by Sandra Heath
“Those are reasons in my favor, Nicholas,” she said quietly. “But what is in your favor? What will you gain if the marriage continues?”
“I will have a wife who has proved herself more than equal to the task of being mistress of this house. The arrangement works and will continue to work, to the detriment, as I see it, of neither side.”
She stared at him. Had he expressed an eagerness to part he could not have hurt her more. What he spoke of was still little more than the marriage of convenience it already was; it was a business agreement that had proved itself to be acceptable to him. There was no suggestion that he wished them to stay together because he felt affection for her—they merely did well together, no more. He said that she would lack for nothing—except the one thing she craved more than anything else—his love.
“That is how I feel about it, Laura,” he went on. “But whatever my reasons, my wishes are plain enough—I will not agree to the ending of our marriage.” You will not go to him, for you are mine, mine….
She felt close to tears suddenly. He would be her husband and yet he would not. It was everything—and nothing! Unable to bear being close to him, she got up, the book she had been reading earlier tumbling to the floor as she hurried from the room.
Her flight made the candles leap and dance, and Nicholas slowly bent to retrieve the book. Wearily he sat on the sofa, lounging back with seeming gracefulness, but really with no more than extreme weariness. This day had almost done with him now, and it had brought him to the limit of his endurance. The web of murder and intrigue that had surrounded him was almost too heinous to contemplate, but it was the thought of losing Laura that now preoccupied him and took him to the edge of that limit.
He glanced at the book she had been reading. The Merchant of Venice…. But whose casket would this modern Portia choose? Her lover’s? Or that of the husband whose damned pride prevented him from confessing his great love?
* * *
The sound of the carriage that would shortly convey Augustine and her mother away from King’s Cliff for the last time aroused Laura from a shallow sleep. The gray of dawn filled the room as she sat up. The thoughts that had been with her when she had at last fallen asleep were with her again now. Where she had had two courses open to her, she now had three. She could go, as planned, to Lady Mountfort. She could decide in Daniel’s favor. Or she could remain at King’s Cliff with Nicholas. But now, with dawn, it was so much clearer to her. Life without Nicholas, knowing all the time that she could have stayed with him, could not easily be contemplated. Being with him was all that really mattered, even on the terms he had presented to her the night before.
She got out of the bed and drew on her wrap, her decision made once and for all. She would write to Daniel and tell him that she could not leave Nicholas. Maybe her decision would prove in the end to be the wrong one, for would she not find herself in the very thankless, untenable position she had described as Daniel’s were she to go to him? She was now guilty of doing with Daniel exactly what Daniel had wished her to do with himself—but the loveless existence she chose was with Nicholas. Having a small portion of Nicholas was infinitely to be preferred to having nothing of him at all. Had the vibrancy of her love been directed at Daniel instead, how much happier the conclusion might have been, but that was not meant to be, and so she would settle for a lesser existence, so near to the object of her love, and yet so far away too.
She carried the lighted candlestick into the library and placed it upon the escritoire where over the past weeks she had sat for such long hours. The soft light glowed on the books and on the shadowy gallery above. She sat down, took a sheet of paper, and began to write.
Daniel,
My life here can only be unrewarding in the way I seek most deeply, and yet I cannot come to you. My love remains true, as I have always told you.
Laura
She laid the quill down and read the letter. It was too distant, too impersonal, and she owed Daniel far more courtesy than that. Pushing the first letter aside, she took a fresh sheet and began again.
My dearest Daniel.
I have considered most deeply what I must do and can come to only one conclusion. Life with Nicholas, no matter how unrewarding, is infinitely to be preferred to life without him. I can only love him with all my heart and soul, and so my words already must have informed you that I shall stay with him. I know that you love me, and I am honored, but my own honor would be removed if I went with you when my heart remains in this house with him. Forgive me, and try to understand. Make that new life for yourself, and you will find someone who will give you that which you deserve and which I can only deny you. God be with you.
Laura
* * *
Augustine had been wandering slowly from room to room, still escorted by a footman, but at least Nicholas had relented enough to allow her to look one last time around the house that had meant everything to her. Her eyes were dry now; she could weep no more. She had tossed the dice and lost. A numb sense of disbelief still filled her. Only yesterday she had been sure of victory, and sure of Nicholas too, but now it was all gone, slipping through her helpless fingers like sand. Too late she had realized that she loved him, for that one enchanted day in Venice had seen his heart given to Laura. Augustine smiled ironically, for she had sadly underestimated her opponent. She had been cold, calculating, and cruel, and she had been so very blind. Ambition, greed, and vanity had ruled her, making her cleave unwillingly to James Grenville. The gaining of King’s Cliff had taken precedence over all other considerations, and now she paid the heavy price of her sins.
