by Allison Lane
“No. He was a gamester, his zeal far exceeding his skill. He believed that no duke would allow his father-in-law to either flee the country or languish in debtor’s prison, so he foresaw a rosy future.”
“I cannot believe you would allow such predation,” she commented, breaking into a chuckle. “Your backbone is far stiffer than that.”
“You are right..” He sighed. “Even before the marriage, I was having second thoughts about allowing him to rush me into signing the settlements. When my solicitor saw them, he nearly exploded. Fortunately, Annabelle’s father made one mistake – he forgot that I was not legally of age. We overturned the initial document, replacing it with one that would protect Annabelle but not allow her father to coerce anything from her. Yet even that was not enough. I had assumed that she cared for me, of course. In reality, she quickly became a pawn in a power struggle between me and my father-in-law. He applied enormous pressure on her to turn me up sweet. I eventually barred the house to him. But I was hardly better, refusing to allow her to give so much as a groat to the man. The situation made an already bad relationship worse. Her hatred grew until, at the end, she would not even allow me to enter her room as she lay dying..”
“It is over,” she reminded him, noting the sheen of tears in his eyes. “I do not believe that you were ever cruel to her. Nor do I believe that she truly hated you. She was very young and probably deflected her fury at the situation and her frustrations over her own imperfect scheme in your direction. You were as much a victim as she, all of you prey to her father’s obsession.”
“I should have known better,” he insisted. “If only I had not let my enthusiasm run away with me.”
“If, if, if,” she chided him. “If wishes were horses, and so on. Who can blame anyone for acting his age? Don’t hate yourself for falling prey to youthful misjudgment. You could not be expected to recognize her desperation.”
“But I should have. Poor Annabelle. She was so miserable. How can fate be so cruel?” His control snapped, allowing a sob to escape.
“Cry it out, your grace,” she urged him, sliding close enough that she could gently pull his head against her to muffle the heart-wrenching sobs. For ten years he had been carrying the pain and guilt. But he was not the Iron Duke, charged with securing Europe’s future. Norwood had no reason to hide his own emotions. She absently smoothed his hair and massaged the back of his neck, hoping all the while that Annabelle’s father would roast for an eternity. His selfish scheming had destroyed three people. It was clear that Norwood was not at fault in the debacle. Nor were Annabelle or her young man.
As the duke’s tears slowed, she slipped out of the arms that had wound around her and moved to add coal to the fire.
Norwood was in shock over his breakdown, yet he had to admit that he felt better. Mrs. Morrison had made him look at his marriage from a different point of view. He had been too busy blaming himself to remember that Crompton was the real villain. Yes, he had been naïve – and impetuous, foolish, and way too arrogant. But it was Crompton’s venality that had engineered the fiasco. Poor Annabelle had found herself in a hopeless coil, her father’s pressure threatening her own happiness. Lacking the courage that had allowed Lady Amanda to escape in similar circumstances, Annabelle had taken the only other path open to her – the faulty plot to sidestep matrimony. She had made only one mistake – failing to consider that one of the unlikely suitors might fall in love with her. He must have seemed the perfect tool in her attempt to stymie her father.
If only he had talked to her. Despite their frequent discussions, he had never bared his heart, for proper gentlemen did not expose their feelings. He wiped the tears from his face. Not once had he considered asking her if she cared. Why should he? Everyone had fawned over him since the day he was born, rushing to fulfill his every whim. He snorted. It was ridiculous to interpret that as caring. If only he had talked to her first! He had not even taken the time to think through his decision, impetuously offering for her only a fortnight after meeting her. Had he even loved her? The unthinkable question slipped into his mind so quickly that he gasped in shock.
