Her voice trailed off again. She stood up, smoothing her skirt awkwardly, resting her hand on the piano lid and taking it away again.
“Lord Gryphon has already spoken to me,” he said.
She looked up from the keys.
“You don’t have to trouble to say it again, ma’am. If seeing me makes you uncomfortable.”
She pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry that—everything became common knowledge. I would not have told anyone. Not even Gryf.”
A candle burned softly within a frosted globe on the instrument. He watched that, unable to look elsewhere. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” He locked his hands behind his back. “Nothing. Beyond bringing me into your house. I’ve never—been able to tell you. I’ve tried to say…what that meant…” He lost authority over his voice. Finally, openly, he looked up into her face and said, “I would not be alive.”
“Oh, Samuel.” She turned back to the piano keys. He watched her bent head, her slim, sun-darkened hands. His chest felt too taut to breathe.
“Hell,” he said stupidly, knowing he had made her cry.
“Yes.” She wiped at her eyes. “That’s just the way I feel, too.”
He wanted it over with and plunged ahead, speaking in stiff sentences that held nothing of what he felt. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I won’t see Kai. I’d only ask—that someone tell her the baby isn’t mine. That’s the truth. I never saw…Miss Etoile—before that day at the dressmaker’s. And I never—before last night—”
The words got knotted again. She stood gazing down at the piano keys.
He wished that she would look up at him. He thought that what he couldn’t say must be plain in his face. But she did not. She touched one black key, running her forefinger down the length of it.
“I would wait for Kai the rest of my life,” he burst out suddenly, “if you thought there might come a time when you could forget this day.”
Her finger traced the shape of an ivory note. “It’s not mine to forget.”
“Kai doesn’t know. She only heard what they said about the baby. She doesn’t understand—the other.”
“It’s not Kai’s to forget, either,” she said quietly. She turned and looked up at him. “Have you not once thought of the girl you’ve ruined?”
His back and shoulders grew tight. “Ruined.”
“I think that word might be used, yes.”
“Miss Etoile will be well taken care of. I don’t think she’ll regret this particular ‘ruin.’”
Lady Tess arched her fine eyebrows. “That isn’t what she’s told me.”
He swore sharply. “She shouldn’t have spoken to you about it. What has she said?”
“Very much what you’ve said. That she’s betrayed our friendship. That she will leave here. That you are in love with Kai.”
“What did she ask for?”
“Nothing. She told me that she isn’t your responsibility. I believe that she almost asked me for a letter of character, so that she might become a typist.” She tapped her fingernail against the keys. “But in the end, she didn’t.”
“I’ll talk to her.” With an abrupt move, he turned to the fireplace. He took up the poker and thrust it among the coals. “She won’t have to become a damned typist.”
“What will you make of her, Samuel?”
He dropped the poker and leaned both hands against the mantel. “I’ll give her a house and five thousand dollars. She won’t have to be a typist.”
“No,” Lady Tess said gently. “What will she be instead?”
He scowled hard into the fire, seeing blue flames lick among the charcoal.
“I wished you to forget where you came from,” she said. “I always wished you to forget. Now—I can’t believe you don’t remember.”
Deep inside himself, he began to shake. “I remember.”
“And you don’t care that she—”
With a violent push, he turned from the fire. “I remember!” he shouted. “If you think it’s the same—that I’d make her into what I was—that I could—” He expelled a furious breath, controlling himself, putting the black expanse of the piano between them. “I haven’t forgotten where I came from.”
Her lower lip trembled. She looked down. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said such a thing.”
“Don’t cry!” He spoke through his teeth. “God help me, don’t cry. I’ll come apart.”
She sat down abruptly on the bench. The piano made a discordant note as her elbow hit the keyboard.
Never had he said something like that to her before. Never raised his voice, never asked for anything.
His hand closed around a glass paperweight on the ebony surface, his fist reflected in the shine. With a careful command of his tone, he said, “She’ll expect me to give her a liberal amount of money. A house in addition is…more than generous. She won’t have to sell herself anymore. Unless she wishes to.”
