“I would have given my soul to watch you grow round with my babe. I would have been awed and humbled by the life we had created and the changes in your body. I would have whispered to her that I loved her, that I wanted her.”
She was biting her lips now, trying to stem the flow of tears and the flood of pain. The full realization of what she had done hit her full force. How would she ever make amends for what she had done to him? How would this horrible pain, this hurtful betrayal, ever subside for him? What kind of a selfish, prideful creature had she become?
“Did you know that I was looking for you, here and in London?”
“Yes.” There was no point in lying now. Her secrets were out.
“But you purposely hid from me. Why?”
“I did not want to hear your excuses. I was heartbroken that you chose the opium over me, that you could so easily mistake another woman for me, especially after what we had shared in the stable. You destroyed my belief in you, Lindsay.”
He nodded. “I know I did, and I am sorry, Anais.”
“My pride was pricked. My heart broken. I sought to lash out in the only way I knew how, and that was to hide from you. I was afraid that if I saw you again, I would weaken. I…I’ve never had the strength to deny you, Lindsay, and I knew that if you asked for forgiveness I would grant it.”
“And France? Please tell me that was not a lie. Tell me that you did go there. That I was not a fool…”
“I did not think you cared enough to follow. I…just wanted a reprieve from you, from hearing your voice in my father’s study.”
“You sent me on a wild-goose chase,” he said, shaking his head. “You were never even there.”
“I didn’t think you would follow—”
“Why? Because I didn’t want you? Because you thought I had gotten what I wanted out of you and couldn’t be bothered to find you? What did you think my visits were about, Anais—all those demands to find you? What did you think when I looked you in the eye after I had made you mine and told you that we were going to be man and wife?”
“I thought them lies, just opium-induced dreams that I couldn’t allow myself to believe in.”
“So, you said you were going to France hoping to gain what?”
“A few weeks to think. Some time away from you. I knew that if you thought I had left, you wouldn’t come by. I would be free of you, at least until I had figured out what to do. I truly believed that once you discovered that I had left for France, that you would leave for London.”
“You thought to punish me.”
Anais looked down at the swirling snow on the stones. “Yes,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“You said you didn’t know you were with child, was that the truth?”
“When I came up with the idea to say I had gone abroad, I did not know about the babe. I discovered the truth later, but by then it was too late. You had already left, and no one knew where you were, or when you would return.”
“I cannot believe you didn’t think I would follow you to France. The minute I learned you had left for the continent, I went to find you—I had to find you.”
She felt sick at the thought of Lindsay searching through Paris for her. What a fool she had been. What a prideful, vain idiot she was.
“You must know, Lindsay, that I loved the baby,” she said through trembling lips. “From the moment I discovered I was carrying your child, I loved it. I wept for it, knowing that its life would be filled with shame and scandal.”
“It didn’t have to be.”
Anais looked away, ashamed, her heart breaking and crumbling the longer she looked at him.
“Tell me about the day our daughter was born,” he asked, his voice cracking with emotion. “The details of that event have plagued me for days.”
She wanted to tell him, to reach out and enfold him in her arms. She wanted to take in his warmth through her cold limbs, but she stayed where she was and allowed the words to fall softly from her lips.
“It was night, and I had been staying in the cottage at the edge of Garrett’s estate.” She noticed how his jaw clenched, but she looked away and recounted the memories. It was the first time she had since the night she had given birth to Lindsay’s child.
“I had been in labor most of the day and Garrett sent for his brother.”
“So Broughton stayed with you?” he snapped, anger erupting in his voice.
“I was alone, Lindsay. Only Garrett, Robert and Margaret knew I was there. Mama and Papa thought I was touring the continent with my aunt Millie. Millie knew that I was staying with Garrett and his family—she did not press me for answers. She knew that I was…” she trailed off. “She knew I was hurt over you, but she did not know that I was with child. She agreed to the sham because she thought I needed time to mend my heart. She left for France with her companion, and I left for Garrett’s estate. Papa was very distracted at the time—no doubt this was when his affair with Rebecca began. Mama did not care what I did. It was not difficult to deceive them. Jane, my aunt’s companion, mailed the letters I sent to her for my parents from Paris. They didn’t know I was living less than a mile away from them. We were very careful to keep out of Society. I never left the cottage except for the odd horseback ride in the forest at night. Garrett was the only person to visit me. I relied on him. He didn’t trust anyone, most especially the village midwife. I…I needed someone, I was so afraid,” she uttered quietly, choking back a sob as she relived the pain of her contractions.
“Did he comfort you?”
“He was very kind. He held my hand and put cold cloths on my forehead. He told me that everything was going to be all right.”
“I would have done that. I would have defied convention and stayed with you as you gave birth to our baby. I would have done anything to take your pain away.” He paused and then searched the sky. “Was it long for you?”
“Not overly.”
He nodded and looked down at his hands, which chafed red from the cold and wind. “I would not want to think of you in such agony. I hope Broughton brought his brother to you when you needed him.”
