by Mary Balogh
She did not want to see him. And she did not want him to see her. She did not want to see them together.
She turned and fled in the direction of the ballroom, arriving there hot and distraught. But she was saved from the embarrassment of entering the room thus, where surely several people would have noticed that there was something very wrong with her.
Carl Beasley was standing outside the doorway, facing her as she ran toward him. He took her firmly by one arm.
“Come,” he said quietly, turning her in the direction of the stairway. “We will go down and stroll outside for a while. You need a little time.”
Madeline allowed him to draw her arm firmly through one of his and hurry her downward.
WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO HAVE YOUR CLOAK fetched?” Carl Beasley asked Madeline when they stood in the doorway leading outside.
She shook her head. “It is not a cold night,” she said, and shivered.
There was no one else outside. Anyone who was taking the air was doubtless walking on the terrace outside the ballroom. He led her across the cobbled driveway toward a marble fountain and flower gardens beyond.
“I could not help but hear what was happening,” he said, covering one of her hands with his own. “I wish I could have saved you from that pain.” They stopped beside the fountain.
“It was nothing,” Madeline said. “They were merely talking.”
He looked at her rather sadly and said nothing for a while. “Alas,” he said, “neither of us believes that, do we?”
Madeline pulled her hand from his arm. “I must go inside,” she said. “I will be missed.”
“Lady Beckworth,” he said, taking her by the shoulders and looking down into her face, a look of concern on his own, “talk about it. If you are angry, let out your anger on me. If you are upset, cry on my shoulder. I admit that I am not as much involved in all this as you are, but I am her brother, and it grieves me to see this happen.”
“Perhaps nothing is happening,” she said. “Perhaps we are overreacting.”
“I hope you are right,” he said. “Perhaps you are. It all happened so long ago, you know, that I really thought there would be no danger in their living in the same neighborhood again. But I suppose what they shared does not die so easily.”
“I should go inside,” she said.
“He told you about it, did he not?” he asked hesitantly.
She shook her head.
He grimaced. “I am sorry, then,” he said gently. “Perhaps you would prefer that I said no more. Sometimes it is better only to imagine the truth than to know it.”
Madeline dropped her head and examined the ground between their feet. “Why did they not marry?” she asked.
“It was rather sad,” he said. “Your husband was at university at the time. I suppose he and his father felt that he was too young to take on the responsibilities of marriage and fath—” He paused and took a deep breath. “Did you know about Jonathan?”
“I had guessed,” she said, closing her eyes.
“I am not saying that he did not love her,” he said. “I believe he did. But I suppose very young men tend to panic in such situations. He was probably sorry after our cousin the duke had found her another husband. He is probably still sorry. And Dora, of course, though she is not desperately unhappy, is married to a man of inferior birth. It must be hard for her to see Jonathan’s father come into his title and estate. And one must admit that he is a more personable man than John Drummond.”
Madeline took a deep breath but let it out slowly without saying anything.
“But all that does not excuse either of them for what they are doing now,” he said. “For better or worse they have both made their choices. And there are other people to be hurt if they rekindle their love. If,” he said bitterly. “I think it is already too late for if.”
“We don’t know,” she said, her voice shaking. “Perhaps we are being too hasty.”
He removed his hands from her shoulders and clasped hers very tightly. “I am so very sorry,” he said. “I would not have breathed a word of any of this if you had not witnessed that rather ugly scene upstairs. I wish you would forget it, though that is easier said than done, of course. But perhaps nothing has yet happened. Perhaps they are just indulging in a little nostalgia. How could any man be married to you and bear to look at any other woman? He would have to be insane.”
“I should go inside,” Madeline said.
“I will take you,” he said. “But you are shivering. Perhaps I really should have said nothing. Perhaps it is worse for you to know than to imagine. I really would not for the world have hurt you. I admire you more than I can say, Lady Beckworth. I would comfort you if I could.”
He had drawn her hands against his chest and bowed his forehead against the top of her head.
Madeline closed her eyes, her mind awash with bewilderment and anger and misery.
“This is my dance, I believe, Madeline,” a cold and quiet voice said from beside them.
• • •
WHEN JAMES RETURNED DORA to her husband’s side, John Drummond smiled amiably at him and continued his conversation with a group of neighbors. He seemed to have been unaware of either his wife’s or his brothers’ absence from the ballroom.
James strolled away and looked about him for Madeline. The next dance was to be a waltz, the one he had reserved with her.
He felt a little like laughing, though his mind was in such a whirl that he knew he would not be able to sort out his thoughts to his own satisfaction until the next day. But he felt like laughing. At himself.
The great love of his life! He had cut short his university career, established a lifelong enmity with his father, half-killed Carl Beasley, been half-killed himself by the Drummond brothers, made lasting enemies out of all three of them, lived a life of torment for years afterward, held himself back from Madeline because he had felt morally committed to another woman and her child, exiled himself in Canada and beyond for four years, spent those years in deep and often painful self-analysis, and come back home to live a life that he had felt could never be quite unblemished or whole.
