A Wicked Pursuit

by Isabella Bradford

  “Have a fresh pot of coffee and another cup brought for Sir Randolph, Wilton,” Gus said. Of course she was here with him. Of course she’d wish to hear Peterson’s judgment. Now that they were married, she deserved to know in exactly what circumstances she’d found herself, saddled with a crippled husband. But there’d been no conversation between them, no cheerful banter, because he hadn’t wanted any. He’d rebuffed her with single-word replies to her questions and a curtness she did not deserve. He hated himself for doing so, which made his humor blacker still.

  Peterson was shown in, wearing what appeared to be exactly the same suit he’d worn for every visit to the abbey, and he did exactly the same things he’d been doing for weeks now, too. He flexed Harry’s knee and ankle joints, and ran his hand along his shin, feeling for where the break had been. But this time, when he was done, he did not restore the brace, but put it to one side.

  “I wish you to try standing, my lord,” he said, “without the splinted brace to support you. I wish to see you straighten your leg and put your full weight upon it.”

  “You are sure, Sir Randolph?” Gus asked anxiously. “The bone is ready to bear such a test?”

  “I believe it is, my lady,” Sir Randolph said. “However, it is his lordship’s decision. If he is content with conditions as they are, then he need not do it. But if he does not choose to try the leg now, then the time for doing so may be irrevocably lost.”

  “Damnation, I’ll do it,” Harry said. His heart racing, he stood first with the crutch. Slowly he straightened his injured leg, touching his foot flat to the carpet for the first time. He took a deep breath, and gradually shifted his full weight to the now-unprotected leg.

  It held, and did not give way as he now realized he’d feared. He smiled in triumph at the surgeon.

  “Do not abandon the crutch, my lord,” Peterson cautioned. “That is still necessary, and will be for some time. But I wish you to try a step, even two.”

  Harry nodded with determination. His leg felt bare without the wooden support around it, weak and exposed. Awkwardly he swung his foot forward, his first real step in months, and then took another. It was difficult, and it was painful, but he did it, and that was what mattered.

  He felt exhilarated, beyond mere joy to something higher. Automatically he looked to Gus. She had her palms pressed to her cheeks, and she was crying.

  “Look at you, Harry,” she said. “Look at what you’ve done!”

  But Sir Randolph was frowning. “Are you conscious of the difference, my lord?” he asked with concern. “The break and scarring have shortened your leg by at least an inch. Are you aware of it, my lord?”

  Now that he’d been told, Harry could feel it, an off-balance hitch as he stood. He tried to square his shoulders, straighten his spine, balance his legs. He stepped again, and realized the truth of what the surgeon was saying. What he’d attributed to stiffness and the brace was really the difference between his two legs, the lopsided lurch that had marked those first steps.

  “That will correct itself over time, yes?” he asked, desperation in his voice. “As it heals further, the difference will go away?”

  He already knew the answer from the surgeon’s face.

  “I am very sorry, my lord,” he said, “but I fear the change is permanent, an inevitable result of the healing. In time and with practice you may one day learn to walk with the use of a cane instead of the crutch, but I do not believe there will ever be a time that your balance, or lack thereof, will permit you to walk unassisted.”

  “So I shall never run again,” Harry said slowly. “Or dance. Or fight with a sword, or with fists. Or sail. Or walk along a sandy beach. In short, many of the things that I have considered ordinary pleasures are now forever beyond me, and I shall always be considered a hobbling, halting cripple.”

  “I would, my lord, dare to hold out a possibility of riding,” Sir Randolph said, striving to be hopeful. “Perhaps within the year, if your favorable progress continues.”

  “What, on the meekest of little ponies?” Harry asked cynically. His hopes plummeted and crashed as swiftly as they’d just risen. “With a groom to hold the bridle?”

  “Forgive me, my lord, but you are far too hard on yourself,” the surgeon said, trying to put the best face on things, exactly as Gus did. “You have made considerable and exceptional progress. Much more than I would have thought possible when I first attended you, and saw the damage to the limb.”

