The Last Earl

by Lara Blunte

  She gasped and stared at him. He was livid with anger and she felt that in another moment she would begin weeping. Not in front of him; never again in front of him.

  "Don't show me out," she said quietly. "I know my way."

  She turned and left. He didn't follow her.

  II. Nine. No Other Man

  Catherine fell into a strange calm in the days that followed. She wasn't her former lively self, but neither did she seem to be brooding, or ill.

  Adrian must come and beg her pardon, and she wouldn't make it easy for him. Some of her steely resolve had returned and she now looked at this as a battle, a battle that she must win.

  She would never tell him that she loved him, even long after he told her. And he would say those words to her.

  Yet, even as she kept calm, she suffered knowing that there wouldn't be another man like Adrian. There was no man who would think the strange things he thought, no man whose mind was so fine, whose irony she cherished. There wasn't a man who would understand her as he did, or laugh with her as he did, or encourage her to be free.

  She could hardly think of any other man and make comparisons, because he was so different from anyone else. She could only sit looking at nothing and curse her own passion, telling herself over and over again that there must be a cure for her feelings, that she could be rid of them.

  “I will not, I will not, I will not pine for him,” she would mutter.

  But why couldn't he have accepted that they had found each other, and that everything was as it should be? Even if habit one day made her desire him less, she longed for that day because she would love him even then, without wanting him so violently.

  Why had he made it impossible for her to just be there, waiting for him, longing in silence? Why had he pushed her so far, as if he had wanted her to leave him?

  Why was she not enough for him when so many men wanted her?

  That irony was grim, and she didn't cherish it at all.

  

  Lady Ware had, at some point, realized that Adrian and Catherine had been flirting with each other, and now it seemed as if somehow they had fallen out.

  Catherine would undergo disappointment, but her mother was secretly glad that the flirting was over. She wanted her daughter to find a man like her own Edward, a man who was kind, stable and wise, not a wild creature like Adrian. She made a small sign of the cross over her heart and begged her dear Anne's pardon if her thoughts towards her son were uncharitable. He had been through so much, she knew, yet she was glad that he wasn't going to marry Kitty.

  She began insisting with Catherine that they should return to Lytton Hall now that the high season was about to end. London was so chaotic and hot, and it smelled so bad.

  Catherine refused to leave, but in the meantime, she allowed other suitors to come calling, which put Lady Ware at ease for a while.

  Men would come to leave their cards, or flowers, or poems, begging to be admitted. Lady Reville herself saw this as a sign that the girl had not done anything untoward and might yet think of Adrian as a mad summer passion, and go on to marry well. She hoped with all her heart that this would be so, even if she knew that Catherine was not a woman who would love lightly, or Halford a man easily forgotten.

  "My dear," she told Catherine. "If I may give you advice, marry a man who loves you, not a man you love. You will be happier."

  Catherine, however, didn't receive many of her admirers. Charles had returned to Longseat and only Kirkpatrick and Heresford seemed amusing, as they had fashioned themselves into twins with the same hair, colorful waistcoats and the way they had of finishing each other's sentences. And then there was her cockroach, as she privately called Jack Dalton, who was always full of information about everything that happened in London.

  Jack arrived one afternoon, pomaded, curled, ironed, perfumed and full of fresh gossip. He gave his card at the door and could not repress a smile of self-satisfaction when the footman returned with Lady Catherine's invitation for him to step into the garden.

  When he found her alone, sitting in a cloud of lavender muslin, and looking more subdued than he had ever seen her ─ and yet so beautiful that his heart began to beat a little faster ─ he felt some of his lifelong precepts suddenly abandon him. He handed a bouquet of violets, to mask his own confusion, and said, "You see, I have been able to visualize the color you would be wearing."

  Catherine, who could never resist teasing Jack, smiled. "I suppose if I were wearing green you would have brought me a lettuce?"

  Jack laughed, flicked the bottom of his jacket back and sat near her. On the way there he had conceived a great many things to say about her eyes, her smile, her soul. But now that he looked at her, his feelings began to change.

  Was she not the most glorious creature he had ever seen? Where would he find such a prize again, a woman so breathtakingly beautiful? There was, too, something new and irresistible about her, an air or fragility that awoke his better nature and made him rush headlong where confirmed bachelors feared to tread.

  "Lady Catherine, marry me!"

  She looked at him in astonishment.

  "I may have no title, but I do have a fortune, and position. I would devote my life to your happiness, and we would live in the heart of civilization, in Paris or Venice! What say you?"

  "Mr. Dalton, you cannot be serious!" Catherine cried, in spite of herself. "Do you not see it's impossible?"

  "But why?" he asked in agony.

  Catherine had meant to laugh at him a little, but she suddenly realized that this man was in complete earnest, perhaps for the first time in his life. She took pity on him, and some impulse which she would afterwards put down to temporary madness made her say, "I am honored by your proposal, but I have pledged to marry someone else."

  "Someone else? Whom?" he asked in surprise. No one in London knew anything about her being engaged!

