A Chance Encounter (24 page)

“Tell me the way to your room,” he said, beginning to move around the sofa.

Elizabeth was fully conscious again. “Put me down, Robert,” she said distinctly.

“I shall carry you, love,” he said, looking down into her eyes. “You always were the merest feather.”

“Put me down, Robert,” she said again, willing her voice to steadiness.

The passion was gone from his face instantly as he set her feet back on the floor. “You are a tease, ma'am,” he said, “and I fell for it again.”

“Enough!” she yelled, her control snapping altogether. “I am sick, Robert, sick of hearing your accusations. I am heartless, I am a tease, I am mercenary. I know myself as none of these things. You have accused me of accepting ten thousand pounds for something. I know nothing of ten thousand pounds. I have never even seen so much money. Now, if you care to explain what you have hinted at, please do so. If not, if your purpose here is merely to insult and accuse me, you may leave, my lord. You are not master here, and in the absence of the Rowes, I command. Now, which is it to be?”

She sat down straight-backed on the nearest chair. He too sank onto the sofa that she had occupied earlier. He looked at her narrowly for a long while, and Elizabeth almost lost her nerve. She set her chin and glared back.

“I refer, of course, to the ten thousand pounds that you accepted from my uncle,” he said tonelessly.

“From your uncle?” she asked, a frown creasing her brow.

Hetherington got restlessly to his feet and paced the room. “My uncle was opposed to our marriage from the start,” he said. “You told me that yourself. What you did not tell me was that he had offered you money even then to break off with me. Two thousand pounds, I believe. You laughed at him and told him it would take a lot more than that paltry sum to buy you off.”

Elizabeth had whitened again. “The details are not quite as I remember them,” she said, “but yes, he did talk of money.”

His penetrating look again almost unnerved her. “After we were married, he might have let us alone,” he continued, “though you probably thought you could push up his price. Circumstances certainly played into your hands, my dear. How you must have cheered when you realized that I was the new marquess. You must have waited in great glee for my uncle to contact you.”

Not a muscle moved in Elizabeth's face. “Go on,” she said.

“My uncle responded like a puppet on a string, of course,” he said. “When he came to offer you eight thousand pounds, you forced him to pay out ten. You were foolish, my dear. He would have paid double the sum to rid the family of such an unsuitable connection.”

“Yes, I imagine he would,” she commented.

“I was furious with him when I learned what he had done,” Hetherington said, his eyes blazing again, “until I had had time to think, of course. Then I realized that it was probably as well to know the truth about you so early. It was a tragic irony for you, was it not, Elizabeth, that my grandmother died just a year later and left me all her wealth? You might have had the title and a great deal more money than ten thousand pounds, my love.”

“Have you finished?” she asked. He made her an ironic bow. “I know nothing of ten thousand pounds,” she repeated, “and I have not set eyes on your uncle since that night when he asked me to name my price for leaving you alone. All I do know, my lord, is that I waited for a whole week at my father's house after writing to tell you where I was. I excused you in my mind, knowing that you would be contending with shock as well as the business attending on the funerals and their aftermath. But I longed for a letter, just a little note, from you. At the end of that week, I began to write to you, every day, pleading with you to let me come to you, or to write to me at least. For two whole weeks, Robert. Do you have any conception how long a time that seems to a bride who has just been separated from her husband and who cannot understand the reason why?

“And then finally you wrote.” Elizabeth glared at him in angry scorn. “But not to me, my lord. Never to me. Could you find the courage to write only to my father? He was never a particularly loving man, but even he felt pity enough not to show me those letters. He tried to soften the blow by telling me himself that you did not want to see me, did not want to be burdened with my letters. I tried to convince myself that you loved me, that you would become yourself again when the shock of your brother's and your father's deaths had worn off. It took John, brought home from Oxford by my worried father, to convince me that you really did wish to be rid of me. Someone of my social standing suited you well enough when you were plain Robert Denning with no expectations. But as the wife of the Marquess of Hetherington I was merely an embarrassment. You must divorce me as speedily and as quietly as possible.”

“But I did not,” he pointed out quietly.

“No,” she agreed, “because I very meekly gave up the struggle. It might have caused some scandal had a whisper of what was happening reached the ears of the
ton.
It was safer to leave matters as they stood, was it not?”

They stared at each other, worlds apart.

“How can I disbelieve my uncle?” Hetherington said finally. “He is my own flesh and blood. He has always devoted himself to my family. He even came to live with me in the months following the accident, to help me adjust.

“But you will disbelieve your wife?” she cried, leaping to her feet. “You have made your choice, Robert. There is nothing more for you and me to say to each other.” Again they regarded each other across the room. Finally Hetherington withdrew his eyes and, without a word, strode from the room.

“B
ut do you know for sure that Mr. Mainwaring is not coming back here?” Mrs. Rowe asked Mrs. Claridge the following afternoon.

“I have it on the firmest authority,” Mrs. Claridge replied, nodding confidentially and setting her teacup back in its saucer. “Soames was talking to the vicar this morning. He told him that his master had sent word that his trunks were to be packed and sent to London.”

“How provoking!” Mrs. Rowe said. “And just when the life of our neighborhood was becoming more genteel. I do declare, Mrs. Claridge, I shall miss his company, even if it did seem that he was not interested in any of our girls.”

The girls did not seem too disappointed over Mr. Mainwaring's lack of interest in them. They were busy commiserating with each other over the fact that the Worthing cousins were to leave for home in two more days.

“But I wonder why he left so abruptly?” Mrs. Claridge said. “The vicar was unable to say. But I distinctly heard Mr. Mainwaring accept an invitation to cards on Tuesday next.”