“He did. Robert arrived quickly and he delivered the baby shortly after.” She bit her lip, remembering the sound of Mina’s lusty cry, recalled watching the emergence of Mina’s black head sliding out of her body. How beautiful and perfect she had been. How she had been filled with a sense of profound love as Robert lifted Mina high in the air, turning the babe so she could see what her pain had wrought.
“What was it like, to see her being born?” His back was to her, but Anais knew by the sound of his voice that he was quietly weeping.
“Beautiful. To finally see the life that was inside you all those months is beyond words. To see what you created…” she trailed off, swallowing hard. “Her cry, it was the most beautiful sound in the world.”
“Did you put her to your breast and whisper to her?”
“Yes.”
“I should have liked to have seen you with her at your breast. I would have sat beside you and stroked her head and counted her little fingers while she suckled from you. I would have liked to have watched you give birth to her, to feel what it is like to see something that you created being born into the world. I would have kissed you and thanked you for giving me such a gift, such a beautiful, perfect child.”
Anais covered a sob with her shaking hand. She was dying inside, knowing and sharing the agony that Lindsay was now feeling. “My heart overflowed with love for her.”
“And yet you gave her away.”
The words were uttered in such a soft, broken whisper that Anais felt as though a knife were cleaving her heart in two.
“You will never know the pain that caused me,” she cried, fisting her hand so that she would not run to him and touch him and beg him to forgive her.
“I know the pain. I feel it. I feel it now, coursing through me, eating away at me.”
“I hemorrhaged after delivering her. I was sick with the f
ever and weak from the blood loss. I do not even remember the days—the week—after giving birth to her. I heard Robert telling Garrett that I was going to die. I did not want to die and leave Mina alone. All I can recall is listening to her cries, her screams of hunger. But Margaret saved her. I wept as I watched Margaret feed my child. My heart broke when I saw Mina lying contented and full against Margaret’s breast. You know not how I felt when I knew that I could not give our daughter the sustenance she needed. But Margaret could give her what I couldn’t, and she adored her. I knew then, watching Mina with Margaret and Robert, that she was meant for them. They love her. They’ve made her a part of their family. She has a name,” she whispered at last, reaching out and touching his hand, only to have him pull his away from hers.
“She always had a name. She had my name. I would have given her everything. I would have given you everything, but you took that chance away from me when you sent me to France when you weren’t even there. You never let me show you what I could be. And do you know what hurts most?” he asked, stepping toward her. “What hurts most is the fact I used to lie awake at nights and think of you with my children surrounding you. I wanted nothing more in life than to be your husband, your lover, the father of your children. How is that for irony? The only dream I’ve ever had and you snatched it from me.”
He reached out and clutched her face roughly in his ice-cold hands. “Would you have ever told me, Anais? Would you have told me that we created a life? Or would you have gone to your grave with this secret?”
She could not hold his gaze and he swore, letting her go. “I would never have believed that you had it in you to be this cruel. Do you know how this will haunt me forever? I have a child, Anais, a child that I cannot claim. That I must love in secret from afar. A child that bears another man’s name.”
His hands dropped from her face to rest at his sides. “All those times I begged you to let me in. I pled with you to allow me inside, and you allowed me in, but you made me crawl, made me beg—”
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I did not purposely conceal my pregnancy from you.”
He straightened and his eyes dulled. “I’m sorry, too, Anais. So sorry for all the bad decisions I’ve made. I’m sorry that I cannot forgive you, or myself. I’m sorry that I was not a better man for you, the type of man you and our child needed.”
She reached out to him, gripping the sleeve of his coat. “Where are you going, Lindsay?”
“Away. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to tell me? You want me away from you so you won’t have to be confronted with the memories of what you’ve done. What I’ve done.”
“Don’t walk away like this, please.”
“There is nothing left, Anais. All you have to offer is pain and hurt. All I can give you is the same. There can be nothing but regrets between us now. Regrets and sorrows and tears of pain. As you’ve tried to tell me, it truly is over. Goodbye, Anais.”
And then he stalked off and disappeared down the terrace steps and into the night.
23
The stinging rap of the brass knocker tapping against wood rang out in the crisp night air. Burying his face in his greatcoat, Lindsay waited for Thomas, Wallingford’s aging, austere butler.
The click of the lock bolt drew his gaze and within seconds he found himself looking down into the pale, rheumy eyes of Thomas.
“Good evening, Lord Raeburn.”
“Evening, Thomas, is Wallingford in?”
“I am afraid his lordship is indisposed.”
Lindsay scanned the foyer, and noticed numerous cloaks and umbrellas hanging on the coatrack. Wallingford was indeed not available to entertain him if the number of frilly, feminine fripperies littering the hall was any indication. He felt himself scowling. He had not wanted Wallingford to be occupied. He’d already spent nearly three days alone in London. Three days that he had lost to the red smoke. He did not want to be alone with his thoughts any longer.
“Shall I see if his lordship is at home?” Thomas asked, scouring him with his unreadable eyes.
“Please.” He desperately needed to talk with someone.
“Very well, then. Come in, please.”
