A Companion for Life

by Cari Hislop

  “The devil came to call and left a bad air.”

  “I’m in no mood for riddles. Is Mrs Bowen sleeping?”

  “She’s in her room…” Penryth started for the stairs. “…I believe you’ll find her door locked.”

  “Locked?” The word lashed his heart like a whip making his eyes water. “Why the devil did you give her the key?”

  “She asked for it.”

  “Why?”

  “Lady Gillingham called…”

  Penryth felt the remaining warmth drain from his heart as he clenched his hands in impotent rage. “You allowed my mistress to call on my wife?”

  “I tried to send her on her way, but I couldn’t stop Mrs Bowen from agreeing to see a visitor. I’m afraid her Ladyship left Mrs Bowen in a state…the look on her face…”

  His heart pounding in fear Penryth charged up the stairs, his footsteps echoing loud through the house. He ran to her door and tried the handle; locked. Bending over he swung back the keyhole guard; the key was turned in the lock. His knuckles wrapped the door in time with his heart. “Lily? It’s Mr Bowen; I need to speak with you.” The silence was worse than a string of curses. “Jones told me Lady Gillingham called; did she say something vile? Lily I need to see you, please open the door. Let me in, we need to talk…” After an hour his knuckles were raw, his throat was sore and the roaring flames in his chest had created a portal into hell. He desperately needed to see her eyes smile in forgiveness, but that wasn’t going to happen through a locked door. He yanked out his pocket watch. “I’ll give you five minutes to open the door and then I’m kicking it in.” Ten minutes later, he was still waiting. If she was fast asleep she’d think him a complete lunatic, but what if she was dying of a broken heart? He was kicking at the lock before he could dissuade himself. After a concerted effort, wood splintered and the door swung open.

  Her legs hung ten inches over the side of the bed as she stared at the ceiling. He stood frozen in fear until the pale motionless corpse finally blinked. She was alive; he could resume breathing. Spots of brilliant green dragged his eyes to the floor and his heart convulsed in pain. His bracelets… He tried to close the door, but it swung back open. It looked broken beyond repair; he’d have to pay for a new frame and a new door, though he could reuse the lock and key. He tried again to close it, but it swung open taunting his desperate need for privacy. There was no response from the woman as he rushed past the bed to pick up a chair and carry it back to the door. Setting it down, the door looked like it would stay closed. He turned towards the bed, but the squeaking sound of the chair being slowly pushed out of the way drew his attention back to the door. There was an uncomfortable eight inch gap. He couldn’t beg his wife’s forgiveness knowing the chambermaids might hear him. He kicked the chair back up against the door, but the door once again swung inwards leaving a similar gap. He didn’t want to be moving furniture; he wanted to be kissing his wife. Glancing at the bed he forgot about the door. His wife’s pale cheeks needed warm kisses.

  Picking up the emerald bracelets, they lay limp in his palms looking dull and cheap as if their fall from grace had destroyed their ability to shine. Carrying them over to the bed Penryth stood near her feet and held them out like a peace offering. “You dropped your bracelets.” It was an inane statement; the clasps could not come undone without human assistance. He, the giver, had been symbolically thrown to the floor in disgust. The loss of Lily’s good opinion made his swollen lip tremble as he crawled onto the bed next to her. “May I help you put them back on?” Her reply was to roll over onto her stomach tucking her arms underneath her. “I’m sorry Lily. That hussy only came to hurt you because I was swine; she hurt you to hurt me.” Admiring her lower spine as it curved into her generous bottom he reached out and lovingly caressed the lowest point in the curve. “Say something!”

  “Don’t touch me.” Feeling rejected he withdrew his hand. He could almost hear hell laughing as demons clawed at his chest.

  “What did she say?” He cringed at his sharp tone. His wife was going to think him a tyrant as well as a philandering cad. “Lily…” He tried to exhale his panic. “…why did you throw my bracelets on the ground?”

  “I don’t want them.”

  His lips hovered over her hair not daring to land. “Lily…what did that spiteful hussy say? You can’t lie there looking like…”

  “Like a whale?”

  “O Mam bach! Did that heartless cow call you a whale? Is that what she said?”

  The inert body suddenly trembled. “I’m a fat fool; your kindness, your kisses…they meant nothing.”

  “Twt lol! I swear it isn’t true.”

  “How could you kiss me like that when you knew you were going to visit her? I thought Rosamund’s humiliations unbearable…I wish I was dead.”

  “Don’t say that Lily. I didn’t go because I wanted to kiss her. I went because…” Penryth pressed his face into her hair in horror at having to admit the truth.

  “Because you have needs and I’m too fat to fill them.”