“Perhaps he had bad news from London,” Mrs. Rowe suggested. “Poor, dear man. I do hope he comes back here for Christmas, at least. It is most provoking to have the manor close by and no one in residence.”

The visitors were gathered as usual in the drawing room with Mrs. Rowe, Cecily, and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was sitting in the window seat, sewing a new ruffle onto Cecily's favorite ball gown. She kept her head down. She was certainly in no mood to join in the speculations about the master of Ferndale. Was he suffering? Had she hurt him badly? She berated herself now for not putting a firm end to his hopes as soon as she realized which way his feelings were inclined. She might have guessed that they would never be allowed to marry. And now she was almost sure that she could not have carried through with her plans, anyway. She was married to Robert and would always be, even if he divorced her a thousand times.

“The vicar heard another extraordinary thing this morning,” Mrs. Claridge was saying. “It seems that the Marquess of Hetherington was in Granby yesterday, but he put up at the inn, not at Ferndale. As it turned out, though, he did not even stay the night, but left very late after paying for his night's lodging and a dinner and breakfast that he did not eat.”

“That is most peculiar,” Mrs. Rowe agreed. “Perhaps he expected Mr. Mainwaring to be here and did not like to stay at the house when he found that he was not there. Though he might have visited us, of course.”

Both ladies suddenly became aware of Elizabeth's presence and remembered her connection to the marquess.

“I am so sorry, Miss Rossiter,” Mrs. Claridge murmured.

“Did you know his lordship was here, my dear?” asked Mrs. Rowe.

“Oh, yes,” Elizabeth answered calmly. “He called here last evening. He brought the news that Mr. Mainwaring visited him a few days ago and has now gone to London. It seems he has unexpected business there and is unlikely to return for some time.”

“Well, how provoking!” Mrs. Rowe declared. “Life will seem so dull with the dear man gone, and the Worthings leaving for London after Christmas.”

“The reverend has heard that Mr. Dowling is to go to London, too,” Mrs. Claridge commented.

“Pursuing Lucy, no doubt,” Mrs. Rowe said. “Will the squire ever give his consent to that match, do you think?”

The visit continued, with both groups of ladies enjoying a cozy gossip while Elizabeth sewed in the window seat, alone with her own thoughts.

She had hardly slept the night before and even yet was not quite able to think coherently enough to sort out what exactly had happened or how she felt about it. Too much had happened, too many strange and unexpected things.

Had he really held her and kissed her, not in anger, but in real need? Had there been tears in his eyes when he first lifted her against him? Had he called her “darling,” as he had done during those days in Devon? And he had been going to take her to bed. She could have made love with Robert last night. Her needle paused above her work as shivers sizzled up her arms and along her spine.

Another memory was trying to surface. He had been talking to her while she was feeling faint. There had been more than the word
darling.
Elizabeth began to sew feverishly as she remembered. He loved her. He must love her. There had been such real pain in his voice as he had begged her to tell him that she had loved him when they married, that their honeymoon had not been a lie. My God, he loved her! Then, why? Why had he done what he did? Why had he abandoned her?

Mrs. Claridge had risen and was taking her leave. Anne was whispering a final confidence to Cecily.

“You will be coming with Cecily this evening, Miss Rossiter?” Mrs. Claridge asked.

“Yes, if I may,” Elizabeth replied, quietly folding away her sewing.

“I should be most grateful,” Mrs. Claridge said. “This is the evening when the reverend always writes his Sunday sermon and I like to sit with him to mend his pens. But the young people cannot be left alone.”

“It would be my pleasure to sit with them,” Elizabeth assured her with a smile.

It was not until quite late that night that Elizabeth again had time to herself. She felt deadly tired. A week of busy social activities, yesterday's headache and encounter with Hetherington, today's busy schedule, had all taken their toll on her energy. But she knew she would not sleep until she had somehow sorted through her thoughts about the night before. She pulled a chair to the window, blew out the candle, and sat looking out onto the moonlit lawns and trees.

What had Robert said last night? There was that ten thousand pounds. He had said that his uncle had paid her to leave her husband. He had accused her of accepting such a bribe. Could he be telling the truth? Could he really believe such a thing? It seemed that he must, because his words earlier in the evening had suggested that he really had suffered over the breakup of their marriage, that he really believed she was the one responsible for it. But why, then, had he not responded to all those letters she had written? Why had he not tried to see her? And why had he written those cold and hurtful letters to her father?

One thing at least was beginning to clarify itself in Elizabeth's mind. Their separation had not been brought about by his lack of love or by cruelty. Somehow there had been a massive misunderstanding. For six years each of them had believed the other at fault. Each had carried the pain and the bitterness all that time. She remembered his saying that he had remained faithful to his marriage, that she had spoiled him for all other women. He had suffered as much as she. She closed her eyes and laid her forehead in one shaking hand. What a revolutionary thought! She had accustomed herself for so long to the idea that he was a heartless wretch. Had he just been her own very dear Robert all the time?

Yet they had parted the night before with bitterness, poles apart, unable to communicate. He had left Granby, , not even waiting for morning. There was no reason now for any future meetings. It was likely that there would be an estrangement between him and William Mainwaring. Even if they remained friends, it was very unlikely that they would come together to Ferndale again as long as she still lived with the Rowes. He had refused to divorce her or to allow her to divorce him. They had told each other their stories, yet had failed to understand what had happened. And they had parted. It was all over.

But why should that be? They had loved each other passionately six years before, had defied their families in order to marry, and had grieved for each other ever since. They loved and wanted each other now. Why should they be apart forever? Had they not suffered enough? And all because of the lies and the schemings of one man.