A Certain Magic (23 page)

“I don’t possess a cap,” he said. “But if you say it is fashionable, Allie, then all that is important has been said. One would climb a hill twice as long and twice as steep in such a good cause.”

There was no more pulling at her arm. Indeed, she was soon laughing at the necessity of keeping up to his pace.

An evening at the theater with the Potters, and supper at Sidney Place afterward. And talking until midnight.

“Quite a shocking hour to be up in Bath,” Mr. Potter said as they rose to leave. “Even the balls here must end at eleven, Westhaven. Would you believe it? The focus of the whole city is on the waters, which must be taken early in the morning.”

“Barbarous,” Piers commented. “Do these people not know that civilized living ought not to start before noon or end before four in the morning? Good night, Allie. I will see you in the Pump Room in the morning?”

“Yes,” she said. “Good night, Piers.” And she turned to bid good night to her other friends.

Time was going altogether too fast. Too wonderfully and too fast. They neither of them cared what construction Alice’s friends and acquaintances put on the fact that they spent so much of their days together. There was so little time left. Certainly no time to worry about what others would think.

Andrea was intrigued. She broached the subject when she and Alice were at the library together on the morning of the second day.

“Mr. Westhaven’s betrothal is a recent event?” she asked.

“Yes,” Alice said. “Since my own return from London.” 

Andrea frowned. “And was it an arranged thing?” she asked. “One of those matches planned from the girl’s cradle on?”

“No,” Alice said. “He met her just recently.”

“But why?” Andrea asked. “Why, when you and he are so obviously head over ears in love, Alice?” 

“Oh, that is not so.” Alice was shaken from her calm. “You do not understand, Andrea. We have known each other all our lives, and very well since Web started to court me. We have shared each other’s joys and sufferings—our marriages, my son’s death and his wife’s and child’s, Web’s passing. Friends grow very close under such circumstances. More like brother and sister than friends.”

“A very incestuous relationship for brother and sister, I would say,” Andrea said with a smile.

Alice flushed.

“And I am not being much of a friend, am I?” Andrea said. “Goading you like this when you so clearly want to keep it all to yourself. It is just that I am fond of you, Alice. And you are far too young and far too pretty to have settled to this life you are living. I hoped when you went to London, even though you went merely to nurse your nephew and niece through the measles, that you would meet some gentleman more worthy of you than Sir Clayton. When Mr. Westhaven walked into your drawing room and almost into your arms, I thought it had happened.”

“Well, it had not,” Alice said with a smile. “And I do not need another marriage, Andrea. I have had the best one anyone could wish for in this life. I wish you had known Web. He was a wonderful person. And that is not just the opinion of a partial wife. Everyone who knew him loved him.”

“I know,” Andrea said. “I try to imagine how I would feel if I lost Clifford. I am sure I would feel as you do. But I am thirty-seven, Alice. You were twenty-seven when your husband died. So very young. Well, enjoy the rest of your friend’s visit, my dear. I will not pry any further. Not until I can resist the temptation no longer, that is.”

They both laughed.

But Alice refused to allow her mind to be disturbed by the knowledge that her friends were indeed misconstruing the situation and imagining that she and Piers were in love. Let them think it. It was the simple truth in her case, and she could not feel shame at loving another woman’s betrothed. She did not care. For these few days she did not care.

But the morning after the visit to the theater she did not keep her appointment to meet Piers in the Pump Room. That was the morning when the sun was shining through the curtains in her room again, and full of the joys of spring and the anticipation of another day with him, she threw back the bedclothes and jumped out of bed. And immediately had to clutch the bedpost. And made it to the washstand only just in time to save herself from vomiting all over the floor.

She stood holding firmly to the marble top of the washstand, her head bowed forward, her eyes closed, concentrating on not fainting away. Her face felt cold and clammy. The air was cold in her nostrils.

She felt strangely calm. She had suspected it for a few days, of course. She was never later than two or three days at the most. It had already been five days.

