toppling the present. He didn’t want to go to the damn ball, try to influence that bloody bill anymore, or dance politely with each of the ladies. He had grown so weary of his life. It streamed out before him—a sun-faded sand color, cracking from the dryness. He clutched her tighter and bitterly reflected on the cruel paradox that the woman who could cut him the deepest was the only one who could soothe away the pain. “We’ll find a way through,” he said again.
For a long minute they said nothing, but held each other. Finally, he had to pull away. He couldn’t shrink from what needed to be done.
His rational mind began clicking along. “Let me go down first. I’m not sure what Lord Charles has told everyone. I’ll try to smooth any damage before you arrive.”
She nodded and said something too quiet to be heard.
He wanted to kiss those lips again. Get lost in them. Allow their bodies to balm the hurt. Instead, he forced himself to turn and slip out of her chamber.
He cut through the traffic in the corridors to his study and paced, giving himself some time to strategize.
* * *
Lilith stared at the closed door for a long time. Her life had been beautiful for a few hours. She should have known better and not attached herself so strongly. He had once asked her if she wanted love in a marriage and she had said no. That was when she thought love, the beautiful ethereal kind of love she desired, was too much to ask for. She didn’t expect that she would ever find something so precious. But she had and it had ruined her. She could not enter into a marriage with George who did not return her love with the same fierce desire and need. Nor could she keep George from loving another with the profound depth that she loved him.
She must take to the road again. Another painful good-bye.
She gathered the pages, the lovely chapter in which she had redeemed the sultan, and stacked them on the commode. She carefully hung up her ball gown, smoothing the delicate pale gold fabric. Then she sat at the writing desk, her Keats by her arm, and penned a letter.
Twenty-one
The second George stepped into the ballroom, he realized that Lord Charles had blabbed to everyone. He could feel it as sure as a coming rainstorm.
His mother assailed him. “My dear Lord Marylewick,” she said with hollow politeness and gave one of her tinkling laughs. “I’m sure Lilith isn’t feeling well and must stay in her room.” She seized his arm, lowering her voice. “Else I might put my fingers around her darling neck and choke her.” As she uttered this vitriol she gave a little finger wave to one of the guests. A sign that nothing was wrong. The Marylewick world was as wretchedly perfect and pleasant as ever.
George glanced around. Everyone peeked curiously at him while trying to feign polite disinterest. Then the room appeared to shift in his eyes. The detail turned to rushes of color and splotches, illuminated in the light falling from the chandelier. He stared, transfixed by the stunning image.
“George, tell me it isn’t true.
Lilith would never play such a cruel joke.” Penelope appeared at his side with Fenmore trailing behind her.
“She’s a saucy minx to make a hay game of you,” her husband said, lurid admiration in his drunken voice.
“Of course that little monster did,” his mother replied. “All—”
“It was a joke between Lilith and me all along,” George cut in, unable to bear his mother’s nasty jibes a second longer. “I want you to tell everyone that.” He recoiled at how similar to his parents he sounded, glossing over an ugly truth. He wanted to live with integrity and dignity, not with the veneer of them. “Let me get through this first dance,” he muttered and turned to face the ballroom.
The room continued to swim in his vision, a whirling, teeming sea of color, energy, and light. He wanted to capture this moment on a canvas and show it to Lilith. Lilith. The thought of her made him angrier, but not at her. At this damn ball, Lord Charles, the bloody bill, and at these images he couldn’t get out of his head. Paintings waiting to be painted. Why did she have to write those stories when he only desired to lose himself in her body again? He forced himself to keep moving forward, one step and then the next, smiling politely. He had to think about England’s future.
He bowed before Lady Cornelia’s father. “May I ask your daughter’s hand for the first dance?”
Panic seized Cornelia’s features.
“She would be honored,” replied her father. He clasped Cornelia’s arm and tugged her forward.
She appeared like the frightened virgin of some indigenous people, about to be sacrificed at the yearly ritual to appease the harvest gods.
“A-are you really the sultan?” she stammered as he escorted her to the floor. Something about her high, girlish voice and vacuous eyes made him want to answer, Of course—apart from the times you’ve see me, I live in the sixteenth century, wear a caftan and turban, and maintain a large harem of highly intelligent, cultured women who live to pleasure my body and mind. I merely pretend to be a marquess and go to Parliament as a diversion. The life of an evil, murderous sultan can be so tedious. Instead he replied in cool tones, “’Tis an old joke between Miss Dahlgren and me.”
She tried to smile. However, his explanation didn’t entirely wipe away the fear in her eyes that George might somehow contrive to murder her on the dance floor.
Other couples came forward to dance. Fenmore, staggering from inebriation, led Penelope. She glanced at George as if to say help me!
Lord Charles, escorting Miss Pomfret, brushed George’s shoulder. “How are those wedding plans, old boy?” he muttered low enough for only George to hear.
George’s hands balled. Black rage burned in his heart and contracted his muscles. His dance partner made a frightened squeak. For God’s sake, woman! He glanced toward the door, hoping to see Lilith in all her creamy loveliness. Yet the threshold was empty. Where was she? He needed her.
The music began and the dancers swayed to the first steps of a waltz.
George’s eyes blurred with the colors of the dancers’ clothes—black, white, gold, rose, and blue, all bathed in the chandelier’s light. He forced himself to concentrate on the dance rhythm. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three.
Charles swept near again. “Where, oh where is your intended?” he quietly taunted as George spun Cornelia. “Clearly, it’s true love.”
