The Perils of Pleasure (36 page)

Their eyes held as the vicar spoke on.

Then Colin gave a slight nod. And deliberately, while Marcus was looking, he took his place in the back pew where Horace Peele was already sitting, and Marcus turned away again, subtly, slowly, back to Louisa.

Miraculous, really, the kind of communication only brothers could achieve. He’d silently given Marcus his blessing. It had taken mere seconds, and Colin was cer
tain no one in the church witnessed the exchange.

Horace Peele slung a companionable arm over Colin’s shoulder. And the two of them watched a woman Colin had loved his entire life become the wife of his brother.

Louisa, the dream Colin had cut free.

Colin didn’t want Marcus’s and Louisa’s wedding day to be about his dramatic return, but once he’d been spotted—he’d tried to slip out of the church unnoticed to return to Eversea House before anyone could see
him, but this was Pennyroyal Green and therefore im-possible—it could hardly be helped.

He began by apologizing for needing a shave and a bath, which made everyone laugh. He made light of his entire drama and said his escape had all been far, far less exciting than the newspapers and broadsheets would no doubt make it out to be, that he’d simply wanted to rush back for the wedding. He was innocent. He reassured everyone that everything was fi ne now, that he was free, that it had all been a mistake.

It wasn’t
quite
fine, of course. But it would be, once he presented Horace and stories were told to the proper officials, so it wasn’t entirely a fi b.

And then he introduced Horace Peele and gave an extremely abbreviated version of events. The one he’d rehearsed with Horace, the one that excluded resur
rected bodies and Redmonds, and made it sound as though Horace had simply been misplaced and located only now. And finally, the consensus had it that Colin was the finest of Louisa and Marcus’s wedding gifts.

As for the fine wedding present . . . he was extraor
dinarily weary.

But he was home.
Home
. Upstairs was a comfort
able bed that belonged to him, and a bathtub that could be filled endlessly with hot water if he wished it, and fresh clothing that fit him and, oh, wonder of wonders, a soap and razor. His life, in other words, the way he’d left it several months ago. A lifetime ago.

Colin found his room, did a cursory wash and change of clothing, then returned to eat.

His mother had decided upon a midday meal rather than a breakfast, which was quite modern of her, and would no doubt affect the digestion of guests for days.

They were traditional here in Pennyroyal Green, and everyone was accustomed to eating regular meals at regular hours.

His mother merely held him fast for a long time when he appeared, and wiped her eyes, and said nothing.

Mothers were extraordinary. Both his mother
and
Fanchette Redmond.

Colin regarded his mother across the room, actively charming a guest, and she, too, looked entirely different to him now, though nothing outwardly about her had changed. She had rich dark hair with a single encroach
ing stripe of silver at the crown, a heart-shaped face, deep blue eyes. Still lovely in her middle years, in other words. Her two pretty daughters looked very like their father Jacob, while resembling her, too. And her three other sons looked very much like both her and Jacob.

Ah, but then there was the one changeling son who might very well be part Redmond.

Colin wondered at the tides that moved in his moth-er’s heart, of the things she might be hiding, of the forces that had shaped her, and whether Jacob Eversea was her true love. Or if Isaiah Redmond had been her passion. He wondered if he would ever have the cour
age to ask her about Isaiah Redmond.

One day, perhaps, he might take his mother for a walk over the downs and ask difficult questions and wait for her answers. One day he might know for cer
tain whether he
wanted
to know all the answers. But one thing he did know: whatever had happened be
tween his parents, they loved each other still. He saw it in the way they moved and spoke to each other, in the rhythms of their life.

Love was extraordinary. More specifi cally: marriage was extraordinary.

And besides, given his own history, he knew he was in no position to judge anyone at all.

He made one decision: that he didn’t have to do any
thing for now besides eat, bathe, and coddle his broken heart. There were mounds and mounds of glorious food on tables in the ballroom, and he heaped a plate with it and looked for a quiet corner in which to eat with animal enthusiasm in peace. He thought he’d found just the place, near the servant’s stairs.

But Louisa found him.

It was a shock to see her, in the flesh, so close. She was so lovely. Having dreamed of her for so long, she’d become more dream than woman to him, and in a way, she always had been. He was a trifle abashed now, knowing this. She’d reflected and grounded him and she had been his friend. But they weren’t meant for each other. He wasn’t in love with her.

And at first, now, they didn’t know what to say to each other. She just stood and looked down at him. He settled his plate down on the stairs and stood and gave her a bow.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, sit down, Colin,” she said.

He did, and she sat down next to him. He couldn’t presume to know what moved through Louisa’s mind. How odd. She seemed comfortable and familiar, but strangely opaque to him now. Yet she was no different than she’d ever been.

“You look very beautiful,” he told her fi nally. This was generally a safe place to begin with women.

“Colin . . . ”

He smiled. He’d missed her voice.

“And you look very happy,” he added hurriedly. “Are you happy, Louisa?”

She looked helpless for a moment, and fl attened her
hands against the skirt of her gown. Her way of being nervous.

He didn’t want her to suffer any sort of twinge on her wedding day. Not one bit of regret or one feeling that wasn’t entirely related to joy, if he could help it. Then again, as he knew all too well, life wasn’t always as tidy as one preferred. He would do his best for the sake of both of them.

“What I meant to say, Louisa, is that nothing makes me happier than seeing you happy. I do mean it. With all my heart. And I mean to say the same thing to Marcus.”

He didn’t add,
Though I think he already knows.

Louisa studied him shrewdly for a moment, and ap
parently decided he meant it, because her face registered soft relief. “I love you, Colin.”