  “That spiteful cow!” She burst into tears widening the portal to hell. “It isn’t true! Lily, you’re bruised and in pain…I’m not heartless.” Her angry sobs didn’t sound convinced. “Lily, the truth is…” He lightly caressed her hair without a response. Feeling emboldened his cheek landed on her shoulder. “The truth is I made love to her and pretended she was you. It was very wrong of me and I feel awful. I shouldn’t have gone. I wish I hadn’t.”

  “I thought you were good and kind.”

  “It was a mistake; a stupid mistake.”

  “Marrying you was a mistake.”

  “Don’t say that Lily!” He pressed his lips against her hair. “I need your smile.” He put his arm around her. “Lily please don’t be angry with me…”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  He reluctantly ended all contact. “Our marriage isn’t a mistake. Having you in my house makes me feel warm and content. Melisande was just a warm body.”

  Rolling onto her side, her brown eyes blew a frigid north easterly wind into his soul. “I know you married me out of pity Mr Bowen, but I thought you’d have the courtesy not to discuss my shame with your mistress. That’s all I expected, nothing more.”

  “I didn’t tell her anything, she guessed.”

  “How could she guess that you haven’t bed your wife?”

  Penryth closed his eyes to escape the cold glare. “She knew I wasn’t making love to her, she was guessing who it might be and she deduced correctly that it was you, but that’s over. I swear I’ll never see her again; I’d rather hang myself.”

  His wife rolled back onto her stomach. “Do as you please. It’s none of my business.”

  Penryth squashed an impulse to forcibly roll her over and kiss away her cold words, but the ice was already settling in the hellish ache in his chest. Reaching out he fingered the orange frizzy hair draping her shoulder. He felt flattened by melancholy as if that morning he hadn’t been the happiest man in the world. Melisande’s sneering words repeated in his brain, ‘You’re in love with your wife.’ How could he be in love? It was true Lily’s kisses were incomparable, but he felt no blinding emotional fireworks. The thought of her dancing with other men didn’t make him jealous. He couldn’t even imagine flying into a passion on finding her alone with another man; it couldn’t be love. Lily Leigh was a pretty woman with pleasant curves. She aroused him. He wanted her. If only she’d smile and banish the hellish cold from his heart. “Lily…” He hesitantly moved closer until the front of his person brushed against her side as if physical contact might persuade his wife to be merciful. “If I could turn back the clock I wouldn’t go.” Now she was sobbing into the bedcover. “I’m sorry Lily. Forgive me, I beg you.”

  After an hour she seemed to have emptied her eyes of water, but there was still no response. His limbs feeling as chilled as his heart, Penryth lay next to his wife acutely aware that his rash lust had destroyed his wife’s good opinion of him. “Lily
say something, anything.”

  “I can smell her on you; your nearness is making me ill.” Penryth abruptly rolled away as if kicked in the stomach. Sitting on the edge of the bed he stared at the limp emerald bracelets in his hand as if they might inspire him with a solution.

  “Uncle Penryth? Aunt Lily?” The chair scraped against the floor as the door was pushed open ending any hope of forgiveness. “Uncle Penryth…” The young man approached the bed with visible relief, oblivious to the older man’s misery. “…something terrible has happened. I need your help.”

  “This isn’t a good time William.”

  His uncle’s flat tone made the young man look again at the woman lying on the bed.

  She was lying with her legs dangling over the side of the bed as if she’d fallen forward in a fit. “Is she dead?”

  “No she isn’t dead. I thought I taught you to knock on a closed door.”

  “It was open. Is she ill?”

  “She’s upset.”

  “Why?”

  “I mortified her.”

  “How?” Penryth’s chilly look of displeasure caused the young man to blush with horror. “I’m sorry Uncle Penryth. When you finish…uh…I need to speak with you urgently.”

  “Wait in my room.”

  “You won’t be long?”

  “I’ll be as long as I need to be.” Penryth sat there for several more minutes hoping the woman behind him would at least hint at forgiveness, but she remained silent. “I’ll put your bracelets in their box. Where do you keep it?” Her answer was a choked sob. “I’ll find it.” He forced his legs to carry him over to her dressing table and open the drawer. He carefully laid the limp bracelets in their cream satin bed and snapped the box closed. “I’ll put them in a safe place unless you’d like me to leave them in your room?” He looked once more at the bed hoping for a last minute reprieve, but she merely turned her head towards the wall rejecting him and his bracelets again. “I’ll send for a carpenter to fix the door. I’m sorry I hurt you; I feel like the devil.” What else was there to say? He walked from the room and shouted down the hall for Jones. “I want a large fire in Mrs Bowen’s room and send for a carpenter to fix her door.”