Lindsay stepped over the threshold and cupped his hands, blowing his hot breath into them. He had forgotten his gloves and hat in his preoccupation. He had not even bothered to order his carriage around, and instead walked the twenty-minute route to Wallingford’s town house in Berkley Square.
Thomas suddenly emerged from the salon Lindsay knew Wallingford used as a studio. “His lordship will see you. Please await him in the study.”
Passing the butler his greatcoat, Lindsay shook off the cold and headed for Wallingford’s study and the warmth of a fire. As he stalked into the room he heard the shrill laughter and twitters of numerous women. He turned away from the hearth in time to count seven women, giddy and flushed, tiptoeing their way past the study door. Good Lord, Wallingford was actually seeing his vision to fruition.
“Evening, Raeburn,” Wallingford grumbled, closing the door on the women. “An unexpected pleasure.”
“Sorry to disturb you with your harem,” he replied, turning his attention back to the orange flames that flickered in the hearth.
“I was finished with them anyway,” Wallingford drawled. Lindsay heard the crystal stopper from the brandy decanter pop open, followed by the sound of the golden liquid spilling out into a cut glass tumbler.
“A drink?”
“No, thank you,” he replied, rubbing his hands together more in anxiety than cold.
“So what brings you to London? Out on the prowl tonight, are you? Come by for some company on your adventures? Where shall we go? Do you fancy a seedy whorehouse or an elegant brothel? Shall we get ripping drunk at the theater and then crash Lady Moncton’s soiree? God, I’d love to shock that old dragon. Maybe I’ll piss in her prized potted bird of paradise again this year. Christ, to see that old bird’s face when I let my prick out of my trousers,” Wallingford chuckled. “Made quite an impression on many ladies that night, or at least I assume it was my ten inches that caught their eye.”
“I’m not seeking a cohort to share a night of debauchery.”
“Pity,” Wallingford said, gazing into the tumbler. “It’s been a while since I’ve spent a night in debauched excess. I think I’ve forgotten its pleasures.”
“You call having seven young women in your studio doing God knows what not debauchery?” Lindsay asked gruffly.
Wallingford arched one sardonic brow. “Clearly you are not yourself tonight.”
“What do you think your father will do once he learns what you’ve been up to?” he blurted, unable to stop himself. Wallingford only shrugged and studied his brandy in the firelight.
“Probably piss himself then promptly expire with righteous mortification,” Wallingford stated baldly as he lowered his tall frame into the leather wingback chair that sat to one side of the hearth. “Or at least one can dream of such a scenario.”
“You don’t care what anyone thinks, do you?”
Wallingford’s gaze met his over the top of the tumbler. “No, I do not. I stopped caring when I was ten.” Wallingford took a sip and studied him with dark eyes. “As interesting as this conversation is, I hope you did not disturb me with my seven nubile nymphs to discuss me and my follies.”
Lindsay felt his face flush. “No, I did not.”
“Have a seat,” Wallingford commanded, motioning to the matching chair that sat opposite him. Lindsay did as his friend bade and stretched his legs out before the fire, crossing them at the ankle. “You are far from Worcestershire and your beloved Anais. Tell me, why are you here?”
He stared into the dancing flames and saw how they burned a brilliant blue at the base—blue that resembled Anais’s eyes. He could not stop thinking of her. Could not push the image of her out of his mind. How he had been tormented these past days by his thoughts—his visions. Not even the opium had released the pain and longing in his breast.<
br />
“You truly are consumed, are you not?” Wallingford said without a trace of amusement.
“That is what happens when you lose yourself in a woman,” Lindsay murmured, finally looking away from the flames.
“I would not know, I have never lost myself in a woman.”
Lindsay studied him, amazed at his friend’s revelation. “Never?”
“Never.”
“Of all the women you’ve taken to bed, you have never experienced becoming one with a woman? Never felt the pulse of her heart deep inside you? Never absorbed her into your blood and your soul?”
Wallingford’s eyes flickered to meet his. “I have never allowed a woman to touch me with anything more meaningful than sexual superficiality. I fuck women, Raeburn. I do not make love to them. I do not let them into my soul. I do not feel them creep into my heart. Women are for physical release, nothing more.”
“Have you never been tempted?” Lindsay asked, feeling sympathy for his friend. “Have you never been close to allowing yourself to be lost in the feel of a woman?”
“No,” Wallingford answered without blinking. “I believe that few men do experience what you have. I do not think that what the poets describe with such beauty and wonder is easily found between two people. It is bodies in motion, panting and sweating and grunting. Each are searching for their own needs—satisfying their own yearnings and not giving a damn about the other person. I have never felt more than that. Whenever I am inside a woman I am thinking of my pleasure. I couldn’t give a fucking toss about anything else but slaking my needs and spending myself on their willing bodies. Whatever connection I may feel when I am driving inside a woman ceases to exist when my cock slides out of her body.”
Lindsay gazed back into the fire, feeling cold after listening to Wallingford’s perfunctory description of the sex act. It was not that way for him. It had never been just sex with Anais.
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