  "I will marry Lord Halford."

  Only concern for his personal safety could, at that moment, overcome Jack’s disappointment. At the mention of the Earl's name, Jack jumped from the bench as if his trousers were on fire, and took a step backward. Pledged to marry Halford and here he was, making love to her! Why, if the man chanced to walk in, he would shoot him through the eye!

  Catherine already regretted the lie, and wished she could unsay it.

  "You must promise on your word of honor not to repeat this to anyone. It's a secret still."

  Jack swallowed. He might be the biggest gossip in the continent, but he was certainly not breathing a word that might put Halford on his tracks, even if he had to curb his own tongue with a fire poker. "I promise, as a gentleman. I─ I could not have conceived. I assumed Lord Halford and Lady Whitby..."

  "Lady Whitby?" Catherine asked faintly, feeling the blood rush from her face.

  "Yes, she has returned to London, I saw them speaking together only the other evening... Naturally, I assumed..."

  Catherine smiled, though dread was rising in her. "You assumed incorrectly, Mr. Dalton."

  Jack might have pursued the conversation if he did not have one eye on the doors to the garden, in case Halford happened to step through one of them. "Je suis navré, madame."

  He bowed stiffly, and beat his retreat. On the way back to his lodgings he made urgent plans to return to Venice, where, he swore to himself, he would not be so foolish as to propose marriage to anyone.

  Catherine, on the other hand, found it difficult to return to the house. When she entered, she realized how many pairs of eyes were on her, and cursed the fact that servants witnessed everything that happened. She walked stiffly to the staircase and started to climb, thinking, They know it all ─ Not only Henriette, , but all of them. All.

  She got to her room, locked the door and moved to the chaise longue. "I will marry Lord Halford or no one," she said in a low voice, but didn't allow herself to cry. She must have stayed in the same position, lying sideways, for a long time, because at some point she noticed that the light in the room was
beginning to dim. It must be six o'clock or near it.

  A knock on the door announced that Lady Ware had returned.

  "I shall be out in a minute, mama!"

  There was a moment of hesitation on the other side, and then her mother said, "All right, my dear."

  She heard Lady Ware's steps as she moved away from the door. Slowly, she stood up and walked towards her vanity table. She sat down mechanically and began to arrange her hair.

  He has gone back to Lady Whitby. He is tired of the complications of dealing with a girl.

  Catherine pinched her cheeks. She had become too thin, but she would be able to give her mother the semblance of calm.

  And she did feel strangely calm as she walked towards her mother's room. It's over, she told herself. All the waiting, the wanting, it's over.

  She stopped by the door, and as her mother smiled up at her, in a firm voice she said, "I think it's time we go back to the Hall."

  Book III. Happiness. One

  Another fortnight passed, and every minute Catherine thought of Adrian, and after each thought she repeated to herself, "I will forget him!"

  She could imagine what he had to say to Lady Whitby about her: I am sorry, my love, but the girl threw herself at me in such a way, there was no getting rid of her.

  Catherine discouraged her mother from inviting people to the Hall or accepting invitations. If it had been difficult to feign interest in anyone in London, how much worse was it here, where men talked incessantly of murdering grouse, and where women chatted strictly of servants, children and health? Their most exciting pieces of gossip had to do with what dress someone had worn to church or how much cake someone else had eaten at tea.

  If they had known the type of scandal she could provide, she thought they might all explode in their chairs. As they went on and on, she wished they would.

  There were enough people coming through to keep Lady Ware occupied while her daughter sought solitude, and Catherine did her best to run away without giving too obvious offense.

  When she felt forced to be in company, she avoided the unimaginative gossip and the furtive but penetrating glances the other girls threw at her by professing to adore the children who came along. She much preferred to run around the house with them, and found their conversation much more interesting than the one in the drawing room, for children spoke the truth and had strange and, at times, very amusing notions.

  What could their visitors say to that? She didn't much care, except for her mother's sake.

  The only person she truly liked to see was Charles, who drove from Longseat as often as he could. She now enjoyed his conversation, though he had nothing resembling Adrian's wicked humor or renegade opinions. Charles was a man who believed in following the order society provided to people, especially to people like them. He didn't think of his station as a privilege, but as a duty.

  Yet Catherine felt that his tranquility was a welcome contrast to the thrashing she had received from her own emotions during her stay in London.

  Charles did not seem to know that Jack had proposed to her, or that she was supposedly engaged to Adrian. He suddenly remarked one day, "Lady Ware has mentioned that since arriving in England you have received a few marriage proposals."

  "How can a girl wrapped in all this money not send hearts fluttering, Captain Dalton?" she asked wryly.

  "I am sure the money doesn't have much to do with it," he said in his sincere way. "Has no proposal pleased you so far?"

  "No. None of them."

  Charles was determined to go on, "I had the privilege of watching your parents when they were young. They loved each other very much, as I am sure you know. It was a love that increased with time."

  It was clear that he wouldn't be speaking of such things if he were not about to propose to her. It was also clear that he knew she didn't love him. He was probably aware of how much she was in love with Adrian; it must have been written all over her face for months.