Lady Tess lifted her head. “Anymore?”
“She’s far better off than she’s been in the past. The Lord Bountiful who sent her that note at the dressmaker’s had her living in a garret.”
“Samuel—” Her face paled. “You are mistaken.”
“I’m not mistaken,” he said grimly. “I know the place.”
“But last night…did you not—” She wet her lips. “Oh, Samuel.”
Something in her voice drew him to her wide and dismayed eyes. His hand tightened on the glass.
She spoke slowly, as if the words were difficult to utter. “Samuel…did you not realize she was a virgin?”
He looked down at his hand. Inside the crystalline oval, swirls of color and circles of tiny blossoms made a gay pattern. “Did she tell you that?”
“She didn’t need to tell me. I’ve seen her. A young woman of experience would not weep so, nor bleed.”
He remembered a boy who had done both: tears and blood that a lifetime of resolution had not scoured clean. Tears and blood were all that he recognized, the only connection between what he remembered of his past and the physical joy of last night. But he could not admit that he had expected such things, and still had allowed it to happen…had wanted it to happen, wanted it.
The paperweight fell into his palm, heavy and cold. In the oval of glass, his body perceived a potential weapon: his muscles weighed it automatically; his hand judged and shaped the surface for possibilities. He set it down again with care.
He had wished to marry Kai, had tried to make himself good enough, had longed for her purity to absolve him of what he was. He felt walls closing on him.
“I promised her…that you would do what is right.”
If he looked up, he would see Lady Tess pleading, and her daughter in her, and everything he’d fought to become.
“Samuel—” The plea faded to bewilderment. “I was so sure that I knew you.”
He moved his hand, curled his fingers around the paperweight.
“I never thought…you would not look me in the face,” she whispered. “I never thought you would disappoint me.”
The glass hit the marble hearth with a sound like a gunshot. He saw the colors explode before he knew he’d hurled it. Curved shards fell into the fire, sending flame and sparks sailing upward.
The flare died back. Lady Tess stood with her hands over her mouth, staring at what he had done.
All his fury, all his frustration—glittering in facets of glass amid the coals. What’s right. Do what’s right.
Kai! He could not believe it. He could not believe that everything was gone.
He turned, walking out in a haze, leaving Lady Tess alone with the razor-sharp fragments of his dreams.
Twenty-seven
Lady Tess had bade her wait alone in the room beside the nursery. Leda could not settle; she wandered amid the old scent of long-lost roses and the faded flowers on the slipcovered sofas. It had once been a lady’s boudoir, high up in the house overlooking the drive and front gardens, with chintz drapes drawn now over the wide win
dows.
She paused a moment at the sound of voices from the nursery—but it was only the new nurse and a maid, murmuring over Tommy as they put him to bed. The nurse came to the half-open door and peered in, saw Leda, smiled, and said good night as she shut it fully.
A hush descended. Leda felt like a ghost in the boudoir full of comfortable pillows and well-used chairs. She thought that a room such as this must have known much happiness; family had sat and laughed in the welcoming hollows of the love seat; children had played on the soft rug; a grandmother had worn the bare spot beneath an old rocking chair. Leda was only a brief visitor, an unfamiliar presence come and gone and soon forgotten.
Mr. Gerard entered silently; she turned from the case of books, the copies of Alice in Wonderland and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and found him there, a cold and potent angel in mortal dress.
She’d prepared a little speech, but it deserted her. Conventional cordiality seemed impossible with—someone one had last held conversation with in one’s bedroom—in one’s bed—in a most unseemly embrace. She flushed and stood silent, looking at him, trying to believe that what she remembered was true. This man, wintry and golden, had kissed and held and invaded her, slept with his arms around her.
“Miss Etoile.” He made no attempt at civility, either. “We’ll be married after Christmas, if that is satisfactory to you.”