  But Harry did not want to hear it, not a single word. He realized now that he hadn’t truly been realistic. He’d told himself that he’d been preparing for the worst, but instead he’d been nurturing a fool’s hope for a complete recovery and a return to what he’d once been. He’d let himself be distracted by Gus, and by their marriage, and his father, and coming back to London, but he couldn’t ignore the hard truth any longer. A fool: That was what he was, a fool for the fall in the first place, and a fool for believing it could ever be undone. That realization made the truth about his future unbearable.

  “Forgive me, Peterson,” he said, the words little more than a snarl full of bitterness. “But to hell with your progress, and to hell with my damned leg.”

  He lurched from the room, not caring about anything beyond nurturing his misery, and intending on doing so in his own room, locked away from the rest of the world.

  “Harry, please,” Gus said, rising from her chair. She looked from Harry, leaving the room as fast as he could, to Sir Randolph, standing abandoned in the middle of the library. “Sir Randolph, I am sorry this happened, but his lordship’s disappointment may have, ah, affected his temper.”

  Sir Randolph smiled sadly. “There is no need to apologize, Lady Hargreave. I understand his lordship’s distress entirely. I have observed it before in similar cases. His lordship is a young gentleman, still in impulsive youth. He cannot see beyond what he has lost, and be grateful for what was spared. I can only pray that, with time, he comes to understand the difference.”

  Gus nodded and bowed her head, her hands clasped tightly before her.

  “Go to him, my lady,” Sir Randolph said. “I can find my own way out, and I believe his lordship needs your solace far more than I do.”

  “Thank you, Sir Randolph,” Gus said, running up the stairs after Harry.

  She found him in his bedchamber, staring out the window with his back to her, his head bowed and his chest heaving with anger. There had once been several porcelain candlesticks and a decorative Chinese bowl on the mantel of his room. Now there was nothing but shards of smashed porcelain in the grate and a chair tipped over as well. It was clear enough to Gus what had happened, and she nodded to Tewkes, hovering uncertainly in the doorway to the dressing room, to send him away. This was the sort of challenge that wives were supposed to address, though she hadn’t the faintest idea of how it was done.

  “Harry,” she called softly.

  “Leave me, Gus,” he said without turning. “I wish to be alone.”

  An angry Harry was never good, but in her experience a stubborn Harry was even more difficult. How had things gone so badly so fast? To be sure, the jeering man tossing the coins at them last night had been unspeakably cruel, but why had he been worse than Cobham calling him a gimp? Lately Harry had seemed to be so much better, so much more accepting of his limitations. He should have been pleased by Sir Randolph’s assessment, and no longer having to wear the brace on his leg. Instead he’d become inexplicably furious, and now she felt as if they were both back to the beginning, with him lying angry and frustrated in his bed at the abbey.

  “What will being alone solve, pray?” she asked. “The destruction of more porcelain and chairs?”

  “It is what I wish,” he said, his voice distant. “This has nothing to do with you, Gus.”

  She sighed. “We are expected to sup with your father and Celia at their house in an hour.”

  “You may go without me if it pleases you.”

  “It does not please me, not at al
l.” She hated talking to his back like this. “If you will not accompany me, then I shall send word that we are unable to attend.”

  “Tell them anything you damned well please,” he said. “I am not going.”

  “Very well.” She took a deep breath, unsure of what to do next. “I shall send our regrets.”

  He didn’t answer, and he didn’t turn. She sighed again, and crossed the room to stand behind him. Gently she slipped her hands around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his back. He tensed his shoulders beneath her touch but did not acknowledge her.

  “I love you, Harry,” she said softly. “No matter what, I’ll always love you.”

  He could say all he wanted that this wasn’t about her, but when he ignored her, then it became about her, too, whether he wished it so or not. And it hurt, having him reject her like this. It hurt.

  She reached up and kissed the side of his jaw, rough beneath her lips. Then she slipped away from him, and left him, as he’d asked. What choice, really, did she have?

