Love on a Midsummer Night (Shakespeare in Love #2) (15 page)

Pembroke watched as Codington opened the front door for Arabella, then he turned away. He walked to the stables, his strides devouring the ground beneath his feet. He wanted to run, to put as much distance between himself and the woman he loved as he could. But he knew from long years of running that he could not move fast enough or far enough to escape her.

He saddled Triton himself, dismissing the sleepy groom with a silent wave of his hand. His mount tensed under him as if ready for battle, until he smoothed a hand over his neck and murmured to him the old command to stand down. He had no battles to fight tonight. No battle he could win.

He rode into the village, the sound of Triton’s hooves on the rutted road like thunder in his ears, drowning out the hideous loop of thought that would not leave him. He tossed Triton’s reins to a boy waiting outside the inn, then strode up the stairs two at a time. Titania was in her sitting room, drinking a brandy, a second glass at her elbow as if she had been waiting for him.

“I already poured your favorite,” was all she said.

“I don’t take brandy any longer,” he answered.

“Leave it then. I’ll drink it later.”

He did not look at her but paced the small room like a caged lion, circling and coming back but never even looking at the chair she had waiting for him or at her new night rail of transparent linen and lace.

“You know you’re a damn fool,” she said, drinking her liquor.

Pembroke faced her then, taking in the soft fall of bronze hair around her shoulders, the deep shadow of her generous cleavage, the outline of her voluptuous body beneath her gown. There was a time when he would have had it off her in a trice, her body under his in the next moment. But now he stood and looked at her as at a sweet he no longer craved.

“I am a fool for not bedding you, you mean?”

“You are a fool to have love show up on your doorstep twice, only to turn it away.”

He did not lie to Titania. For some reason, he had never been able to lie to her.

“She does not love me.”

“I beg to differ, my lord.”

“Hearing you beg is always amusing, Titania, but I am not in the mood tonight.”

“That much is clear.”

He started pacing again, and she watched him. “She loves you, Pembroke. Only you’re too blind to see it.”

He stopped pacing and sat down beside her. For a moment, he considered drinking the brandy laid out for him, but though his hand shook with desire for it, with the thirst for that clean burn on his tongue, he fought it down. He did not touch the glass.

“She says that she wrote to me after her marriage.”

“No doubt she did.”

“I would have received those letters, Titania, at least one of them. She is lying for her own amusement. Or to make me suffer. Or both.”

“Hmmm…” Titania took a sip of her own brandy. “The duchess does not seem the vindictive type.”

That word on his mistress’s lips seemed to snap something within him, some tether to the past, the last vestige of his fury. He watched it spin away, a splinter carried on an outgoing tide. He felt drained and listless, as if he had fought a long battle and lost.

He sighed and leaned his head against the tall back of the wooden chair he sat in. Titania was blessedly silent, and the only sound in the room was of coal falling in the grate. “She left me without a word and married another.”

“You still believe she married an elderly man of her own accord?”

“To become a duchess instead of the wife of a disinherited youth? Yes.”

But even as Pembroke spoke, his words sounded false in his own ears. He no longer believed that. As he sat, staring into the fire with his mistress beside him, he wondered how he ever had.

“I think you need to speak with her again,” Titania said. “And this time, do not run away.”

Pembroke did not say a word but stood at once, pushing his chair back from the table. He leaned over her, pressing a kiss into the softness of her hair. His lips just brushed her temple, and he felt no desire to kiss her mouth or to do anything else with her. The scent of cornflowers filled his nose, as if Arabella were standing beside him.

He left Titania sitting where he had found her. As he closed the door behind him, he heard her say, “Whatever happens tonight, don’t be late for rehearsal in the morning.”

***

Arabella did not sleep. She tried to lie down, but she knew it was a futile effort.

Pembroke had left her at the front door to go to his doxy in the village. As much as she liked Titania, the thought of him touching her, or any woman, made her throat fill with bile.

At least she preferred bile to tears.

So after lying for two sleepless hours in her borrowed room, she drew on a dressing gown and went down to the front hall. Codington had not gone to sleep either. She knew that he would not sleep until his master was home. She did not see him, but she sensed his presence as if he stood in the room with her. She ignored the thought of the older man who had once been her ally and kept to her seat at the edge of the entrance hall, as if she were a tradesman who would not be shown inside.