She looked away at the impersonal words. She clasped her hands together and sat down in the rocking chair, gazing at her fingers. “Mr. Gerard—please do not feel—that you must make such an—unalterable decision. Perhaps—you would wish more time to consider.”
“What would I consider?” The bitterness showed through his detachment. “The decision was made last night. And it is unalterable, Miss Etoile.”
“But…Lady Kai…”
“I no longer have her parents’ consent. Or her—affection.”
Leda twisted her hands together. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I am so sorry.”
“Tell me one thing. Tell me the truth.” His face grew taut. “I was the first?”
For a moment, she did not understand him. Then she felt the color coming into her breast and throat and face. She pressed her feet against the floor, pushing back in the rocking chair, a hopeless effort to hide herself in it. “Yes.”
His eyes met hers with a flash of heat. Her face burned. The first. Did he think there would be a second? That she could bear to be touched in that way by anyone but him?
“I didn’t know.” He turned away. His brusque words held anger and chagrin. “I’m not—very experienced in the matter.”
Leda pushed free of the rocker, drawing herself stiffly up. “Mr. Gerard, I would never have to do with gentlemen in such a coarsely familiar fashion.”
“Wouldn’t you?” He slanted an ironic look at her.
Leda had a sudden, intense recollection of his body pressed over her, his hands in her hair, the sensation of bared skin against hers. “I should not have!” she exclaimed. “It was very wrong of me!”
“I could wish you’d remembered these scruples last night.”
“I thought that you were lonely! I did not know—that you meant—what you meant.”
His glance raked her. She balled her hands into fists.
“I assure you, sir, that I never knew such a thing was even possible! I’m certain no one ever told me of it!” She lifted her chin indignantly. “I would not have believed them if they had!”
A peculiar smile traced his mouth. “I was led to expect I’d find you weeping, and pale from loss of blood.”
“I’m sure anyone would weep. Out of astonishment, if nothing else. It was the most singular experience of my entire life.”
“Yes,” he said. “Mine, too.”
She sat down again, and began rocking madly. “And now they all think—” She bit her lip. “It is so humiliating! Everyone looks at me! Must we marry, when you’ll dislike me for it so? Lady Tess says that is how—that is—babies, you know. And I must wait several weeks to be sure!” She sprang out of the chair and turned away, squeezing her eyes shut, hugging herself. “I’m frightened!”
He didn’t answer. When she opened her eyes, he was beside her, shockingly close.
“Oh!” She let out a startled gasp. “However do you do that, when the floors all squeak so abominably?”
He caught her chin, holding her as he looked down into her eyes. “You’re panicking”
“No, I am not. I wasn’t brought up to vulgar displays of emotion. But if I had been, I’m sure that being stared at, and whispered about, and pointed to, and expected to marry a gentleman who will hate me, gives me sufficient reason! And you needn’t remind me to breathe, Mr. Gerard. I’m sure you’d be just as pleased if I didn’t, and then you would be rid of me very shortly.”
“No. You’d only turn blue, and faint, and afterward you’d be as alive as ever. And I’d still be obliged to marry you.”
“You shan’t, if you don’t wish to! I tried to tell Lady Tess, if I could only have a letter of character—”
His fingers tightened on her chin. “You won’t need letters,” he said. “We’re to be married in three weeks. I’ll take care of you.”
She swallowed. “Lady Tess said that you would.”
“Did she?” He let go of her. “She knows me.” His mouth curved in moody humor. “She knows I wouldn’t disappoint her.”
The wedding took place on a windy, cloudy day in January, in the private chapel at Westpark, with Lady Kai as Leda’s maid of honor. It all seemed as unreal and fraudulent as the white satin gown and pristine tulle veil Leda wore, made up in haste by Madame Elise and sent down just yesterday from London, along with a personal note of congratulations from that commerce-minded lady, who wished that Miss Etoile might be pleased to honor the couturiere by allowing Madame to provide any gowns of fashion and taste that the bride-elect might require to complete her trousseau.
