The English Heiress (46 page)

Then he began to rack himself for not acting faster in Vauxhall when he first saw Leonie. Perhaps he could have avoided her, but he had been so surprised, so struck with longing when she suddenly turned into the path he was walking along, that he stood stock-still, staring at her instead of getting out of the way. The only effect of these useless regrets was to make Roger late for his first appointment of the day. That had been unpleasant enough in itself, because he had refused to defend a so-called gentleman in a breach of promise suit. This friend of a friend was now insisting on making Roger explain his refusal. Since he had himself told Roger he was guilty, in a rather drunken conversation they had had at the common friend’s house, the situation was unusually delicate.

The interview was even more unpleasant than Roger expected. His would-be client simply refused to understand why Roger should care that he was in fact, guilty. The girl, he said pointedly, was a nobody. He grew quite abusive when Roger at last convinced him that, in his eyes at least, the law was not subject to class differences. If a man were guilty, he was guilty no matter who the injured party was.

The day had not improved after that either. Roger found his clerks idiotic, his colleague vapid, and his friends annoying. It occurred to him, after nearly choking on a superlative dinner in his half brother Arthur’s house, where he usually enjoyed himself greatly, that the fault was not in the day but in himself. Acknowledgment brought a kind of release. The image of Leonie flowed into his mind, and he welcomed the pain it brought. Even pain was better than the emptiness he had to impose upon himself to exclude her.

“What the devil’s the matter with you, Roger?” Arthur had asked. “If you don’t want to stand for parliament, then don’t. I thought after your experiences in France you’d have some valuable ideas for that crowd of halfwits in the Commons, but it’s nothing to look so tragic over.”

“Sorry, Arthur, I didn’t even hear you. I don’t—I’ve got something on my mind.”

“So I see,” Arthur replied. “In fact, you look as if whatever you’ve got there is pretty indigestible.” He drew Roger from the drawing room into the corridor beyond. “Look, don’t stay if you don’t want to. No one will notice you’ve gone in this madhouse. We can talk about it some other time.”

“Thanks. Good of you. I think I will go. I’m not adding much gaiety to this party anyway.”

“Do you want me to see you home?” Arthur had asked, suddenly aware of the gray bleakness of his brother’s expression.

“No, of course not.” Roger had tried to smile. “I’m all right. Just—just worried. I’ll stop by tomorrow. Perhaps parliament would be a good idea.”

He was conscious of his brother’s eyes following him out but he simply could not make any further attempt to relieve Arthur’s anxiety. His attempt to bury grief in activity had failed. He had to be alone. The logical place to go was home, but Roger was afraid that his solitude there would be short-lived. If Arthur did not come chasing after him, or send another of his brothers or sisters to make sure he was all right, any of his numerous friends might drop in. Softly cursing all well-intentioned busybodies, Roger made his way to a disreputable alehouse where he could drink himself unconscious without a single kind, worried glance cast in his direction.

Even that went wrong. No one interfered with his attempt to get blind drunk, but he could not. The liquor would not bite. At some hour early in the morning, carrying sufficient gin to float a moderate-sized ship of the line, Roger walked home. He was still steady enough on his feet to discourage the cutpurses who had been watching him out of the corners of their eyes, expecting him to keel over at any moment. He was not aware of the time any longer, only that it was late enough to discourage visitors.

The odor of candles that had guttered out eliminated the slight impulse Roger had to start all over again on his own brandy. It was simply too much bother to find fresh candles and he had no intention of waking his servant. He did not even want to talk to him. He made his way in the dark into the bedroom, slowly undoing his neckcloth. Midway in his untying, he stopped, surprised. The room was quite bright, bathed in silvery moonlight. He had not seen a room lit by the moon since he had come from France. How odd that his man should forget to draw the curtains. Roger could never remember him forgetting before.

He looked around bemused, more drunk now than he realized, his mind’s eye conjuring up Leonie’s face as he had seen it so often asleep in the moonlight. She had loved the moonlight, and the earliest light of the sun too, ever since that first night they had made love in the tiny room that had had no curtain on the window. Whenever she could, after they were ready for bed, Leonie had opened the curtains so that the moon and sun could shine in. On days that they could sleep late, she would get up at dawn and close the curtains. Often they would make love in the first light of a new day and then sleep again.

“Leonie,” Roger whispered, “Leonie.”

“I am here,” came the soft-breathed reply.

Roger’s lips twisted. That was quite a freight he was carrying. He could remember being drunk enough so that his vision acted peculiarly, but this was the first time his ears had played him false. He started toward the window to close the curtains, trying to ignore the painful wrenching in his breast.

“Leave them open, Roger.”

Roger stopped, his hand raised to pull the draw, his insides lurching. He had heard of bad gin, which could blind men and drive them mad, and God knew the stuff he had drunk had tasted awful enough. Only he didn’t feel sick, and he also knew the bad stuff made you awfully sick.

“Roger, say something,” Leonie begged. “Aren’t you surprised that I’m here?”

She was here! No she wasn’t! He was mad. If he was mad enough to be hearing logical questions, he would probably die. That wasn’t such a bad idea, but he didn’t feel sick… He realized he was still standing, rooted to the spot where he had stopped when Leonie’s voice told him to leave the curtains open. The voice was coming from where the bed stood, but he was afraid to turn and look—afraid equally that he would see her and that he would not see her.