She sat in the hallway for only half an hour before Codington emerged as if by magic and opened the door for his master.

“My lord, the duchess has waited up for you.”

Pembroke turned to her, his blue eyes cold. “So I see.”

Codington melted into shadow, leaving them alone.

“What do you want, Arabella?”

She felt her tears rising then, knowing that she would leave his house on the morrow, knowing that she would never see him again. She could not leave him without telling him what had happened, some short version of events, whether he ever believed her or not.

“My father forced me to marry the duke. I did not know about his plans until the night before the wedding, when I was supposed to come to you. I tried to escape my father’s house, I tried to send word, but I failed. I am sorry.”

The last three words were torn from her throat, leaving her bleeding. But some small light came over her heart for a moment as the words were spoken. She saw from his shuttered look that he had not truly forgiven her, that he did not believe her. But she had told him the truth. Now she could go.

Save for one thing more.

She stepped forward, drawing the gold chain from around her neck. His mother’s ring was still warm from the touch of her breasts. She held it in the palm of one hand, clutching it reflexively, knowing it was the last piece of him that she would ever have.

She looked up into the shuttered blue of his eyes, the one errant lock of hair falling across his forehead as it always did. She did not reach up to brush it aside, for she had lost that right long ago. Instead, she opened her hand.

“This is yours,” she said. “I hope that whoever you give it to will make you happy.”

***

Pembroke stared down at the ruby ring in her hand.

The light in the hallway was gentle, cast by a pair of candelabra beside the door. He could not tell himself that his eyes were playing tricks for he could see that they were not. His mother’s ring gleamed in the light of those candles, as bright and untarnished as the day he had first given it to Arabella.

He could not speak, so he did not. He simply took the ring from her palm and held it up to the light. The ruby flashed, and he remembered his mother laughing. He felt as if she were beside him in that moment, caressing his hair. But then she was gone, and all memory of her presence went with her. He was left alone with the woman he loved. She had lied to him for the second time that day. No doubt to spare his feelings, to assuage her guilt before she left him. The fact that he loved her had not stopped him from losing her twice.

Arabella waited, but when he did not speak, she turned and walked up the stairs alone in the dark. The shadows swallowed her, and Pembroke sat heavily in one of the Queen Anne chairs beside the door, one of the chairs his mother had chosen when she decorated that house before he was born.

The ring was heavy in his hand. It seemed too heavy for a slight woman like Arabella ever to have worn it.

Codington was beside him. “Will you step into the sitting room, my lord?”

“No,” Pembroke said.

“Into the library?”

“No, Codington. I am going to sit in the front hall until my legs work again.”

There was a long silence, and Codington did not leave. He stood like a sentinel beside him. Pembroke was not sure how much time had passed before he noticed the silver tray the butler offered him.

“What’s this?” he asked.

Codington did not reply at once but lowered the tray for his inspection. Three yellowed letters lay on it, still sealed, their wax beginning to flake away.

“These letters came long ago, my lord. Just before you left for the Continent. One came to your club, another to the London house, another here. I gathered them all and kept them from you.”

Pembroke reached out with one finger. The bits of yellowed paper did not vanish but lay still on the silver tray, like bodies of the long dead.

“I interfered in your life, my lord. I stood between you and that woman. I do not know what these letters say, nor do I care to know. She left you, and these were the only word she sent after she married His Grace, the Duke of Hawthorne.”

Pembroke could not remember a time when Codington had spoken so much, not even when he was a child. He waited for his anger to rise, for outrage to overtake him at the high-handedness of the man who had been like a father to him all his life.

But he felt only a sense of wonder as he touched the letters again, this time reaching down to pick them up. They were brittle in his palm, against the calloused pads of his fingers, as if they might flake away into nothingness the way their wax seals had begun to do.

“You were trying to protect me,” Pembroke said.

“I feared for your life, my lord. I feared what might come of more interaction with that woman. So I kept the letters from you.”

“But you did not burn them, or return them, or throw them away.”

“No, my lord. They are yours, after all.”

Codington withdrew the tray and stood ready as if for a firing squad. “I have no defense for my actions, my lord. I will tender my resignation, effective immediately if you wish. Or, if you prefer, I will stay until a suitable replacement can be found.”