All because of the love of his life. Dora.
And she had never loved him. She had turned to him because she was disappointed at being abandoned by Peterleigh, who must have been at home earlier that summer—he could not remember—and had carelessly impregnated her as he had doubtless done over the years with a dozen other women and more. He had reminded her of Peterleigh! She had already known at the time that she was to have Peterleigh’s child.
And had he loved her? But he knew the answer. He had asked the question before in the past few months. If he looked back with perfect honesty, stripping away everything that had happened since, he knew that he had never really loved her. Not even with a very young man’s ardor. She had simply been a pretty and attractive girl who took his summer’s fancy. And she had been his first—as he had not been hers. He had been so inexperienced that he had not even recognized that fact!
James nodded and smiled in the direction of a group of older ladies who were sitting at the side of the ballroom, fanning themselves and gossiping. Where was Madeline? Couples were already on the floor ready for the waltz to begin.
Surely it was only later, when news reached him that Dora was pregnant and married to John Drummond and removed to some unknown destination, that he had conceived his great passion for her. A passion born of guilt and anger that others had so ordered his life and Dora’s and their child’s—as he had thought—without consulting him. It had been born of the frustration of knowing that it was too late for him to do anything about it. And of his concern for Dora, who had been so young and helpless.
It was not easy for his mind to assimilate the knowledge that Jonathan Drummond was not after all his own son, but Peterleigh’s. For nine years he had thought he had a son.
His mind had not assimilated the facts. But his emotions were beginning to do so. He felt an enormous relief, a huge
lifting of a burden. He had no child. And no responsibility for Jonathan’s future. And need feel no more guilt over what had happened to Dora.
He was free. Free to love Madeline as he had always wanted to love her. By God, he was free to love Madeline!
His first child with Madeline would be his only child. If only he could have children with her. They had been married for almost eight months already.
Where was she? The music had begun. Couples were twirling past him on the floor. She had been gone for a long time.
By the time he had looked even more carefully around the ballroom and outside on the terrace and in each of the rooms along the hallway, he had noticed that Carl Beasley was also missing. And he was hoping that there was no connection between the two absences.
But there was, of course. When he went downstairs and looked out through the front doors, which were still open, he saw them together beside the fountain. They were facing each other, their hands clasped together.
They were so engrossed in each other that they did not see him approach. By the time he was close enough to speak to them without raising his voice, they had drawn even closer together. They were about to kiss.
“This is my dance, I believe, Madeline,” he said.
She jerked her head upward and pulled her hands away from Carl’s. Carl on the other hand looked at James with an expression that could only be described as a half-smile.
“Oh,” Madeline said, “has the waltz begun? I did not realize.”
James bowed to her and extended an arm. She took it. But he turned back to Carl Beasley before leading her away.
“If I were you, Beasley,” he said, “I would keep out of my sight for the rest of this evening. And you will keep your hands off my wife for the rest of a lifetime if you know what is good for you.”
Carl’s smile broadened. He gave James a mock half-bow.
They walked into the house and partway up the stairs in silence. Madeline was holding herself very straight. Her chin was high.
“We will walk into the ballroom together and dance what remains of the set of waltzes,” he said, not looking at her. “And you will smile for the rest of the evening. I will deal with you when we are at home in the privacy of our own rooms.”
“You will deal with me,” she said, her voice as cold as his own. “How do you expect me to dance for the rest of the evening, James, with such a threat hanging over me? My knees are knocking together in terror.”
They were at the top of the stairs, opposite the open doors into the ballroom. The music was loud and spirited. He glanced across at her. Her face was flushed with animation, and she was smiling dazzlingly.
She continued to smile beyond his shoulder as he led her into the waltz.
MADELINE WAS FINALLY ABLE to let go of her smile two hours later when she was inside her own carriage again, her husband next to her. But she would not relax the determination that had kept her back straight and her chin high in the Duke of Peterleigh’s ballroom. She felt rather as if she would break into little pieces if she tried to relax.
They traveled in silence.
So much for the decision to enjoy herself, she thought wearily as she swept up the stairs and into her dressing room ahead of James. It was rather difficult to enjoy oneself on the very evening when one discovered that one’s husband was having an affair with a former lover, the mother of his child.
A little difficult, yes. She sank onto the stool before her dressing table and allowed her maid to remove her diamonds and brush out her curls.
And to have that same husband discover one being comforted by a friend and hear him threaten that friend and promise to deal with her. Doubtless the whole blame for a ruined evening would be placed squarely on her shoulders.
A ruined evening! She would have laughed if her maid had not been standing directly behind her unhooking the back of her gown. A ruined marriage, rather. If there had been anything left to ruin. A ruined life.
