Authors: Mary Balogh
It was a concern they all seemed to share. They did not want the afternoon to end.
“Perhaps,” Miss Haytor suggested, “Cassie and Lord Merton would care to go for a stroll while you and I guard the blanket and the picnic basket, Mr. Golding.”
“Oh, that
would
be pleasant,” Cassandra said, getting to her feet before Stephen could offer either his assistance or his opinion. “After eating all that food, I am in dire need of some exercise.”
“There are some trees to climb,” Stephen said with a grin as he got up to join her. “But perhaps it would be more sedate to walk instead. Ma’am?”
He offered his arm, and Cassandra took it. Miss Haytor was regarding him with some severity as they turned away. Perhaps he ought not to have made that remark about climbing trees in her hearing.
“I believe,” he said when they were out of earshot, “the picnic must be deemed a success.”
“Alice,” she said, “has been positively glowing, has she not? I have never seen her quite like this. Oh, Stephen, do you think—”
But she did not complete the thought.
“I do indeed,” he said. “I think they are very pleased with each other. Whether anything more develops from the connection remains to be seen and is up to them.”
“The voice of caution,” she said with a sigh. “I hope she does not get hurt.”
“People do not always get hurt,” he said. “Sometimes they find love, Cass. And peace.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “Do they? Do they really? I will wish those things for Alice, then—love and peace. And partly for a selfish reason. I will feel less guilty for having clung to her all these years.”
Instead of going down the slope and walking along the grassy valley as the other two had done, he led them along the crest of the rise, winding their way among the ancient oaks, dipping their heads to avoid branches. He liked the view from up here, the seclusion, the shade from the brightness of the sun. He liked the proximity of trees.
They walked in a silence that was companionable while he counted days. There had been the day in the park when Con had pointed out the black-clad widow and remarked that it must be as hot as Hades beneath her black clothes and veil. There had been Meg’s ball the evening of the following day and their first night together. There had been the drive in the park and the second night. There had been the formal visit yesterday with Meg and Kate to take tea with Cassandra and Miss Haytor. And … there was today. No matter how he counted, back from today or forward from that ride in the park, the total was the same.
Four days.
That was as long as he had known Cassandra. Not even a week. Not even close.
It felt as if he had known her for weeks or months.
And yet he did not know her very well at all, did he? He knew almost nothing about her.
“Tell me,” he said, “about your marriage.”
She turned her head sharply to look at him.
“My marriage?” she said. “What is there to say that you do not already know?”
“How did you meet him?” he asked her. “Why did you marry him?”
Their steps had slowed and now stopped altogether. She slipped her hand from his arm and took a few steps to the side so that she could lean back against a giant trunk. He followed her, though he did not stand too close. He rested one arm on a low, sturdy branch.
The trunk itself would have hidden them from the picnic blanket. But a glance over the top of the branch assured him that they were out of sight anyway. They had walked farther than he thought.
“We never had a fixed home,” she said. “And there was never stability or security in our house. There was no lack of affection, but it was carelessly given. My father was very sociable, and he often invited gentlemen back to wherever we were living at the time. Always gentlemen, never ladies. It was of no concern to me until I was fifteen or so. Indeed, I always enjoyed the company and the occasional notice the gentlemen took of me. I enjoyed having my father sometimes set me on his knee while he talked to them all. But after I started to grow up, I had to endure leers and risqué remarks—and a few surreptitious touches and pinches. Once a kiss. My father would not have allowed any of it had he known, of course. He had illusions about sometime giving me a Season and seeing to it that I met all the right people. He was a baronet, after all. But he did not know what was happening under his own nose, and I never told him. It was never bad enough to be dangerous, though it got worse as I grew older.”
“You
ought
to have told him,” he said.
“Perhaps.” She shrugged. “But I had nothing to which to compare my life. I took it as normal. And Alice was always there to offer some protection. Then one day Baron Paget came home with my father, and he kept coming. He and my father were friends—they were about the same age. He was different from the others. He was kind and invariably courtly and gentle in manner, and he started to tell me about his home in the country, where he spent most of his time, and about the park surrounding the house, and the village and neighborhood. As far as I knew he did not gamble. Then, one day, when we were alone together—my father had left the room for some reason—he told me it could all be mine if I would do him the great honor of marrying him. He knew I could bring no dowry to the marriage, he told me. It did not matter. All he wanted was me.
He would make a generous marriage settlement on me, and he would love and cherish me for the rest of his life. At first I was dismayed—but only for a short while. You cannot understand, perhaps, the great temptation his offer was to me—for a life of security and stability in a rural heaven. He seemed to be a man like my father but with all the flaws stripped away. I suppose I married him more as a father than as a husband.”
“What went wrong?” he asked after a longish silence.
She spread her palms against the trunk on either side of her.
“Nothing at all for six months,” she said. “I will not say I was blissfully happy. He was an older man and I was not at all in love with him. But he seemed a
good
man, and he was kind and attentive to me, and I loved the country and the neighborhood. I was with child, and I was over the moon with happiness about that. I was very contented, perhaps even happy. And then one day he went to visit a distant neighbor and did not come back for three days. I was frantic with worry and made the mistake of going to look for him. He was sweet and kind when I got there and called upon his friends gathered there—all men—to witness how much his new wife loved him. He laughed heartily with them and came home with me. He was quiet in the carriage. He even smiled at me a number of times, but I was frightened. I realized he must have been drinking, and I did not recognize his eyes. After we arrived home …”
She swallowed and paused for a while. When she resumed, she sounded breathless.
“After we arrived home, he took me into the library and told me very quietly that I had shamed him in such a way that he did not know how he would be able to hold up his head with his friends ever again. I apologized—more than once. But then he started to hit me, first with the flat of his hand, and then with his fists and even his boots. I cannot talk more about it. But two days later I miscarried. I lost my child.”
