A Chance to Dream

by Lynne Connolly

  He turned to her, a question in his eyes. “Will you stay with me?”

  She forced herself to shake her head. “No.” The longer she stayed with him, the harder it would be to part. “You know that’s impossible.” He’d helped her make a decision she’d been putting off for some time.

  He drew her to him for a gentle kiss. “It’s not.” He didn’t persist, but turned and carried on walking. Violetta went with him, her heart heavy with foreboding. They would have to part. This was all she could allow herself. Any more and she might break.

  The next morning she woke up in his arms, and thought it might just be perfect before she remembered it was Tuesday. They would have to return to London tomorrow or later today. She saw the same recognition in his eyes when he opened them. Before he could speak she leaned over and kissed him, but he drew away after a gentle salute. “Good morning, sweetheart. Violetta, my only love, will you marry me?”

  She sat bolt upright, tears starting to her eyes. She wanted to pretend she hadn’t heard, but she had. “You know I can’t!”

  “Why not?”

  “Fool!” She wiped the tears away. “You would be ruined, all your investments destroyed, and Lady Perdita too. You might drag the rest of your family with you.” He pulled on her arm to draw her back but she would not go. “I can’t marry you, Orlando.” More tears came, and she didn’t seem to be able to wipe them away fast enough. She sank her head onto her knees, trying to control her emotions. Why did he have to do this?

  “I want you to. I’ve been lying here, thinking, and I can’t see any other way. I want more of you than a casual affair. I need it, Violetta. I need you, I want you fully in my life. Come with me to my estates, help me to restore the land. We need never go near London again, except to visit your mother.”

  She gave a short, derisory laugh that shook into silence. “But they would know. Everyone would know. You can’t marry a whore’s daughter.”

  She might be able to consider life as a respectable female in Italy but not here, not with her mother on the other part of the divide. Her choice was clear. A life in Italy as a member of the respected Palagio family, or a life as La Perla Perfetta, under her mother’s roof. These few days with Orlando had taught her that she was not made for a courtesan’s life. There was only one man for her, and he belonged here, in England. She did not. Perhaps, in time, she could join with another man in partnership and friendship, but never again in love. And not in England.

  The words didn’t stop him, as she had wanted them to. He sat up, reached for her. “I don’t want to marry anyone else.”

  She leaned against his bare shoulder, knowing it was for the last time. She couldn’t allow herself any more time. Today must be the first day of learning to live without him. But if she told him her reasons, he’d reject them. He’d accept ruin for her, negate all he’d worked so hard for and drag the rest of his family into disgrace. She would not accept that. She had to push him away, any way she could. “We can’t marry. You know that, you have to know that. Marry Lady Judith, give her children. You need heirs.”

  “Then at least stay with me. Do that much.”

  She was gaining ground. He was listening to her. He must know, deep down, that it was a dream, impossible to achieve. His arms around her felt warm, comforting, but she couldn’t stay there. “I can’t. I can’t share you. I’m sorry. If I did that I’d be condemning your marriage to failure from the first. Three people would be unhappy, instead of just one.”

  “Two. Two, Violetta. I can’t be entirely happy without you. I love you. It isn’t some juvenile fantasy. I wanted you from the first, thought I was running mad to fancy a plump, bespectacled, dowdy spinster, but my body sensed what my eyes couldn’t see. Before I loved your body I loved your mind, your loyalty to my sister, your cleverness, and your sense of fun, which you only showed occasionally, but it enchanted me. The feeling has only grown. I tried to deny it, truly I did, but I cannot. I want you more than I want anything else.” He kissed her shoulder, moved to her throat, to the place he knew by now drove her wild. She scrunched up so he couldn’t reach it. He sighed and kissed her jaw. “Violetta. My own love, look at me.”

  She lifted her head, not trying to hide her distress. His own face reflected her anguish, not in tears but in terrible pain. His eyes held it, contained it. “We can go abroad, live quietly. Anything, but don’t say no.”

