She did not answer.
“I have a witness,” he went on, “who can reliably prove that in early January this year my cousin stayed at the King’s Head, and at the same time a certain Baron Frederick von Marienfeld, an Austrian hussar officer, stayed at the same hostelry. Unfortunately for you, the baron has a predilection for pretty maidservants, but his boorish behavior did not make him friends among their ranks. So confident was he that when he met my cousin, he left a certain Jenny Hobson in the adjoining bedroom. She heard every word which passed between them and she is prepared to give evidence in a court of law. She heard my cousin require the baron to put an end to me in Venice, and he handed over half of a considerable sum of money for this service
—the other half to be paid when the deed was done and I had been neatly consigned
to my Maker. It was in order to receive this second sum that the baron sent false word to my cousin afterward, and his deceit paid dividends, for my cousin duly and gladly sent the outstanding money.”
“We know absolutely nothing of all this, Nicholas, I swear that we don’t,” said Augustine, but her voice was wooden with fear.
“Nothing I have said has really been news to you, except the fact that the dealings between my cousin and the baron had been overheard. I
know
you are guilty of complicity. The proof of it all is there in the King’s Head
—dates, witnesses, even the baron’s signature on a letter he happened to leave behind. My cousin told you what he had done, and why he had done it—to gain King’s Cliff and to persuade you to marry him. He judged you sweetly, my dear, for you decided to hold your tongue because of the glittering prize he held out to you, and the moment you made that decision you were in his hands.”
“But I love you, Nicholas, I have always loved you
—”
“A washy emotion such as you are capable of, my dear Augustine, can hardly aspire to the name of love. If you love anyone, it is yourself, for in your opinion there is no one else worthy of you but your own self.”
“No
—”
“I feel nothing but contempt for you, and I felt like that
before
I realized what you were guilty of. Once I was away from you, far away in Venice, I could see you in a clear light for the first time
—and what I saw disgusted me. Never in your life had you done anything out of kindness, never had you thought of anyone but yourself, and never had your damned pride unbent sufficiently to make you even remotely lovable. You are very beautiful, dazzlingly so, but you are an empty shell, madam—if there
is
anything inside you, then it is stone.”
“No, Nicholas, please no…. I love you.” Tears shone in Augustine’s magnificent eyes, and Laura could see how she trembled from head to toe. But Laura felt no pity, no compassion at all.
“One circumstance and one alone makes me offer you a chance to escape the fate which will befall my cousin,” went on Nicholas, “and that is that you did not know of the crime before it had been committed. That is my only reason for sparing you, Augustine.”
“I am innocent,” she repeated. “Before God I swear I am innocent.”
“You will spend tonight in a room which has been prepared for you. It has no windows and its door will be guarded
—you
will have no chance to escape. In the morning you will be conveyed to Bristol where you will take a ship to whatever foreign destination you please
—but you will never dare to return here, for the moment you have set sail, I shall report what I know to the necessary authorities. Set foot in England again, Augustine, and you and your mother will face arrest and trial for attempted murder.”
She flinched as if he had physically struck her. “No,” she cried. “No, this house is mine, I will not leave it!”
“You have no choice.”
“
She
has no right to this house!” breathed Augustine, pointing a quivering finger at Laura.
“I do not intend to speak further on the subject with you,” said Nicholas, going to the door and opening it to admit several footmen who had been waiting
.
“I am innocent, Nicholas!” screamed Augustine then, sinking to her knees as the tears poured helplessly down her cheeks.
Her mother got up and went to her, putting a soothing hand on her trembling shoulder. “Be done with denials, my love, and be thankful that we are to be spared. Come.”
Augustine resisted, still weeping bitterly, but gradually she allowed her mother to draw her to her feet once more. Mrs. Townsend put her arm around her, looking at Nicholas. “You have my gratitude, sir, for I know we do not deserve this leniency. We are guilty, but it was a tangled web…
.
” She gave a faint smile. “Not that that excuses our crime.”
They went to the door then, and Nicholas made it plain that he intended to see them locked away safely for the night. He turned back to Laura before leaving the saloon. “I will return in a moment. I promised that I would speak with you, and so I will.”
“After all that has been said here tonight, I am sure that our talk can be put off until tomorrow.”
He shook his head. “No, Laura, I will have everything dealt with tonight.”
“Very well. I will wait here.”
Alone in the red saloon again, she sat down on the sofa. Her thoughts went back to Venice. So much was explained now, from the strange interest the baron had shown in her from that very first morning, to the inevitability of the challenge. She had provided the baron with the means, and she had unwittingly done as he wished, involving Nicholas in her affairs and thus placing him in an impossible position when the baron chose to pounce.
But now it is done, in a few minutes it will all be over and my purpose completed
—
well, almost completed
….
Even had you been as ugly as sin itself, Miss Milbanke, then I should still have come here now. Fortune, however, has smiled upon me and made you so very beautiful that my task will be sweetly accomplished. Oh, how sweetly
….
The Baron’s words were so clear it was almost as if he was in the room with her. She felt cold suddenly, and it was as it had been in Venice when he had always seemed to have stepped from sight but a moment before she looked around. His purpose was clear now, as it had been almost clear to her then.
Now too she understands the behavior of James Grenville, Augustine, and her mother that first time she had seen them, alighting from his carriage after attending a ball. James Grenville, so villainous and so triumphant that his evil plot had brought him everything he desired. Augustine, embarked upon her own scheme, prepared to accept the attentions of a man she loathed because he offered her the wealth, position, and the house she craved. Any lingering heartache for Nicholas had been buried beneath her all-consuming ambition, and only when Nicholas had returned from the dead had she realized that she felt more for him than she had known. Mrs. Townsend, the sheep not the bellwether, prepared to go along with everything even though she, of the three of them, had a terrible conscience about what had been done.