Pembroke looked at the man who had loved him all his life, the man who had placed himself between the boy Pembroke had been and his father during the worst of the old earl’s drunken rages. He knew without a shadow of doubt that he would not have survived his childhood without Codington’s interference in his life.

For some reason now, after all this time, he did not feel betrayed that Codington had kept such knowledge from him. Whatever those letters held, they would have hurt him then, all those years ago, as they were hurting him now. He knew that his old butler had hoped to keep him from yet more pain.

Life is pain, and to run from it is only to prolong the worst of it. Pembroke could feel the worst of it rising from the letters in his hand. Still, he knew that he would read them.

“I do not accept your resignation, Codington.” Pembroke rose so that he and his butler stood eye to eye. Codington’s blue eyes met his own, and Pembroke was not surprised to see that there were tears in them. “Thank you for protecting me. I have to pay the reckoning for loving her, but I may not have had the strength to do it then. I have the strength to do it now. Thank you for bringing these to me.”

Codington swallowed hard, his tears running down his expressionless face in two rivers of salt.

“Will that be all, my lord?”

“For tonight. Go to bed, Codington. I will see you in the morning.”

“And the letters?”

“I will read them now.”

Pembroke was gone when she came downstairs in the morning. She had her bag packed and on her arm, intent on leaving for the inn in the village, where she might catch the mail coach heading away from there. But when she stepped into the hallway with her satchel in one hand and a bag containing her golden guineas in the other, she found the letter he had left for her on a silver tray outside her borrowed bedroom door. It said almost nothing.

It said only, “Please stay.”

She set her heavy case down on the cream carpet and read the note again. She turned it over as if it were a cipher, searching for something more, some clue as to what it meant, as to what he wanted from her now.

She found none.

But she placed her still-packed bag on its stand in her room and went downstairs. She did not turn to the breakfast room, and Codington did not emerge to confront her. She opened the front door herself and stepped out into the warm air of summer.

The morning light was like a caress on her skin. She took in a deep breath of the rising breeze, the scent of wisteria tickling her as she walked down the long drive away from the house, toward the village. She had almost no clothing. Before she moved on, perhaps she might find something in the village. Something that was not black.

She pushed away the pain that rode her and waved to the people working in the fields. Some of them called to her by name and raised their caps to her. She remembered few of these people from her childhood, for she had never mixed in with the folk who worked the land. They had kept away from her, a slave trader’s daughter, as from a plague that was catching, and her father had kept a sharp eye on her, save for the one summer when he had arranged her marriage to the duke.

Arabella pushed away all memory of her father, not wanting to poison the summer day with such filth. Instead, she thought of Pembroke.

As she walked beside the hedgerow, her sturdy boots covered in mud, she wondered what her life to come would be like once she was gone from this place and from all who knew her, once she never saw Pembroke again. The thought of living without him was like a knife wound in her chest, one that made her fight for breath. She wondered what Pembroke had to say to her. Perhaps, finally, at the end, he was ready to listen.

Mrs. Bonner, the village seamstress, greeted Arabella warmly as if she had never known who her father was. Arabella found a few well-made, pretty gowns of soft muslin for her day dresses and one sturdy gown of light blue worsted—simple gowns that a duchess never could have worn. She never wanted to wear black again.

Out of nowhere, she felt a moment of searing guilt that she was flouting convention completely, leaving mourning for her husband behind only a month after his death.

She took a deep breath to steady herself. She had lived too long under the shadow of others. Hawthorne had seen to it that she was ruined already. No one in decent society would receive her again. She might as well get on with her life and live and dress to please herself. When she had escaped to Bristol, when she was living under another name, no one would know her or care.

There was one gown, though, that she should never have tried on. It was too beautiful for her life now or for the life to come. But she tried it on anyway.

Arabella faced the mirror in a formal gown of blue watered silk, taking in the sight of her small, high breasts nestled beneath the scalloped, low-cut bodice. The high waist flattered her slender figure, accentuating what few assets she had. The blue silk matched almost exactly the color of her eyes, and the pink silk trim brought out the color in her cheeks.

Arabella smiled at her reflection as Mrs. Bonner made adjustments to the gown. She knew that she would take this dress, along with the others. She would think of the future later, but she would wear this gown tonight.

With pins between her teeth, Mrs. Bonner said, “You are a vision, Your Grace.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bonner.”

“And shall I send the bill to Pembroke House?”

