Fragile Mask (32 page)

‘
Deuce take it, yes!’ he said at once.

In some dim recess he treasured those hasty words she had
uttered about her own heart, but the purport of this speech hit him
all too strongly.

‘
Even were it possible, Denzell, that I could think of—of
loving you, or of marriage, I could never seek my happiness at the
cost of Mama’s renewed sufferings.’

‘
No, nor ever forgive me for making it happen.’

‘
You do understand!’

‘
For what do you take me?’ He caught at her shoulders,
unheeding that he crushed the delicate fabric of her gown. ‘Verena,
why did you not send to me, and tell me this? You must know I would
not dream of putting you to the risk of such a thing.’

‘
I should have known. Had I not been set so much into a
frenzy, had I been able to think rationally—’

‘
Never mind it. Rest assured that I will not approach you or
show by the flicker of an eye that I have any serious intent
towards you. I can dissemble almost as well as you when necessity
arises, you know.’

A choke of laughter escaped her. ‘I had not noticed
it.’

He grinned at her in the darkness. ‘No, because all my
effort with you has been in the direction of proving my
sincerity.’

‘
There is no need of that,’ she said, so warmly that he
reacted without thought, jerking her towards him, his arms slipping
about her. She stiffened against him.

‘
No, Denzell!’

He did not release her, but held her so, looking down into
the pale oval of her face, her features barely discernible except
as a silhouette—the mere shape of her lips all too
enticing.

‘
Verena,’ he breathed. ‘Am I to hold aloof forever? Is this
all there will ever be?’

His closeness sent her senses soaring, and her stiffness
melted away. She felt too weak to resist, even to protest. Her eyes
closed without volition as the shadow moved above her. Then a
gentle pressure, soft and yielding, caressed her lips. A kiss so
tender she all but lost her senses.

It could only have been an instant or two later,
although it felt to Verena like an age, and he drew back, his hands
dropping from about her. Intensely she felt it. So intensely that
she almost cried out. She was
bereft
.

‘
You had better return to the Rooms.’

His tone was roughened by the strength of the passion he
was resolutely keeping in check. To Verena it seemed harshly alien,
a painful distancing that threw her on the defensive. But she
answered with a calm born of her instant resumption of the control
that had ever come in against pain.

‘
Yes, I shall be missed.’

She began to move away, but Denzell’s hand on her arm
stopped her.

‘
One moment! How long do you wish me to keep up a pretence
of disinterest?’

‘
Only until Nathaniel has gone. After—’ She hesitated, for
she knew that her next words must wound him.

‘
After? What then?’

Had he guessed what she would say? There was suspicion in
his voice. She drew on her remaining strength.

‘
After he has gone, we will find another refuge.’

There was a silence. Then Denzell rapped out,
‘Where?’

‘
I don’t know. I only know we must remove from here. I
cannot trust Nathaniel to accept Mama’s rejection.’

Denzell gave a soft laugh. ‘I see I must prepare myself to
search the length and breadth of England’s watering places to find
you again.’

‘
No!’

‘
What do you mean, no? Dare I imagine you will tell me where
you decide to go? No, that is asking too much.’

Verena came a step closer and reached out to place a hand
on his chest. ‘Denzell, it will be kinder—to both of us—if you let
me go.’

His hand closed over hers. ‘Then I fear I must be
unkind.’

She did not withdraw her hand, but a distinct plea entered
her voice. ‘You said this morning I might command you in
anything.’

‘
I didn’t mean I would be willing to commit
suicide!’

‘
Don’t jest!’

‘
I’m not jesting.’

‘
Denzell, you will do me the greatest service
imaginable if you will only
leave
me.’

His breath was ragged, but she could see even in the dim
light that he was shaking his head.

‘
I cannot do that, Verena. I would die for you, but leave
you I cannot!’

Her hand slipped out of his clasp. ‘Then you will force me
to vanish in secret.’

He was silent, a
heaviness settling about his heart.

From the depths of his being, he asked, ‘Do you know what
you are asking me to do?’

There was a cry in her own heart, but she forced it down.
‘I know.’

He felt dead. It did not seem as if his voice belonged to
him. But he said the words nevertheless.

‘
Then so be it.’

***

It was eleven of the clock before Denzell left his room
next morning. Even then he was moving with some care, for fear that
the dreadful symptoms that had attacked him might start up again.
The headache had reduced to a bearable level, but any sudden noise
or movement made him start and wince.

His hosts, he was informed by the manservant Mayberry, had
repaired to the garden, whither Denzell followed them, having
rejected with loathing an offer of breakfast and requesting that
some hot coffee might be sent outside.

He paused on the threshold of the rear door that led from a
small back parlour to the neat patch of lawn behind the house,
lifting one hand to shut out the glare and frowning under it
towards the chestnut tree. Unice, looking cool in her muslin, was
seated in one of the iron garden chairs dotted about the tree, the
infant Julia in her arms, while Osmond, in his shirtsleeves, lay at
his length on the grass, his two boys gambolling about
him.

The sight of this contented domestic bliss did nothing to
lighten Denzell’s grey mood, belied somewhat by his having allowed
his valet to help him into his olive-green coat and waistcoat.
Moreover, the shrieking welcome of Felix and Miles served to make
him close his eyes in anguish.

Osmond laughed out. ‘That’ll teach you to roll in drunk as
a wheelbarrow at three o’clock in the morning, Hawk!’

Denzell held up a hand. ‘I thank you, the lesson has
already made its mark.’

But Unice was eyeing him with a grave look in her face. ‘It
is not in your style, Denzell.’

His shoulders shifted, as if a full shrug demanded too much
of him. ‘Much that I do these days is not in my style.’

