Guilty Series (77 page)

Viola stared at the pansies in her hat. Wedding vows meant nothing to him. If she gave him what he wanted, he would still leave her in the end. He
desired her right now, she knew that, but she also knew that love and desire were not the same thing. Hammond had desired many women. She was just one of many.

She lifted her fist and opened her hand. The bit of purple and yellow silk floated away on the spring breeze. When unaccompanied by his love, a man's desire was like the wind. It had no substance, and it was impossible to hold onto. She would do well to remember that.

T
he clash of swords and the curses of men were the prevailing sounds as John walked through the doors of Angleo's. When it came to fencing, any man worthy of being called a Corinthian honed his skill with a blade at Angleo's.

Dylan Moore was already there when he arrived. The two men practiced together almost daily, but they had not done so very much of late. John had been too preoccupied with trying to win over his wife to think about much else.

An entire week had gone by since they had seen Lady Darwin at Bell's. Since then, he had tried several times to talk to Viola, but she refused to see him. Today, her three-week reprieve was over, but when he went to fetch her, he found her trunks were not packed, she had once again refused to see him, and her damnable brother told him to leave. Unless he wanted to force the issue by legal means, he and Viola were at stalemate. He did not know what to do.

He was feeling like a boiling kettle with the lid on. After leaving Grosvenor Square this afternoon, he had sent Dylan a note asking to meet at Angleo's for sparring practice this evening, because he had finally reached his limit and knew if he didn't let off some steam, he was going to explode.

His friend looked up as he entered the practice room. Already down to his shirtsleeves and ready to start, Dylan slashed through the air with the foil in his hand. “You ask me to meet you and then you arrive late.”

John didn't say it was because he was going out of his mind. He didn't say it was because he was preoccupied, frustrated, baffled, and—worst of all—helpless.

He glared at Dylan as he tore off his coat, waistcoat, and cravat and tossed them to the boy standing by the door. The servant then left the room, and John took his favorite foil down from the hook on the wall. “You'd best watch your step this evening,” he warned. “I'm in a foul mood and I intend to take it out on you.” He slashed the blade through the air. “Women are the very devil.”

“Matrimonial troubles?” Moore asked, looking at him with sympathy.

“You don't know the half of it.”

The two men faced each other, stepped into positions en garde, crossed blades, and began. John lunged first, and the blades of the two men clanged, echoing through the room.

“Gossip is flying all over town,” Moore said, parrying the thrust. “I have heard that Lord and Lady Hammond may be reconciling. Or it may be that they are not.”

“Reconciling?” John pulled back, and immediately lunged twice more, forcing his opponent to retreat several steps with the use of his blade. “I am inclined to doubt it myself. It takes two to reconcile.”

Once again Moore managed to parry, for the two men were equally matched, and John was soon the one retreating. Within moments they were back to the center of the room.

“Sitting together at Covent Garden,” Moore said as they circled each other, foils pointed. “Picnics and carriage rides.” He began to laugh. “Kissing your own wife in Hyde Park, Hammond? Taking her to museums? Going shopping for draperies together? That sounds like reconciliation to me.”

“It was more like a temporary lull between battles. Excellent show at Covent Garden,” he said, trying to divert the conversation. “Brilliant symphony. Best thing you've written in years, I thought.”

“Thank you.” Moore lunged, John parried, and the swords of the two men clanged together. “I did hear that Lady Darwin went shopping last week, too. I take it the lull is over and the battle is raging?”

He might have known Moore wouldn't let it drop. The man delighted in needling his friends. “Is my marriage any of your affair?” he asked as the two men began circling, gazes locked, each waiting for the other to make the next move.

“No.” Moore gave him a mocking grin. “Couldn't pet her and soothe her and get her back with a kiss or two, eh?”

John refused to be provoked. “Apparently not,” he answered lightly.

“Told you to go to the devil, did she?” Moore knew enough about women that an answer wasn't necessary, and he didn't wait for one. “When you decided you needed a son and approached her with the notion, what did you think would happen? Thought she'd see the necessity of it, did you? That she'd understand and do her duty?”

