by Edith Layton
“Not yet, I told you,” Annabelle said with some perturbance before she smiled again and sweetly said, “but he will. Soon too, I expect. Shall we read now, cousin?”
She placed her hands over the book, and it was that sight, the vision of those two delicate white hands closing over the tan volume, just as two other strong tanned hands had doubtless closed over hers when he had given her the book, that spurred Leonora to action.
“Belle,” she said, shaking her head, not angry yet, but confused by the traces of evident amusement mixed in with the other girl’s calm demeanor, “I don’t understand you, I do not. All the while you were cautioning me against encouraging Severne, you were angling for his attentions? I can scarcely believe it of you.”
It might have been that Leonora only wanted her relative to lower her lashes over the brilliant gleam in her usually mild eyes. And had she done so and whispered, “Ah, cousin, but I cannot help it, it was my heart involved, and I never thought he’d have a thought for me,” Leonora would have taken it, and then left it. Forever.
Of course, she would doubtless have wept in private, and perhaps railed against fate. Perhaps too she would have been disappointed at her cousin’s parroting her favorite opinions for the purpose of fascinating her favorite gentleman. But she likely would never have said or done another thing about the forthcoming betrothal, except to offer felicitations and purchase a suitable bridal gift. She was used, after all, to self-denial and self-denigration. And defeat was such a frequent visitor that she commonly set a place for it each day at her table, and left a pillow for it on her bed each night.
“Ah cousin,” Annabelle sighed at last, just as she ought, “can I help it that he prefers me to you?”
But she said it with a smile, and she ended it with a comfortable little chuckle.
And during the statement her expression subtly altered. In that moment it held such a look of repletion and fond memory that it was almost embarrassing for Leonora to see. For it was more like the smile on the face of a confirmed voluptuary after a feast or an orgy than it was ever like that of a shy young girl’s memory of her lover.
And she continued to smile at Leonora, as though the joke were too rich to swallow up all at once. It was that which made Leonora realize that a theft had been committed.
Some little fragment of pride had been pricked by that smug and knowing smile. It was as though some crumb of self-worth refused to be swept away with all the debris of her hopes. It was then that she remembered that however much Severne might prefer Belle’s person, there was no question, she had heard it with her own ears, that it was her own words he had admired as they left her cousin’s lips. Whatever else was true, then, it was undeniable that her cousin had stolen her own thoughts in order to more easily steal away her own choice of gentleman. And though Leonora did not believe in herself, she did believe in justice, and where fate might go unchallenged, crime could not.
She did not ask if Annabelle loved Severne; with all of her inexperience in such matters, Leonora was never a fool, and that query would provide her cousin with far too facile and unanswerable an answer to give. She only asked calmly, with no trace of embarrassment now, since she decided it was a matter of ethics and not of the heart which she broached,
“Why do you want him, Belle? You did not at first, I’ll swear it. Is it because I did?”
Annabelle’s eyes widened and her brows went up in her characteristic response to surprise. But it wasn’t the propriety of the question that shocked her, it was the question itself.
“But he’s a marquess, cousin. He has a great deal of money and when his papa dies, he’ll have more and be a duke besides. Of course I showed no interest at first, for I didn’t know I had a hope then. But where in the world would someone like me ever get a chance at a marquess?” Annabelle answered in amazement “You can wed anywhere you wish, and if you don’t care to wed, you’ll still have a great deal of money.”
“But I introduced you to a great many young men with comfortable fortunes, Belle,” Leonora said reasonably, although she felt a chill wind blow across her soul at her cousin’s omission of the one word she had dreaded, but nonetheless expected to hear used in defense.
“Yes, you did,” the fair young woman admitted with a more honest, open smile, “but it will be better for me with Severne. He doesn’t expect much, you see. Once he has his heir, he’ll be content. And even if he’s not—” and here the young woman grinned as she picked up the volume of poetry—“he is, you see, the last man in all of England to do anything about it. Well,” she giggled, her pale face animated with her delight at her own jest, “he’s had one divorce, hasn’t he? He’s not likely to ask for another. No one gets two, you know. And I don’t think he’d murder for his freedom. No, he’d be the most complacent husband on earth, I think, don’t you? For he’d have to put up with whatever he got, wouldn’t he? And he’s got a title, and a fortune. I can’t see how I could do better. Really.” Annabelle shook her head for emphasis, and after one last little encouraging smile toward her cousin, she asked, “Now, can we read this book together, Leonora? I think it will be most interesting. Joscelin said you’d like it.”
Leonora took a tiny involuntary step backward. She gazed into her cousin’s wide, mild blue eyes and understood at last that there was and had always been something very odd about her cousin.
It was never a thing that was there for a person to see or comment upon. Even such voluble, verbal creatures as Katie and Sybil had been unable to precisely define more than their unease or dislike of something in the girl. But it would be the most difficult thing in the world to express, for there never had been any one thing in Annabelle to find fault with. It was not anything she possessed or did that caused the feeling of wrongness. The problem was the reverse. It was nothing that was in Belle. Rather, Leonora suddenly discovered, it was the lack of something that should have been there.