George almost missed securing Cornelia’s waist. The ballroom transformed to splotches of angry color, like black and red paint tossed onto a canvas. Like the painting he’d created after the robin eggs were smashed. He needed Lilith. She understood what was happening. She knew him. He glanced toward the threshold only to see a servant entering, hoisting a platter of wine glasses.
Charles waltzed close again, his eyes shining with malicious, mocking blue light as when he was George’s childhood torturer. “I may vote on your little bill after all. I may—”
Charles couldn’t finish because a fist—George’s—had smashed his vicious mouth, silencing him. George wasn’t sensible of what happened until after the fact. He remembered his muscles flexing, fist flying forward, and knuckles hitting teeth, all the while shouting “To hell with that bloody bill.”
Charles was flung away from his partner, stumbling backward into the center of the floor. A drop of vivid red blood oozed from the side of his mouth, contrasting with his fair looks. Gasps resounded. George knew he should feel shock or remorse, but not the sheer exhilaration pulsing through his veins.
Charles charged. George didn’t flinch but leaned in with anticipation. Every morning he’d spent in the boxing parlor made it all rote. George easily deflected the oncoming punch and then rammed his fist into Charles’s ribs. George braced for a jab to his chin; a more seasoned fighter would have made such a move, but Charles was not as nimble or potent as his vicious words. He left himself unguarded for George to deliver another blow to the gut. Charles dangled on George’s fist and then crumpled to the floor.
The orchestra stopped with an ugly flat note of the French horn. An electrified silence crackled in the air, broken only by Lady Cornelia, who cried “He is the sultan” and fled to her father’s protective embrace.
George stared at Charles, who lay huddled, clutching his belly. George wanted to growl, Get up and fight through the pain. But Charles couldn’t follow through his flimsy cruelty with real strength. His facade ripped away, Charles was as substanceless and cowardly as George’s father had been.
The Duke of Cliven rushed onto the floor. “Son! My son, are you well?” he cried, as if Charles were nine and had tumbled from a tree. “Speak to me.”
Charles rolled over, cradling his bleeding face. “You bloody cove!” he hissed at George.
Lady Marylewick materialized in the center of the scene. The tightness around her forced smile and fluttering eyes formed a grotesque picture. “Ha, ha, ha,” she said lightly. “How very funny. Men roughhousing like little boys. Come, let’s all dance again. Play the music. Play it! What a darling little jest it all was. Just darling. But it’s over.”
“Darling?” Charles quipped. “He attacked me.” Charles came to his feet with his father’s aid. “Find another supporter for your ridiculous bill,” he told George. “I’ve grown weary of you, as has all of Parliament.”
“Lord Marylewick, you will answer for yourself!” warned the duke. “You shame this nation, the prime minister, the Tory party.” He paused for dramatic effect, dropping his voice to a low, gravelly tone. “And your late father.”
Wasn’t George supposed to be ashamed for dishonoring his father? But the duke’s words rested as heavy on his conscious as baby-bird feathers.
“Now, now,” cried Lady Marylewick. “It was merely a tiny misunderstanding. Everything is…is…perfect.” She glanced desperately about. Finding no one who shared her view, she turned to her daughter. “Penelope, look happy.”
Penelope bit her lip and began to shake her head. “I’m not happy.”
“Yes, you are,” retorted his mother. “You are perfectly content. Stop talking nonsense. Everyone is content. Perfectly, perfectly content.”
Penelope looked at George. Pain in her eyes. “I want…I want a divorce.” The words seemed to burst from her mouth, as if she couldn’t silence them any longer.
Another gasp rippled through the crowd.
“You can’t divorce me,” barked Fenmore. “A proper wife can’t divorce her husband. Tell her, Lord Marylewick. She’s embarrassing me.”
George began to pivot, taking in all the silent faces contorted in horror. Laughter began to flow through him like a spring breaking through the earth. England’s big, dumb joke, the plodding, starchy George was the sinister villain. Who would have thought? He had done something truly terrible and his bill was destroyed, his house party was in ruins, the secrets of his family exposed for everyone to see. All the things he fought so hard to maintain were crashing down, b
ecoming gossip fodder for people he never really liked nor admired anyway. He should care, but he didn’t. He should be on his knees apologizing; instead he just laughed, the weight of years flowing off his shoulders.
“Yes, she can,” George choked through his mirth. “She can certainly divorce you, Fenmore. Good God, I would divorce such a faithless rogue. She’s been the best wife she could and now she can live the life she wants. That’s right, Penelope, my dear, don’t look happy, be happy. There is a huge difference, you see.”
Penelope burst into tears that transformed to wild laughter. She rushed to her brother and he wrapped her into his arms. He could hear the whispers around him. He realized that his guests didn’t understand the liberation he felt. They would only censure him, but he didn’t care what they thought anymore. All his fears, the things he thought so important and weighed on his mind, scattered like dandelion seeds in the wind. All that was left was what was true.
“Lilith Dahlgren!” his mother screamed, losing any semblance of propriety. “This is her work. She has ruined this family. This is all she ever wanted.”
“No,” George said. “She never wanted to destroy this family. She wanted to be a part of it. She only desired to be…” Loved. And he, too, had withheld it from her out of his own fears. “Oh, God. I am the sultan.”
He had to get back to her. His Colette.
He clasped Penelope’s hand and they rushed from the room.
Behind him, he heard someone clapping and then Lord Harrowsby said, “By Jove, a wonderful house party this year. The best I’ve ever attended.”
* * *
George slipped through his betrothed’s door, ready to take her in his arms and tell her the words I love you.
But her chamber was empty. On the commode, a letter with his name on the envelope waited atop a stack of papers. He could hear the roar of his own blood in his ears.
