Fool Me Twice (37 page)

She had never felt obligated to anybody but her mother—and perhaps Elizabeth Chudderley, for whom she’d felt such deep gratitude for employing her without a proper reference. But what was this uneasiness now, but proof that she felt beholden to
him
? Beholden not only in simple matters, like their shared aims in regard to Bertram. She also worried over his moods. She wanted him to be . . . happy.

But she knew that his happiness lay in his return to a world she could not join. Lovely. She’d fashioned a perfect pit for herself.

She cleared her throat. “It has certainly been . . . odd,” she said. “The afternoon.”

“Odd in the best of ways.” She heard in his voice that he was attempting to cheer her. “Had we a copy of Debrett’s, we could edit it.”

She did not want to think on that right now. It would be a rageful undertaking to reflect on the consequences of exposing Bertram—and she had spent long enough in this dark mood. She was not a woman to sulk. Better to focus on the simpler, happier facts: she had a family. She had a place. She had everything she’d once longed for.

Yet where was her triumph? Why did she not feel compelled to return to the house, to meet everyone, to bask in their welcomes, their affection so easily offered?

They didn’t know her. They had no idea who she was, only that a woman they loved had birthed her. But the man sitting next to her knew her. And he was all she needed. All she wanted.

God help me.

She watched him toss another stone, then let herself take his hand. Only that. “I never could do that,” she said, after the fifth skip finished the stone’s run.

“It just takes practice. And a pond, of course.”

“Then that’s what I lacked. The only pond in Allen’s End was the cow pond—and I promise you, the smell kept me away.”

“Little girls are so picky.”

She laughed despite herself. “I can’t imagine the young heir to the dukedom got his practice in a stinking cesspit!”

“More of a small lake, really.” He grinned, and ran his thumb across her knuckles. “Far more manicured. There was a gardener’s assistant whose only task was to keep it cleared of weeds.”

She tried to match his smile. This was one of the happiest days of her life, wasn’t it? And he was sharing it with her. He was here with her—for now.

“I wonder,” he said, but did not continue.

If her happiness depended on keeping him, she was sunk. “I wonder, too.” She felt very cold, suddenly.

He glanced over at her. “Go on.”

She shook her head. “You first.”

He gave her a half smile. “I wonder what we, both us, would have been like, growing up in a place like this.”

We.
Some bittersweet feeling constricted her chest. She tried to pull her hand away, but his grip tightened, and after a moment, she surrendered to it. “I think we would have been spoiled rotten,” she said.

He gave a low, rusty laugh. “No doubt you’re right.”

They sat hand in hand, unspeaking, as the light changed around them. The pond reflected the late afternoon sun, bits of pollen and fuzz drifting in the sunbeams that fell through the trees. Bubbles rose on the water, popped, and disappeared. A fish surfaced, mouth gaping. Somewhere in the distance a bird called out.

“You would have thrived here,” he said. “The brightest girl in the district. Petted and admired by everyone. That’s what you deserved.”

Her throat felt tight. “But I would not have learned to speak Italian, I fear.”

“Oh, you would have found a way.”

She shrugged. Perhaps she would have. But it would have required the desire to learn Italian—and bereft of
others’ contempt, of the hostility and suspicion of Allen’s End, what would have planted her so firmly before her books? She might have spent her afternoons playing chase and hunting treasure instead. Shouting and quarreling and jumping rope . . . learning to make friends, instead of learning how to hide herself.

She cleared her throat. “If
you
had grown up here, I should have
had
to learn chess. Otherwise who would have explained Blackburne’s Gambit to you? You’re hopeless on your own.” She looked at him from the corner of her eye, and saw that he was smiling. Encouraged, she said, “But you still would have gone into politics. You’d have made a fine MP, in time—a true hero of the common people. We would have called you . . .” The notion amused her. “The salt of the earth.”

He laughed. “There’s a wild idea. But I’m not so certain. It’s a hard road from the paddock to Parliament.”

“You would have found your way.” She dared to tread on dangerous ground. “You did not get your ideals from your father. You discovered them on your own. You would have found them here, too.”