He paused. “I know.”

That made her smile a little. “Is that a terrible thing to say to another man on my wedding day while my husband stands a few feet away?”

“Quite bold of you. Very modern, I should think. But I do know what you mean, Louisa.”

She smiled again, a warm and wistful thing, and said nothing.

Colin was aware of the irony of hearing “I love you” from two women on the same day, and knowing that he would never be with either of them.

He didn’t ask her if she loved Marcus. What he knew, and she knew, was that Marcus loved Louisa in a way that he simply couldn’t, because Marcus was simply more suited to her, and she to him. Marcus loved Louisa the way he loved Madeleine: with an unswerv
ing, soul-deep certainty.

If Louisa didn’t love Marcus now . . . well, it was only a matter of time. But then she glanced over at her husband, and Colin saw her face, and well . . . he suspected she already loved Marcus, even if
she
didn’t know it. They were meant for each other.

“We don’t suit, Colin,” she began tentatively. “You and I. Not in that way.”

Well, she didn’t need to
explain
it. “I know.” He re
alized too late that this might not have been the most gentlemanly of responses.

An awkward little moment passed.

“Does your pride hurt?” she whispered. As if confi d
ing a secret to a friend.

“A little,” he confessed.

“Mine, too,” she admitted.

They laughed. It was bittersweet but very funny, and a lovely release.

“I’m inordinately glad you’re alive,” she told him, more lightly. “And soon to be free and innocent in the eyes of the world.”

“That makes two of us. Go be a bride, Louisa, and go talk to the rest of your guests, and hang on your husband’s arm. I want to eat and have a very good wash and become a human again. Welcome to the family. I’m glad you’re an Eversea.”

Because it was his right as her brother, he kissed Louisa on the cheek, which was as soft as he remem
bered. And if any of the busybodies of Pennyroyal Green had seen and were wondering about them—and there were many busybodies in Pennyroyal Green—he ignored them. God forbid they should be without some
thing to talk about, and now that Colin Eversea was alive, they would have plenty to discuss.

She had one more thing to say before she left, and she whispered it as she stood: “I saw you, Colin. When you entered the church.”

He smiled a little. “Good,” he said gently. He was glad she’d made the choice for herself.

And then he watched Louisa walk away, lovely and happy and wrong for him, to join her husband, who watched her come to him with fi erce joy.

Oh, hell.

Colin sagged back against the stairs and indulged a moment of feeling sorry for himself. Now that he knew what love truly meant, he suspected he could never be happy in the way that Louisa and Marcus were. Not with a Madeleine Greenway–shaped hole in his heart.

Ah, well, he thought magnanimously. Perhaps he was destined to feel happy for
other
people. Who would have thought Colin Eversea, of all people, could be quite so generous of spirit? He had a quiet, ironic laugh at himself at the thought.

As he’d once said to Madeleine:
life could be the very devil sometimes.

Madeleine knew almost nothing about ships, though this one was reputedly seaworthy. Its enormous sails swelled and snapped in a bracing wind, and on the whole it appeared impatient to tug free of its anchor and be off.

She approved.

Still, she’d have thought the very sight of this ship would have made her heart fill like those sails. Instead, her heart persisted in feeling like an anchor.

A trunk—her entire life now fit in just one trunk— awaited loading, and she stood on the dock while other excited passengers eddied around her, people setting out
for visits or entirely new lives in America. She thought of the shipboard weeks ahead, during which she could come to know these people or keep to herself. Curi
ous glances, but not unfriendly ones, slid her way. She
looked
respectable. She was alone, which was unusual and possibly suspect, but the high seas tended to loosen societal strictures, and her manners and grace and ma
tronly status as a widow would no doubt take care of the rest. She would make friends. She
wanted
friends.

Madeleine half smiled to herself. Little would any of those people know about a particularly carnal evening in a loft with an escaped criminal, and how she became herself again by loving Colin Eversea. She shifted her eyes from the crowd and began to watch the sea undu
lating beneath the great prow of that ship. But the sea called to mind eyes the color of thunderstorm skies, so she jerked her head back toward the sails spread against the blank blue sky instead.

She’d known an immense, indescribable relief when Sussex and Colin and his eyes and his “I love you” were behind her altogether, and she sobbed alone in that car
riage as though she’d escaped with her life, as though her sobs could drown out the sound of his voice, wash from her memory forever the expression on his face when she left him. She refused to give the relief an op
portunity to metamorphose into regret or anything else; she’d spent the week in a blur of determined, ceaseless attempts to acquire the money she needed to pay for her Virginia farm. She’d pawned clothing and belong
ings, she’d gone to Croker, who’d actually donated ten pounds, and eventually she was able to make the fi nal payment for the farm, but not her passage to America.

So Madeleine had done something shockingly bold and resourceful. She called upon a very surprised Fanch
ette Redmond and asked her to pay for her passage. It wasn’t quite blackmail, but Mrs. Redmond more than perhaps anyone respected the power of secrets. And since Isaiah had, of course, restored her allowance, Fanchette Redmond saw the wisdom of paying some
one who possessed delicate information about her to go to America.

Suddenly she felt something damp and warm on her arm where her dress sleeve had hiked just a little. Her head whipped down and around, and there, of all things, was Snap the dog. He was gumming her affec
tionately, balancing on his three legs and smiling up at her.

Madeleine smiled a little and ran her hand over the dog’s big, smooth head, then looked past him for Horace Peele, who bowed and smiled happily. “Why, Mrs. Greenway!”