Only a Promise

by Mary Balogh

  He did not turn or say anything for a few moments. Then he sighed and spoke.

  “We will be going to London next week, Chloe.”

  “What?” Chloe sat up abruptly and clutched the covers to her naked breasts. But she knew she had not misheard.

  “Next week,” he said, choosing the most trivial detail to repeat.

  “You said we were to remain here,” she told him. “You promised me . . .”

  He turned, leaned back against the sill, and crossed his arms. She could see him only as a dark silhouette, but he looked both impatient and menacing.

  “But they are right,” he said. “My mother, my grandmother, all the rest of them. It is necessary that we go to town.”

  “But you promised—”

  “Everything has changed, Chloe,” he said harshly. “Can you not see that? It was naïve of us to plan our future as though we could go to Elmwood after our wedding and live in retired rural bliss there forever after. We knew my grandfather was well into his eighties. We knew he was infirm. We knew he was bound to die soon, even if we could not have predicted that it would be quite so soon. The whole reason for our marriage—on my part, anyway, and you were fully aware of it—was to secure the succession, and the whole point of doing that was that the dukedom matters. I would not have married otherwise—you or anyone else. The dukedom is more than an impressive title to attach to my name. It is an important office and brings with it duties and responsibilities. The Duke of Worthingham may not hide away in the country the way the Earl of Berwick with his courtesy title could have done. I ought to have taken that fact into consideration when I agreed that we would live in the country and ignore society and the London Season. I ought to have reminded you that we were free to live as we wished only until my grandfather died. The Duke of Worthingham will be expected to make his bow to the king and to be ready to take his place in the House when he is summoned. And, since he is a married man, he will be expected to make his appearance in society with his duchess at his side. Unfortunately the duke and duchess are not just impersonal entities. They are us. You and me.”

  “You married to secure the succession,” she cried. “I married for other reasons. I married for a life of quiet domesticity, and you agreed that it would be so. It was a mutual bargain we made. You cannot change the rules now.”

  “Rules?” He leaned a little more toward her. “Have you not heard a word I said? Are you quite as naïve as you sometimes seem? When have you ever known life to follow any rules we may try to impose upon the chaos? You knew whom you were marrying. You must have known that everything would change one day.”

  “Your grandparents lived here for years,” she said. “They never seemed to believe it was their duty to spend the Season in London.”

  “They were old,” he reminded her, “and they were thoroughly well established in their role. I am twenty-six years old. You are twenty-seven. We are novices. We have yet to establish ourselves, to prove ourselves worthy of the role for which fate has chosen us. There are duties associated with the privilege of rank and fortune, Chloe, and one of them is to mingle with our peers. I wish to God it were not so, but it is.”

  “You may break a promise you made me, then,” she said, “in order to win the approval of people who mean nothing to you. Clearly I mean nothing to you.”

  Even to her own ears there seemed to be something a bit childishly petulant in her outburst.

  “What promises have I made?” He pushed away from the windowsill and turned back to the window. “I made marriage vows, which I intend to keep. You made marriage vows too, Chloe.”

  “To obey you?” She scrambled up onto her knees and wrapped the top sheet about herself. She glared at his back. “You are going to enforce that, are you?”

  She could hear his fingernails clicking on the sill.

  “You made that vow, not me.” His voice was cold. “I did not see anyone twisting your arm or otherwise coercing you.”

  “But you are going to coerce me into going to London.”

  He whirled about and strode toward her. He did not stop until he was up the steps and leaning across the bed, braced on his forearms. His face was a few inches from her own. She clutched the sheet tighter and held her ground.

  “I will not whip you into submission,” he told her. “Nor will I tie you hand and foot and toss you into the carriage and convey you to London as my prisoner. But I do say that we will be going there next week. I have duties and responsibilities. So do you. I was born for this. I was never particularly thrilled at the prospect. Indeed, I was even careless of the reality of it when I was eighteen and rode off to war with crusading zeal. My father still stood between me and the title at that time, and he seemed a firm enough bulwark. But he died of what seemed like a simple chill, and here I am. And there you are. You married me with your eyes wide open. You can cower here if you choose. I cannot—or, rather I will not—force you into accompanying me next week. But remember, Chloe, that in addition to being my duchess you will in all probability be the mother of a future duke. My son. How proud will he be of a mother who is afraid to show her nose to the beau monde lest someone bite it off? How happy will my daughters be with a mother who is afraid to take them to town when the time comes for them to seek husbands lest the ton dare find something in her about which to gossip?”

  “I am not afraid,” she protested.

  “And besides,” he said, “if you will not come with me to do your duty to society, you need to come to do your duty to me. You need to be bred.”

  Her hand was stinging suddenly, and she realized in some shock that she had slapped him across one cheek.

  There was a heavy silence as he straightened up to stand beside the bed.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, his voice tight. “That was crude.”

  “I am so sorry.” Chloe spoke almost simultaneously. Her teeth were chattering. “Did I hurt you?”

  Ridiculous question. She had hit him across the scarred side of his face.