She had known. Her subconscious mind had already started to grapple with the truth and all its implications.

She had not begun to suspect with Nicholas. The morning vomiting had been the first sign then. It had continued unabated for two months, until poor Web had been distraught and miserable with remorse for having impregnated her.

She was with child again. There was no doubt in her mind. And no panic. There was no definite thought at all, except the sure knowledge.

She was with child. There was the beginnings of a child inside her. Hers. And Piers’. She was going to have Piers’ child. A part of him. It had not after all been an isolated experience in the past, over and done with and to be relived only in memory. It was continuing into the present and the future. She would carry that experience with her for nine months, and then she would have his child. Perhaps his son.

The panic would begin soon. The dreadful knowledge that what they had done would be evident for all to see. The knowledge that she would bear a child out of wedlock. The guilt. The remorse. The terror. They would all begin soon.

This strange gladness, this elation, would not outlive the return of common sense and cold reality.

She was not going to faint. And she did not think she would vomit again. She groped her way back to the bed and lay on her side. She pulled the covers up over her ears. She lay there shivering and frightened. And buried her face in the pillow, smiling with the joy of it all.

She had Piers’ child inside her. Now. At this very moment. She spread a hand over her abdomen and closed her eyes very tightly.

***

Piers had stayed at the Pump Room for an hour, talking with the Wainwrights and Miss Dean, and with the Potters when they arrived rather late. When it was evident that Alice was not coming, and Mr. Potter was engrossed in a lively discussion with Mr. Wainwright, he offered his arm to Andrea Potter and strolled about the room with her.

“Midnight must be too late an hour for Allie to be up,” he said. “I shall have to tease her about not being able to get out of bed this morning.”

“Alice is always up early,” she said. “There must be some domestic crisis that needs her attention. She brought a young groom from London last week, and then the housekeeper complained that Alice’s maid was daydreaming all day long.”

“Ah,” he said, “the course of true love not running smooth again?”

“Apparently not,” she said. “And you, sir—you have just become betrothed?”

“And am to be married before the summer is out,” he said, “if my betrothed can just complete the essential task of gathering all her bride clothes before then. That is exclusively feminine business, I gather. My presence in London was not in any way necessary this week.”

“I see,” she said. “So you came to visit your old friend. We are all delighted you did, sir.”

“Are you?” he said, pursing his lips in some amusement. “And are like to tie your tongue in knots, ma’am, trying to ask the unaskable.”

“Oh,” she said, flushing and looking up at him, “how mortifying. Am I so transparent, sir?” 

“On this particular topic, yes,” he said. “We are just dear friends, I assure you. If you had known her husband, you would understand why she would never afford me a second glance in that particular way. He had everything to offer a woman of Allie’s nature—kindness and steadiness of character. I could make the list longer.”

“But there is no reason why you would not afford her a second glance?” she asked.

“You are very perceptive,” he said. “Who could know Allie and not love her? But my life has been neither spotless nor productive, ma’am. Even if I loved her in that particular way and felt so inclined, I would have nothing of value to offer her, except money and property and a title perhaps long in the future. Can you see Allie being tempted by such lures?”

“No,” she said. “You are very different from what I have thought in the past few days.”

“Assume the question asked,” he said. “I am, of course, a curious fellow.”

“You seemed at first acquaintance to have a great deal of self-confidence,” she said. “I would have expected that you would have a good image of yourself.”

 “Now why,” he said, “do I have the impression that my soul is being laid out like an unrolled parchment and carefully scrutinized?”

“I do beg your pardon,” she said. “I am not usually so unmannerly. I am just rather fond of Alice, that is all. Will you come home to breakfast with us? I promised to drag Alice off shopping afterward. Perhaps you would care to come, too.”

“It sounds like an attractively devious plan,” he said. “I accept. This is my last day here, you know. Do you think perhaps she is avoiding me by design?”

“I have very strong doubts,” she said.

“But good-byes are hard to say” he said, “when a friendship is a very close one.”

