Only Enchanting (32 page)

Suddenly his mask was firmly in place—hooded, lazy eyes, slightly twisted mouth.

“Agnes,” he said, “you are a p-passionate woman whether you wish to be or not. And you are m-married to me whether you wish to be or not.”

“Passion,” she said, “can and ought to be controlled. And when I go home, I can forget that we are married.”

He raised one mocking eyebrow, and she wanted nothing more than to sink to her knees before the hearth and curl into a ball and sob her heart out. Or stride toward him and smack him hard across the cheek.

She had been married for revenge against the woman who had once hurt him beyond bearing.

But what about the woman who
loved
him?

What about
her
?

18

H
is wife’s bed had been slept in, Flavian could see—or lain upon at least. The dressing table had been swept bare of everything that had adorned it the last time he been had been in her bedchamber, however, except for the two candlesticks with their burned-down candles. Nothing littered the room.

Flavian might have feared she had gone already, if the sound of muffled sobs had not been coming through the partially open door to her dressing room.

He had not been to bed. He had spent the night in the book room, sprawled in the chair where she had found him sometime after midnight. He had not slept either. He had not got up to rekindle the fire or to pull his coat back on, though he had been aware that the room was chilly. He had not got up to refill his glass. Experience had taught him that drunkenness would only deepen his gloom, not lighten it or obliterate it. He had never had much success with liquor. He sometimes envied happy drunks.

He was aware that his evening shirt was horribly wrinkled, that his hair was hopelessly disheveled, that he was badly in need of a shave, that his eyes were undoubtedly bloodshot, and that he probably did not smell all
that pleasant. He could not be bothered to go and change and get cleaned up. Besides, she would probably be gone before he had made himself presentable.

It was still dashed early, but then, daylight was all she had waited for, he guessed.

His life could not possibly be more messed up if he had tried.

He went to the doorway of the dressing room and set his shoulder against the frame after pushing the door a little wider. She was dressed for travel. All but one of her bags were packed and closed up. The remaining one was ready to be closed. It was not she who was sobbing, though, he discovered. It was the skinny little maid.

“Madeline,” he said when she looked up and spotted him. “W-Will you leave us, please?”

She had probably just been dismissed, her services no longer needed, poor girl.

“It just isn’t right, it isn’t,” she said, glaring at him with watery accusation.

“Madeline.” Agnes, her voice quiet but firm, cut the maid off from explaining exactly what it was that was not right. “Leave us, please. I will talk to you before I go.”

Still glaring from reddened eyes that did nothing to improve her looks, the girl passed him in the doorway.

Agnes set her brush on top of the still-open bag and closed it. She straightened up and looked at him—with a pale, composed face and empty eyes.

“Do you realize,” he said to her, “that yesterday was our f-first anniversary? Our one-week anniversary?”

“Would that I could go back and obliterate that week and take a different road,” she said. “But it is not possible. One can only move forward.”

“Are you not trying to go back anyway?” he asked her. “In time as well as in place?”

She seemed to consider her answer.

“No,” she said. “A short while ago I held a faint hope that I might marry again someday and perhaps even have a child or two, and that I would be as contented with my new marriage as I was with the old. Now that hope has been wiped out forever. Apart from that, though, my life will return to what it was until I made such an impulsive and disastrous decision. I will be with Dora. I believe she draws as much comfort from my company as I do from hers.”

“I think you will s-sadden her,” he said.

She laughed, though she did not sound remotely amused.

“She always said she did not trust your mobile left eyebrow,” she said. “I daresay she will not be altogether surprised to be proved that she was right.”

“I b-believe she likes me,” he said.

Agnes looked him over and laughed again. He wished he had at least buttoned his shirt to the neck. He must look the wreck he felt, not to mention disreputable.

“Don’t g-go,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows—both of them.

“It has been only a w-week, Agnes,” he said. “Since we are m-married anyway and nothing can change that, ought we not at l-least to g-give m-marriage a ch-chance?”

He thought suddenly of Ben once saying that he often wished he could just drop his canes and walk away from them without even thinking—or stumbling or falling. Flavian wished
he
could just open his mouth and say what his mind was thinking, without tripping and stumbling over his words—especially when he was most agitated.

“But it never was a marriage, was it?” she said. “Except, of course, that there was a ceremony binding us for life, and there was the consummation. Those things do not make a
marriage
, however, except in law. You
married me so that you could hurt Lady Hazeltine and your family and hers as they hurt you years ago. And I married you because I—well, because I
lusted
after you. Now you have had your revenge and I have sated my lust, and it is time for me to go home. You are not going to try to stop me, are you? You are not going to try asserting your authority and order me to stay?”

She lifted her chin, and her jaw hardened.

“I w-want to be m-married to you,” he said. “I c-cannot explain why, and I am not going to s-spout reasons you would recognize as f-fabrications. But it was not revenge, Agnes. Or at least not . . . That w-word never entered my head. I w-wanted to be s-safe. I do not even know what I m-mean by that, but I felt it when you said yes, you would m-marry me, and I felt it when we m-married and walked out of the church. I felt s-safe. That may not s-seem very flattering, but it
is
the truth. And it was
you
I w-wanted to marry, not just any woman. And it was not just lust on your part. You would not have m-married me just to be bedded. You b-belittle yourself when you say that. You wanted
me
, not just my body. You wanted
me
, Agnes.”

“I do not even know who you are,” she said.

“But you knew I was
s-somebody
,” he said. “Somebody you w-wanted to know. Somebody you wanted to spend a l-lifetime getting to know. It was not just lust.”

“More fool me, then,” she said. “There was nobody worth knowing inside that beautiful body after all, was there?”

He flinched and swallowed.

“Don’t go,” he said. “You may r-regret it. And I know
I
would.”