  “No!” she cried, the reiteration strengthening her resolve. “It’s impossible. It would ruin you to marry me. You know that as well as I do. And I can’t share you. Don’t ask me, I just can’t.”

  He held her while she wept, as though he wouldn’t let her go when the time came. Her body, his, melded in anguish as they had melded many times in the last few days in love. Violetta didn’t allow herself the indulgence of weeping past her ability to control it. She lifted her head again, faced him. “We must go back. It’s hard now, but it will get easier. It will, Orlando. But we must not meet again. Not for a long, long time.”

  Mutely he shook his head, refusing to accept her denial. “There must be a way.”

  “There isn’t. I’m La Perla Perfetta, the daughter of the most expensive whore in London. I tried to get away, but that’s what I’ll always be. My little dreams were just that. Dreams. I will go back and face my fate.” Arrange to leave for Italy. It was what her mother always wanted for her, the reason she’d insisted Violetta remain behind her mask, but until now she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of separation. But this way, she might be able to anger Orlando enough to drive him from her. “I will return to London and remove my mask in public.” Then society would know what she looked like. Then there would be no going back. He need never know she didn’t intend to do that, that she would leave England’s shores for good.

  “You’ll whore?”

  She swallowed. “If I have to.”

  “Then whore for me!”

  With a convulsive shove he urged her back onto the bed and, giving her no time to escape, pushed his body into hers.

  Violetta had never been taken in anger and despair before, and she hoped never to have that fate forced on her again. It was terrible at first, but the familiar warmth hovered, ready to take control. However he wanted her she would give herself, until the door of this house was closed behind her. He needed it, as did she. Arching her back she responded, pushed until he held her shoulders, pushing and grinding against her. “You want another man to do this to you? With you? Can you simulate the passion you’ve shown for me? Can you, Violetta?”

  She turned her head from side to side on the pillow, her hair tangled and thrashing wildly. “No! That is yours, always!”

  He sat up, pulled her upright to him, still sunk deep inside her, his mouth next to hers so she could feel his words as well as hear them. “Whenever you take a man, think of this. Think of me. Whenever you service a customer, remember what love feels like. Remember, for I will never forget!”

  With a despairing cry he put his hands on her backside, pulled her closer and cried out. It sounded like pain. His seed filled her for the last time.

  Violetta felt a pang of sorrow pierce her climax. She had been meticulous using the sponge. She would not even have the consolation of his child. She allowed herself to hold him close, feel his muscles hard against her breasts, then pushed away and climbed out of the bed.

  There was a door leading to a small dressing room. She went there and turned the key in the lock. He could enter through the corridor, but she knew he would not.

  Violetta found hot water there. She washed every trace of her lover away, carefully wiping everywhere he had kissed her, everywhere he had touched her. This was the end. It had to be, or she might die a lingering, languishing death. Dying by degrees. She would rather make it swift.

  Dressing without a maid engaged all her concentration for the next twenty minutes. She engineered a repair to the mutilated panniers, tying a stay lace to the severed tapes, finding the structure relatively undamaged.
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br />   When she opened the bedroom door she found he had dressed in his town clothes. He didn’t move to her but held her eyes, waiting for her to speak. “We must go back.”

  “Yes.”

  He seemed to have accepted her refusal. She didn’t touch him again. A footman helped her into the carriage after a light breakfast during which they didn’t sit together, but at opposite ends of the table. She didn’t look back when the carriage rolled away. Dry eyed she watched the countryside pass the window on the way back to town. Dry eyed she bade him a brief farewell at her mother’s door. The last time.

  As she descended to the street and walked towards the front door she heard his voice, softly murmuring words she would never forget. “I love you. I’ll never stop loving you.”

  It was the same for her. Perhaps, one day, far into the future, she would write to him and tell him so.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Orlando took Perdita to Ripley Court. The marquess and marchioness received them graciously, to all eyes the perfect couple. Their family was prolific, their estate prosperous. But most of society knew the truth behind this. The estate had always been prosperous, and the excellent land steward the marquess employed ensured it continued that way. The marquess and marchioness, while often residing under the same roof, led entirely separate lives these days.

