A Chance Encounter (23 page)

In the evenings, too, Elizabeth was expected to accompany Cecily. The elder Rowes usually went to the same house, glad of the excuse for increased visiting, but they usually settled with the older adults, playing cards or just gossiping. It was again up to Elizabeth to oversee the activities of the younger set and settle the disputes that frequently arose.

One of the most heated arguments arose when Ferdie and the auburn giant, captains of the two teams for charades, were picking their team members. Ferdie took loud exception to the giant's choosing Cecily. But Elizabeth pointed out that Ferdie had had first pick and had chosen Anne Claridge (“because she's the best actress in the whole county,” he explained, exasperated) and that the giant was therefore free to choose whomever he would. Ferdie sulked and Cecily flirted for the rest of the evening. Elizabeth was forced to scold her at home later, when they were alone.

“I do not know how you feel about Mr. Harry Worthing,” she said, “but you did set your cap at him in a rather vulgar manner tonight, Cecily.”

“Pooh,” said her charge, “I was merely cross with Ferdie, Beth. Why must he always behave as if I belong to him? I have never even
kissed
him more than two or three times, and he has never made me a declaration. I cannot resist teasing him when he becomes so possessive.” She blushed suddenly. “I was not so outrageous, was I, Beth?”

“I am afraid you were, love,” her companion replied, “and that young man seems quite taken with you.”

“I really did not mean to encourage him so,” Cecily said in dismay. “It is exciting to have new company, but I really have not meant to set my cap at anyone.”

“I know that, love,” Elizabeth said. “But I do not wish anyone to gain the impression that you are fast.”

By the fourth day after William's departure, Elizabeth was exhausted. She had a headache by dinnertime and a tickling in the back of her throat that seemed to threaten a cold. She begged to be excused from that evening's gathering at the vicarage.

“Well, of course, my dear Miss Rossiter,” Mrs. Rowe said, all solicitous concern. “You must go to your bed immediately. I shall have some warm milk and laudanum sent up to you and a hot brick for your feet. Don't worry about a thing, my dear. I shall watch Cecily tonight. I knew when I saw you outside yesterday without a pelisse that you would catch a chill. I told Mr. Rowe so.”

“And so you did, my love,” her husband agreed. “But since it was almost too hot yesterday to wear a dress even,
I do not believe the absence of a pelisse caused the cold. I should say that Miss Rossiter is probably hagged from chasing after a pack of young devils for several days.”

“Papa!” Cecily complained.

Elizabeth retired to her room, the relief of having a quiet evening to herself already easing the headache. She undressed and sat in her nightgown close to the empty fireplace. She drank the warm milk that Mrs. Rowe had sent up, but set aside the laudanum. She never felt rested after a drug-induced sleep; she would avoid it if she could. She smiled too at the hot brick, wrapped in cloths, that the maid placed between her bedclothes. She would certainly not retire until that had cooled off thoroughly. The night was almost too warm to allow of bedclothes at all.

She took John's latest letter from a drawer beside her bed and sat down to read it again. They missed her. Louise had begged him to tell her that she was very welcome to come home again to stay. Louise was in good health. The tiredness and nausea that had troubled her in the early months had almost disappeared now. The baby was a bundle of mischief. That very morning he had toddled into the flower garden and picked a magnificent bouquet of blooms for his mama. The only trouble was that there was not a stem among the whole bouquet, only heads. John himself had had to leave his office before the gardener was pacified.

Elizabeth smiled. What a lovely family John had. And how envious she was. Would life with William be that cheerful, that full of minor crises? By this time next year would she be married to him, expecting his child, perhaps? Inevitably, her thoughts passed to Robert and the pleasure he had seemed to take in Louise's company and in Jeremy's. She caught herself before she could become too deeply engrossed in the if-onlys. She had decided, on the night of the anniversary ball after accepting William's proposal, that she would no longer allow herself to brood on the past. She had to put Robert finally out of her mind. She would probably never see him again. She must forget him. She could not be fair to William if she did not. She got up and put the letter back in the drawer.

There was a tap on the door.

“Come in,” Elizabeth called. When she saw the maid, she smiled and pointed to the empty glass on the hearth.

“You have a visitor, ma'am,” the maid said. “The butler told him you were unwell, but he said it was important. He is in the drawing room.”

“Oh.” Elizabeth had been counting the days until William's return, but she was still taken by surprise. What would he have to say? What had Robert said? Would he have sent any message for her? A message of regret, perhaps, like the very last words he had spoken to her? Would he perhaps have sent her a letter?

She dressed in feverish haste, selecting the pale-green silk with the lace inset that she and Louise had altered and that she had brought back with her. She brushed her hair so that the short curls bounced into place, and descended quickly to the drawing room. She smiled brightly as she opened the double doors.

Hetherington's eyes were a particularly cold shade of blue this evening, her mind registered as they met hers from across the room. In fact, his whole face and manner were stiff and cold. The smile faded from her own lips.

“Oh,” she said foolishly.

His eyes traveled slowly and insolently down her body. “I am sorry to disappoint you,” he said. “I see that you have prepared yourself for your lover. You look extraordinarily beautiful, Elizabeth. It is a shame to waste such a dazzling appearance on me, is it not?”

“What are you doing here?” she asked, finding the business of moving her lips and tongue unusually difficult.

His eyebrows rose. “My closest friend paid me a visit two days ago,” he said frostily, “to ask if he might marry my wife. Is it surprising that I am here?”

“Your wife!” she said contemptuously, crossing the room toward him. “Why do you persist in this farce, Robert? I am not your wife. We are strangers.”

“Did I imagine that wedding service we attended together in a small church in Devon?” he asked. “Did I imagine that we consummated the marriage in a very thorough manner for two nights?”

