Speak Its Name: A Trilogy (22 page)

I strode toward the door and pulled it open, stopping in the doorway, now recovered in composure, even if my rod were misbehaving in thoroughly atrocious manner. “Tell my father I shall see him at home.”

It wasn’t until I was out in the cool fresh air that the words of my brother returned to me.

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In which my father insists on results and I repeat a mistake.

I expected my father to be angry, and in that I was not at all disappointed. I kept my temper, listened to him rant and rave and said nothing in my defence. “I explained your actions by saying that you were taken ill,” he said, finally. “Young Heyward backed you up, by God, although why he should have done so I don’t know.”

“I am sure he had his reasons,” I said, going cold. “He seems quite capable of doing whatever he likes.”

“As do you, sir, as do you! One more performance—one more!—and you shall seek your fortune elsewhere. You’d find a livin’ in India, I’m sure of it, if you can’t stick the company here! And a wife more to your liking, what?”

“I have no objection to Miss Pelham, father. I’ve made myself more than plain on the matter.”

“Then why the devil d’you keep runnin’ out on her?”

I changed the subject, knowing I’d start to say things I’d regret. “Am I welcome, then, to visit her again?”

“Yes, you are, although why I can’t imagine. That girl has offers coming from all directions, you may be sure of it.”

I couldn’t resist it. “I hear she has. Thouless for one.”

He went puce, and I took a not a little delight in it. “Damme, sir if her grandfather didn’t tell me that he isn’t now regretting turning him down! At least he was there, sir, kissing the hand and passing around the fine cakes, at least he was
there
, sir!”

He looked ready to explode into further admonition, so I bit the inside of my cheek to refrain from commenting further. Patricide is sometimes tempting, but I would have had to explain myself to my brothers.

I spent the day with some of my fellow officers losing what little money I had. I was mocked for my suit, and for the fact that I did not seem the happiest of lovers. It seemed that Heyward was right; all of England seemed to know of my lofty ambition, but rather than take heart from the cries of encouragement, all it did was sink me into further gloom. For all that my life was an open page to be read and critiqued by my peers, the shame of that forbidden kiss was all that I could think on, causing me to lose my concentration at cards and preventing me from applying myself to the pursuit of much needed inebriation.

My glass sat beside me, unemptied, as I lost myself in the memory of the immorality I had done. That I had, for a lost second, enjoyed. Relished.
Craved
. The recollection that, with my hands on his shoulders, I could have pulled him closer, crushed him to me, drove me to despair, and thereby I was a doomed man. I had not afforded him the reaction I should. A man would have struck him
immediately
and insisted on satisfaction. A man would not have waited one—maybe two—seconds before gently putting him away. A
man
would not have been gentle! And Heyward knew all this as well as I, and I was now under his damnable obligation; his disposal.

Why had he done it? Was it just to test me? And if so, was it only for his cousin’s protection? Perhaps he thought I was the kind of man who would do whatever it took to get what he wanted. Why, when I should have knocked him down, could all I remember was the way his lips looked like after ours had parted? Why had I hardened then? Why was I hardening now? Why could I picture
his
face, but could hardly recall what Miss Pelham looked like? Fears that had pulled at me for many years, fears about myself that I had buried deep, working and living with men as I had all my life, raised their heads and chilled me to the bone.

“You brood on your fish, Chaloner?” Captain Byrne pulled a chair up, straddled it and smiled at me, his good humoured round face quite ruddy with drink. “You won’t be the only one who’s cast his line in those waters to land nothing. My brother tried. Fell at the first. The girl wouldn’t even see him.”

Considering Byrne’s brother—rumour had it—had married an Indian princess in 1803, I wasn’t entirely surprised. But Byrne’s thoughts brought me to myself, that I had been sitting brooding over the wrong member of the family, and unless this endeavour was going to founder, it was about time I did something a little more positive than sulk like a poet with a broken quill.