Leda wasn’t certain who had paid for the gown, nor Lady Kai’s new apricot organza with the big bow at the back, nor the dreadfully out-of-season real orange blossoms that perfumed the cool air. She feared that it had been Lord Gryphon, who was splendidly distinguished as he waited with her in the alcove, and who pressed her arm reassuringly as they started down the aisle. If he had not been there, supporting her, Leda knew that her knees would have failed her and she would have sunk to the stone floor in misery and fear.
The chapel was all light and white plaster, even on the dull day, an eighteenth-century ecstasy of carving and harmony. Leda knew that she didn’t belong there—no aristocratic ancestor of hers had created this fairy-tale space.
Mr. Gerard, however, fit the elegant scene far better than his groomsman Lord Robert, who fidgeted with his boutonniere as music filled the chapel. Mr. Gerard stood unmoving, dressed in a black, close-fitting morning coat, watching while the sparse congregation rose, row by row, as Leda passed—and she thought that no one imagination or reality could have been more precisely formed to create an image of cold, bright, ruthless perfection.
Then through her veil, she had a glimpse of Lady Cove—Lady Cove! Her eyes pricked; she had to bite her lip against the rush of feeling. They had all come from South Street: Lady Cove rose with rapt face and ready handkerchief, in a hat laden with what appeared to be a stuffed partridge—so new and fashionable as to be almost ungenteel—and there was Mrs. Wrotham, wearing her best cap, bought twenty years ago in Paris. But it was dignified Miss Lovatt, to whom tears were a weakness of the common classes, making a stern face and then plucking Lady Cove’s handkerchief away to dab at her own eyes with a resentful grimace and her mouth all puckered up, who broke Leda’s fragile composure. The scene went completely blurred. She clutched Lord Gryphon’s arm, walking blindly ahead, with hot tears tumbling down beneath the veil.
They thought it was real. They had come all the way from London, must have taken the train, even though Mrs. Wrotham became so dreadfully ill with the motion of the cars. They were her friends; they
were happy for her—and it was all a sham, even the white gown for purity.
Lord Gryphon released Leda’s arm. Lady Kai took her bouquet, smiling with excitement. Then there was no choice—Leda had to turn and face him.
Through the veil and the blur, she saw only his shape, dark and gilt. She heard his voice, and it was steady, without emotion. Love, comfort, honor. How could he say it? She did not think she could make a sound.
And yet, when her turn came, the words emerged, plain and resolute. She did love him. She did. That was the one true moment in all of the ritual mockery.
In sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.
He lifted her veil. She blinked, and saw him clearly. His eyes, dark-lashed, the gray of first light; his face so inhumanly flawless; his mouth that had tasted hers. She saw him perceive the tears. The faintest tightening came in his jaw as he bent his head and brushed his lips against her wet cheek.
Lady Tess moved about the room. She turned down the bed, twitched at pillows, tugged at the closed draperies, then smoothed the white gown that the maid had hung in the empty wardrobe. “This was my grandmother’s room. You may redecorate it, if you like. I’m afraid it’s sadly out of date.”
“It’s lovely, ma’am,” Leda said.
“Call me Tess.” She straightened an oval frame hanging by a ribbon from the picture rail, a photograph of a little boy fishing. Her restless motion made Leda even more nervous than she was already.
“Oh, I could not—”
“Please.” She looked up. “Tess. It’s short for Terese, which I must confide that I dislike immensely.”
“Yes, ma’am—Tess.”
An ivory box lay on the white-and-gold vanity. “This is from Samuel. He asked me to bring it to you.”
Leda accepted the unadorned gift. She hesitated a moment, but Lady Tess—Tess, rather, though Leda doubted she could ever really bring herself to be so impertinent as to call Lady Tess that—watched her expectantly, so she sat down in an upholstered armchair and opened the lid. Inside, lying on pink satin, were a brush and mirror, dearly familiar, even down to the little speckled pattern in the vintage reflection that Leda had always thought looked like a tiny elf-face peeping out from the edge of the glass.