“Sod off.”

Moore began to laugh, and there was a great deal of sardonic amusement in it. “Or perhaps you thought your wife would just fall back into your bed after a few weeks of wooing because you are such a legendary lover?”

Moore's mockery on top of Viola's condemnations pushed John even closer to the edge of reason. “I don't have a wife!” he said, and struck first. His opponent parried, and the two men paused again, blades pointed down, wrists crossed. “I haven't had a wife for eight and a half bloody years.”

“No? If you don't have a wife, who is that lovely blond woman who goes about calling herself Lady Hammond?” Moore pushed with his wrist, forcing their blades in an arc toward the ceiling, then he ducked past John, turned so their positions were reversed, and lunged with his blade.

Anticipating the move, John ducked sideways and evaded it. He stepped around his opponent and, by the time Moore turned around, had him dead to rights. He planted the tip of his foil right against his friend's chest. “A hit,” he declared, then turned and stalked away.

“You know who I mean,” Moore went on as he followed John to the center of the room. “Petite,” he prompted as the two men faced off. “Hazel eyes. Pretty mouth. I seem to remember seeing you marry a woman of that description almost nine years ago.”

“Two people living in separate houses and sleeping in separate beds is not a marriage.” He lunged, striking Moore's foil with his own. “It's a joke,” he said, and lunged again. “It's been a joke almost since the beginning, and everybody knows it.”

Steel slid against steel as Moore parried and spun away. When he turned, both men paused a few feet apart, breathing hard, blades poised.

Moore looked him in the eye. “A joke, Hammond? I don't see you laughing. Seems the joke might be on you.”

John did not reply. He feigned left and thrust right, thinking to catch the other man in the chest again, but his opponent wasn't fooled. Moore sidestepped the move, and John's blade hit the wall. Before he could recover, the other man came up underneath, and John was the one caught in the ribs.

“Hit,” Moore said. “You are not concentrating.”

“Indeed? Yet I managed to get a hit on you moments ago.”

The two men moved to en garde, crossed foils, and began again. For several minutes they were silent, the only sound the clash and rasp of striking blades, but it didn't take long for Moore to start in on him again. “I have a suggestion for you.” He lunged and missed, then pulled back. “It might help you make peace with your wife.”

“You've been married for, what, seven entire months?” John countered as he wiped sweat from his brow with his free hand. Now it was his turn to be mocking, and he laughed. “Wait at least that many years, then give me advice on the subject of matrimony.”

“I am serious, Hammond.” He stepped back and pointed his foil toward the ceiling to stop their match. “Listen to me, will you? You know I do not usually interfere in the affairs of my friends, but I have a suggestion for you. You won't like it, but it might help things along.”

John heard the sincerity in Moore's voice, and it made him curious. “What suggestion?”

“Tell Viola you want to be friends.”

That was absurd, and he showed what he thought of it by his sound of contempt. “I thought you said you were being serious. Viola and I friends? What an idea!”

“I am in earnest. Become her friend.”

“Good God, man,” he said with a humorless laugh, “where have you been for the past eight and a half years? Viola loathes me. You are out of your head if you think she and I could ever be friends. In the nine years we've known each other, she and I have been many things, but we have never been friends.”

“All the more reason to give it a try, then. Besides, it worked for me. Grace and I were friends before we ever became lovers.”

“She was your mistress.”

“After she became my friend.”

“If that is so, it was not at your instigation. I know you, Moore. It had to be Grace's idea.”

“It was. I loathed it, I admit, but in the end it was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

“You were a courting couple. Viola and I are already married. The two are entirely different.” He made an impatient gesture with his foil. “Come on. Let us get back to the match.”

“Why are they different? I am a married man
now, and I do not see a difference. Grace and I are still friends.”

“You and Grace don't fight like cats and dogs. She doesn't despise you.” John moved to en garde position and beckoned with his blade. “Are we going to fence or talk?”

“Viola might fall in love with you again. Is that what you're afraid of?” Moore mirrored John's stance and lifted his blade to cross John's. “Or perhaps you're afraid you'll fall in love with her.”