For here she had just calmly announced her larceny. She did not bother to deny her outright theft of the attentions of a gentleman she knew her cousin cared for. And there had been no word of love, or even of physical desire without love, which Leonora, remembering Severne’s reaction to herself, could now unhappily, well understand. It hadn’t been that lean, striking face, nor those piercing eyes, nor even that strong graceful frame that Belle had rhapsodized over. Nor had there been a word about his keen intellect, wry humor, or evident compassion. It was his purse she lusted for, his title she admired, and his sad history which brought her thoughts of future joy.
And now, having divulged all this, she smiled and asked Leonora to read the poetry of William Blake with her. Forgetting she was speaking with a rival, and still not willing to believe that she was dealing with a sort of monster, a human with one important piece left out, and that piece, for want of a better word, a heart, Leonora cried in confusion, “Belle! How can you? How can you say what you’ve said, and then expect me to sit and chat with you as though there was not a thing upon our minds?”
Annabelle looked up from the book, from an illustration of the face of one particular dark angel that Severne had said, somewhat wistfully, reminded him of someone, and looked directly into an almost uncannily identical pair of deep and sorrowful eyes before her.
“But we needn’t be enemies,” she said benignly. “I like you very well, cousin, and you have been very kind to me. After I am wed, I hope that we may still be friends, for indeed, I have no reason to dislike you at all. In fact, after I’m wed, I’d like you to visit with me often. And if it transpires that Severne should like you as well by then, I shouldn’t mind at all. Do you understand, cousin?”
As Leonora gaped at the slender girl, trying very hard not to understand, Annabelle went on softly,
“For you two are very much alike, you know. You both admire Master Shakespeare and poetry and music. Once I am safely wed, I vow it, cousin, I would not mind whatever you and Joscelin did together. You would find me, I promise, understanding, and willing always to look t
he other way. And I do not mean just when you two were having discussions,” she smiled, “for I am not blind, and have seen the way he sometimes looks at you. And as I don’t care for that sort of thing at all myself, I should not mind. Now, can we read?” she asked politely, holding out the book to Leonora.
“You are a monster,” Leonora gasped, knocking the proffered book aside.
Annabelle sighed. She bent to pick up the book, and looked so very weary, very young, and very unhappy that Leonora, like a great many others who had dealt with Annabelle in the past, doubted all that she had just heard.
“I’ll be back later,” Annabelle breathed softly, “when you’re in a better mood, cousin.”
“How can you say such things?” Leonora almost wept with frustration as she saw her cousin’s placid expression.
“Why should I not?” Annabelle asked.
When Leonora remained mute, Annabelle nodded, as though she’d gotten her answer, and, sighing, she left her cousin staring wildly after her.
Silly cow, thought Annabelle bemusedly as she made her way slowly back to her rooms. But then she wasn’t disturbed, for she had spoken only the truth, after all. She didn’t dislike Leonora in the slightest. She didn’t like her either. For neither emotion ever had occurred to Annabelle. People had always fallen neatly into one of two categories. They had either been in her way, or they had been in a position to gratify her. And if that was what they meant by love and hate, why then she felt those emotions right enough, same as everyone else.
But she could never understand why everyone else thought she didn’t, nor why they found such simple attitudes toward each other so important. Papa had cuffed her and left home early on, after hotly denying that she could be his daughter. Then in time Mama had cast her out from her own home, telling her never to return and crying that it was because of her lack of human feelings. Other relatives had eventually sent her away as well, with kicks and curses or with curses accompanied by certain sullen payments, while expressing the same thoughts. Really, Annabelle thought, it never ceased to puzzle her.
She wanted what Severne had to offer her, and now it seemed likely that she would have it. It would be about time. She’d tried for security before, in many ways. She’d even often lain with the gentlemen, although that was a very nasty, uncomfortable chore, acceptable only because it sometimes brought favors, and moderately bearable because of how foolish the gentlemen looked at such times.
In fact, she’d done a great many unpleasant things, and had to work a great deal harder in the past to far less benefit, and with far less success. She’d been extremely fortunate this time, and she knew it. There was something between the marquess and Leonora, it had been palpably there from the start. But it was something fragile and complicated. It was, however, happily nothing she had to understand. It was enough that she’d been clever enough to notice and use it.
She sighed again, she had so wanted to read with Leonora this afternoon. But then, she thought, brightening, Leonora would get over it. Really, there was nothing else she could do, after all.
Leonora stalked her room and wrung her hands, and dreamed of revenges that made her shudder. But then, after a long despairing hour, she realized that there was nothing she could do. Annabelle had been quite right, there was no reason why she shouldn’t have told the truth. For there was not a thing that Leonora could do with it.
If she dared to tell Severne of the conversation, he would never believe her. Indeed, she could scarcely credit it herself. Katie and Sybil would doubtless be appalled but true believers, but anything they might say to Severne would be construed as spite, or worse, as jealous malice. If Leonora were to drive Annabelle from her house, as every instinct shouted for her to do, it would be quite the same as driving her straight into Severne’s arms. Any decent gentleman would be protective of a homeless, seemingly abused waif; a fellow who was weighing a rejected ring in his hand would doubtless immediately do far more.