He carefully sat himself down under the chestnut tree,
thankfully leaning his back against the trunk and closing his eyes
again to the persistent and unwelcome memory of last night’s
events. He had been as good as his word. Returning to the Rooms, he
had conducted himself in a manner that had drawn down even Sir John
Frinton’s censure upon his head.

During a brief lull in his flirtatious perambulations among
a selection of young females whose faces he had not even seen
clearly, having been performed in a travesty of his erstwhile game
and over a sensation of blankness that had dulled all feeling, the
old roué had approached him with the faintest of disapproving
frowns between his brows.

‘
To what, my dear young sir, do we owe this sudden excursion
into your old tricks?’

Denzell had been unable to summon the vestige of a smile.
‘To circumstance, Sir John.’

‘
It would be well,’ the old man had returned tartly, ‘if
your circumstance did not inconvenience a series of vulnerable
young females with hopes raised unnecessarily.’

Denzell’s jaw had tightened. ‘I cannot help that. There is
more at stake here than you know.’

The light of compassion had entered the other’s eyes.
‘Matters go against you, do they? Is there anything I can do, my
boy?’

‘
Nothing, I thank you.’ He had grimaced. ‘Unless you care to
ensure that my remains are suitably interred in a hackney cab later
tonight?’

Sir John’s brows had risen. ‘You are not, I trust,
contemplating a violent end?’

‘
I am contemplating a violent inebriation!’

The aged exquisite had laughed. ‘You may rely on me, dear
boy.’

He had been as good as his word. Better, in fact. For not
only had he accompanied Denzell to the Gentleman’s Rooms, matching
him glass for glass—deuce take it, the man had a head like a
rock!—but he had seen him escorted into his own coach and
personally deposited the body into the hands of Osmond Ruishton
himself.

Denzell came out of his reverie to discover his hosts
calling for Dinah and the infant’s new nurse, both of whom were
within earshot. His eyes flicked open, to find that the boys were
being led off to the larger ground beyond the garden to play, while
the baby was lowered into a basket crib and removed to a position
just outside the house.

‘
Now then,’ said Osmond on a determined note.

Denzell glanced from one to the other of them. Unice was
still watching him with that solemn look in her face, while Osmond
was frowning.

‘
What?’ he demanded.

‘
Yes, that’s just what we want to know,’ said his friend.
‘Not like you to be secretive with us, Hawk. And just because we
didn’t accompany you to the Rooms last night, does not mean we
haven’t heard of your doings.’

‘
Doubtless Sir John told you,’ groaned Denzell.

‘
Dash it, Hawk,’ said Osmond for answer, ‘what should take
you to get into a sudden burst of flirtation with every pretty girl
in the room—’

‘
Except Verena,’ put in Unice.

‘—
and then, just as though you’d exhausted the supply of
eligibles, go off to drink yourself to death in the Gentleman’s
Rooms?’

Denzell put up his fingers to knead at his aching brow.
‘What would you have me do? I was obliged to demonstrate to Mrs
Peverill that she was mistaken in supposing me to be interested in
Verena.’

‘
I should think you did that all right!’

‘
But, Denzell, why?’ asked Unice. ‘Why were you so
obliged?’

He dropped his hands and looked up at her. His voice was
bleak. ‘Because Verena wished it. And, if you must have the full
sum of it, I steeped myself in liquor because I could not otherwise
bear the command she has laid upon me.’

It took Unice and Osmond some little time to drag the whole
story out of him. But it was told at last, to the accompaniment of
a cup of hot strong coffee which his hostess pressed upon him,
poured from the pot the butler sent out by the hand of one of the
maids, and a good deal of critical comment from Osmond at least,
who was inclined to think Denzell should count himself well out of
it.

‘
I mean to say, Hawk, if you have been unable to win the
girl out of her indifference—’

‘
She is not indifferent,’ Denzell interrupted, and
winced at the discomfort his own raised voice cost him. ‘She is—I
will not say “in love” because the very thought of love is anathema
to her—but she
does
care for me. She very nearly said as
much.’

‘
Did she indeed, Denzell?’ asked Unice eagerly. ‘I must say,
that is very much the impression I had myself—if only she will
allow herself to feel it.’

Denzell nodded, and his features dropped, drawing down into
despair. ‘There’s the rub.’ He laid down his empty cup. ‘And as
long as her mama is in question, I don’t believe she will allow
herself to feel it.’

Osmond snorted. ‘Dash it, Hawk, this ain’t like you. Never
known you to be so defeatist.’

‘
Circumstances alter cases.’

Unice was looking thoughtful. ‘Is there not some way in
which her mama might be accommodated—within your future with
Verena, I mean?’

‘
What future? According to Verena, we have no
future.’

‘
Yes, but that is because she is unable to think beyond the
present necessity. There are always other solutions. Why should not
Mrs Peverill live with you both at Tuttingham, for
example?’

Denzell’s features lightened for a moment. He stared at
Unice. ‘I had not thought of that.’

‘
Think of it now then,’ Unice urged.

But Osmond was shaking his head. ‘That’s no use. You don’t
suppose Verena will agree to have the whole story let out to Lord
and Lady Hawkeridge, do you? Dash it, the woman has left her
husband! It ain’t a thing you bruit about lightly,
Unice.’

‘
But no one could blame her for leaving such a husband,’
Unice protested. ‘Why, I should suppose Lady Hawkeridge must be the
first to condemn such brutal practices.’

‘
She would, of course,’ Denzell agreed, but he sighed too.
‘Yet I believe Osmond is in the right of it. Besides which, Verena
will not wish to have her mother sue to strangers for an
asylum.’