  She hoped he’d send for her so they could dine together, and when he didn’t she ate in her room, or more accurately, she had tea and toast, all she could stomach. She sat alone and tried to distract herself by reviewing the household accounts, and failed, the numbers unable to combat the loneliness. Without asking, Mary prepared her bed—the countess’s bed in the countess’s bedchamber—and sadly Gus knew that the servants must already be discussing the first quarrel between her and his lordship.

  Except that it wasn’t a quarrel, because a quarrel could be made up with apologies and kisses. This black mood of Harry’s frightened her, because it made her feel helpless.

  She couldn’t sleep in that cold, empty bed, and she wouldn’t. As soon as Mary left her, she took her candlestick and in bare feet padded down the long hallway to Harry’s darkened bedchamber. He was sound asleep, his breathing regular. How he could sleep while she was wide awake because of him seemed beastly unfair, but it also gave her courage.

  She pulled off her robe and nightgown and slid into the bed beside him, her naked body pressed close to his. At once he rolled over toward her, unconsciously seeking her in his sleep, his arm curling protectively around her waist as he drew her close. It was all she needed, and at last she was finally able to fall asleep.

  The next morning she awoke to him making love to her, and she dared to hope his brooding, black mood had lifted. But to her dismay she found nothing had really changed. He refused to leave his rooms, and though he tolerated her company, he seemed to take no pleasure or enjoyment in it.

  The only time that a glimpse of his old self—and how she despaired of thinking of this as his “old” self, as if it was a thing of the past and gone forever!—returned was when they were together in bed, but even that felt tarnished, mere soulless coupling without the joy of love to gild it. Still she said nothing, not wishing to aggravate him further, and praying that he would find peace on his own.

  For four days they went on like this, but on the fifth Gus could bear no more. After a near-silent breakfast where he sat across from her engrossed—or pretending to be engrossed—with the morning paper, she finally spoke.

  “Harry,” she said as firmly as she could, which wasn’t very firm at all. “Harry, I have tried to be understanding, and obey your wishes, but we cannot continue in this fashion.”

  He looked up from the paper, his coffee cup in his hand. Because it was another warm day, he was wearing a yellow silk banyan and nothing else, and she’d tantalizing glimpses of his bare chest as he moved.

  “I told you before, sweetheart,” he said. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  “But it does,” she said. “We can’t keep hiding away in the house like a pair of recluses. What of those wedding calls we must make, and the suppers and parties we’ve rejected? What of Lady Tolliver’s invitation?”

  He set the cup down carefully. “I thought you’d prefer it that way, Gus. You’ve made it clear enough that you’ve no real taste for society.”

  “But it’s not about society, or even my wishes,” she said, her hands twisting in her apron, below the table where he couldn’t see them. “You’ve told me so yourself. What of our obligations, our responsibilities? What of the Queen’s Drawing-Room today?”

  “Send our regrets,” he said. “Her Majesty will survive the disappointment.”

  “It’s more than that, Harry,” she said, persisting. “Your friends must be wondering what’s become of you, and your family’s concerned. People call every day, yet we receive no one.”

  “Why should they be concerned?” He reached for another piece of toast and began to butter it methodically, crust to crust. “We’re newlyweds, in our honeymoon-month. We’re supposed to want no other company but our own.”

  “I wish that a—a surfeit of honeymoon passion were the reason, Harry,” she said, unable to keep the sadness from her voice. “I know that you’d wished for better news from Sir Randolph. I know you were disappointed. But there are many men who have suffered far worse wounds and injuries and yet continue to lead—”

  “No.” He swore, and tossed the butter knife onto the plate with a clatter. “It’s not the scars. It’s how it happened that torments me, Gus, night and day and every hour in between, and knowing how one moment of my own unthinking idiocy could have so completely changed my life. Having those fools taunt me the other night, then hearing Peterson—it’s all come back, Gus, as keen as a blade between my ribs.”

  She drew in her breath. “I didn’t think you remembered anything, not after you struck your head.”

  “I didn’t at first,” he said. “I do now. Seeing your sister brought it back.”