  Lady Judith received the guests with great pleasure and bore Perdita off to her room, to show her some new gowns she had ordered specially for the country. And, no doubt, to discuss their plans to ensnare Orlando.

  He didn’t care. If he couldn’t have Violetta, it didn’t matter who he married. Judith was eager, comely and eligible. He should be glad. Of course he was not.

  He let her draw him in over the next week, not caring what people thought or were saying. He’d locked his emotions away, kept them back. He daren’t feel, daren’t think. Daren’t believe Violetta was lost to him.

  But she was. He knew as well as she did what marriage to La Perla Perfetta would mean. He received word she’d removed her mask on the Thursday after they returned to London, but he wasn’t there to see it. It would have killed him. He adored her still, but if he married her now, he’d lose everything else. Not that he cared, but it would bring the same ruin to his family. Marriage to Violetta meant the loss of many of his business contacts, the loss of his social life, and possibly self-imposed exile.

  The most he could hope for now was an illicit relationship with her, like the one Ripley had with La Perla. To meet her in odd moments, to live separate lives, only to come together for hasty loving when they could. If that was all he could have, then he would have that. Otherwise, he wasn’t sure he wanted to carry on. In those circumstances he could think of marrying another woman and coupling with her enough times to make an heir before leaving her to her own devices. Hypocritically, society would accept that and he’d live, much as Ripley did, as the devoted admirer of a woman forever beyond his reach.

  Orlando became an icicle, deliberately hiding any emotion, responding as expected to advances, to enquiries, joining in a shooting expedition, killing his fair share of feathered game. With each dull thump of heavy, dead feathers on grass he tried to kill the terrible yearning he felt. When a new guest arrived he looked at her, hoping to find something, anything that reminded him of his love. His lost love.

  The numbness merely locked his agony away inside him. Perdita, now fully ambulatory, a light cane the only reminder of her debilitating illness, watched him sometimes, her eyes narrowed. If she suspected, she never said anything. Once or twice he caught Ripley with that same look, speculative and concerned. He hated it. He would have preferred to lock himself away somewhere, and give way to his agony but that would have been self-pitying and pitiful. No, he wouldn’t do that. He would do what was expected of him, what he had to do if his work was to continue. Love was closed to him. Very well then, he would make something of his life. He would marry and make heirs for the estate he’d so painstakingly re-created. Perhaps, in time, it wouldn’t hurt quite so much to think of what he had lost. Perhaps Violetta would accept him as a lover, since she wouldn’t have him as a husband. He wasn’t proud, not any more. He’d take anything of her he could get.

  Accordingly, three weeks after his arrival, when his sister informed him that “everybody” was expecting an imminent announcement and he needed to make up his mind about Judith, he sought an interview with Lord Ripley.

  He found Ripley in his study, an intimate room near the library, impersonal and neatly arranged, the ledgers on the shelves carefully ordered, the desk clear of clutter. Lord Ripley put aside the small stack of documents he was signing and laid his pen in the standish.

  “We have something to discuss?” He motioned to the seat in front of the desk. Orlando sat down, then shook his head when the hand motioned to the decanters in the tantalus on a side table. Ripley leaned back with a creak of leather, rested his elbows on the arms of the chair, steepled his fingers and gave Orlando a questioning look.

  Orlando sighed, then sat up straight, the epitome of the haughty nobleman. “I would like your permission to pay my addresses to your daughter, Lady Judith.”

  “Why?”

  That was not the response Orlando expected. Immediately, all the reasons for his request came to mind, together, unbidden, with the reasons why not. “I’ve kept her waiting too long.”

  The marquess frowned. “While you dallied with Violetta Palagio?”

  Orlando felt the heat rush to his face. “That, my lord, is surely my concern.”

