“Of course.” Giles made their excuses and leading the way, cleared a path in front of them while holding onto his sister’s arm. When they reached the Rainsboroughs, Sabrina pushed past her brother to greet Clare with a hug. Clare felt brittle and unresponsive in her arms, and Sabrina released her quickly.
Justin Rainsborough greeted them politely enough, but both brother and sister could tell that he wished them back on the other side of the room.
Giles kept Rainsborough busy with questions about his estate while Sabrina moved Clare over to one of the nearby pillars.
“I am so surprised to see you looking so, my dear,” she said without preamble.
Clare looked at her blankly and then blushed. “Oh. The baby. I lost it shortly after I wrote to you, Sabrina. I should have told you, I know. But I am still very tired. Not quite recovered, I guess.”
“You are so thin, Clare.”
Clare looked down as though to see for herself. “Why, yes, I did lose weight. But I am beginning to gain it back.” She tugged nervously at the sleeves of her dress, as though she wanted to be sure they covered her thin arms.
“May I call on you tomorrow, Clare?”
Clare hesitated, and her eyes darted over to where her husband was talking to Giles. “Why, yes, of course, Sabrina. I will be at home to visitors after one.”
Sabrina chatted with her for a few minutes and then returned her to her husband. She pulled at her brother’s arm. “Come, Giles, I think the first country-dance is ours, if we can make our way over to the dance floor! The duchess has outdone herself this year, don’t you think, Lord Rainsborough?” Sabrina smiled brightly up at him, almost daring him to respond.
“Yes, indeed,” he answered, putting his arm protectively around his wife. “In fact, it is so crowded, I think I will get Clare home early tonight.
He was true to his word, for when Sabrina looked for her friend later, she was already gone.
Sabrina made her promised visit the next day, only to find Clare entertaining two women who were mere acquaintances. There was no time for any intimate conversation, and she left early, but not before she made Clare promise to come for a ride in the park with her later in the week.
Their ride, however, was hardly more satisfactory, for Clare was subdued and not at all forthcoming about her life in Devon or the loss of the baby. Sabrina did not want to pry, and so they had, what was for her, a disappointing time together. When nothing improved over the next few weeks, she decided to consult with her brother.
She interrupted him one rainy morning in the library.
“Giles, I am very worried about Clare.”
Giles looked up from his book. “Why is that, Sabrina? When I saw her at a musicale last week, she had more color and seemed to have put back a little of the weight she lost,” he replied noncommittally.
Sabrina hesitated. “I know it may still be painful for you to talk about her, Giles, so I was reluctant even to bring this up, but it is not just the physical I am concerned about. She doesn’t seem quite herself.”
Giles closed his book and took a deep breath. Sabrina was right. He didn’t want to think about Clare. It was much easier that way. He sat quietly for a few moments, listening to the steady fall of the rain outside the window. If he opened himself up to Clare again, it would be painful. But how could he ignore her if she was really in trouble?
“Tell me about it, Sabrina,” he said quietly.
“It is hard to describe. It feels to me that she is not really ... present at times.”
Giles looked up with concern in his eyes. “Women can sometimes be so affected after childbirth, I understand. Perhaps a miscarriage would also leave its mark?”
“Oh, no, Giles. I don’t think Clare is seriously melancholy in the way you mean. I remember Mrs. Crane in the village and her melancholia after her second child. It is nothing like that. It is more that Clare seems only to be going through the motions of being polite and dancing and making calls. She does not feel available to me in the same way. Well, perhaps that is all it is: the fading away of a close friendship. After all, her husband should come first, shouldn’t he?”
“And how do they seem together?” Giles had tried to avoid them as much as possible this Season.
“Oh, not as much in each other’s pockets as they were before, Giles. At least all that dreadful wagering has stopped,” she added with a smile. “But they appear very happy together.”
“Perhaps it
is
as you say, then, Sabrina. Clare has grown beyond her old friends. She has her own husband, her own life in Devon.”