  Now she remembered the last time his mood had darkened like this, when Julia and her father had returned to Wetherby the day before the wedding. She hadn’t understood at the time, but it made sense now.

  “It was Julia, wasn’t it?” she asked uneasily. “She never would tell me, but it’s easy enough to guess, knowing her. She did something to make you fall, didn’t she?”

  “It wasn’t her fault, Gus,” he said, the now-familiar bitterness welling up in his voice. “It was mine.”

  He shoved his chair back from the table and rose, unable to keep still. “Everything I did that morning was wrong, Gus. I should never have agreed to ride out with her on such a wet morning. I should have refused your father’s horse, and not been too proud to admit that the beast was unrideable. I shouldn’t have raced after Julia into a wooded place that was unknown to me, and I should have been expecting her to jump out before me.”

  “Then she did do something,” Gus said. She wasn’t surprised, but it still upset her that Julia had, once again, behaved irresponsibly and dangerously, and yet had escaped any consequences. “You could have been killed, Harry.”

  “I don’t blame her.” He paced back and forth as if driven by the memory, the yellow silk billowing out behind him.

  Gus didn’t miss the terrible irony of this: that while he fought with himself over remembering how he’d broken his leg, he seemed to forget entirely how uneven his gait had become as he lurched back and forth with his pacing.

  “I should have known she’d do something like that,” he continued. “I was the one who should have shown good judgment, and not agreed to her ridiculous game. But I didn’t, and now I’m left with knowing one moment of sheer idiocy has changed my life forever. My God, what I would give to go back and undo every blasted thing about that morning!”

  “Not everything was bad about that morning, Harry,” Gus said slowly.

  He stopped abruptly, staring at her in disbelief. “How in blazes can you say that to me?”

  “I can because it’s true,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. “Because if you hadn’t fallen and been hurt, you would never have fallen in love with me.”

  She didn’t know what she expected him to say, if she’d hoped that he’d tell her she was worth more than any crooked leg.

  B
ut he didn’t. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there, staring at her, the expression in his blue eyes as unchanged as if she hadn’t spoken at all.

  She couldn’t stay, not after that. She turned and ran from the room, her hand pressed over her mouth to keep from sobbing before the servants.

  She’d gambled, daring to say aloud what she’d been keeping inside for days. She’d gambled, and now she had lost. She curled on her bed in a tight knot of despair, letting the tears stream down her face.

  “Forgive me for intruding, my lady,” said Mary softly, finding her. “But Mr. Wilton said I was to come tell you that Her Grace the Duchess of Breconridge is below asking for you, my lady. He says that Her Grace doesn’t believe you’re not at home, my lady.”

  Gus heaved a deep, shuddering sigh, struggling to fight back her tears. She’d no choice but to see Celia; if she didn’t, she’d no doubt that the duchess herself would come upstairs to find her. Besides, if she hid in her rooms, she’d be absolutely no better than Harry.

  “Tell Mr. Wilton to show Her Grace to the green parlor, Mary,” she said, pulling out her handkerchief to blot her eyes. “I shall be down directly.”

  She paused before one of the looking glasses in the hall to pat her hair, then hurried down the stairs to greet Celia.

  “My dear Gus,” the duchess said warmly, embracing Gus. “I knew you’d be home. I came to offer my assistance regarding the drawing room at the palace this afternoon. You should be dressing already if you wish to be on time. Is your maid sufficient? You wish your plumes to be securely in place, you know, so they don’t wander when you curtsey. Should I send my hairdresser here to you, just to be sure?”

  “We shall not be attending,” Gus said. “Harry is indisposed.”

  “Or more accurately, Harry doesn’t want to go, just as he hasn’t wished to go anywhere these last few days.” Gracefully Celia spread her skirts as she sat on the edge of the settee, patting the seat for Gus to join her. “We’ve all noticed, you know. Have you any notion as to why?”

  Gus sat beside her, her hands tightly clasped in her lap and her diamond betrothal ring winking slyly up at her. She did not wish to be disloyal to Harry, but confiding in his stepmother would not be like telling his secrets to a friend her own age.