“Yes,” she said. “Even when friendship is all, good-byes are hard.”

He looked at her sidelong. “Do you make a specialty of tripping up people conversationally?” he asked. “I am not going to say it aloud, you know. You must guess at it if you will, and torture yourself with the possibility that you may be wrong.”

“Ah,” she said with a sigh, smiling rather roguishly at him, “I am almost certain that 1 am not. But you are right. There is always the niggling doubt. You are quite as reticent as Alice.”

But what kept Allie? he wondered as they strolled on and rejoined Mrs. Potter’s husband and the Wainwrights. She had been quite definite about coming this morning. And he had detected no reluctance in her during the past two days to spending her time with him. Had she indeed overslept? Had he outstayed his welcome? Had something kept her? Was she unwell?

They had only one day left. He had decided to return to London the next day.

***

A late morning visit to the shops on Milsom Street and tea and cakes at a confectioner’s, when Andrea Potter suddenly remembered that she had business to conduct elsewhere for her husband and must leave them alone. Alice would not eat any cakes, but merely sipped tea, which she drank without milk. And she smiled at his teasing and looked at him with wide and luminous eyes, but would not participate as she usually did. 

An afternoon strolling in Sidney Gardens again. They had the place almost to themselves since it was a cold and blustery day. But rain drove them out of there and home long before—hours, days before—they were ready to go of their own accord.

An evening of playing cards at the colonel’s. And an early night.

A frustrating and a disappointing day. Over far too soon. And all over now, except for the good-byes in the morning.

Just a few weeks before, he would have invited himself inside for a comfortable sit and talk before taking himself back to his hotel. But not any longer. The most he could allow himself was a few minutes in his carriage before helping her down and watching her disappear inside her house.

“You are sure it was just tiredness this morning, Allie?” he asked. “You looked quite pale when I arrived with Mrs. Potter.” 

“The last few days have been busy ones,” she said with a smile. “I do not usually venture out morning, afternoon, and evening, you know. And last night was rather late. I am afraid I just could not force myself to get up when the time came. I am sorry now. I missed an hour of your company.”

“A dreadful thing to miss,” he said. “Your life will be forever impoverished, Allie.”

But she would not pick up his tone. “I am sorry all the same,” she said. “And that it rained this afternoon. I could have wished that today would be perfect.”

“Will you be at the Pump Room tomorrow morning?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “No, I won’t.” 

He looked at her in the darkness of the carriage for a few silent moments. “Does that mean you do not want to see me tomorrow?” he asked. “I plan to leave before noon.” 

“No,” she said softly. “I did not mean that, Piers.”

“I shall call here tomorrow then on my way out?” he asked. 

“Yes.” She nodded.

And there was nothing more to say. They sat and gazed at each other from opposite comers of the carriage and could not even smile.

“Well,” he said softly.

“Well,” she said.

He tapped on the panel, and his coachman set down the steps. As a final touch, Piers noticed, the rain had started again. All he could do was hand her down from the carriage and hurry her up the steps to the house.

“Good night,” he said.

“Good night, Piers.”

And she was gone.

He would see her for perhaps five minutes the next morning, when he would be tongue-tied with all there was to say. And then the journey back to London. And Cassandra. And his wedding. And the rest of his life.

And never Allie again.

Never again.

He clenched his hand into a fist suddenly and pounded the side of it lightly and rhythmically against the side of the carriage. He clenched his teeth hard.

Devil take it, he was not about to cry, was he? With the whole wide lobby of York House to walk through before he could reach the privacy of his own rooms?

The last time he had cried was when he had held Allie in his arms after Web died.

God!

Chapter 15

ALICE deliberately got up early the following morning so that she would be feeling more herself later. She hoped and she dreaded as she got gingerly out of bed that she would not have to go through the nausea and dizziness again that morning and each day for the next two months or so. But any fear—or should it be hope?—that her indisposition of the morning before had had another cause was soon put to rest.