Lord of Regrets (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

It had been ages since Marcus had attended so many balls and routs and celebratory dinners in succession. It seemed his countrymen were eager to flock across the channel, and Paris was awash in festivities.

His diplomatic work was minimal, and he was able to turn much of his attention to his soap manufacturing. He made new contacts and found that there was opportunity to expand his business in Paris. He was inspired, as well, by the richness of fragrances from Parfum Lubin. There was so much more he could do back in England beyond soaps. As he toured Paris, he sent gifts to London for Leona, for his mother, perfume from Parfum Lubin for Natasha. The idea of his wife bearing a hint of that fragrance on her body as they made love became a recurrent fantasy.

He wrote copious letters to his man of business, to his mother, Leona, and Charlotte. He wrote to Natasha, though he knew his letters were more reserved than his desire. But, just as he had to suppress his eagerness to return home, intuition told him to hold back his ardor for her now, to let her have this distance. If he had heeded that instinct back in Little Parrington, if he had not forced her hand and cut short the wooing, then perhaps events might have played out differently. He still remembered that moment when she had been so clearly on the edge of acceptance, of willing submission.

It had been easier to send letters than to receive them. It was only after another week in Paris that the situation seemed to have settled and mail found him regularly. From his mother came the usual description of daily life. An account of Leona, of how Lady Jane Langley had befriended Natasha. There was a letter from Natasha as well, writing of that same friendship, of the social events she had attended, saying that his daughter missed him and that Natasha hoped he was well. He reread her words several times, looking for anything that would reveal her feelings to him. Even more ridiculously, he held the paper close to his face, searching for any scent of his wife, anything that might satisfy the longing within him. But the only scents were of paper, ink, and sea.

He turned to the letter from Charlotte, who, from the thickness of the envelope, appeared to have written of everything, and in great detail. Her neat penmanship, familiar as his own, made him instantly homesick. Her style, as well, was familiar. She wrote of the Season, of the lingering chill, of her introduction to the Queen, all events he had read of before from his mother’s perspective.

I am staying with our cousins in London. Before you wonder at this strange turn of events, I should explain that the unfortunate previous connection between you and the new Lady Templeton has become public.

Guilt struck at him sharply. He should have expected no less, but he hadn’t really been thinking, hadn’t been trying to protect the rest of his family. He had only been following his heart. With a sigh, he breathed past the knot of pain and focused on what he could now control. As he read more, he was grateful and embarrassed that someone else had stepped in where he could not. He didn’t wonder that neither his mother nor Natasha had mentioned this; his mother bore everything with a stiff upper lip, and Natasha––Natasha wouldn’t wish to let him see any weakness.

That thought made his heart ache, even as he took pride in his cousin’s next words.

Your wife, however, seems to have borne her shame admirably and without great inconvenience. Lady Jane Langley accompanies her everywhere and she has the absolute support of your grandfather. Which, as you know, is invaluable.

His grandfather, again.

Cousin, I regret to be the bearer of bad news…

He saw black. He saw red. And his fist throbbed in agony.

“My lord.”

Marcus whirled around, aware only of the rage that consumed him.

“My lord, your hand. It is bleeding. And the wall!”

“What about the wall?” Marcus whirled back around to stare at what had captured Pell’s attention. The wall was cracked, a hole the shape of his fist revealing the wood beneath, the plaster chipped, dust settling on the writing table below.
Ah. The wall.
Then his fist pulsed, and the pain rushed through his arm.

“I’ll fetch bandages, my lord,” Pell said quickly, as if he too had awoken from a daze.

Damn her! He slammed both his palms down flat on the writing table, as he hung his head, ignoring the fresh jolt of pain. There was so much more pain in his chest.

She was his wife, dammit.
His
. And he was here, stuck here in Paris. Impotent.

Carslyle. He would kill the man. He knew him, one of the Group of Eight, one of his grandfather’s cronies. The old man, of course, had a hand in this as well, in ruining Marcus’s life any way he could. Fury flooded him again, outrage at everything in the world, at his grandfather. At Carslyle. He would throttle the man. He didn’t need a fair fight, a duel. His bare fists would be enough to break the smug politician’s miserable face. He would kill him.

Violence colored his thoughts and guilt struck him just as hard, a thousand images flooding his head––Natasha fallen on the stones below that London window, hair wet with blood. Blood. Everywhere. Dripping down walls.

“My lord?”

Marcus opened his eyes. Saw Charlotte’s letter beneath him, wet with his blood, imprinted with the shape of his hand.

“Won’t you sit, my lord, and let me attend to your hand?”