Elizabeth blushed hotly. “Such things do not make a marriage,” she said. “Soon after that time you wanted me no more. For six years you have not cared if I lived or was dead. Are you now planning to put an obstacle in the way of my marriage to William?”

“The obstacle already exists,” he said coldly. “You are my wife, Elizabeth, and my wife you will remain.”

“Then you refuse to grant me a divorce?” she asked.

“Of course,” he answered. “I do not believe in divorce.”

She stared at him in impotent fury. “You are despicable,” she spat out. “You have no such scruples. You merely wish to put a rub in the way of my happiness.”

He bowed slightly in her direction.

“Then I shall divorce you!” she cried, the idea striking her for the first time. “I do not know how I may go about it, but Mr. Rowe will advise me. I shall ask him tomorrow.”

“It will not work,” he said quietly. “You have no grounds.”

“No grounds?” she repeated. “I shall find grounds and to spare, my lord, you may depend upon it.”

He smiled arctically. “Adultery?” he suggested. “It would not be worth your while to try, my love. Unbelievable as it may seem to you, I have been faithful to our marriage. It is quite a joke among my set, you know, that I do not even keep any high-flyers.”

She stared at him.

“Desertion?” he continued. “It would not succeed. You left me, remember? It was my express command that you stay at my grandmother's house in Devon until I sent for you. You disobeyed and went home to your father. If questioned, I should make it quite clear that I am willing to return to you anytime you so desire.”

“You would be prepared to lie so?” she asked, wideeyed.

“Oh, I never lie,” he said, smiling into her eyes. “I would remind you that there is documentary evidence that you and I spent a night together at a certain inn just a few weeks ago. You are a remarkably attractive woman, Elizabeth, and six years has been a long time. I should not say no to an invitation to your bed.”

His hand shot up to grasp her wrist as her hand flashed toward his face. “No, not this time,” he said, eyes narrowing. “That last time you had the advantage of surprise, my love, but I learn by experience. Hit me again, Elizabeth, and I may reply in kind. You would not escape with a kiss this time.” He released her wrist.

She turned away from him. “Where is William?” she asked.

“He suddenly remembered pressing business that will keep him in London for an indeterminate length of time,” he replied.

“And you are staying at Ferndale?”

“Under the circumstances, that would not be good
ton,”
he replied. “The inn at Granby seems comfortable enough.”

“What does he intend to do about me?” Elizabeth asked, and then despised herself for having spoken out loud.

“What can he do?” Hetherington asked. “I told him that he may not marry my wife, and like the honorable gentleman that he is, he has retreated to lick his wounds.”

“You are utterly heartless,” she cried, turning on him once more in fury. “You are enjoying this situation, are you not? It gives you pleasure to cause pain for two people.”

“You are wrong, madam,” he snapped, his face showing anger for the first time. “It is precisely because I care for William Mainwaring that I am behaving as you see. You have ruined my life, Elizabeth, making it quite impossible for me to lead a normal life or to love another woman. Do you think I would stand idly by while you do the same to my friend? He may hate me now, he may be suffering now, but I would prefer to feel his hatred and watch his pain than see him later with all faith in life and love shattered.”

Elizabeth had clutched her throat with one hand and sunk down onto a sofa. “What are you saying?” she whispered. “What have I done to make you hate me so?”

He came to stand in front of her and glared down into her eyes. “Money was more important to you than I was,” he said, “and you professed to love me. William, by his own account, you claim to hold only in affection. But I'll wager that you love his money, Elizabeth. It will be so much more accessible to you than mine was.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, barely able to get the words past her lips. “This is not the first time you have accused me of being mercenary, Robert. What do you mean? You were poor when I married you.”

He smiled unpleasantly. “Ten thousand pounds was so much more attractive to you than a husband who had only love and a title to offer, was it not?” he asked.

“Ten thousand pounds?”

“Had you planned it all along, Elizabeth?” he asked. “Or was it just the momentary temptation to which you succumbed?”

“Oh, Robert,” she whispered, feeling the blood draining from her head and fighting waves of faintness, “what are you talking about?”

His expression changed. A kind of wild fear was in his face. He grabbed her by the upper arms. “Are you ill?” he asked harshly, and when she did not reply, he pulled her to her feet and folded her in his arms. She sagged against him, dizzy with faintness.

“Oh, God, Elizabeth,” he said against her hair, his voice heavy with pain, “tell me you did not plan it. Tell me that you were merely tempted, that it was a decision you made on the spur of the moment. Tell me you loved me when you married me, that those days and nights in Devon were not just an empty sham. Please, darling, give me that much consolation at least.”

Elizabeth fought the buzzing in her ears and the coldness in her head. “Tell me what you are talking about,” she said.

His hand came beneath her chin and lifted her pale face. “Ah, don't lie to me,” he said. “Believe me, I want to understand, I want to forgive. When I see you and when I hold you, I cannot believe that you are capable of the villainy that I have accepted all these years. I want you, Elizabeth.”

His mouth was on hers with a passion and an urgency that she could not have denied even had she wished to. As it was, in her semiconscious state, the embrace seemed like one of the many she had dreamed of in the previous years, only more delightful. She pressed herself to the warmth of him and allowed his demanding lips to tilt her head back and part her own. Her mouth relaxed beneath his so that his tongue plunged an easy entrance and set her afire. His one hand had somehow dealt with the row of buttons down the back of her gown and was caressing the naked flesh of her back beneath her chemise. His other hand fondled one breast and then dropped behind her hips and brought her hard against him. She gasped and regained some of the consciousness that had been slipping from her. He was looking at her with passion-heavy eyes and then stooped down and swung her up into his arms.