Fated Folly (17 page)

She let go of the handle, but it was a moment or two before he turned. His eyes swept across her face and away again.

‘
One thing I must ask. What occasion had you for going through my desk?'

Indignation swept through her and she marched back into the room to confront him. ‘I did not go through your desk! How dare you suggest such a thing? I would not dream of prying into your private papers.'

The frown remained on his brow and his tone was even. ‘Then how did you come by this?' He nodded at the sketch in his hand.

‘
I found it in the drawer of the desk in the drawing-room, when I was looking for a pen.' She read doubt in his face, and said insistently, ‘You may ask Berinthia if you do not believe me. She was there.'

He put out a hand. ‘I don't disbelieve you. It is just that I cannot think how it could possibly have got there.' He smiled briefly. ‘If there is one thing I know I may depend upon, it is your truthfulness.'

Clare looked down. Gruffly, she admitted, ‘I am not always quite truthful.'

‘
You might withhold something, I dare say. But you would never tell a deliberate falsehood.' He drew a breath. ‘Which is why I will not do so either. Or at least, I will not omit the truth, which comes to the same thing.'

Clare did not speak. She could not. What he might say was too important.

Rupert moved back to the window and the sketch slid from his fingers to flutter down onto the wooden slatting. He was not looking at her.

‘
It is difficult for a man always to be alone, you see. There are...appetites, which may not be easily withstood. And I have been a long time alone. Years.'

Clare could not prevent the protest from leaving her lips. ‘But you are married now.'

His eyes came around to her swiftly, and he moved across the room and took her by the shoulders. ‘Clare, I know it must seem strange to you that I should choose rather to mount a mistress than my own wife.' He nodded as her eyes widened. ‘Oh yes, I will say it outright. Let there be no secrets between us. It happens that I have not been to her since we married.' He saw the hope in her eyes, and resolutely shook his head. ‘No, Clare. I will not, indeed I could not, use you—abuse you, for it would be no less—for such a purpose.'

‘
But, Rupert, I don't understand,' Clare cried. ‘If I don't mind it—'

Rupert shook her suddenly. ‘You don't know what you are asking.'

‘
Then how am I to find it out?' she demanded frustratedly.

‘
My God, it is not some deep mystery of the universe,' he uttered, releasing her. ‘Would you have me lust for you like some bestial monster?'

‘
Not that, no,' Clare said in a small voice.

His face softened. He moved, gesturing to the window. ‘Come and sit.'

She did so and he sat beside her, shoving aside the parchment that had begun this whole upset as if it was of no account. His eyes were fixed on some point on the floor.

‘
This is not an easy thing to say, Clare. I am aware—have been so from the first—that you have formed an attachment to me. You are too young to know it, and—' with a slight, mirthless laugh ‘—I doubt if you will believe me, but the sort of feeling you are experiencing is a—a kind of greensickness, as we say, that attacks youth. Quite unmercifully.'

‘
You are saying it will pass.'

The flat tone kicked in Rupert's gut. He turned, grasping her hands. ‘You cannot imagine how much I hope it won't, Clare. But experience tells me otherwise.' He searched her face, uncertain whether he looked for reassurance or acquiescence. ‘I cannot take advantage of your innocence. And I am not referring to your youth alone. You don't know, you can't know how ephemeral such emotions can be.'

A faint look of realisation flashed within the hurt he could still see in her eyes. ‘That's why you would not consent to Pippa and Justin marrying.'

He released her hands. ‘Yes, that is why.'

She did not speak and Rupert found himself trying to read her face, which had turned distinctly enigmatic. He hardly knew what more to say, and the words seemed to come from nowhere.

‘
I should not have done it. If only matters had not been so desperate! The truth is, I should never have married you.'

Clare's lips and eyes hovered on that uncertain, tantalising smile, and it was all Rupert could do not to give in to a sudden, almost overmastering desire to kiss her.

‘
Do you wish you had not?'

The forlorn tone cut deeply into the shell he had wrapped around himself. He willed himself to make the response she wanted, to ease her pain, but his own was too raw. His lips would not obey him and the voice stuck in his throat.

Her eyes glistened, driving in the knife, and a pathetic little smile dawned.

‘
I see. Thank you for being truthful. I understand better now.'

Then she rose from the seat and quietly left the room. The door closed behind her and Rupert, with an agonised groan, dropped his head in his hands.

***

 

Clare paced the terrace, ignoring the slight chill in the air and the overcast sky that threatened to empty its contents all over her muslin gown. The thin shawl afforded little protection, but she did not notice, for the atmosphere around her seemed all of a piece with the desolation in her breast.

Pippa and Justin were gone to say their farewells at the Grange, for they were leaving for London after luncheon on the first stage of their journey to Kent. Rupert was shut up in his library, as he had been these past two days, appearing only at mealtimes and to accompany the party to Sunday service. And there was no need to play hostess for Berinthia Flimwell, who was in any event busy with some household accounts in the drawing-room.

Seizing the chance to escape, to drop for a short time the appearance of normality, the act that took such a toll of her nerves, Clare went outside to brood in solitude.

There were no tears left. Even that solace was denied her. They had been shed silently into her pillow as she stifled her sobs for fear they might penetrate into Rupert's bedchamber next door. She wished she had been able to give full vent to her tearing emotions. She had wanted to storm and rage against that anonymous “B” who had sole access to Rupert's heart. For if he had really cared, if he had loved Clare, he could not have found it in him so callously to toss her aside.