  Chapter 11

  William Bowen jumped out of the chair and gulped down his nerves as his uncle opened the door. He was a man even if he felt like a drowning boy. He licked his lips as his uncle closed the door behind him and walked over to his desk, opened the secret drawer and inserted the jewel case. William thought it prudent to say something pleasant to help balance the bad news. “Is Aunt Lily feeling better?”

  “No.”

  What was he supposed to say to that? “I’m sorry I interrupted…”

  “I’m sorry I got out of bed this morning. What is this urgent business?”

  William sank back onto a chair as his knees gave way. “Uncle Penryth, I don’t know how to…I feel so ashamed.” William looked up and shivered as dark eyes peered into his soul waiting for him to continue. “I called on Grace this morning at the usual time. I expected to meet her in the drawing room, but I was led to a private sitting room at the back of the house. One of those sittings rooms connected to a…a bedchamber.” The dark eyes seemed to glint with comprehension. “When I arrived Grace was reading a book. One moment I was asking her what she was reading and the next thing I knew we were kissing. I hadn’t kissed her for days. I don’t even know how she came to be in my arms, but it felt so good to hold her. One minute we were innocently kissing on the settee and the next I was on the bed in the next room and my fall was unbuttoned.” William felt his face burn under the gaze of his uncle’s all seeing eyes. “I was still wearing my coat, but her skirts were… We hadn’t yet…but I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Then the door opened and there was Mrs Philips and Lord Morley and I knew I was in hell. He picked up his eye glass and ogled Grace like she was some sort of sordid entertainment and said one of his sneering clever remarks. I could have killed him, but Mrs Philips wouldn’t even withdraw to allow us to make ourselves presentable. I had to pull Grace’s skirts down while Mrs Philips gave me a tongue lashing on proprieties and then demanded I marry Grace by special license. She says we must marry immediately because Lord Morley is bound to repeat the affaire in a drunken moment. Uncle Penryth I have to marry her this week; I’ve ruined my beloved.” William blinked back unmanly tears as he waited to hear a well deserved lecture on what it meant to be a man.

  “And what was Grace’s reaction to the interruption?” The cold question wasn’t what William expected.

  “She thought it was funny, though I failed to see the humor. She said I’d be the best husband in the world. Uncle Penryth, you have to give your permission.”

  “I won’t give it.”

  William blanched in horror. “But Uncle Penryth, I have to marry her. Lord Morley will make Grace the Christmas on-dit. I can’t allow…”

  “William, you were set up. Morley was Rosamund’s insurance that you’d be honour bound to wed the girl sooner than later.”

  William blinked in disbelief. “Are you accusing Grace of seducing me?”

  “She probably had some coaching.”

  “How can you think Grace would do anything so despicable?”

  “I’m merely pointing out that it was far too providential to be a coincidence.”

  William felt sweat beading on his upper lip. “Grace would never do such a thing.”

  “Then why did she laugh when she was found with her skirts around her knees?”

  “Some people laugh when they’re nervous.”

  “Did she look nervous?”

  “I’m not here to impugn Grace’s honour; I’m asking you for permission to wed her.”

  “If you wish to ruin your life before your twenty-first birthday William, you’ll have to drive the girl to Scotland and marry her over an anvil.”

  “But Uncle Penryth I can’t marry Grace and live off her parents. That would be humiliating. What if she gets with child? I’d need money to take care of it.”

  “I’d rather hang myself than kick you into that witch’s web. If you wish to ruin yourself, go ahead, but it won’t be with my permission or my assistance.”

  “Uncle Penryth, please…Grace is waiting for me to bring her good news.”

  “I’m sorry William. Even if I liked Grace I wouldn’t give my permission.”

  “What do you mean, even if you liked her? What is there not to like?”

  “She’s a spoilt brat with a vile temper who’ll make your life hell.”

  “How can you think that? Grace is an angel!”

  “I’d wager a thousand pounds not one of Rosamund’s servants would agree.”

  “Who cares what servants think? They spend their day scrubbing and cleaning. How could they appreciate Grace? She’s so…so beautiful…so sublime… I have to protect her from Morley’s tongue. You know what that devil is like.”

  “Marry her over an anvil and live off her parents for two years or wait two years and carry her over the threshold of your own house. There is no third option.”

  “I could ask Carmarthen for a loan. He’s always going on about the family line dying out. He’s been offering you fifty-thousand pounds for years to marry. Is that why you married her? Did you lose your money on the cards?”

  “I haven’t even told Carmarthen the good news. His money comes to me when he dies, what difference does it make?”