“Your
pride
would regret it,” she said.

“Probably,” he admitted. “And all the rest of me too.”

She stared at him, her face stony, her eyes blank.

“W-wait another week,” he pleaded. “Give me that much time. Stay for s-seven more days, and then I will t-take you to Candlebury if you s-still want to leave me. We can say we are going d-down there for Easter, and you can r-remain there afterward, and anyone who s-says you ought to be presented to the
ton
as my v-viscountess may go hang. You may have your s-sister come to live with you if you wish and if she wishes. She will find music pupils enough if she w-wants them, and you will find enough wildflowers to p-paint to last a lifetime. But g-give me a week first.”

She had not moved and did not now.

“Or if you must leave t-today,” he said, “then l-let me take you to Candlebury now. I’ll not s-stay if you do not want. I’ll never go near the place again unless you invite me. Agnes?”

“Do you still love her?” she asked.

He expelled his breath audibly, tipped his head back against the doorframe, crossed his arms, and gazed upward.

“The f-funny thing is,” he said, “and I think it
must
be funny because it makes no sense whatsoever—the funny thing is that I am not s-sure I ever did. I mean, I want to be honest with you because I think it is my only chance. I must have loved her, mustn’t I? But I c-can’t remember how it was or how it felt. And when I saw her again the day you and I arrived here, I d-didn’t know if I loved her or hated her. I still didn’t know when I called on her yesterday. I was afraid I loved her. But I did not want to. I
do
not want to. I w-want to . . . I want to be married to
you
. I want to be safe with you. And I could not sound more selfish if I tried, could I? I want, I want, I want . . . I would like to try to m-make you h-happy, Agnes. I think it would be good to make someone h-happy. I think it would be the best feeling in the world. Especially
if it were you. Don’t go. Give me a chance. Give
us
a chance.”

There was a longish silence while he closed his eyes and waited for her decision. He was
not
going to impose his authority on her, though he could do it as her husband, he supposed. If she must leave, then he would let her go. Even by the stage, if that was what she chose.

And, good God, he could not even assure her that he did not still love Velma—or that he ever had. Why the devil had the physician at Penderris ever released him upon an unsuspecting world? He was a walking lunatic.

“There is a terrible pain,” she said softly, “about being abandoned by someone who loves someone else more than you. A pain and an emptiness and a determination never again to give anyone that power.”

He was bewildered for a moment before he realized she was talking about her mother, who had left her own children in order to be with her lover.

“Marriage with William brought peace and tranquility,” she said.

“I am not William.”

She looked back at him, her eyes still blank, until suddenly they crinkled unexpectedly at the corners, and she laughed with what sounded like real amusement.

“That must be the understatement of the decade,” she said.

“Stay,” he urged her. “You may decide to leave me later, Agnes, and I will not s-stop you, but I will never abandon you. Never. I swear it.”

It was not literal abandonment she feared, though, he knew, but emotional abandonment—his loving Velma instead of her. Good God, he had never thought of Agnes in terms of
love
. Love—romantic love, that was—always made him feel slightly sick, though he had no idea why. Hugo loved Lady Trentham, and there was
nothing at all nauseating about what they obviously felt for each other. The same was true of Vincent and his wife, and Ben and his. Why could it not be true of him?

She was looking steadily back at him, her smile gone.

“For one week,” she said at last.

He rested his head against the doorframe again and closed his eyes briefly. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“Go and get some sleep, Flavian,” she said. “You are exhausted.”

“There is n-nothing like having your w-wife of one week s-saying she is going to l-leave you for keeping you awake,” he said.

“Well, she is not
going
to leave you,” she said. “Not for another week, anyway. But if I am to stay, Flavian, then I am going to call upon Lady Hazeltine and Lady Frome, preferably this afternoon, if by chance they are at home.”

He frowned. “You will take my m-mother with you? Or m-me?”

“Neither,” she said.

He continued to frown, and had mental images of Daniel walking into the lions’ den. Which was a strange way of thinking of Frome’s house.

“I shall take Madeline for respectability,” Agnes said, “since this is not the country. Will it be very bad
ton
anyway to go essentially alone?”

“Very,” he said.

“I hope they
are
at home,” she told him, “and I hope they are alone. There needs to be some plain speaking.”

He had married a brave woman, he realized, quiet and unassuming as she always seemed. Such a visit would surely be incredibly difficult for her.

“Go and get some sleep,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.” He pushed his shoulder away from the
doorframe and turned back in to her bedchamber en route to his own.

He rang for his valet when he got there.

*   *   *

As Agnes, with a newly happy Madeline trotting along quietly at her side, strode in the direction of Portman Place and looked for the right house number, she hoped fervently that the ladies
were
at home and unencumbered by other visitors. At the same time, and quite irrationally, she hoped fervently that they were out.

The butler did not know but would go and see. Ordinarily it would amuse Agnes that the butler of a house should profess himself ignorant of who was in the house and who was not, but on this occasion she merely crossed her fingers on both hands and made a muddled wish.
Let them be home. Let them not.

“He might have asked you to sit down while you wait,” Madeline said. “Rude, I call it, for all his uppity ways.”

Agnes did not reply.

The ladies were at home, though Agnes could see as soon as she was shown into the drawing room that they were dressed for the outdoors. Curiosity must have caused them to decide to admit her when the butler informed them of her arrival.

Both were dressed with fashionable elegance. Agnes was not. A few more of her new clothes had arrived from Madame Martin’s during the morning, and Madeline had laid out one of the walking outfits when she knew that her mistress was going to make an afternoon call. But she had not argued when Agnes had told her she would prefer to look like herself. The girl had merely given her a shrewd look, nodded briskly, and pulled out something old, which had nevertheless been freshly brushed and ironed so that it looked at least two years younger than it was.