She halted for a moment, drawing a shuddering breath. No, that was unfair. He had not meant to hurt her. He did have an affection for her. But it was the kind of feeling one had for a child—which was how he thought of her. Had he not laid just that imputation to her own feelings? Greensickness! A child's feelings were how he thought of them. Anger surged up in her suddenly. What right had he to judge of her emotions? Was he able to see into her heart?

Fresh pain gnawed at her. No, he was blind to her heart because he was in love with someone else. And she was by no means convinced that the someone was not Blanche Dearham, even after Rupert's emphatic denial.

‘
Cousin Clare!'

The shout came from the driveway. Clare turned to see Ashendon and Christian approaching down the steps. Must they come now?

The two young men were already moving across the terrace towards her. She tried to pull on her hostess' face, summoning a smile. But it was a long way up from the depths into which she had allowed herself to sink, and she was afraid the traces might still be visible.

‘
What are you two doing here?' she asked with an assumption of cheerfulness. ‘You will have missed Pippa and Justin.'

‘
Not at all,' said Ashendon, looking at her rather hard. ‘We drove them back because of this threatening rain. They have gone up to see all is packed and ready.'

‘
Is it that late?' Clare asked, startled. So concentrated had been her gloomy thoughts she had not been aware of the passage of time.

‘
It is past eleven,' offered Christian.

‘
I suppose we will be saying goodbye to you next,' Clare said to him with a fleeting smile.

‘
Not for some few days yet,' Ashendon said smoothly. He glanced at the lowering clouds and back at Clare's face. ‘Not the most clement weather for wandering around the gardens, cousin.'

A tinge of warmth crept into Clare's cheek and she looked away. With an effort, she managed, ‘It is—it is airless inside.'

‘
Still,' said Christian, ‘you ought perhaps to come indoors. I should think it may tip down at any moment.'

‘
Nonsense, old fellow,' broke in Ashendon before Clare could respond, ‘she has a good ten minutes yet.' He turned to Clare. ‘I tell you what, cousin. I shall walk with you while we send this pessimist off to fetch an umbrella. Go on, Christian. Brookland will find you something suitable.'

There was nothing Clare desired less at this moment than to walk with Ashendon. But to go inside would mean a gathering again and the resumption of her public mask. At least with Ash there would be no shortage of conversation. No one could accuse him of a lack of social graces.

Dismissed, Christian went off, and as if to vindicate Ashendon's words, the clouds briefly parted just then and the sun shone through.

‘
There, now,' he laughed, squinting up. ‘Just for you, Clare.'

Clare was obliged to smile. She took the arm he offered and they began to move on, heading for the wide arbour at the opposite end of the terrace from the rose garden.

From the library at the corner of the house, Rupert watched them, ignoring the stack of correspondence that lay neglected on his desk. Clare's dejected pose as she paced on her own had riven him in pieces. They had barely spoken since that abortive attempt of his to clear the air between them. Instead he had made everything worse. Said things that should never have been spoken. Allowed her to go away supposing that he was regretting the impulse that had led him to offer her the protection of his name. Fine protection! What of protection from himself? And the greensickness would evaporate, he was certain of that.

But what if he was wrong
? whispered a small voice inside his heart.

Fool. Doting, besotted, middle-aged fool! Had he not had ample proof of it himself? She was a child. Let but one personable creature of her own age come within her orbit, and those sparkling, mischievous, adorable eyes would pass him by, and follow a newer, brighter star. And he would have to bear it.

But when he saw the two young gentlemen approach her on the terrace, when he found it was Ashendon who stayed, all thought of bearing it deserted him.

***

 

Clare had no notion that her perambulations were overlooked, but she was a trifle puzzled to see Ashendon cast several glances back towards the house. Was he looking for Christian's return? All at once, he drew nearer to her, leaning in as he purred close to her ear.

‘
Forgive me, cousin, but I fear you are not quite yourself today.'

She disliked his closeness, but she thought it useless to prevaricate. It must be written all over her.

‘
I am a little out of sorts.'

‘
For some days, I think.'

Clare glanced up at him and shifted away a little. ‘I am not enough myself to be up to your tricks, Ash. What are you about now?'

‘
Clare,' he said on a reproachful note, ‘I thought we had left all that behind us.'

‘
Have we?'

‘
You know we have.' He laid his free hand on her fingers where they lay in the crook of his arm. ‘You are unhappy.'

It was too much the truth for her to dissemble, even with Ashendon. Her mask slipped.

‘
It—it will pass,' she managed.

‘
Yes, that is how we all try to convince ourselves,' he said, and the touch of bitterness was not lost on Clare. ‘It will pass. After how many years?'

They had reached the arbour and Clare halted, staring up at him in surprise at the note of sincerity. Impulsively, she asked, ‘Why, what is it?'

Ashendon shook his head regretfully. ‘I cannot tell you.' His smile was sad and Clare felt a tug of sympathy despite all her dislike of him. ‘Even the worst of us have our sorrows.'

She was touched, and when he lifted her fingers to his lips, she did not snatch them away as she might have done at any other time. She met his gaze and encountered a world of understanding there that made her catch her breath on a sob.

‘
Pray don't weep, cousin,' Ashendon murmured softly.

He was drawing her forward, his gaze holding hers. His free hand crept unnoticed about her shoulders, and his face came down.

Somewhere behind the hazy cloud of depression that enwrapped her, Clare recognised that she was being manipulated. But all her heart cried out for some brief snatch of love from somewhere. She closed her eyes and saw, instead of Ashendon, Rupert's features, and thought only of his lips as the soft pressure touched against her own.

Reality, in the form of Rupert's icy voice, brought her tumbling back to earth. ‘I trust I don't intrude?'