  Here she was, being offered the love of a good man, but it was unwanted, unasked for, and useless. If she were a calculating woman she would probably twist Charles around her little finger and marry him to escape gossip, but he deserved a woman who loved him, and she couldn't imagine being in anyone's bed but Adrian's.

  "I have often had the occasion to wish that I were more like my parents," Catherine said softly. "But I am not."

  He understood, but still looked at her with regret.

  Charles left soon afterwards for India, where he took a position at the foreign office. She would later think about this moment, and realize that he had been trying to save her from herself.

  

  Catherine nevertheless understood that the older women, her mother and Lady Reville, had been right, and that leaving London and taking daily exercise in her own estate was what she needed to gain her strength back.

  Every day she would go on long brisk walks over the fields, an eager and gangly young Dalmatian called Faith keeping her company; or she would ride, or practice archery, imagining the target to be Adrian's black heart. She got very good at hitting it.

  It started to seem as if she would eventually overcome the pain, emptiness and longing that she felt, until a day came to show her that her determination was nothing, and her pride less than nothing to her passion.

  Caught in a storm as she took her daily walk, she found refuge in an open stone pavilion within her grounds, two miles from the house. She sat with Faith as she looked out at the river, letting her thoughts drift like the water. That river connected Lytton Hall to Halford, but she frowned any memories away.

  She didn't immediately look up when she heard a horse galloping in her direction. Her mother must have sent someone, she assumed without interest. Faith moved to the edge of the pavilion and began to bark, and she turned to look at the horse and rider. Even before she could make him out in the rain she recognized his bare head and the set of his shoulders. It felt as if her heart took a long pause from beating, and then beat too fast.

  He dismounted and walked toward her. The dog ran up to him as he climbed the steps of the pavilion, waving its tail once it was patted on the head. Neither she nor he spoke, until he was quite near her. His eyes searched her face and he said, "I meant to stay away. It would be better for you."

  Catherine had steeled herself to look coldly at him, but she had not expected this. There was tenderness in his voice, and she felt that in a moment she might show emotion, but he did not wait. He brought her close to him and kissed her for a long time.

  She would always remember how he had tasted of rain.

  

  Soon Catherine would have to go back or her mother would worry, but she still sat with her head on his shoulder. He held her hand, and it looked small in his. She didn't want to ask any more questions because she felt tired and happy at the same time. But he said, "The weeks I was gone from London ─ I had to go to Egypt because someone died there."

  "Someone you loved?"

  "No. But it was someone close to me. I had to make sure."

  "Did you make sure?"

  "I think so.

  "I read the letter, that night in your room. It said that a man was murdered."

  "Yes."

  "Are you glad that he is dead?"

  There was a silence, and then Adrian said, "I'm not sure. Sometimes what we would like is not what we need." He tilted her face up to his. "Sometimes it's better to let go."

  Catherine realized that since meeting this man she had cried more often than she had done in her entire life, but her eyes were steady and dry. "And do you think you can be happy now?"

  He smiled at her, "I can try."

  She hesitated, then couldn’t help asking, "And Lady Whitby?"

  "Lady Whitby? Annabella Whitby?" He was sincerely puzzled. "What does she have to do with anything?"

  She was ashamed of her jealousy. "I thought you were seeing her in London…"

  "Lady Whitby has never been anything but a friend! Who told
you this nonsense?"

  Her spirits soared: then she had worried and been jealous for months in vain? "All of London thought... And then Jack Dalton said..."

  "Jack Dalton!” Adrian nodded a few times. “There's a man in need of a good hiding!"

  She did laugh then, wrinkling her nose. "Oh, don't ever! The poor cockroach!"

  "And he's brother to your favorite, Charles," he remarked dryly.

  "Do you know he asked me to marry him?"

  He was indignant, "Charles?"

  She wouldn't give Charles away and replied, "No! Jack!"

  Adrian thought about it for a moment. "Imagine the choice: if you married Jack you'd have a dull brother-in-law. If you married Charles you'd have a ridiculous one."

  She tried not to smile. "Or I might have married Heresford..."

  "And had spindly-legged children..."

  "I see no suitor is going to be good enough!" she cried, laughing.

  "No." He brushed her wet hair away from her forehead and looked into her eyes. "None of them should touch the hem of your gown."

  "But you should?"

  He shrugged. "It's a moot point. I've touched your gowns all over by now."

  She laughed, and suddenly felt that all the suffering had been worth it. He cared for her, since he was there. He had worn himself out, and his ghosts too, and he was finally free.

  III. Two. Halford

  Halford Castle was still frightening to Catherine, and she dared not imagine what it meant for Adrian to live where his family had been murdered.

  She liked to think she was not superstitious, but, for a while, whenever she heard a door creak or felt a breeze stir her dress inside the house she would jump a mile high. Yet he seemed at ease, and she even caught him laughing when a noise made her start one day. Perhaps he had already paid his dues to the spirits the first time he had stayed there.