Her head was back against the trunk, her eyes closed. Her face
was barred with light and shade. It looked to have not a vestige of color.
“And that was not the only time,” he said softly.
“No,” she said. “Not for either the beatings or the miscarriage. He was two men, Stephen. No one could ask for a kinder, gentler, more generous man when he was sober—and sometimes he was sober for months at a time. In fact,
usually
he was. When he was drunk, there were no signs except for his eyes—and his violence. One of the neighbors, who once saw me when my eye still had the violet remains of a beating, told me that she had always suspected he had killed his first wife. She died—officially—after a terrible fall from horseback when she was trying to jump a high fence.”
He did not know what to say, though he
wanted
to tell her that it was a good thing she had killed Paget before he could kill her. Good God, the man had killed three of her babies.
“I used to think it was my fault,” she said, “that he was so angry with me. I used to try to please him. I used to do all in my power not to do anything I thought might
displease
him. And when I knew he was drinking, I used to try to hide, to stay out of his way or … Well. None of it worked, of course.”
There was a lengthy silence.
“There,” she said eventually, turning her head to look at him, a wan smile on her lips. “You
did
ask.”
“And no one ever helped you?” he asked her.
“Who?” she said. “My father died within a year of my marriage. He would have had no right to intervene anyway. Wesley did not visit often, and he never saw Nigel’s bad side. I never told him about the beatings. He was just a boy. The only time Alice tried to intervene, he cuffed her and shut her out of the room and locked the door and then redoubled his efforts on
me
because I was not wife enough to face up to my shortcomings and the punishment I deserved.”
“His sons?” he asked.
“They were almost never there,” she said. “I daresay they knew him of old. Though I suppose the first Lady Paget was tougher than I to have borne the three of them. Or perhaps in those days Nigel’s sober spells lasted longer.”
He would not ask about Paget’s death. He had upset her too much as it was. He supposed he ought not to have asked at all. This had been a carefree afternoon until he had asked his question.
But his need to know her better and to get her to open up to him—or to
someone
—had outweighed his desire to keep the atmosphere of the afternoon light.
“And talking of climbing trees,” he said softly after a short while, as though nothing had been spoken of between them since they left the picnic site. “Have you ever done it?”
She tipped back her head to look upward into the great spreading branches of the oak above them.
“I used to do it all the time as a girl,” she said. “I think I must have been born dreaming of escaping into a blue heaven or falling into it. This tree is a climber’s paradise, is it not?”
She pulled free the ribbons of her bonnet and tossed it to the ground. She eyed the lowest branch, clearly considering the best way up onto it. He cupped his hands as if to help her mount a horse, and almost without hesitation, she set her foot in them and he hoisted her upward. He scrambled up after her.
It was easy after that. The branches were wide and sturdy and more or less parallel to the ground. They climbed without talking until, looking down, Stephen realized they had come quite a way.
She sat sideways on one branch, her back against the massive trunk, and then drew up her legs and hugged them with both arms. He stood on the branch below and held a branch above while wrapping his other arm about her waist, beneath her own arms.
She turned her face to him, smiling and then laughing.
“Oh, to be a child again,” she said.
“One can always be a child,” he said. “It is just an attitude of
mind. I wish I had known you when you were younger—before you armored yourself in cynicism and scorn to hide all the pain and anger. I wish you had not had to live through all that, Cass. I wish I could will it away or kiss it away, but I can’t. I can only assure you that you will harm only yourself if you remain closed against all the possible goodness the world and life have to offer you.”
“What is the guarantee,” she said, “that life will not punch me in the eye again?”
“Alas,” he said, “there is none. But it is my belief that the world is far fuller of goodness than it is of evil. And if that seems rather naive, let me put in another way. I believe goodness and love are far stronger than evil and hatred.”
“Angels are stronger than devils?” she asked, smiling.
“Yes,” he said. “Always.”
She lifted her arms and set her hands gently against the sides of his face.
“Thank you, Stephen,” she said, and kissed him lightly on the mouth.
“Besides,” he said, “you know more about love than you realize. You became my mistress not just because of your own poverty, or even primarily because of it. You have a companion who is perhaps too old to find satisfactory employment, and you have a maid who is probably unemployable if she tries to keep her illegitimate child with her. You have the child herself. And the dog. He is a member of your family too. You did it all for them, Cass. You sacrificed yourself for love.”
“With such a beautiful man,” she said, “it was hardly a sacrifice, was it?”
She was using her velvet voice.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “It was.”
She set her hands flat on the branch to either side of her and tipped her head sideways to rest against his chest.
“It is strange,” she said, “how speaking of the unspeakable has released
something. I feel very … happy. Is that why you did it? Is that why you asked?”
He dipped his head to set his lips against her warm hair.
“Are
you
happy?” she asked him.
“Yes,” he said.
“But it is not quite the right word,” she said. “You promised me joy today, Stephen, and you have delivered. They are not quite the same, are they—happiness and joy?”
They stayed as they were for a while, and he found himself wishing that time would stand still, at least for a while. There was something about her that drew him. It was not just her beauty. It was certainly not her seductive ways. It was … He could not put words to what it was. He had never been in love, but he did not imagine that this was what being in love felt like. How puzzling human emotions could be at times—though he had not noticed it much before meeting Cassandra.
“Happiness is more fleeting,” he said, “joy more enduring.”
She sighed and raised her head.
“But then comes disaster,” she said. “Someone goes off to drink for three days, and … And there goes happiness. Does joy remain? How can it?”
“One day,” he said, “you will learn that love does not always betray you, Cass.”