Arabella colored at the implication that Pembroke would pay for her clothes. “No. I will pay for the dress myself.”

The seamstress colored with pleasure when Arabella paid her at once and in gold. She gave Mrs. Bonner a little extra money to arrange delivery of a few of the gowns to Pembroke House that very afternoon.

Arabella could not wait even a few hours to be rid of her borrowed bonnet. She bought a new one made of white straw trimmed with silk cornflowers and light blue ribbon. She donned at last a gown of sprigged muslin decorated with cornflowers that Mrs. Bonner had been able to adjust to her figure while she waited.

Arabella had to make do with the leather boots she had brought with her into exile, but at Mrs. Bonner’s request, the cobbler came by to measure Arabella’s feet. So she had the pleasure of ordering new boots made, as well as new slippers. Arabella savored having ready money on hand, being able to pay her own bills without having to appeal to her husband for her meager quarterly allowance. She signed the bill of sale for her new wardrobe herself, savoring the taste of freedom her own money brought. The golden guineas in the bag at Pembroke House would pay for a modest life for the rest of her days. She was not sure yet if she would invest them in the City or simply bury them along with herself in an unknown town. She did not have to decide today. But her father’s gold, bought by the misery of others, would also buy her freedom.

She stepped out in her new muslin gown and pelisse, the sun warming her as she turned her face to the light. It was already noon, and she had begun to get hungry, for she had avoided Pembroke’s table. He would be in rehearsal until the evening and not free to speak with her until then. She decided to savor the last few hours alone in her home village with a stroll to the pub. It was a different place with her father dead and her freedom close at hand.

The day was warm and bright, with no evidence of the frequent rains she remembered from her childhood in Derbyshire. Perhaps even the weather had come under an enchantment, bringing sunlight and warmth, deep greens and fragrant flowers to the village commons without the price of rain. Arabella knew that all things must be paid for, but not that day.

She walked down the high street of the village, greeting shopkeepers as she passed. The baker pressed a roll into her basket, wrapping it in brown paper to keep it fresh. It was warm from the oven, and Arabella could feel the heat of it through her kid gloves.

Along one side street, she noticed a little stone cottage set back from the lane. She turned down the street to look at it, but the high wall in front of the house blocked any view of the garden. The wall was not forbidding the way the garden wall seemed at Swanson House, but instead seemed to offer shelter, a sanctuary behind its stone. Arabella had never had sanctuary in her life, save for the last few days with Pembroke.

The bright, cheerful blue of the wooden gate stood out from the gray stone of the wall. She pressed her hand against the latch, and it opened without a squeak of protest.

Beyond the gate lay a tiny cottage set back in its own garden. The flowers had not been tended in quite a while, but Arabella saw columbine and thyme, rosemary and goldenrod. A profusion of blooms welcomed the kiss of the sun as flowers mixed with herbs along the neat path that led to the cottage’s front door. The roof was of gray slate, and when she peered inside a front window, she saw that the interior walls were whitewashed. It seemed like a house from another time, an enchanted place where one might live in quiet, where one might be happy.

The scent of roses reached her and she breathed in their languorous perfume. Red roses climbed the western wall, entwined with yellow pease blossoms. Both flowers would get the best of the afternoon sun. Arabella stood for a long time, drinking in the sights and smells of that cottage. She knew that she could not stay. Hawthorne was on her heels or soon would be. And she needed to be away from Pembroke before he crushed what was left of her heart. But she wanted a home like this. She longed for it, for a place to belong, with almost a physical pain. Perhaps in Bristol she would find one, a little house that looked out over the sea.

Arabella turned her back on the white cottage with the sharp click of the gate closing behind her and made her way back to the high street and to the public house that faced out onto Pembroke village green. She saw the actors eating under the trees at the same tables where they had all taken dinner the night before. Pembroke and Titania were among them.

She froze, like a coney in a snare, her only thought to turn back. But Titania rose from her place among her players and waved to her with one lazy sweep of her arm. “Your Grace,” Titania called to her. “You must come and sit between us, if you have no objection to taking your luncheon with actors and riffraff.”

As she spoke the last word, Titania looked not to her company but at Pembroke. The lead actress was once again in full possession of her power. She sat enthroned like a queen surrounded by her court. Caught in the gaze of Pembroke’s mistress, Arabella lost her voice.