She was very tempted when she had washed and donned her nightgown and dismissed her maid for the night to go into her own bedchamber, the one she had never slept in, and climb into the bed there. But James would come after her as surely as the world was turning. And she would not have him misinterpret her actions and think her too cowardly to face him. She went out into the hallway rather than go through his dressing room and into the bedchamber she shared with him.
She had not expected him to be in their bedchamber ahead of her. She was not quite ready for the encounter. But he was standing at the window, his back to her. She closed the door firmly behind her.
“Well,” she said, “here I am, James, knocking knees and all, ready to be dealt with.”
“You will not make a mockery of this,” he said, turning from the window to look at her with eyes that had her suddenly thinking that the detail about her knees was not entirely false. “How long has it been going on, Madeline?”
“You mean my affair with Carl Beasley?” she asked, her chin lifting and her eyes sparking. “Now what exactly are you asking, James? How long I have known him? I believe I confessed to that first meeting. How long I have been stealing away for clandestine meetings with him? I am not quite sure. Since before Christmas, I believe. How long have I been his mistress? I am not quite sure of that either. Since sometime after Christmas, I believe.”
She stopped and smiled at him, though in reality she was terrified. His face had blanched so that his eyes looked darker and wilder in contrast. He crossed the room to her in a few strides.
“What are you telling me?” he said—no, he whispered, so that she felt almost paralyzed with fright. “What are you telling me, Madeline?”
“You don’t look pleased,” she said. “I’m sorry. I thought that that was what you wanted to hear. You would not believe me if I said there was nothing between us, would you? I always aim to please my husband.”
He grabbed her arms in a painful grip and jerked her toward him so that her head was forced back at an unnatural and painful angle.
“Don’t play games with me,” he said. “You are playing dangerously with fire. Have you forgotten that you married the devil? I want to know what is going on between you and Beasley.”
“He is my friend,” she said. “I talk with him. I confide in him. I have no other man to talk with.” Her neck muscles were aching.
“You have a husband.” He spoke through his teeth. “Have I not told you to stay away from Carl Beasley?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I choose my own friends, James. And if it is my disobedience you complain of, then I will say this. I would obey you, perhaps, if I respected you. Or if I liked you. Or loved you. As it is, I feel I owe you nothing.”
He took a half step back, though he did not release his bruising grip on her arms. She was able to lift her head, which felt as if it were about to drop off her neck.
“I want the truth from you,” he said. “No more games or defiance or mockery. Are you and Beasley lovers?”
She smiled. “What will you do if I say yes?” she asked. “Spurn me? Beat me? Divorce me? Tell me, James. I must know the consequences of my answer.”
And then she was grabbing for the lapels of his dressing gown as he shook her so violently that she completely lost her balance.
“Answer me,” he said. “Have you slept with Beasley?”
She clung to him, dizzy and gasping. “No,” she said. “We have not made a cuckold of you yet, James. Not yet. But I am thinking of it. I need a lover too. And I do not need to be very particular. I could hardly do worse than what I already have, could I?”
“By God, Madeline,” he said, jerking her against him again so that her hands were imprisoned against his chest, “you have a wicked tongue.”
She fought against his mouth when it covered her own, twisting her head from side to side. When one hand spread itself behind her head to hold it firm, she went limp in his arms until he lifted his head.
“I want to go to my own bedchamber,” she said. “if you
take me tonight, it will be rape. I suppose a husband cannot ravish his own wife, can he? I am, after all, your possession to be used as you will. But in your heart you will know that you have ravished me, James. I hate you and despise you for what you have done to me.”
“For what I have done to you!” he said, watching her lips. “And what is that, pray? Making you want me against your will? You want me already. Do you think I cannot feel the heat of you? Do you think I cannot look down and see the tips of your breasts hard against your nightgown? Don’t talk of rape to me, Madeline. Are you ashamed of wanting your own husband? Is such wantonness appropriate only between lovers?”
She made no resistance when he lowered his mouth to hers again. She would hold herself lifeless in his arms, she decided. Anything he got from her that night would have to be taken.
But it was a ridiculous resolve, as one part of her mind realized almost instantly. He had been right. She was already hot and panting for him. He was her husband and her lover and her passion, and there was no room for thoughts of his infidelity, of his long love for another woman, of the son he shared with that woman. No room for thought at all. Not yet.
There was room only for feeling. And loving. And being loved.
When he stripped away her nightgown, she matched his actions, tearing at his dressing gown and nightshirt, sending a button flying in her haste.
She could not get close enough to him. She had both arms wrapped about his neck, her naked body arched against his, her mouth wide for the invasion of his tongue. And she sobbed to be closer.
And closer yet.
And yet after he had laid her on the bed, his hands and his mouth aroused her further, as rough as her own on him. She twisted against him, moaned against him, begged him with eager body and incoherent pleas.
And if she had never fully known it before, she knew it then with a conviction far too deep for thought.
James. He was her world. The only world. The only place where there was air to breathe and food to eat and water to drink and beauty to delight in. The only place capable of sustaining life in her.