“Give me some paper,” I said. There was a cry of enthusiasm from the assorted officers and as a man they picked me up and carried me across the room to a small desk, all the while teasing in affected voices about matters they obviously knew nothing.

“My DEAR Miss Pelham, I love thee with all thy peerage”

“Miss Pelham, take me—and my fortune, and make me the happiest of Counts,” and other such ribaldry rang through the house as I wrote. First I wrote a long and formal letter to Lady Pelham, apologising for my rudeness the day before and giving my intention of calling again in the morning.

“Perhaps
,” I wrote
, “you and your daughter would grant me some assistance in buying gifts for my sisters-in-law.”
I wanted to portray myself as a kind brother who, used only to masculine company was incapable of buying anything with lace and ribbon, which was hardly artifice, it was completely true and the butt of my brothers’ jokes more than once.
“My father will join us for luncheon, and if you have not tired of my company by then, I hope you will join our party tonight at the Assembly Rooms?”

Then I scribbled the shortest of notes to Heyward.

“Sir,

You doubt my suit, and you have me now at a further disadvantage. I would clear my name, or remove my intention before I take it further. I hope to collect your aunt and cousin in the morning, and I will call half an hour earlier, at which time I hope you will grant me the honour of your time.”

I had to see him, before I saw Miss Pelham again; I wanted to be sure what I might face—whether he might have already spoken to her, persuaded her mind against me. I grew hot just imagining the injustice of that conversation between them. Perhaps he held her hand as he broke the news, held her close with a smile. What did he say to her? What did he
want
for her?

I walked home to clear my head and decided upon action. There was no point beginning the skirmish if I could not win it. Better to receive my father’s banishment and take up active service again.

~

A few sleepless hours later, I was greeting him again, back in the same room where he’d kissed me. That alone was to unsettle me but I had been pacing, and I was calm for a short while. It lasted less than a minute, as after he entered my heart seemed to leap in its cage, and all the restlessness, fear and confusion of the day before returned.

He looked around the room as if expecting... whom? My father? My second? I had every reason to have one or other of them present, and it was not until that moment that I wondered at the sense in seeing him alone. He lowered himself gently onto a chair and raised challenging eyes to mine.

“I was surprised and pleased to receive your note, Chaloner,” he said, putting both of his hands on his cane. I tried not to look at his fingers, which were slender, the nails long and well tended to. I could not imagine them wrapped around man’s throat, covered in blood, or ripping a rifle from a dead man’s hands. He made me feel large, loutish and uncomfortable in too many ways. “If we are to converse, then perhaps you could come down to my level?”

I sat opposite him, nettled that he was giving me orders.

“I would clear the air between us,” I said.

“Oh, I think the air is perfectly clear.” He smiled; a terrible knowing smile that made me go cold.

“And yesterday... Miss Pelham has been told of that?”

“My dear Chaloner, do you think I would hurt my cousin in that way? She has spoken of you most favourably.”

I started to breathe a little easier. “Then...”

“Exactly. Is that all you wished of me?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’ll take my leave.” He stood up and I copied him. “If you are satisfied that I am kinder than you consider me,” he continued, “then we are on equal footing again, I think. It was hardly worth my rising so early.”

I walked beside him to the door while I tried to work out what he meant. I failed. I was wary of shaking his hand, but it seemed churlish not to. “Let us be friends, and hope to be closer,” I said. It seemed a natural ending, as I hoped to be his cousin in a while. His reaction was so swift that I wonder now how he managed to move like that, he pulled himself towards me, using his cane in a complicated move, like a dancer I once saw in Spain. His left hand came up as if to strike me, but I could tell by his face that his intention was less than aggressive. My own hand rose to block him from touching me, and his palm met mine, his fingers threading through my own with such natural grace that it was as if our hands were created to intertwine in such an intimate manner.