He glanced at her, visibly struck. “Yes,” he said slowly. “All my ideals. You see how they’ve guided me, this last year.”

The words were cynical. But his tone was speculative, testing. She pressed his hand in encouragement. “Those ideals are part of you still. You only took a rest, Marwick. You needed a rest. But soon you’ll take up the gauntlet again—very soon, I think.” And there would be no place for her then.

He gazed at her. “Perhaps. If I remember how to care about such things.”

“You still care.”

“I’ve learned to care about different things now.” Very gently, he reached out to brush her cheek. “You should call me Alastair,” he murmured.

She swallowed. Suddenly it seemed important to say something. “We would have been true friends, had we both grown up here.” She made herself say it: “Alastair.”

“I think you’re right. Olivia.” He stroked her face. “And we might have come here, to this very place, to sit and talk, as friends do.”

“Very often. And perhaps . . .” She smiled. “Not only to talk. This is where you would have kissed me, I think. The first time. When we were both . . . sixteen?”

“Fifteen,” he said. “Fourteen.”

“Precocious young things!”

“Yes,” he said. “Brash. Barely out of childhood. And the first time I kissed you . . .” He leaned toward her, and she inclined to meet him. “It would have been like this,” he said against her mouth.

His lips were warm, indescribably sweet. It felt as though he sought something from her, something precious that must be coaxed rather than taken. And she gave it to him, gladly.

After a long minute, he turned his face to kiss her temple. “You would have been shocked,” he whispered. “But no more than I, at my own temerity.”

She put her face into his shoulder to hide her smile. “Is that so?”

“Well. A rude country boy. No large experience. I should think he’d be shocked.”

“But as a farm girl, perhaps I wouldn’t be. Farm girls are saucy, I think. When you pulled away in shock, I would have dragged you back for another kiss.”

“Would you?”

She liked the startled pleasure in his voice. She lifted her head to show him her smile. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Like this.”

His kiss had been slow and wooing. But country girls had little patience for that. She licked his lower lip, made him groan; then she slid her hand through his hair and pulled his mouth hard into hers.

In a flash, hunger leapt between them: electrical, overwhelming. His palm pressed flat against her lower back and held her in place as he angled his head, kissing her more deeply yet.

But then, like a motion in a symphony, there came a moment when they both paused by tacit accord. “I wonder,” she said against his lips, “how saucy I would be? I would know you so well, after all. But until this moment, you would have only been a friend.”

He loosed a soft breath. “But there was never really an ‘only’ about it. We would always have known, somehow, that it would be more.”

“Yes.” She caught his hand, kissed his palm and then pressed it to her cheek. “I think I would be very bold. I wouldn’t feel any fear. You would be so safe . . . and not safe, all at once. I would trust you completely, somehow.”

“And I would never fear disappointing you.” He put his face into her hair, so his voice came out muffled. “Because I would require your trust like I required air. And if you were bold with me, then it wouldn’t feel like boldness. It would feel like wisdom.”

“Would it?” she whispered.

“Yes. Because we would both know that you need never plan on kissing anyone else.”

She felt dizzy, breathless. “And how would I know that?”

“You would know that I meant to marry you.”

She could barely speak. “Would I?”

“Yes. Before the next harvest,” he said roughly, and pulled away from her. His expression now looked black as he gazed out at the pond.

She loosed an unsteady breath. It was only a fantasy. But didn’t he see how painful such games must be? Did he imagine she would have slept with any man who rescued her from prison? Did he not know what it meant that he could say
I know you
?

She had wanted a place. Now she had one. But now she realized that not
any
place would do.

She frowned at herself and reached for good sense. “I would refuse to marry you, of course.”

He cast her a fleeting, one-sided smile. “That would be a mistake. You deserve love. And a family. All those children you once told me you won’t have.”

She recoiled. “Don’t tell me that.” Why did he taunt her like this? Why did he dare her to dream of love, while he sat across from her? “
You,
of all people!”

“I, of all people.” He repeated it softly, then turned to her. “Indeed. Let me tell you, then, the truth you once asked of me. I wanted to love my wife, Olivia. I believed I did. I certainly thought her everything worthy of love, when we married.”