Those words caused something inside John to snap. “Love, love, love!” he shouted, his simmering emotions finally erupting. “I am sick to death of that particular word!”

He struck hard and fast with his blade, using every bit of his skill to drive Moore back toward the wall. Thinking of how many times Viola had thrown her love for him in his face, remembering how she had talked of his liaison with Peggy Darwin as love, he felt savage and resentful, and he took out his frustration on his opponent, attacking until he finally caught a vulnerability and jabbed his foil against Moore's belly. “Hit.”

The other man looked at him, clearly astonished by his vehemence. “I believe I struck a nerve.”

Breathing hard, John stepped back and lowered his blade. He turned away. “Love. People fling that word around all the time, especially women, and what does it mean? When most people use the
term, they mean simple, ordinary lust. Or idealistic infatuation. Sometimes both together. Is that love?”

“If you do not know the answer to that question already, I cannot answer it for you.” Moore followed him to center. “I know I found it.”

“How?” John demanded, facing him. “How did you find it? And when you found it, how did you know it was genuine? Cupid fired his arrow and angels sang and you knew? Is that it?”

“How disdainfully you speak of love. I never realized just how deep your cynicism runs, Hammond. You are more contemptuous of love than I ever was, if that is possible.”

“I am not a cynic about love, nor am I contemptuous of it. I just—”

I just don't know what it is.

That realization froze him in place. He stared at his friend, looking through him as if he were not there. In his mind, he saw his wife holding a baby in the air and laughing. That queer, empty feeling returned, the emptiness that had been haunting him like a ghost for the past week. Emptiness inside himself that he had always pushed aside and covered up, but had been there ever since he could remember.

“Hammond?” Moore's voice interrupted his thoughts. “Whatever is the matter?”

“What?” John blinked, staring at his friend, trying to think.

“You're standing there, staring at me, looking dumbstruck. Are you unwell?”

“No,” he answered, forcing himself to say something. “Perhaps. I don't know.” He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. “Let's end for today.”

What was love, really?

He asked himself that question as the two men put away their blades, retrieved their coats, and left the fencing gymnasium.

The beautiful May afternoon had turned into a cool, cloudy spring night. As he and Moore stood on the sidewalk outside Angleo's waiting for their carriages, his friend spoke again, all mockery gone from his voice. “Hammond, think about what I said. Suggest to Viola that the two of you become friends.”

“And as I told you, she will never agree. She will probably laugh in my face.”

“At least make the suggestion. It might help the two of you get along better if you could convince her to be friends.”

John gave his friend a wry, sidelong glance. “A man and a woman getting along out of bed leads to them getting along in bed, is that it?”

Moore grinned at him. “That depends on how good a friend you can be, now, doesn't it?”

Despite his black mood, Moore's sardonic wit was infectious, and John couldn't help a laugh at that as the other man's landau pulled up in front
of Angleo's, its top up against the chance of rain. “You really are a devil, you know.”

“Of course I am,” Moore answered as he stepped into his carriage. “I may be married, but I still have a reputation to maintain.” His landau pulled away, and he left John standing on the sidewalk.

 

Dylan leaned back on the seat of his carriage, smiling to himself. A devil he was, indeed. He knew full well what Hammond was feeling at this moment, and it was about to get worse. The viscount was just desperate enough to give friendship with Viola a try. Poor fellow. Friendship with a woman you wanted to bed so desperately was hell on earth.

Still, one usually had to go through hell to get to heaven. In the end, Hammond might get the son he wanted, but more important, he might gain back a loving wife. Dylan knew the worth of that was beyond measure.

He liked Hammond, had a great deal of affection for Viola, and hoped they took his suggestion to heart. They might find themselves happily married for a change.

That thought made him want to laugh. Dylan Moore in the idealistic role of matchmaker. Who would have thought it? He couldn't wait to get home and tell Grace.

 

The notion of friendship was not what was running through John's mind as he waited for his carriage. It was instead the notion of love.