She had been beautiful, vivacious, witty, and carefree. But it had been a facade. She was good-looking, of course, but the real Annabelle was a perplexing mixture of timidity and iron determination, of boldness and terror. Crompton wore the face of a bluff, hearty man, but Norwood now knew that the facade hid a selfishness that often stooped to dishonor and outright brutality to achieve its ends. Nicholas had been horrified to discover his wife with a black eye and bruised jaw one day. That was when he barred the viscount from the house, though he could not prevent the man from lurking to accost Annabelle when she went out. He had finally hired a bodyguard to escort her everywhere, but the continued friction exacerbated an already deteriorating relationship.
If he had been more experienced, perhaps he could have averted the disaster he had visited on her. In retrospect, his great love had been nothing but infatuation with a façade. He neither knew nor understood the woman behind the mask.
And yet his naïveté was not the only contributor to their disaster. If she had been more worldly, she would have found a way to announce that she was not looking for marriage, or to at least inform her court that any suitor must speak to her first. He had met two young ladies this past Season who had done just that.
He could only conclude that he and Annabelle were both victims of innocence. If he had been older, he would never have offered for her. He would have been suspicious of her flirtation, assuming that she was angling for a position as duchess. Investigation would have revealed Crompton’s debts and might even have turned up her attachment. No wonder parents refused to grant their children control of their lives at so tender an age. Judgment did not mature until later.
Something had been tickling his mind and finally stepped into full view. There was a second flaw in Annabelle’s scheme. What if her scheme had worked? After a full Season of flirting with him, she could never have gone quietly home with no betrothal. Crompton would have vented his fury on her. She would not have survived long enough to marry Hensley. Elopement had been her only chance for happiness, but she had lacked the courage. He mopped up the last of his tears and shook his head, his eyes focusing gratefully on Mrs. Morrison.
Amanda poked idly at the fire until Norwood regained his composure. Only then did she return to her chair.
“It is over, your grace,” she said again. “Annabelle has been at rest for ten years. It is time for you to move on.”
“You understand so much,” he agreed, his voice still raspy. “Did you learn it all by experience, or were you born wise?”
“If I had been born wise, my life would doubtless have proceeded along much different lines,” she admitted.
“Was your marriage also a mistake then?”
“Not in that sense. My biggest mistakes occurred much earlier, like refusing to give in to my father’s demands. I proved so intransigent that he finally decided I would only embarrass him if he introduced me to society, so he arranged a betrothal to a gentleman I had met once. Once was enough to know that he would have abused me roundly, so I left.”
“Were you in love with Colonel Morrison?” Why was he prying like this? he suddenly wondered. It was none of his business. But he couldn’t help himself. His recent storm of tears had broken down the barriers he usually hid behind. But beyond that lurked the certainty that she also needed to talk.
“Not then. That grew later. We started as friends. Jack was always kind and gentle, and he spent an enormous amount of time correcting the deficiencies in my education. By the time we reached Portugal a year later, we were very close. There were no real problems until Vienna..” She closed her mouth, having already said too much. That was a period she was determined to expunge from memory. It was hard enough to accept her misjudgment of Jack’s character and cope with her grief over his death. She wasn’t ready to face the anger, guilt, and pain of Vienna.
“What happened?�
�� he asked, sensing her withdrawal.
“I can scarcely burden you with my own problems,” she protested, going to check on Oliver.
“It would be an honor, not a burden,” he assured her. “Major Humphries mentioned that you played confidante for your husband’s regiment. If you’ve so much sense, you must realize that discussing your own trials might help resolve them.”
Finding nothing wrong with Mr. Stevens, she was forced to turn back to the duke. “It was nothing, really. Vienna was such a hectic period that there were bound to be disagreements at times.”
“Such as—” he persisted. Her very reluctance to discuss it increased his determination.
Amanda tried to change the subject, but again he seemed to pull words from her mouth without her permission. “Jack often berated me for flirting with other gentlemen. We were socializing more than we had ever done in the past, and with a much higher class of people. He didn’t like it.”
“Was he unhappy because he knew you belonged in those circles?”