Oh, God. She sucked in a breath. She had not wanted to know it. Not really. But he was holding her eyes and she could not look away, even though she knew the blood was draining from her face, and she lacked the skill to mask how he wounded her.

“I loved the idea of her,” he said evenly. “The perfect wife for a man of my station. Well bred. Elegant. Not a woman who would be led astray by passions or tempers,
as my mother was.” He paused. “But she had her heart set on another man. Roger Fellowes was his name.”

She covered her mouth. Fellowes had been one of the duchess’s lovers!

“Yes, you’ll recognize the name from the letters, of course. He was her first revenge on me—the first man she took to her bed. But they met years beforehand, during her first season. He was not moneyed enough to win her father’s approval, but they were set on each other. I knew it. Everyone knew it. But I wanted her, regardless.”

She felt suddenly afraid. “Why are you telling me this?” Now, of all times; and so calmly, his voice only darkening when he spoke of his own role in it.

“Because you need to know.” He watched her, his face impassive. “Had you asked me three days ago, I might have told you that I could trust nobody else. But now I think the problem is that I cannot trust myself—what I feel, what I believe. And you should know why.”

She had a terrible, sinking feeling. This confession was not a sign that he longed to unveil himself, to grow closer to her. It was, instead, a warning of why he would never do so.

“I knew she did not want me,” he said. “But I thought I could win her anyway.” He picked up another rock, turning it over in his hand. “She was too good for Fellowes. And I was the heir to a dukedom, after all. President of the Union Society at Cambridge. A double first behind me, predictions of fame abounding. I’d already made a splash in the Commons. I would be prime minister one day; everyone said it.” He gave a pull of his mouth, mocking himself. “In short, I was precisely the kind of man she deserved. And she, ideally designed
for me: educated, well connected, mannerly. How could she rebuff me?”

His smile was a grim slash across his features. He paused for a long moment, seeming to look inward.

“Her father came to me,” he said at last. “He had noticed my interest in her. I knew if I confirmed his suspicions, he would take some measure to remove Fellowes from the picture. But I told him the truth. I wished to marry her.”

She guessed where the story was heading now. Finally, she began to understand his wife.

He blew out a breath. “I can only imagine what picture you drew from those letters. That she was deranged? But she wasn’t. She had cause to loathe me. Her father offered Fellowes a handsome bribe to decamp to the Continent. He told me so the same day that Fellowes booked passage abroad. I could have stopped Fellowes. But I didn’t. He let his love be purchased away, after all. Why should I reason with such a man? And when Margaret collapsed into heartbreak, I stood ready to help her, to offer an antidote for her wounded pride. She had no notion of why Fellowes had abandoned her, and I never breathed a word of it. But a year after we wed, he came back from Italy. And he told her his own version of the truth. That he was forced away, instead of bribed.”

“She blamed you,” she whispered.

He shrugged. “Of course. Wouldn’t you?”

She recoiled. “Never put me in her shoes!”

He looked at her then, a long, clear look that seemed to see to the heart of her. “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t.”

She exhaled. And he was silent for a time, long enough for a chorus of birds to begin chirping around them.

“She accused me of colluding with her father,” he said finally. “Cheating her out of her only chance at happiness, and I was not . . .” He sighed. “
Patient
with her. Fellowes had abandoned her. And she and I had been happy—had we not? This was love . . . was it not? Mannerly, polite. Never an argument between us.”

That did not sound like love to Olivia. It sounded like courtesy. But she said nothing.

“I couldn’t understand,” he said, “how she might prefer such a man to me. And she seemed, finally, to agree . . .” He trailed off, his mouth twisting. “I thought we had reconciled. Only, as it turns out, we had not.”

“You blame yourself,” she said. No wonder he had no compassion for himself. No wonder his anger had taken so long to turn outward, toward Bertram and the others. “You blame yourself for what she did to you.”

“I blame myself for a good many things—delusion being first and foremost. I thought we had made the perfect marriage. That love was bound to come, to develop naturally. That I had become a man utterly unlike my father, and made a marriage that would answer for all the sins and mistakes my parents had made.” He shrugged. “In retrospect, my blindness is extraordinary. I was arrogant, ignorant—”