She made hardly a sound as she walked, feasting her eyes on the beloved rooms and passages, consigning each gilded sun in splendor to her memory, for memories would be all she would have. Memories of the paintings that had been old Sir Jasper’s pride and joy, memories of the chair where the Prince Regent had once fallen asleep after too much cherry brandy, and memories of the library where once Nicholas had asked her to consider being his wife….
She stood by the door to the gallery now. It was ajar and she pushed it open, stepping silently inside to breathe the perfume of the books once more. The footman waited respectfully outside.
Augustine’s hands rested on the balcony, and she looked down. Laura sat at the escritoire, looking at a letter she had just completed. It was a short letter and was obviously not satisfactory, for it was discarded and another begun in its place. Augustine stood there in absolute silence, watching the woman she hated more than anyone else in the world. She watched Laura at last complete her letter to Daniel, sadly fold it, hold the sealing wax to the flame, and seal it. Her skirts rustled a little as she got up and left the library.
Augustine glanced out at the footman, but his attention was distracted by one of the prettier maids. Augustine did not hesitate; she descended the spiral staircase and sat immediately at the escritoire, taking up the quill as if she was about to write. Should the unwary footman realize his mistake, he would see only that she had apparently decided to write a farewell note. In reality, however, she was intent upon reading Laura’s discarded letter, for she had seen to whom the other letter had been addressed—Daniel Tregarron. Seeing Laura again had, in the end, sent all thought of accepting the blame for her own misdeeds fleeing from Augustine’s head. It was all Laura’s fault; she was the cause of everything going wrong; she had somehow won those things which Augustine had sought so urgently for herself—this house and its master.
Now Augustine read the short note, wanting more than anything to find that it could be used as the final weapon to drive Nicholas apart from his wife. Her eyes began to gleam in that malevolent way Laura would have recognized only too well. Her gaze was concentrated on seven words in particular: and yet I cannot come to you. How simply those words could be altered, giving them the opposite meaning. Dipping the quill carefully in the ink, she dropped two blobs on the paper. Now it read: and I can come to you.
Satisfied, she read the whole l
etter again. Yes, now it appeared that Laura fully intended to go to Daniel Tregarron, and that was exactly what Nicholas would think if he read it. She folded it and held the sealing wax to the candle Laura had unwittingly left behind.
The footman ran on to the gallery, a surge of relief passing over him as he saw his charge addressing a letter. She smiled innocently up at him. “I have written a farewell message to Sir Nicholas. Would you be so kind as to give it to him when I have left?”
He descended the staircase and took the letter.
“Remember now,” she said, “When I have left, not before.”
“Yes, Miss Townsend.”
A cruelly short time later, Augustine and her mother emerged from the house and descended the steps to the waiting carriage.
There were no lines of servants to watch their departure; there was no ceremony at all. Augustine climbed into the carriage and sat next to her white-faced mother. The door was slammed on them. She gazed out at King’s Cliff, struggling with the tumultuous grief that engulfed her now that the final moment was upon her. King’s Cliff. Her house. Her house. The whip cracked and the carriage drew away.
* * *
Daniel took the letter Mrs. Thompson held out to him. “It’s just been brought from King’s Cliff, Doctor,” she said, glancing curiously at it and wishing she could know what it contained.
“Thank you, Mrs. Thompson.” He waited until she had gone before breaking the seal, and he needed only to read a few words to know that he had failed to win her. Oh, Laura, my love, my dearest and only love…. He closed his eyes, crushing the paper slowly and letting it fall to the floor.
“You won after all, Nicholas,” he murmured, “You won.”
* * *
Laura sat before the dressing table, her hair crackling as Kitty drew the brush through it. The running footman had taken the letter to Daniel over an hour earlier and he would have received it by now. She had chosen her destiny. Soon she would dress to go down to the first breakfast of her new life, the first of many such meals taken in the company of the man she longed for but who wished only to have a business arrangement with her. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror, but there was no joy in the pale face that looked back at her.
Suddenly the door was flung open and Nicholas entered the room. His eyes were bright and there was a bitter rage in his every gesture as he peremptorily ordered Kitty from the room. The frightened maid did not hesitate to obey, closing the door quickly behind her.
Slowly Laura rose to her feet, her eyes wide. “Nicholas?”
“You seem to be under the misapprehension that you can still do as you please! You are to remain here, and it is time you accepted that fact!”
“I don’t understand—”
“You are not going to your damned lover! Tregarron will not have you!”
“Daniel isn’t my lover!” she cried, her own anger stirring now. “He never has been and he never will be!”
“Allow me a little more intelligence than that, madam! You and he have been lovers almost since your arrival here—the whole of Somerset rings with it.”
“Then the whole of Somerset is wrong!”
“Do you deny that he wishes you to go to America with him?”
“No.”
“Do you deny that he wishes you to become his wife?”
