Fragile Mask (23 page)

‘
I am referring,’ he said bitingly, ‘to this alien creature,
who is not you, Miss Verena Chaceley, yet who persists in coming
between us.’

‘
Indeed?’

Exasperated, Denzell echoed, ‘Indeed, indeed, indeed, Miss
Chaceley! Is that all you can ever say? Of course it is. A
crumbling façade before me must put you in grave danger, must it
not?’

Verena could not reply. A tremor passed across her
features. Why did he taunt her thus? If indeed he knew how hard it
was for her to maintain her front, then what devil possessed him to
prick at her?

He was glaring at her! All at once the expression in his
face was too distressing to be borne. Why, she could not tell. She
knew only that she could no longer maintain the façade. That it was
indeed crumbling before him. A piercing, inexplicable pain threw
her hand up to her breast.

‘
Why must you be so cruel?’

Her voice cracked. Next moment, she found her hands clasped
together between two strong ones, held fast against the male chest
before her.

‘
I’m not! I’m not cruel, Verena. Only I cannot bear it when
you shield yourself against me. I know you are deeply troubled. I
only want to help you, if I can. I ask nothing more than to be
allowed to serve you. You have nothing to fear from me, I promise
you. Only don’t, I beg of you, Verena, keep me at a
distance.’

‘
I
must
,’ she said,
anguished. For everything in her yearned to yield to him. To allow
him close, to give him access to her deepest thoughts, her deepest
feelings.

‘
But why? Tell me, Verena, why?’

‘
I cannot—there is nothing—’ she faltered, trying vainly to
recover herself, half struggling to free her hands.

‘
Yes, there is something. Tell me.’

‘
No, no—you are mistaken.’

‘
I am not
mistaken
,’ he said
with vehemence. ‘Verena, I could not be mistaken where you are
concerned. Deuce take it, I have fallen in love with
you!’

Chapter Eight

Aghast, Verena gazed at him. ‘Oh no,’ she uttered
faintly.

Denzell stared back, quite as shocked himself by his own
words. An odd laugh escaped him.

‘
My God, I
have
fallen in love
with you. Oh,
Verena.’

Without any warning at all he released her hands, but only
so that he might take her in his arms, gently, and in wonderment,
oblivious to the stunned expression on her face. Next instant he
was kissing her.

Verena’s knees gave way. Had Denzell not been holding her
she would have fallen. Sensation crowded out thought, as the
pressure at her mouth sent waves dizzying across her brain. Then a
wash of heat engulfed her and she groaned, unaware that her lips
were answering his, moving in a hunger that had nothing to do with
sense or fear, or even consciousness. Her arms, her hands, all
moved seemingly without any volition on her part, snaking up to
enfold the hard warmth of his chest closer still.

The pressure on her mouth intensified, and her lips parted
at the implicit command, leaving her vulnerable to a searing belt
of flame that raced through her at the velvet touch that
followed.

It was too much! She was burning, suffused with intolerable
sensations that threatened to deprive her of her senses.
Struggling, she fought free and staggered back, panting with effort
and hysterical with frantic protest.

‘
How could you? How
could
you?
Never—never—dare to do such a thing again!’

Denzell, as charged as she, as much affected, yet realised
how wrong, how inconsiderate he had been.

‘
Verena, forgive me! I did not mean to do it, I swear. I
couldn’t help it. I promise you, I had no such intention when I
brought you here. I had no notion that I had fallen in love with
you.’

‘
Don’t say that,’ uttered Verena, trembling. ‘It
isn’t possible…you must not...’ She drew a ragged breath against
the uneven pounding of her pulse. ‘You must not—
cannot
—
love
me.’

‘
It’s too late, Verena. I do love you. Nothing can change
that.’

She drew back. ‘No. Please, no.’

Denzell reached out and caught her hand. ‘Why are you so
afraid? What is it that you fear?’

Verena tried to pull her hand away, but his
fingers tightened. She was conscious that she was trembling, and
could not doubt but that he felt it. He drew her mittened hand up
to his mouth, kissed the bare fingertips, and then let it go. The
tenderness of the gesture left her helpless, warmed inside, despite
the denial she was trying to hold to. He must not love her, because
she could not—
must
not—love him. She did not love
him!

‘
Never speak to me of such m-matters again,’ she said
shakily. ‘I could not love you, Mr Hawkeridge—or
anyone.’

‘
There is someone else,’ he uttered, in sudden
anguish.

‘
No one.
’

‘
Then – ’

‘
No one,’ she reiterated harshly. ‘No man shall be
permitted to steal away my heart. I have long determined it. Not
you. Not
anyone
.
I wear an iron shield and you need
not suppose that you have the power to penetrate it. You must go
elsewhere with your
love
, Mr Hawkeridge,
for I will never accept it.’

The look in his face almost caused her to retract. Was he
so very much hurt? She was conscious of a rising feeling of guilt,
but she thrust it down. Guilt in this instance was a luxury she
could not afford. She must remember Mama.

The thought gave her strength. What, had she forgotten
Mama’s sufferings? Was she so vulnerable, so easily swayed by a
kiss, by soft words? No—if only he did not look so
devastated.

Without will, she put out a hand and her fingers lightly
touched his cheek.

‘
I am sorry, Denzell.’

Then she turned away, and sped back towards the dancing
arena, but skirting it so that she passed around the crowds. She
was still overset, her heartbeat irregular, and she did not wish to
meet anyone now. All she wanted was to go home. To go home—and to
weep.