Marcus shuddered, lifted his head. Finally he straightened his body, crumpled the letter up in his fist before he realized what he was about. He let go, let it fall to the table. His hand was not as injured as all that. The places where wood had splintered into his hand still welled up with blood, but mostly the hand was bruised.

“It’s barely a scratch, Pell,” he said, even as he sat down in the chair. The valet pulled a chair next to him and then brought the basin of water, towel and bandages.

As his valet worked, washing the hand, pulling tiny fragments of wood from it with tweezers, Marcus looked away. The first flush of anger settled into nausea and then into nauseated despair.

Five years. Five years he had spent dreaming of her, vowing to find her, to apologize, beg her forgiveness. Five years he had held Natasha sacred in his heart––loved a woman who didn’t even honor their vows of marriage. He’d wasted his life, his inheritance, everything––on nothing.

“My lord, please, stop moving,” Pell chided, prying open the hand Marcus had fisted. “This is more than a scratch. We’ll have to fetch a surgeon.”

“I saw the parlor,” Gerard said. “Do you care to explain why you are destroying my rooms? Or your hand?” He walked closer to Marcus, picked up his arm. Marcus twisted it away.

“Broken it, have you?”

“I’ll pay for your wall,” Marcus said, looking back to the book in his hand. The same page he had stared at for the greater part of an hour.

He watched his brother out of the corners of his eyes. Gerard stood for a long moment and then finally moved to a chair, took a seat. Slouched in that Gallic way of his.

Almost two months Marcus had lived here, in these rooms that belonged to his half brother, while that man had come and gone, never saying where, never saying why. And yet, despite all the secrets, they had…grown close.

Marcus realized with a sudden release how much he had missed this, or had never had it. The camaraderie of a brotherhood either created or by blood. Strange, dangerous as this brother was, he was not dangerous to Marcus.

But then he had trusted his judgment before, and here he was, a husband not half a year and already a cuckold.

Marcus slid his legs over the side of the bed and pushed off with his uninjured hand.

“I need a drink.”

“Come then,” Gerard said, returning to his feet with alacrity.

The café around the corner and down the street was noisy and smoke filled. Marcus had walked by it dozens of times and not looked at it twice. Its clientele were French from all walks of life. Here there was no sign of the Russians or the British, the Austrians, the Prussians, or any number of other nationalities that made up the current Parisian atmosphere. There were no vacant tables and they stood by the bar, waiting for the barkeep to make his way down.

The men nearest him, in their plain brown coats and close-cropped hair spoke in their quick Parisian dialect, and Marcus caught only one word in five.

The barkeep slapped a brandy down in front of them both, and he realized Gerard had ordered. So used to the years of blockade was Marcus that the ability to walk into any café or inn and order brandy freely still amazed him. He drank it down and then another, and a third, still in silence. He was just beginning on his fourth, slowly, the alcohol finally creeping warmly through his body, numbing his hand, numbing his soul.

He glanced to his left, to make certain that Gerard was still there, and he was, rolling his glass back and forth between his fingers, its bottom edge scraping against the wooden bar. Marcus looked away, down into the golden liquid.

“I received a letter today. From my cousin Charlotte.” Marcus studied his hand, which was now so bandaged he could neither flex nor fist it. “My wife is having an affair.” His lips grimaced with the effort of getting the words out. He wanted to hit something again just thinking about it. He drank instead.

“Ah.”

That was it. Nothing else, only that one sighed, knowing word. Gerard’s face was sympathetic, empathetic in fact. Perhaps that was the French, understanding matters of love more. Marcus blinked. He swirled his brandy glass a bit so he could watch the ripples. See the movement. Feel it ease through his body the way the heat did. “I never imagined she would.”

“Perhaps Lady Templeton is lonely. You left your newly wedded wife within weeks…”

The sharp sound of glass meeting wood startled him almost more than Gerard’s words. His glass was empty, his hand wet with spilled liquid. He needed to explain, to make Gerard see why it was all––

“We were in love once. She did love me. I know she did. I thought she still would.”

There was that shrug and a raised eyebrow, and Marcus found himself revealing the whole of it all. Every last embarrassing and guilt-inducing moment.

At the end of it all, he had another glass of brandy, which he choked down with his own self-hatred.

Gerard’s hollow eyes revealed nothing, until he spoke, calmly, condescendingly.

“So you threatened her life, made her run, hunted her down, blackmailed her, abandoned her, and you are surprised that she seeks love elsewhere?”

“I didn’t––”

“It sounds, my brother, like you did. In fact, you make our grandfather look near a saint.”

The blood rushed to his head with a roar. He stumbled or the room shook, wouldn’t stop moving. He brushed Gerard’s helping hand away, the edge of the bar hitting into his back dully. The café was less crowded but no less loud. And everyone was looking at him.