“You must join us, Your Grace,” Pembroke said.

His blue gaze held hers, running first over the new muslin dress she wore, as if he were thirsty on a hot day and the sight of her was cool water. He drank her down in one long draft. Arabella was caught in the fire in his eyes as Pembroke crossed the green to her and took her arm. He escorted her carefully across the close cropped grass and drew out a chair for her beside Titania. She sat before her knees gave way.

She felt the warmth of his arm on the table beside her as he reached for a flagon of ale. He poured her a cup of cider and served her a meat pasty off the tray in the center of the board. All the while, Pembroke kept his eyes away from her and his ears on the conversation at the other end of the table. Though he did not look at her again, she knew that he was aware of her as she was of him. A thread of heat ran between them, and Arabella felt a frisson of hope. Perhaps they might finally talk when they were alone again. Perhaps they might both put the past behind them and begin to heal.

Two actors were talking about the rustic scene toward the end of
A
Midsummer
Night’s Dream
, when they acted a play within a play. Arabella had read this masterpiece of Shakespeare’s over and over again, though she’d never seen one of his plays performed. She tried to take her mind off Pembroke and listened avidly as the actors spoke, wondering how it would be to see one of her favorite scenes acted out before her.

Titania smiled wryly, catching Arabella’s eye. She looked at Pembroke, who still did not spare a glance for Arabella but who kept her plate and cup full. Titania raised one elegantly curved eyebrow, and Arabella found herself wondering if the actress minded seeing her lover sit so close to another. She felt a spike of jealousy in her own spleen and swallowed a sip of ale to cool it.

As luncheon finished and the stage manager called for rehearsal to begin, Pembroke turned to her for the first time since the meal began.

“I wish you would stay and watch.” His lips quirked in a smile. “I need you to tell me if I’m making a fool of myself up there.”

Arabella found herself smiling. “We wouldn’t want that.”

“No, we would not.” His eyes were bright with mischief, but beneath that she saw a need that matched her own. He leaned down and kissed her hand before turning away.

Pembroke crossed with the other players toward the makeshift stage just built on the green. He moved with authority even there, though he listened to the professionals and took the advice they offered him about how to position himself on stage, how to enter, and how to exit. Arabella was listening to all this with half an ear, watching Pembroke all the while. She did not notice Cassie until the actress sat down beside her.

“Well, Your High and Mighty Worship, what’s a fancy duchess from London doing among the likes of us?”

The woman’s eyes were sharp on Arabella’s face, all trace of the warmth that she had worn before Pembroke gone.

“There’s some from London who might like to know where their duchess is. You’d best leave out of here quick-like, or that someone might come looking for you.”

Arabella felt all the color drain from her face. Her mouth was as dry as chalk, so dry that she could not speak. She swallowed hard, blinking in the face of this woman’s malice, but she could not bring herself even to rise and walk away. She could not even blink as she stared into Cassie’s hate-filled eyes.

“While you’re at it, you might stay away from a girl’s mark. Pembroke’s mine next, and everyone here knows it.”

The iron voice of Titania filled the space between them, forcing Cassie to her feet. “Pembroke belongs to himself, my girl. Her Grace does not arrange his love life, and neither do you. Now take yourself to the stage or I’ll dock you this afternoon’s pay.”

Cassie swallowed whatever she had been ready to say next. She walked away from them, but not before casting one last evil look at Arabella.

“Thank you,” Arabella said. “I did not know what to say.”

“There’s little to say to the likes of her, Your Grace. Put her out of your mind. You’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Arabella watched as Cassie took her place on stage with the other fairy women. She drew her gaze from the girl reluctantly, almost afraid that something terrible might happen if she did not keep her eye on her.

She knew that she needed to be gone. In the morning, after she had spoken to Pembroke and had gotten a decent night’s rest, she would disappear. No doubt the vulgar woman was right. If Hawthorne had not heard where she was already, he soon would.

“You are kind, Madame Titania. You need not trouble yourself on my account.”

Titania tossed her head, the sunlight catching the bronze buried in her red hair. “It is no trouble at all to keep a troublesome actress in her place. Believe me when I tell you, if you give an inch, they’ll take a mile. If I left her to her own devices, next I saw her she’d be wearing my own gowns and swanning about like the Princess of Wales.”