“No.”
“Then he must have some cause to expect your compliance, madam. You and he are lovers; you have been seen together in circumstances which were incriminating to say the least!”
“Incriminating?”
“Lying in each other’s arms in Langford Woods!”
She stared at him. “That was not what it appeared, Nicholas. I swear to you that it wasn’t.”
“Next you will tell me that this letter is not what it appears to be, a billet-doux from you to your lover!”
She looked at the letter he held out to her. “I—I do not deny that I wrote it, but I would have thought its meaning was quite obvious. I do not intend to go to Daniel, even though I admit that he wishes me to. He loves me but I do not return that love.”
“Dear God, you astound me! Am I supposed to be half-witted? The letter is perfectly plain to me; it expresses your intention to go to him.”
Slowly she took it from him, lowering her eyes to the familiar writing. She saw immediately what had been done and she knew whose hand lay behind it. She looked at him for a long moment, trying to understand his motives, but there were too many contradictions. “Nicholas,” she said at last, “How long have you believed that Daniel has been my lover?”
“What has that to do with it?”
“To me a great deal.”
“A matter of weeks.”
“Weeks? And believing that you still wish me to remain your wife? Last night you spoke of an arrangement between us, which can only be described as a business contract. I am a business partner you believe to have dishonored you, to have betrayed you in such a way that it is simply not logical to wish to maintain that contract. Why do you not gladly cast me off, Nicholas?”
He looked away, still unable to tell her the truth.
“Nicholas, I spoke the truth when I said that Daniel had never been my lover but he would have been had he had his way.”
“He told me quite frankly that he had.”
She stared at him. “Then he told you a lie. Oh, Nicholas, why are you so willing to believe ill of me? I have never deserved it, for I have never failed you in anything except that I could not make you love me.”
He looked swiftly at her, his eyes changing, but she did not see, for she had decided at last to confess everything to him. She walked away, standing by the window to look out over the park toward Sedgemoor.
“I wrote that letter to Daniel, but then thought it too brief and distant. Whatever you may think of him, I have a fondness for him, in spite of the fact that I now realize he was guilty of allowing certain untruths to occur. He alone made my days here pleasant, for he was charming, attentive, good company, and above all he could make me smile when but for his presence I would have wept. The letter has been tampered with; I suspect by Augustine, for she alone would have good reason to wish to make its meaning change. And you do exactly as she wishes, Nicholas, for you believe what is there now, not what I originally wrote. My life here with you will be unrewarding for me in the way which means most to me, for I will always be denied your love. I want a marriage of desire and passion, I want to be your sweetheart and your mistress as well as your wife. I want to fall asleep each night in your arms and wake up there in the mornings. I want all of you, Nicholas, not just an empty contract which places me beneath your roof but not in your bed. I want to bear your children, not content myself with inspecting estate ledgers. I married you because I loved you, you were always the husband I would have chosen for myself, and it is because I still love you that I decided to accept what you offered yesterday, hollow though that cheerless offer was. But now, after you have misunderstood that letter and once again chosen to think the very worst of me, I cannot face going on with this marriage without telling you the whole truth and risking your undoubted scorn. Everything must be stated here and now—you must face the fact that I love you and wish to be far, far more than the woman who just happens to bear your name due to a quirk of fate in Venice.”
It was as if his ears deceived him, for she was saying the words he had so longed to hear. He gazed at her as she stood by the window, her long dark hair falling around her shoulders, the silhouette of her slender figure visible through the flimsy wrap. “Oh, Laura,” he whispered, “If only you knew….”
She turned. “After all I’ve said, do you still wish me to remain here?” He saw the unshed tears in her eyes as he went to her, taking her face gently in his hands and brushing his lips over hers. “Can’t you see?” he whispered. “Can’t you understand why I will not let you go? I want you to stay because I love you, and I have loved you since that day in Venice. I have hurt you because I believed you hurt me
. I was consumed with jealousy and bruised pride because I believed you gave to Daniel Tregarron that which I so craved myself. I cannot bear to think of life without you, and I feel for you all the desire and passion you say you seek.”
An unbelievable joy sang through her. Her lips moved to say his name, but she could not speak, and then his arms were around her, holding her close as he kissed her, and the kiss was no gentle brushing of his lips over hers; it burned with all the emotion that had been pent up for so long and that now found so sweet a release….
There were tears on her cheeks, but they were tears of happiness. His eyes were dark as he looked at her. “I have been a tardy bridegroom, my love,” he said softly. “But I am about to put that failing right. This marriage is no makeshift affair, no mere business contract, I promise you. It is a love match, as I shall prove to you now. By God shall I prove it to you!”
Copyright © 1983 by Sandra Heath
Originally published by Signet (ISBN 9780451122681)
Electronically published in 2015 by Belgrave House/Regency
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.