He licked his lips, feeling the skin dry under his tongue, which was dry, too. Parched. And then he felt his head, cotton filled, with a sharp, pounding pain that throbbed him in and out of blackness. Or maybe that was just the room and it was night. He peered around, and then he cracked open his eyes and tried it again. A thin beam of light stole through the break in the heavy draperies. Morning then. At least he was in his bed.

He buried his face against the pillow and pummeled his fist against the mattress. Four times. Five. The anguish that poured out of his heart exceeded the pain in his head, exceeded the pain in his throbbing fist.

He should never have left her. There was a whole list of “never should haves,” all of which were pointless. The past was gone, unchangeable. It would be his shroud when he finally died, but he could not live in it.

He could return to London, he could fight for her, demand his rights as a husband. Kill Carslyle. But she would never love him, and if he bullied her more…

He stretched his arms till his hands curled around the edge of the mattress, and he pushed his forehead down onto the sheets, rounding his back with a soundless cry.

He composed a letter to her in his mind, the letter he would send if he thought there was still a life for them, if he planned to return.

How I wish that time could reverse. I have done everything wrong. I live parallel to this world, wishing for… It is beyond my understanding, but here in Paris, I’ve come closer to the edge, the thin barrier to true comprehension.

I see myself now, the man I intend to be and the man that you see. There is my grandfather in my every move, in the veins of my hands. I see now that you were right. Love, the stuff of memory, is not enough to ease the path. I’ve tortured you, bullied you, blackmailed you at every turn, all in the name of it.

Love—Natasha
—forgive me. See me again as the man you called honorable, handsome, as the man who charmed you. See me again as the man for whom you gave up everything, not the man who made you flee, made you fear. Made you hate.

Hate. The word still hurt, still ate at his heart, at his gut, at his mind. Still made his face twist up as Leona’s did the moment before a cry.

Marcus pushed himself away from the mattress, rolling off the side of the bed before jumping to his feet. He pulled back the curtains to let in the early light and then searched the room for his writing kit.

He took up the quill with a sickness in his soul. The ink-drawn lines on the foolscap before him swam and––

I wish you every happiness, to seek your happiness.

Chapter Thirty

It was all perfectly proper, her maid had assured her, to go for a drive in the park with a gentleman, even if he was not her husband. In an open carriage, the park was a public place, especially at the fashionable hour. Yet Natasha still felt the spark of doing something illicit. She liked that feeling.

Perhaps it was because people now expected her to do something daring. At every gathering she attended, those to which she was still invited, she often felt that people were waiting for her to make the slightest misstep so they could drag her past out and crucify her with it. She didn’t care. All the mishaps that mattered were in the past.

Still, her friendship with Carslyle was causing the gossips’ mouths to flap. Even at home, Kitty was disapproving. It was strange, however, that the bolder Natasha grew in her actions, the more Marcus haunted her dreams. Night after night, she awoke, confused and desperate, reaching for something just beyond her grasp.

But it was at the park, in Carslyle’s carriage, at the fashionable hour, that he made his most bold proposal that they begin an affair in earnest. At a seaside resort.

It was at that same hour that Natasha knew she could not let this flirtation be what he desired. If she went with him, she would be betraying every vow she had made, even if under duress, and every value she had ever held dear. She would be betraying the memory of the pure love she had once shared with Marcus, and the family that had welcomed her.

She returned home filled with a strange sort of nostalgic hope.

Until faced with Kitty, standing in the foyer, disapproval etched on her countenance.

“You have a letter from Marcus,” Kitty commented, indicating the letter as if she hoped its mere presence would bring some sense into Natasha’s head.

Natasha picked up the note from the salver calmly, dangling it between her thumb and forefinger, unwilling to show Kitty how much she wanted to break the seal and read her husband’s words.

They stood there in silence. Kitty’s lips thinned and worked. Finally, just as Natasha started to move, she spoke.

“You may not be the daughter-in-law I would have chosen, but once you were here, were one of us, I welcomed you into our house.”

“Kitty, please.” Natasha lifted one hand, trying to forestall the speech. She didn’t want to hear this, to face this. Not when she had just made her decision to put the flirtation aside. To make an attempt at reconciliation with Marcus.

“You are shaming us, Natasha. I cannot fault you for your past. The blame lies at Marcus’s feet as well. Most especially for forcing this marriage upon us all. Thus, I cannot blame you for Charlotte needing to flee her own home in order to protect her prospects in her first and likely only London Season. But I can and will blame you for this.”

“You know nothing, Kitty. You will look a fool for your assumptions.”

“You are playing your husband and this family for fools!” Kitty’s composure cracked.