  “Yes,” he said. “But I would have slapped me too if I had been you.”

  Chloe flexed her hand. It was hot and throbbing. She had never slapped anyone before.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and turned to look at her.

  “Certain members of the ton once shunned you,” he said, “because your sister had eloped with a married man. A known rake who had toyed with your affections cut your acquaintance with calculated disdain. Several years later—last year—it was discovered that you bore a passing resemblance to a lady who happened to be taking the ton by storm during her debut Season in London, and gossiping tongues began to wag with the salacious rumor that her father once paid court to your mother. So both those visits to London left you hurt. Understandably, you want nothing more to do with society. In retrospect, perhaps it was not wise of you to marry an earl who was an elderly duke’s heir. But you did just that. And as a result you now find yourself being called upon to face society yet again—in the prominent role of a duchess this time. Are you going to do it, Chloe? Or are you going to allow fear to keep you here in hiding for the rest of your life?”

  “I am not afraid.”

  “What do you call it, then?” he asked her.

  She realized something suddenly. Graham had said he was not sure Ralph had changed fundamentally since his days in school. Now, she suddenly realized that in an important way, he was right. She could feel the power of his persuasiveness. Her will was being worn down by it.

  “Is this how you did it when you were a boy?” she asked him. “Is this how you gathered other boys about you like slaves? Is this how you persuaded them to do whatever you wanted them to do, even against their will and their better judgment? Is this how you persuaded your friends to go to war with you?”

  He shot to his feet as though she had slapped him again, and she realized too late the viciousness of what she had
said.

  He stood with his back to her for a few moments while her words seemed to hang in the air between them, like a physical presence. Then he went down the steps and across the room and out the door, all so abruptly that she could do nothing to stop him but stretch out one ineffectual arm.

  “Ralph,” she said. But the sound of her voice came at the same moment that the door clicked shut behind him.

  She could not run after him. She was naked beneath the sheet. She bowed her head and set her forehead against her raised knees as she wrapped her arms about them.

  * * *

  It was full daylight by the time Chloe had pulled on her creased clothes and gone to her own room to wash and comb her hair and change into a freshly ironed dress. She made her way down to the breakfast parlor on slightly shaky legs. Early as it still was, Ralph had already eaten and was about to leave the room. He was fully, very correctly clothed, she saw.

  Before she could say anything, he made her a slight, formal bow.

  “I need to spend most of the day in the study with Lloyd and my steward,” he told her. “Forgive me for leaving you to eat alone and to occupy yourself for the rest of the day.”

  She had come down with a head crammed full of things to say—apologies, explanations, questions. She had come down prepared to be calm and sensible, prepared to discuss, to come to some sort of agreement that would suit them both. Everything she had planned to say fled without a trace.

  “Oh, you must not concern yourself about me,” she assured him with bright cheerfulness. “I need to spend some time with Mrs. Loftus. I have much to learn. And she knows of someone who may be suitable as my lady’s maid. I will need to meet the girl to see if I agree. And I really ought to call upon Mrs. Booth, who was not well enough to attend the funeral. I should make a courtesy call at the vicarage too. And I have my embroidery and . . .”

  He was looking cold, remote, impatient to be gone, and her voice trailed away.

  She wondered if she had dreamed up the man who had loved her with such hot intensity and such shocking intimacy last night. And the woman who had responded in kind. But of course she had not. It was only the word loved that was inaccurate.

  Sex. It is just sex. . . .

  Yes, it had been. Just sex.

  He left the room without another word.

  * * *

  That ill-advised night of uninhibited sex was not repeated during the following week. Nor did Ralph take Chloe to his room again. He went to hers instead and resumed their marital relationship as it had been before.

  That one night had been ill-advised for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that he had known even before it happened that he must break the unwelcome news to her that they would be going to London after all. He had been too cowardly to speak up during the evening. He had known she would be upset.

  He had known years ago, when he finally abandoned his attempts at suicide, that this time would come. After the sudden death of his father, he had known too that it would come in the foreseeable future. And he had made the decision, reluctant though he had been, that he would do his duty when the time came—and even before the time came in the matter of taking a bride and setting up his nursery. It would perhaps be his penance, he had thought, to accept that for which his life had been saved. To do his best. To do his duty.

  He had ignored one fact—or perhaps he could not have expected to know it until now. His acceptance had concerned himself. It had included a wife, but it had not taken into account the fact that his wife would be a person in her own right.

  Doing his duty now meant hurting Chloe, breaking the promise he had undeniably made her. It meant forcing her into doing the very last thing on earth she wanted to do—if, that was, he chose to assert his rights as her husband. He had had to decide between duty and a promise and had chosen duty. Though he had also chosen not to enforce obedience.

  Had he done just that once before?

  Is this how you persuaded your friends to go to war with you?

  He had decided that they would leave for London one week after the funeral—or that he would, anyway. There was much to do in the interim. He was a bit sorry he had not spent more time at Manville Court during the past few years, learning something of the formidable task of running the many ducal estates. He had known this day was coming, after all, and ought to have been better prepared for it.