“I know, I know. But it still bothers me.”
“I have been ... not avoiding her precisely, but only asking her for an occasional dance. Maybe I should try to act more the old friend than a disappointed lover, and see if I can offer her some comfort if she needs it.”
* * * *
Sabrina was right. Clare was not herself. The trouble was she wasn’t quite sure who that self
was.
Clare Dysart had certainly not been a vibrant, self-assured young woman like Sabrina. But Clare Rainsborough, in the early days at least, had felt cherished and loved and alive, finally not anyone’s afterthought. She had discovered passion; she had learned what it was to be an elemental part of someone else’s happiness. She had experienced Justin as a sensitive and expert lover. He had made her believe ... no, not made her believe, she had experienced herself as the center of his existence. Until that first blow. Which of course had been an aberration. Until the next one. But it was so clear that brandy brought out his insecurity and distorted his personality, and when he was not drinking, he was her loving husband again.
But she was beginning to feel that she was living in almost parallel lives. Which was, of course, not possible. Surely there was only one: either one’s husband was generous, kind, tender, and passionate (which was her life most of the time). Or he was a jealous, bullying tormentor. Which was her life for such a small portion of the time that she surely
must
be imagining it. Or somehow causing it.
What was her marriage? A blissfully happy one, for months at a time? Or the living hell that occurred occasionally and for only a day or two? Clare sometimes thought it would have been easier to have Justin beat her regularly. To know that he despised her. To be sure that he was a brute with no redeeming qualities. Then she could have hated him back. Or maybe even left. But how could she hate him when he so clearly
did
love her? So desperately needed her. Was so sorry after the brandy got the better of him. Gave her more pleasure in their love-making than she had ever thought possible.
There was no one she could talk to about it. Her parents would never understand, and, in fact, had wanted her to marry Giles. She missed her intimate conversations with Sabrina, but how could she tell her anything? It was too shameful to talk about. And how could Sabrina understand what a good husband Justin was most of the time. A piece of her heart longed for Giles. He had understood her and protected her when Lucy Kirkman had bullied her. But it would be even more impossible to talk to him.
Perhaps it was all over anyway. They had been in London almost a month, and Justin had not touched any spirits. They both were recovering from the loss of the baby. Justin had been slow to return to her bed, but Clare had finally convinced him that she was ready, and so the last few weeks had felt almost like a second honeymoon. So surely she was the happily married Lady Rainsborough after all.
* * * *
Giles wasted no time in seeking Clare’s company. The evening of Lady Petersham’s rout he made sure to secure a supper dance with her. Rainsborough was very polite about it—but then Rainsborough was always coolly polite with him.
He watched her closely as the patterns of the dance brought them together. She had more color than she had at the beginning of the Season, and she seemed fairly relaxed with him.
When it was time to go in for supper, he made sure to choose seats on the edge of the crowd so they had a bit of privacy.
“I have not had a chance to really express my sympathy, Clare,” said Giles. “I imagine it takes awhile to recover from such a loss.”
Clare felt tears spring to her eyes. She felt she was back in the presence of her old friend, and all the constraints of the last year were gone.
“Thank you, Giles. It has been difficult. But Justin has been very supportive,” she added.
“I am sure. Sabrina has been rather worried about you, though,” he added, trying to keep his tone light.
“Oh, she need not, Giles. I know I have been a little distracted, but I had hoped to be spending the spring with my feet up on a hassock rather than doing the full round again. It is taking me awhile to shift my expectations.”
“I hope that your loss does not mean ... that is, I trust you will be able to ...”
It was the first time Clare had ever seen Giles ill at ease, and she was touched and even a little amused. “If you mean will I be able to have other children, Giles, the answer is yes. The doctor assured me there were no lasting effects.”
Giles saw a fleeting look of deep sadness in her eyes, even as she said what should have been good news, and wondered at it. It was gone so quickly, however, that he could almost believe he hadn’t seen it.