“Please say no more,” Natasha begged, not wanting to hear any more hatred coming from her mother in law’s lips. “I, too, did not get to choose. But I…” Suddenly words were too much. She swept by Kitty, ignoring any sounds behind her, and hurried up the stairs. She wanted, needed, to be alone.

It was only when she’d reached the room’s relative safety, threw her gloves and reticule upon the bed, that Natasha remembered the letter, now scrunched between her two crumpled gloves. She plucked it out, smoothed out its creases, ran the pad of her thumb over the pressed seal. His letters to her were as frequent as those to Leona or to his mother, but they were never long, usually only a few short lines that she found herself studying for some deeper meaning.

There was never any deeper meaning to be had.

Finally she broke the hard wax, unfolded the missive, stared at his bold, even scrawl.

Please, on my account, do not curtail your enjoyments of the Season. I wish you every happiness, to seek your happiness, and if that comes from some other man, I do not wish to stand in the way. I have some work here still, which needs attending.

Natasha read the words over and over until the ink seemed to bleed into the page, run into the other few lines, disappear the way her world was disappearing, tilting, falling into the sea, the way the medieval town of Parrington had been eaten up by the water till nothing of it existed but a memory. Marcus had heard about Carslyle, about the flirtation that had amounted to nothing, but he believed.

I wish you every happiness, to seek your happiness.

Marcus would not be returning. At least not soon, not this month, not this summer, perhaps not this year. All he offered her was four short lines.

He was throwing her away. When she was finally willing to try.

Natasha crumpled up the letter and leaned against the bedpost, grasping the carved wood to steady herself when the dizzying rush of tears blurred her sight. She was stupid, stupid, stupid.

Why not have an affair? Why not do exactly what Kitty and Marcus believed her to be doing in any event? Her own husband had given his blessing. It was utterly ridiculous for Natasha now to stick to virginal qualms. She’d given up decency years ago. Everyone in London already knew that.

Or why not take it further? Why not now seek a legal separation, a
divorce
even? It would put her beyond the pale socially, but that would be nothing new. If she did have an affair, it would be grounds for divorce, but only if Marcus cared enough, if he was willing to not only give her freedom in that, but also to truly let her go, to break the false marriage within which he had chained her. How could she ever be free of him, wearing his ring, using his name?

For a moment, it seemed like a dream, like a gapingly open, free possibility. Never mind the tight knot of despair beneath.

…

The assembly room was an uncomfortable crush. Hot, oppressive, with too many scents, and noisy with the chatter that broke over the orchestra’s music.

Just as so many others had, she and Carslyle took refuge in the much-cooler garden, where there was a group dancing to the fainter strains of the song. She had looked at him, said she was overheated, lowered her lashes. He had understood immediately. Ushered her toward a shadowed corner, where the configuration of trees and topiary allowed a relative privacy.

Her heart ached. It had been one thing to flirt, to accept male admiration as balm for the pain of abandonment, but this was different.

She felt Carslyle’s breath on the nape of her neck. His lips were close and soon they’d touch her skin. She could do this. And if she did, she would truly be breaking Marcus’s hold on her, stepping past that point of no return.

Yet it was wrong. Dizzy and nauseated, Natasha slipped away from his hold. From the safety of several feet, she faced him.

“I can’t.”

His full, sensuous lips twisted and, with the spell broken, Natasha found them only skin. Freedom would not be found in his touch.

“Come, Natasha, we’re both adults. We’re both lonely.” In the deep shadows of the night, his eyes seemed to reflect the moon.
Juliet’s inconstant moon.
“Why shouldn’t we grasp some happiness where we may?” he pressed on, stepping forward.

Stunned, reeling, she stumbled back against a tree.
Grasp happiness.
The happiness Marcus had bid her to seek, had let her go to seek
.
Marcus had let her go.

The earth moved again, tumbling her world. This wasn’t the happiness Natasha wanted. She looked back on her life––the running, hiding, frozen coffin of a life. It wasn’t divorce she wanted; that wasn’t the freedom she needed. She didn’t want him to let her go.

Inside, she was gasping, breaking down into tears, but she couldn’t do that in front of Carslyle. Whatever flirtation and friendship they had shared had been with the unspoken agreement to do so only on the surface of their lives.

She swallowed hard, turning away.

“I won’t push you, Natasha,” he said. The warmth of his hand settled on her arm. “I don’t wish to cause you distress. I thought––”

Her breath settled. Carslyle wasn’t a part of this. She shrugged off his hand.

No matter what Marcus had written, he would return, and when he did–– When he did, they would talk. Whatever she chose, whether she left Marcus or stayed, Carslyle was not the answer.

“Thank you,” she whispered, meeting those moonlit eyes. Then she fled inside, to the crowded ballroom and the raging noise of celebration.