With a deliberate movement and an angelic smile that belied his actions, he pushed his cane away from him, leaving me his only support, and left me no recourse but to grab his waist to stop him falling. Then somehow, and as much as I relived the moment (and I did, over and over) in my mind I cannot fathom how, we were kissing. I know, for the clock was pressing against my back, that we kissed for perhaps twenty seconds and no more, but for those twenty seconds the world ground to a halt and all I could do was kiss him back as if commanded to do so. My kissing experience—or lack thereof—showed lamentably, not that I was trying to impress him. I wasn’t trying to do anything. It simply felt more right than anything I’d ever done, save perhaps the first time I was put onto a real horse. He belonged in my arms; his lips warmed mine and when his tongue touched my mouth I opened it without a thought in my head. Instinct, need, want, vice, sin—call it what you will—all I know is that I wanted his tongue in my mouth more than I’d wanted anything before in my life, and I wanted mine in his.

It was, however, the catalyst to bring me back to my right mind, as some forgotten sense came to me, tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me that letting (and enjoying) a man slide his (admittedly sensuous and delicious) tongue into my mouth was probably one of the worst decisions I had ever made in my life. So I pulled away, and looked him hard in the face.

“You... No. NO!” I stepped away, forcing him to use the door handle for support as my voice, my very body was hardly under my own control.

His face was unreadable, and his lips—oh God, his lips—were wet from my own mouth. I wanted to feel that body in my arms again. I wanted to kiss him until... He was more honest than me, at least. He glanced downwards to where my prick pushed against my breeches and gave a small smile, as if he were actually sorry for me, the blackguard.

“You appear to be in some confusion, Chaloner. Wanting one thing and then another. Perhaps I should leave you to decide what it is you do want?”

“
You
want to ruin me,” I muttered. “Not satisfied with ruining my suit, you will destroy everything. What have I done so heinous to warrant that?”

He bent down and picked up his cane. “You wrong me, again. I want whatever it is you want. Perhaps you’ll come to realise that, one day.”

“So this, all this, was all to dissuade my suit?” I found that I was angry with him again, and I was standing almost chest to chest with him in my fury.

“Did it seem like it? Did it
feel
like it?” His eyes were warm, overly bright and piercing into mine. I couldn’t answer him. It had felt natural, and I was sure he had felt the same. I wanted to hold him again so hard it hurt, but I couldn’t, I
couldn’t
. “My inclinations are rarely wrong, Chaloner. I’ve chased off men with better claims than you. You strike me as someone who could make Emily happy—away from... Well, away.”

I still didn’t trust him; for what other reason had he just done what he did if it hadn’t been to ruin me?

But he went, without another word. The interview had been short. I had plenty of time before Lady Pelham would come down and I needed every second of it to convince my recalcitrant rod to soften.

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In which I suffer the slings and arrows of haberdashery and I am driven to acting on my own worst impulses.

The ladies joined me (thankfully after I had control of myself) and we spent the morning in retail establishments the like of which I had not been in before, and hoped sincerely I would never enter again. Under my artifice, they helped me buy muslin and lace, shawls and parasols. I had brought gifts back from India as a much younger man, but I believe that anything exotic was welcome; the vagaries of fashion were always beyond me, as my uniform at least rarely changed.

At one point Miss Pelham found a shawl of some silvery-white stuff, festooned with patterns of birds and flowers. I have no doubt it was fashionable—the emporium modestly boasted of its own exquisite taste and the latest lines from Paris—but to me it looked no different to twenty others here and there about town. I said as much and was treated to a glare from the serving woman. Miss Pelham seemed extremely taken to it, however and I saw her return to it more than once during the time we spent there. I don’t think she knew she was observed as she only revisited where it lay when her mother was elsewhere.

Once I saw the pair of them, their heads almost touching, examining a bolt of a fine greyish stuff that shone in the light. Miss Pelham pushed it back across the counter once, but Lady Pelham was nodding. I approached them, stepping gingerly around two dowagers who were, it seemed to me, abusing a length of lace in a too rough manner.

“Please,” I said, “if there is something you like? Allow me the pleasure of making it a present to you.” I knew that men bought fripperies for ladies, so I was confident in my offer.