  Lord Ripley slowly shook his head. “Not so. I consider Violetta as much my daughter as Judith. More so, perhaps.”

  A suspicion took hold of Orlando’s mind. Was he proposing to marry one sister and take the other into keeping? No. Rather than that he would give up any idea of marriage to Judith. Lord Ripley saw his alarm. “No, there are no blood ties between Violetta and Judith. Her father is not Violetta’s father.”

  Orlando relaxed in relief, then wondered at the phrasing. “Who is Violetta’s father?”

  Ripley paused before he replied. “Not me. I have loved Donata for most of my life, but we only consummated our relationship after she came to England. Violetta was three years old, then. I would prefer it to be otherwise. I am very proud of Violetta, more than I ever was of Judith.” He sighed. “You might ask yourself who Lady Judith’s father is.”

  Orlando’s eyes widened in surprise.

  Ripley smiled, but there was no humour in it. “My wife began to stray many years ago. My first two children, my sons, are mine. Now they are older there can be no doubt, for both have a look of me about them. After that she went her own way.” Who can blame her, Orlando thought, with a feeling of sympathy for the cold, hard woman he knew. He had no liking for Lady Ripley, but her husband had been lost to her from the start.

  “I only tell you because you propose to marry Judith. It must go no further than this room.” Orlando nodded his assent. “No one knows for sure, but I tell you plainly now that Judith and her younger siblings are none of my get.” Orlando swallowed. Lord Ripley studied him. “That, sir, is what you have in store for you. I know you have feelings for Violetta. You love her, perhaps as much as I love her mother, but Donata writes me that she has refused you. Madness, to propose to her, but in the same situation, I would have done the same thing.” He grimaced. “I did.”

  “Indeed, sir?” Ripley knew far more than Orlando was comfortable with about the situation. He should have realized La Perla would communicate what information she had to her long time lover.

  “I think it would be best if we were frank. To that end I would ask that nothing goes outside this room. What we say to each other now must remain completely private.”

  “That seems fair.”

  “I don’t know about you, but early in the day though it is, I need a drink.” Ripley got to his feet and strode to the tantalus, finding a couple of glasses. He poured a generous quantity of brandy into each and brought them back to
the table.

  Orlando didn’t refuse the drink. “Then, I should tell you that the offer I made to Violetta was respectable. I meant it. She refused me because of who she is and who her mother is.”

  “Will you give up?”

  “I can’t. Not won’t but can’t.”

  Ripley took a deep swallow of the fiery liquid. “I know. I can’t leave Donata alone, and I don’t intend to. Not any more. Perhaps if I tell you something of my story you can understand a bit more.”

  Orlando picked up his glass and prepared to listen, but Ripley didn’t need many words. He sat down in the chair opposite his instead of at his desk, and turned the glass around in his hands, staring at it while he spoke. “I was married off by my family before I left for the Grand Tour. My father didn’t want to risk my being snared by some scheming Frenchwoman, he said. It’s not unusual, and being young I didn’t understand the full implications of what I was doing. I was a young fool. When I reached Italy I met and fell in love with Donata. She was already married.” He paused and turned around to put his empty glass down on the desk behind him. When he turned back he stared past Orlando to a spot that wasn’t there, but had been once. Back into the past, into what was his personal tragedy. “Her husband was a brute, more than a brute, but she refused to leave him. I could offer her nothing, so I couldn’t insist in it, but it nearly killed me to leave her in his abusive hands. I spoke to her brother, the present conte, and he swore he would do all he could to protect her. I had no right to do anything else. I returned to England, determined to forget her. I made heirs with my wife and tried to make my marriage a success.” He looked at Orlando now, and all he could see was bitterness and regret. “I swear to you I entered the business whole-heartedly, determined to find some happiness somewhere. I had seen marriages without love but with a deep degree of companionship and partnership. Perhaps, I thought, I could have that. My wife had no such intention. As soon as the succession was secured she was off.”