She frowned. “That might have been part of it, though he should have known that I had no aspirations to the polite world. Even as a child, I did not belong there. Father made it clear from the beginning that I was a disgrace to my breeding. Yet I could never change. If following his edicts was what it took to join society, I wanted none of it. But that was not the real problem. In fact, none of the things we fought about during those months were important.”
“Besides flirting, what did he object to?” asked Norwood as Amanda wandered over to stare sightlessly out of the window.
“Stupid things..” She sighed. “Which parties to go to; who our friends should be; money – we never had any; clothes; schedules.... It doesn’t matter. After a while, it got so we fought about anything and everything..” Her voice cracked.
“What was the real problem?” he asked softly.
“Jack’s job. Wellington is the one who opened my eyes to that, just last week. Jack was very unhappy. He was not a man who enjoyed spending his days in diplomacy and report writing.”
“I suppose he found it boring.”
“Of course, though that was not the crux of the matter either. He needed action and competition, but he was so tied down in Vienna he couldn’t even get free to go hunting. All he could do was create conflict to replace the danger that Napoleon’s abdication had removed from his life.”
“Arguing with you was a substitute for war?” he asked incredulously.
“In part, though it was more complicated than that. The situation was very odd, and I doubt anyone who did not know Jack could understand it. Even Wellington contributed to the problems. When he recruited me to help him, he forbade me to tell Jack.”
“You mean your husband did not know about your spying?”
“No. Much of the socializing I was doing was in pursuit of information. Wellington used Jack’s jealousy as a cover.”
Norwood shivered. Of all the cold-blooded...
“And it worked, of course. A typical scene occurred at the Countess of Worth’s ball. Jack accosted me in a deserted hallway and immediately assumed that I was heading for an assignation. I was torn between relief that it was Jack and anger that he had appeared at all. A second gentleman arrived moments later, who thought nothing of discovering us in furious argument, but who might have arrested me had I been alone. Yet I wish they had both arrived later. I had been trying to overhear a conversation between two men whom I suspected had engineered the disappearance of a British officer some days before. I still believe that if Jack had not created such a scene, we might have found the major before they killed him.”
“I suppose you are talking of Major Collingsworth. You are not responsible for his death. As you reminded me earlier, that falls under the province of God, and you should not second-guess Him.”
“I know, but it is difficult..” Amanda’s voice dropped to a whisper as she relived those months in Vienna. She rested her forehead against the window. “Poor Jack. He was caught in a web of discontent. Nothing he did was interesting. I was carrying on in a way he could only interpret as repudiating him. It is no wonder he began to spend his time with others, but it hurt to see him drifting away from me.”
That was the real problem. “So he retaliated against your socializing by doing some of his own?” he asked obliquely. Her shoulders twitched as she choked back a sob. She nodded.
“Painful, but you must have known the reason,” he said calmly.
“I suppose it was the last straw,” she murmured. “I had hoped that the end of the war would allow us to grow closer.”
“I thought you were already close.”
“It is difficult to explain,” she said brokenly. “Those first months, I was everything to Jack, but it wasn’t real. He was still recovering from his injuries and devilishly frustrated. I was the new toy that allowed him to retain his sanity.”
Norwood shivered.
“But once we got to Portugal, I was always second. Don’t get the wrong idea,” she added as he drew breath to protest. “The army came first. It had to, with both of us. He never ignored me, but I was always an afterthought to the job at hand.”
“So you looked forward to peace and a more normal life.”
“Foolishly, it turns out. Jack never needed me. He was only truly alive when faced with danger.”
Norwood had come up behind her and now laid his hands gently on her shoulders. “Aren’t you exaggerating just a bit?”
“No,” she choked. “He only put up with me because I had slightly more uses than his batman. It was nought but a quixotic gesture to marry me at all.”
Another sob shook her, prompting Norwood to turn her and press her face into his coat. He felt out of his depth. “Go ahead and cry,” he murmured.