Nicholas returned. “In the morning they will be gone, and that part of it at least will be over.”
“I would not have spared them. They should face the law as well, for I believe them as guilty as the earl.”
He smiled. “How hard your heart is, Laura.”
“Not hard
—just. They laughed and made merry when they thought you had been murdered.
They
showed hardness.
I
feel that justice will only be really done when they appear in a court of law for what they did.”
He nodded. “You are right, of course, but I just could not bring myself to have them arrested. Do you understand?”
“I understand, but that does not mean to say I agree.”
“Ah, that would appear to be you running true to form,” he said, remembering her arguments against the duel that had been the cornerstone of it all.
“I am right now and I was right then,” she said, knowing exactly what he was thinking. “For so much of all this could have been avoided by simply refusing to be drawn by the baron.”
“Yes, Laura,” he said quietly, “so much could have been avoided
—including our marriage. Which brings us to the reason for this conversation now.”
She looked up at him, “You would not have married me had you not thought you were dying, would you?”
“We will never know, for events overtook us. Laura, I will be blunt with you. I will never submit to the ignominy and scandal of an annulment on the grounds of non
-
consummation, and as there are no other grounds, then an annulment can only be out of the question.”
“And what grounds there are can be readily removed, as you reminded me earlier. I am your wife and my body is yours.”
“I spoke in the heat of the moment.”
“But nevertheless, what you said was true, wasn’t it? You would be prepared to do that in order to avoid such an annulment.” She looked up, trying to read his eyes.
“Laura, that is a question I would rather not answer.”
“So, what it comes to is that I am your chattel and you are going to keep me, for whatever reason.”
“Believe me, Laura, I do not mean it like that.”
“How else then?” She stared up at him, still bewildered by his apparent contrariness.
“I mean that I see no burning reason to end this marriage.”
Daniel Tregarron is not going to have you
…
.
But his face bore no expression that even remotely reflected his thoughts as he looked down at her.
“Do you then see a burning reason to keep it?”
“Our relationship may not be the stuff of dreams, but then neither is it a disagreeable nightmare. I know full well that you entered into the contract for reasons that were thrust upon you in the heat of the moment. You say that I would not have married you at all had it not been for the extenuating circumstances, but then exactly the same can be said of you. I am not the husband you would have chosen, am I? Nevertheless, I
am
your husband, and you
are
my wife. Tomorrow morning when Augustine and her mother depart, many of the reasons for your unhappiness here will be removed. I can offer you a comfortable life here; you will lack for nothing and you will certainly not be at the beck and call of a harridan like Lady Mountfort.”
“Those are reasons in my favor, Nicholas,” she said quietly. “But what is in your favor? What will you gain if the marriage continues?”
“I will have a wife who has proved herself more than equal to the task of being mistress of this house. The arrangement works and will continue to work, to the detriment, as I see it, of neither side.”
She stared at him. Had he expressed an eagerness to part he could not have hurt her more. What he spoke of was still little more than the marriage of convenience it already was; it was a business agreement that had proved itself to be acceptable to him. There was no suggestion that he wished them to stay together because he felt affection for her
—they merely did well together, no more. He said that she would lack for nothing—except the one thing she craved more than anything else—his love.
“That is how I feel about it, Laura,” he went on. “But whatever my reasons, my wishes are plain enough
—I will not agree to the ending of our marriage.”
You will not go to him, for you are mine, mine
….
She felt close to tears suddenly. He would be her husband and yet he would not. It was everything
—and nothing! Unable to bear being close to him, she got up, the book she had been reading earlier tumbling to the floor as she hurried from the room.
Her flight made the candles leap and dance, and Nicholas slowly bent to retrieve the book. Wearily he sat on the sofa, lounging back with seeming gracefulness, but really with no more than extreme weariness. This day had almost done with him now, and it had brought him to the limit of his endurance. The web of murder and intrigue that had surrounded him was almost too heinous to contemplate, but it was the thought of losing Laura that now preoccupied him and took him to the edge of that limit.
He glanced at the book she had been reading.
The Merchant of Venice
…. But whose casket would this modern Portia choose? Her lover’s? Or that of the husband whose damned pride prevented him from confessing his great love?
* * *
The sound of the carriage that would shortly convey Augustine and her mother away from King’s Cliff for the last time aroused Laura from a shallow sleep. The gray of dawn filled the room as she sat up. The thoughts that had been with her when she had at last fallen asleep were with her again now. Where she had had two courses open to her, she now had three. She could go, as planned, to Lady Mountfort. She could decide in Daniel’s favor. Or she could remain at King’s Cliff with Nicholas. But now, with dawn, it was so much clearer to her. Life without Nicholas, knowing all the time that she could have stayed with him, could not easily be contemplated. Being with him was all that really mattered, even on the terms he had presented to her the night before.
She got out of the bed and drew on her wrap, her decision made once and for all. She would write to Daniel and tell him that she could not leave Nicholas. Maybe her decision would prove in the end to be the wrong one, for would she not find herself in the very thankless, untenable position she had described as Daniel’s were she to go to him? She was now guilty of doing with Daniel exactly what Daniel had wished her to do with himself
—but the loveless existence she chose was with Nicholas. Having a small portion of Nicholas was infinitely to be preferred to having nothing of him at all. Had the vibrancy of her love been directed at Daniel instead, how much happier the conclusion might have been, but that was not meant to be, and so she would settle for a lesser existence, so near to the object of her love, and yet so far away too.