  He spent the week consulting with his steward at Manville, studying reports from the other properties, dealing with the considerable amount of correspondence Arthur Lloyd drew to his attention every day, tramping about the home farm talking with foremen and laborers, calling upon tenant farmers and listening to their concerns. On the few occasions when he had some free time, he sat in the book room with a book open before him—it could hardly be said that he read—or out riding aimlessly about the countryside or walking down by the lake or up over the falls.

  During much of that solitary time he grieved. It was incredibly difficult to be here in all the familiar surroundings, to know that it was all his now, to accept that his grandfather was gone. And he thought of his grandmother in London now with Great-Aunt Mary but surely feeling lost and homesick. He relived scenes from his boyhood and youth here. Once, when he explored a drawer in the desk in the book room, he found a little twist of paper lodged at the back and discovered three of the familiar sweetmeats welded together inside. Always three. And always twisted up in a piece of paper so that the sweets would not pick up lint in either his grandfather’s pocket or that of the grandchild to whom he gave them. Ralph put the little bundle into his own pocket and left it there.

  He would give anything in the world to bring back those days, to have the chance to take a different path into the future than the one he had actually taken. Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if he had not become so consumed with his grand idea of saving the world from tyranny or if his grandfather had put his foot down and refused to purchase his commission.

  But such thoughts were pointless. Regrets were pointless. As was guilt.

  Sometimes he found himself grieving too for his father, who had died almost unnoticed, by him at least. Ralph had still been very ill at Penderris at the time, too ill to return home for the funeral or even to comprehend fully what had happened. He had never been particularly close to his father, but he had loved him. There had been no goodbye, no chance to sit with relatives after his passing to relive half-forgotten memories. No real mourning. Just bruised feelings denied and pushed deep inside.

  He had loved his father. He had hurt him too. He had been a disappointment to a man who took duty and responsibility very seriously. And it must have been a huge blow to his pride as a father to have his own father override his refusal to allow Ralph to go off to war.

  Three times Ralph sat with Chloe in the evenings. Mostly he kept his eyes on his book when he did so while she just as firmly directed her attention to her embroidery or to her own book. She had not initiated any conversation since the night of their quarrel, but then neither had he.

  He did not even know whether she was coming to London with him. And he would not assert his right to command her.

  On the fifth evening, he set aside his book with more of a thump than he had intended, surged to his feet, and then had little choice but to cross the room to the sideboard to pour himself a drink since he could not think of any other reason to offer for getting up from his chair. Not that she had asked for any explanation. She had not even looked up. When he turned back to the room, glass in hand, however, she was looking at him, her needle suspended over her work. She looked down again without saying anything.

  And he felt suddenly vicious. This was ridiculous. He wanted to stride toward her, haul her to her feet, and shake her. But good God, why? Because he was not comfortable in his own home? Did he imagine she was?

  He swallowed a mouthful of port.

  “I thi
nk your brother and I,” he said, “might have been the closest of friends at school if we had not been so similar.”

  And where had that comment come from? Except that she always somehow reminded him of Graham. She irritated him in the same ways her brother had. As though even her silences—especially her silences—were accusatory. He had never thought of Graham and himself being similar, though. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  She lifted her head from her work again, and he expected her to look skeptical, incredulous. She seemed exceedingly fond of her brother, after all. Instead she nodded.

  “Yes,” she said, “I have noticed.”

  What the devil? He frowned, swirled the liquor in his glass, and took another gulp of it.

  “Pigheaded, both of us,” he said. “Espousing untenable ideals. Both of us.”

  “Pacifism is untenable?” she asked.

  “Of course it is,” he said impatiently. “No man is going to stand by and watch his mother and his wife and his daughters raped before his eyes without wreaking murder and mayhem to prevent it.”

  “Graham said much the same thing when he was here,” she said.

  “Did he?”

  “And is the ideal of fighting to end tyranny untenable?” she asked.

  “Of course it is,” he said again. “Tyranny will never be ended. Neither will violence nor aggression nor injustice nor cruelty nor any of the other evils humans are prone to.”

  “So we do away with soldiers and constables and magistrates and judges?” she asked him as he crossed the room to stand on one side of the hearth, his elbow on the mantel. “We allow tyranny and anarchy to spread unchecked because we can never stamp them out? But we lash out at anyone who threatens those nearest and dearest to us?”

  He swirled what was left of his drink but did not raise the glass to his lips.

  “I was a naïve fool,” he told her. “I thought war in a righteous cause was a glorious thing—dulce et decorum est pro patria mori and all that nonsense. It is sweet and right to die for one’s country. There is nothing sweet or right about war. Officers are vain and lazy and corrupt and often cruel. The common soldier is the spawn of the gutters and prisons of England. Battle is madness and chaos and blood and entrails and smoke and screaming. And when it is over, one shares a canteen of water or spirits and pleasantries with an enemy survivor of roughly equal rank while one sorts out one’s own dead and wounded and he sorts out his—as though it had all been a pleasant day’s game, like cricket.”