“Why does no one care about me?” she sobbed bitterly. As Norwood’s arms tightened in protest, she continued. “They all appreciated me, but none truly cared. I am as much a dreamer as Jack. He never loved me. For years I deluded myself into believing he did, but it wasn’t true. Perhaps Father was right. No one could possibly love someone as abnormal as I..”
Norwood felt like he was teetering along a narrow path in a dense fog with no idea what lurked below. Never had he thought about other people as individuals, let alone about their problems or needs. But as Mrs. Morrison sobbed brokenly into his coat, he wanted nothing more than to remove all her pain and somehow set her on a road to happiness. How could a woman who possessed so much worth and so much love believe herself to be a failure?
As her tears eased, Amanda reviewed her words in amazement. She really had been Jack’s new toy, she admitted, still shocked that such a description had tumbled out when she had never considered herself in that light. But it was true. Once he recovered, he had no real need of the distraction she had offered, but he kept her around because she had proven to be useful. He could just as easily have left her behind when the regiment sailed – and would have if she had caused him any distress. But she had been caught up in the excitement of traveling to exotic new places and the warmth of romantic love. So she buried her own needs, content to live by Jack’s rules. Not until the crisis atmosphere of war had eased into peace did she demand more than he was willing to give.
The thought whirled in from nowhere, opening her eyes in shock. It was not just his job that drove Jack to argument. For the first time since their marriage, she had made demands on him.
She hiccupped, accepting Norwood’s handkerchief and drying her face.
“Were you never able to discuss this with Jack?” he asked.
“There was never an opportunity,” she admitted. “We packed up in a dreadful hurry one day and went to Brussels. I hardly saw him the six weeks before Waterloo. He was racing around delivering messages to troops scattered across a wide area. It was better for him, of course, but the constant recriminations of the previous months prevented us from ever really talking. More often than not, we wound up fighting..”
“Don’t bla
me yourself,” he admonished her. “It would have come right eventually. You are too sensible to have allowed it to continue once life settled down again. And you would have reached a comfortable arrangement.”
“I’m not so sure,” she countered. “Jack was not a man suited to a peacetime existence. Many men are addicted to destructive behavior – drunkards and inveterate gamesters, for example. Jack was another. But with him it was competition. He needed action, danger, and constant challenge. Combat intoxicated him, as did pitting himself against others. Not even love and the lighthearted whimsy that he brought to the rest of his life could compensate for peace..” She trembled, grateful for the warm arms that still pressed her head to his shoulder. The comfort and safety Norwood offered allowed her to finally examine those last months. And he seemed to understand her need to do so, for he remained silent, content to stroke her hair.
Poor Jack. Restlessness had driven him to increasingly reckless behavior. He had run wild in Vienna, flaunting an endless parade of women. Not that he’d repudiated her. If anything, his attentions increased, their verbal sparring often lending an extra spark of passion to their lovemaking. But she alone could not compensate for the lack of warfare. So he had courted as much danger as possible, relieving his frustrations through discord at home and creating strife at every turn by publicly cheating on his wife and by cuckolding other men. At least half of his women were married, and he had reportedly been involved in several duels as a result. Wellington deplored such behavior and must have castigated him for it, placing his commission in jeopardy.
She might as well face the truth and be done with it. A deep, abiding love might have helped him cope, but neither of them felt that strongly. She could accept that now. Jack’s affection had never wavered, and he had always been proud of her accomplishments. Had he known of her spying, he would have supported her without reservation. But with him, friendship had never ripened into love. Nor were her own feelings strong enough. She had accepted the fact that she loved him without ever considering just what that meant. In the beginning, it had been a form of gratitude for rescuing her from a miserable future. Despite his injuries, he had been a dashing, worldly man, the scars on his face adding a piratical look that made him even more attractive. His teasing ways made her feel desirable, and he offered travel and new experiences, both of which she had long coveted.