Leonora then spared some extra time to berate herself for all the trust she’d put in Annabelle, and all the improving lessons she’d been so pleased to give, which had all doubtless been fed back to Severne as though they’d sprung from Belle’s own fertile imagination. The idea of Annabelle’s calmly lecturing Severne on a poem or play she’d just been taught that morning, as though for all the world she’d always held such opinions, caused Leonora’s stomach to grow cold and flutter as though it were some giant, newly shucked oyster.
But then she took some care to remind herself that it was not as if she’d lost Severne, since she’d clearly never had him, or at least never had more than his passing lust. Even that, she took a few moments to reflect, might have only been provoked by her own ridiculous physical form, shocking reputation, or provocative behavior. After all, a gentleman could hardly consider a female he had once escorted home from a bawdy house as a viable potential bride. Then (for once she began to flail herself, she was as thorough a penitent as a medieval monk of the strictest orders), she forced herself to recall that it was Annabelle that she’d used for her own purposes, after all. Hadn’t the entire idea of coming to London originally been ostensibly to find poor Belle a mate?
Still, with all her conflicting emotions, one idea stood firm and fast. It simply was not fair that Severne should take himself such a bride. It was all very well to pace the length of the room declaiming loudly in one’s head that he deserved no better. It was another thing, as one paced back the breadth of the chamber, to picture that lonely outcast gentleman holding Annabelle to his breast, thinking he had at last found a devoted and decent bride. For when she thought of just what sort of a creature her cousin must be, she knew that whatever his sins, it was never fair that after all his travails he should be trapped into wedlock with such.
Leonora realized that Sybil would truly be disgusted with her reaction. Surely her sister would deem it the height of betrayal of her sex that she felt no elation at his deception or triumph at the thought of his certain downfall, no matter how he had misused and misjudged her. Nor did she think any the less of him, or judge him a fool to be so misled. If he were a fool, what could she say of herself, who had known Belle better, longer, and more intimately? But at the thought of just how intimately Severne actually knew Belle, or would know her in the unforgivably onrushing future, Leonora’s head began to pound.
Belle had sounded so certain, so confident and content, that Leonora was sure that Severne’s offer would not be long in coming. Indeed, he might have meant to ask for Annabelle yesterday after he’d been freed from the proposal he’d felt honor-bound to make to herself. But she expected that perhaps he’d decided it a bit much to make two such offers in one day. Perhaps he’d even felt it would be unwise to put his luck to the touch so soon after such a resounding set-down. But that would mean that so soon as tomorrow she might have to endure Belle’s smug pronouncement of her engagement. Knowing what she did made the thought of tomorrow almost unendurable.
The Lady Leonora, much to her mother’s and sister’s eternal disgust, had never suffered from one vapor, or taken to her couch from an attack of nerves in the whole of her unnaturally unfeminine and hardy young life. But now in her confusion and inability to hit upon a solution, or indeed a suitable place to lay all the blame for her sorrows, she made up for this deficiency in a manner that would have gratified those two ladies enormously. She sank back upon her bed and decided that she would not arise from it until death or tomorrow came. And on the whole, she thought, as Katie put a cool compress upon her brow, she preferred the former, but it would be just her luck if she were only to wake to the latter.
FOURTEEN
Usually a traveler hastens the few remaining steps of a long journey, but the lone horseman rode more slowly when he at last approached the entry to the great house. Even then he seemed reluctant to dismount, and only sat and gazed about himself at the vibrant green lawns to either side of the gravel drive as though he could not bear to surrender the day and mount the stairs to enter h
uman habitation. The wet, warm spring had been kind to the countryside, and it was as if he could not take in enough of the verdant color or breathe in enough of the sharp sweet scents of the day. But then he saw the waiting groom and, grinning at the frankly curious look upon the youth’s face, he swung down from his horse and with an amused shrug, relinquished it to his care.
“Good afternoon, my lord,” the butler said, as the boy had done, and with the same warm sincerity in his voice.
“Hello, Afton, how have you been keeping?” the marquess said, smiling, as casually as if he had last spoken with the fellow the week before rather than the season before, as he actually had done.
“Oh very well, my lord,” the butler replied just as calmly as he took the traveler’s riding coat. But that usually serene fellow gave a hint of his surprise and pleasure at seeing the marquess by saying all at once, “And I know that his grace will be delighted to see you, as well. Shall I announce you, or would you rather go straight in? He’s in the library, but then, if you’d prefer to wash and change your clothing first? I don’t see your valet, so if you require Gibson’s services I can call him immediately, he’s only tending to his grace’s boots at present ... how I do run on, my lord,” he paused to say regretfully, shaking his head. “Do forgive me, but it’s only that we are all that pleased at seeing you again so unexpectedly.”
“Never apologize, Afton, for giving a fellow a warm welcome. It’s a rare enough gift,” the marquess said, putting his hand upon the older man’s shoulder. “And I’ve never grown to be such a Town beau that I’d primp and powder before saying hello to my father. He’ll have to take his son with a liberal dose of horse, but if I know my man, I think he’d prefer that to taking him a few hours later, even if he were all neatly dusted off and sprinkled with rose water by then.