“I did not mean to pry, Clare. I think Sabrina and I just wished to make sure that our old friend was happy,” Giles said, reaching out and holding her hand affectionately.
It was so lovely to know who she was for that moment: the Clare whom Giles loved as a friend, the Clare Giles had always taken care of, that all the distress of the past few months had disappeared. Clare smiled up at Giles just at the moment Justin pulled up two chairs near them for himself and his supper partner.
Giles felt Clare stiffen and immediately let go of her hand and began chatting about inconsequential things, making sure to include Rainsborough and his companion in the conversation. Rainsborough smiled and responded, but as usual, his smile didn’t reach his eyes. Oh, well, thought Giles, there would always be this tension between them. It was only natural. And at least he had satisfied himself about Clare’s state of mind. For the first time in months, he began to think that it would be possible to be with Clare in that old, relaxed way of friendship.
* * * *
The next morning at breakfast, he reassured Sabrina and told her that he thought Clare was merely working her way through her sorrow at the loss of the baby. “She said she was finding it hard to adjust to a full Season when she had not expected to participate much at all.”
“I
am
glad that you spoke with her, Giles. I am supposed to visit this afternoon, and perhaps now that I am less worried, our visit will be more relaxed.”
But Sabrina was turned away that afternoon and for the next week, as were all others. “Lady Rainsborough has come down with a very bad cold,” the butler told all her callers, “and would receive visitors when she recovered.”
Sabrina made herself remain calm and did not even begin to look for Clare in the evenings until a week had passed. But it was fully ten days before Lady Rains-borough attended anything in the evening, and when she and her husband were announced at the Fraser’s musicale, it was noted that she looked almost as pale as she had in the beginning of the Season. All agreed it was a shame that she should have recovered from a miscarriage only to succumb to another illness.
Rainsborough hovered protectively, and for her first few nights back, turned away any and all requests for dances and made sure she was home early. “It is wonderful, isn’t it, that even after almost a year, he is such a loving husband,” said more than one matron to another. “Yes, she is a very lucky woman.”
Any of the time Sabrina managed to spend with Clare was short and unsatisfactory due to her husband’s hovering. But she was torn between feeling happy that he was so good to his wife and experiencing his protectiveness as a vigilant control.
It wasn’t until the third day Clare was back in circulation that Giles had the opportunity to obtain a waltz. As he clasped his hand around her waist and they moved off to the music, Clare kept herself distant, head and eyes down. After a few measures, Giles shifted his hand to pull her in a little bit closer, and although she responded to his signal, she did not relax for a moment of their dance. And when they were making one last whirl around the floor and his hand tightened under her ribs for an instant, he felt her wince and heard a little gasp of pain escape her lips.
“Are you all right, Clare?” he asked anxiously. “Do you want me to take you out for a breath of air?”
“No, no,” she protested immediately. “I am fine, Giles, really I am. I, um, pulled a muscle the other day when I was reaching up to get a book down from a high shelf. Very foolish of me.”
She felt as tense to him as an overstrung lute string, ready to break at the slightest twist. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t imagine what. And he certainly couldn’t ask again. He was not going to push anything on her in this state, not even his friendship.
“Clare does not seem fully recovered from her illness, Rainsborough. I hope she hasn’t come back too soon.”
Giles was intrigued by the expression on Rainsborough’s face. At first he looked worried and responsible, as any husband might. Then, it seemed for an instant—but only that—an expression of pain and guilt flitted over his face. Yet immediately his eyes hardened and he said, with an edge in his voice, although it was calm and polite enough:
“Thank you for your concern, Whitton. I realize you are an old friend and have Clare’s best interest at heart, but I am her husband and therefore know what is best for her.”
Giles bowed to both of them and moved off, feeling both furious at such an obvious dismissal, and concerned. But the man, much as Giles couldn’t like him, was right.
He
was Clare’s husband, and whether Giles liked him or not, certainly seemed to have Clare’s best interest at heart.