All the way home in the chair that carried her,
she clutched her light cloak about her, beset by an unwelcome image
of Denzell Hawkeridge’s face. Clearly he had not imagined for a
moment that he might meet with such a comprehensive rebuff. She
could only trust he was mistaken in the depth of his feelings, that
he would soon recover and
fall in love
with
someone else. It must be that he would, for was he not an
accomplished flirt? Perhaps he fancied himself in love with her
because she had not fallen victim to his wiles. He barely knew her,
after all. As she barely knew him. Which had not, a small voice
whispered, prevented her from finding him dangerously attractive,
nor from melting with desire at his kiss.

With a smothered exclamation, she put her hands over her
own ears, as if she might stop herself hearing such things, even in
her own head. He should not have kissed her. Her face burned at the
memory. He had no right to—to set up a furnace in her body, to
throw her into a state of such unutterable confusion.

She arrived home in a condition almost as bad as that in
which she had run from Denzell, her heart beating less raggedly,
but heavy with a weight of oppression that threatened every instant
to overcome her.

She would have gone directly to her own chamber, but her
footsteps must have been heard, for Betsey’s head popped out of the
parlour, a candle in her hand. The maid both sounded and looked
grim enough to seize Verena’s attention from her own dismal
thoughts.

‘
I thought it must be you, Miss Verena. You’d best come in
here straight.’

Still cloaked, Verena moved towards the parlour door,
frowning.

‘
What is the matter, Betsey?’

The maid was apparently too distracted to notice the
trouble in Verena’s face. ‘It’s Mr Adam.’

‘
Adam is here?’

‘
Right enough he is—and with such tidings as you’ll not be
wanting to hear neither.’

For a moment the shadows left by the difficult events of
Verena’s evening prevented her from understanding. But as she
walked through the door, and saw the instant apprehension in the
faces of her mother and brother alike, the portent of Betsey’s
words hit home.

‘
Oh, dear heaven, don’t tell me, Adam. He is coming after
you, isn’t he?’

‘
Dearest, do not be angry,’ said Mrs Peverill at
once.

Not be angry? Verena was on the point of wild and
hysterical laughter. All that she had been through tonight, and now
this. Oh, but the fates were cruel.

Adam was speaking, and she tried to concentrate her
attention on his words.

‘…
never meant to say a word, you must know that, Verena. But
I believe he more than half suspected these visits I have been
making.’

‘
That was the reason, Verena,’ pressed Mrs Peverill. ‘You
cannot blame Adam, dearest. He tried to keep his mouth shut, but
Nathaniel drove him to speak, indeed, indeed he did. Cannot you
imagine it, Verena? Such taunts at me he made, such dreadful things
he said of me. Poor Adam could not abide to hear them.’

‘
What did you tell him?’ Verena asked, her tone
flat.

‘
Why, I threw back at him what he had done to Mama,’
explained Adam.

‘
And lost his temper into the bargain,’ put in Betsey
shrewdly, for she had followed Verena back into the
parlour.

‘
What did you tell him, Adam?’ Verena repeated, her eyes on
her brother’s face.

Adam shrugged. ‘I hardly know. Except that when he taxed me
with having seen Mama, I was so angry I must have let it out that I
had done so. Indeed Verena, I did not think I had mentioned
Tunbridge Wells, but—’

‘
But you had,’ she finished for him. ‘And what does he
intend?’

There was silence for a moment. Mrs Peverill came forward,
trying to intercept herself between her son and
daughter.

‘
Dearest—’

‘
Mama, I must know!’

‘
But there is nothing to be done about it now, Verena,’
pleaded her mother. ‘He will come here, and we must face him. I can
face him, Verena. I am stronger now.’

Verena was still regarding her brother’s tense
face.

‘
Adam, what did he say?’

Her brother drew a heavy breath and sighed it out. ‘He has
sworn that he will come here and fetch Mama away. I came as fast as
I could—to warn you both.’

‘
To warn us both,’ repeated Verena.

She closed her eyes for an anguished moment. It
had come. The moment she had been dreading for months and months.
It did not seem as if she could take it in. All she could think
was, why
now
? Why at this
particular instant, when she was so full of that other matter she
had no strength left to deal with this one?

She became aware of the quiet surrounding her, and opened
her eyes to find Adam’s face—pale in the candlelight, the look of
anxiety so pronounced that she wondered at the power she must
wield. He was afraid of her, of her anger, of what she might say to
him.

Her glance went to her mother’s face. Heavens, here was
that look she dreaded most. One of supplication—of fear and
pleading. A look that had so often met Nathaniel’s hideous anger.
Yet it was directed at herself!

Verena’s heart contracted. Had she become so
hard? Had she, in her anxiety to protect—whom, dear heaven? These
most beloved creatures or
herself?
—
assumed as forbidding
an aspect as the hated spectre who threatened them all? Into what
species of monster had she herself been turned? Oh, she could see
it. They were almost as much afraid of what she might say as she
was afraid of what Nathaniel might do. They loved her, both of
them, yet they knew—expected almost—that she could, or would, hurt
them.

Unbidden, the image of Denzell’s stricken face
came into her mind. Stricken! At
her
words. Oh,
heavens, did he then indeed love her? And she—brutally unkind—had
flung his declaration back in his face. Without so much as a word
of compliment, honour or thanks. And all, all of it, out of her own
sick terrors.

What had Nathaniel done to her? She was
pitiless
.

Overwhelmingly, the cumulative effects of the night struck
at her. She must get away. She could not talk to them now. She must
be alone.

She tried to smile and put out a wavering hand. ‘We
shall—we shall deal with it when the time comes. Pray forgive me. I
am tired...I must go to bed.’