“You can stop pretending to ignore me.” Leonie’s voice now had the kind of sharpness it had held when she had called him a lecher. “I’m not going away. It’s too late anyhow. I’ve been here since dinnertime. My reputation is doubtless shot to hell, so you will just have to marry me.”

Roger turned slowly. She was there. She was sitting up in the bed, holding the bed curtain back so that the moon shone full on her face. It was bleached colorless, but it was her face. He put the heels of his hand to his eyes and rubbed them hard. Then shook his head. That was a mistake. The room reeled. Roger staggered forward and had to catch at a bedpost to keep upright. But when the room steadied, Leonie was still there.

“I cannot see what right you have to be so angry you will not speak to me,” she raged. “ I have not been cavorting publicly with loose women.”

No, Roger thought, no. I may be mad, but could I be mad enough to make up that sentence? Only Leonie would say such a thing. Every other woman I know either pretends the muslin company does not exist or is a member of it and does not call its other members “loose women”.

Roger would now have liked to ask whatever he was listening to whether it was real, but his tongue, lips and jaws were recalcitrant. He could do nothing more than cling to the bedpost and stare. Leonie, misunderstanding the bug-eyed glare bent upon her, popped out of bed and confronted him with blazing eyes.

“Oh, have I shocked you?” she hissed—and then relieved her feelings with a masterly dissertation on Roger’s crude taste in women, lack of intelligence, lack of perception and general stupidity, ranging from English to French and back as each language failed her.

He listened with owlish solemnity, and at last finding his voice, announced with considerable dignity, “I am a drunkard too.”

Checked midflight, Leonie peered at him. His back had been to the moonlight ever since he had turned to look at her. Now Leonie realized she had not really been able to see his expression and had been reading her own ideas into the shadows on his face.

“You mean you are drunk?” she wailed, horrified at the thought that all her effort had gone for nothing. “But you are never drunk!”

“Yes I am,” he replied slowly and carefully, his tongue seeming to have developed a life of its own and an unruly desire to insert unwanted sounds into words when it did not refuse to operate at all. “When I am unhappy, I get drunk quite often.”

It had by now occurred to Leonie that it did not matter whether Roger was drunk or sober. In fact, it would be much easier to handle him drunk than in full possession of his reasoning power. She came closer, put her arms around his neck, and murmured, “Poor Roger, have you been unhappy? So have I.”

“You are naked,” he announced next. “You have recently taken to appearing naked at very odd times and places.”

“It is not recent,” Leonie giggled, unloosening one of his hands from the bedpost and dragging his coat off on that side. “And this is not an odd time or place. One cannot be expected to take along a portmanteau to a clandestine meeting, so I could not bring a nightdress with me. I was asleep in bed. There is nothing odd in being naked in bed if one does not have a nightdress.

Roger’s eyes widened in horror. “Have I got into your bedchamber?” he croaked, letting go of the bedpost and nearly falling on Leonie as he attempted to turn around.

“No,” Leonie soothed, taking the opportunity to push him down so that he was sitting on the bed. “I am in your bedchamber.” While he digested this piece of information, she drew off his coat completely and undid his waistcoat and the buttons on his breeches and shirt.

“What are you doing?” Roger asked as his shirt slipped off his arms and he became aware that he would soon be as naked as Leonie.

“I am taking off your clothes,” she confirmed, choking on laughter. “We have just agreed, have we not, that it is quite proper—not at all odd or out of place—to take off one’s clothes to go to bed. You are about to get into bed.”

“Yes!” Roger agreed emphatically.

So far, that was the only thing that sounded right in this whole conversation. He remembered that he had come home with the intention of going to bed. However, as his shoes and stockings came off, it occurred to him that something was wrong even with this idea. It was not really possible that Leonie was in his bedchamber taking off his clothes. They were not together in France. They were separated, forever, in England. Leonie would never speak to him again, much the less take off his clothes. He was imagining things. He closed his eyes.

“Laval?” he said weakly, naming his valet just as Leonie pushed him backward, so that he was flat on the bed, and began to tug at his breeches.

Leonie did not pay too much attention to the slurred word. It began with the first consonant of her name, and she answered tenderly, “Yes, my love, I am here,” and kissed Roger’s knee.

Roger shot upright, shoving Leonie halfway across the room. “I never knew you were a pederast,” he roared, “I am not so drunk as that!” Since Leonie did not know what a pederast was, and since Roger still had his eyes tightly shut, it was fortunate that he continued, “You are dismissed. That fault is too dangerous in a valet.”

Leonie burst out laughing as she picked herself of the floor. “Idiot,” she cried, “open your eyes. I am not your valet. You cannot dismiss me. I am going to be your wife, and wives are not subject to dismissal. Look at me, you fool. Is this a man’s body? I am Leonie.”

Well, it could not be Laval. Roger’s whirling brain fixed on that. He had never mentioned Leonie’s name to his valet and had never mentioned his feelings for her to any person except his father and Lady Margaret. But then who had taken off his clothes?

“Open your eyes!” Leonie cried, coming forward and shaking him gently.

“It cannot be Leonie,” Roger said aloud, this time with the fixity of purpose of the very drunk. “I have offended Leonie and she will never speak to me again. Leonie would not take off my clothes. I am only seeing and hearing her because I want her so much, and the gin was so bad that it has disordered my brain.”

Leonie stared at him in a mixture of frustration and joy. It was wonderful to be reassured that Roger did love her and still wanted her, he was obviously too drunk to lie, but how could she convince him she was real if her persisted in believing everything she did was his imagination? Then she began to laugh again.

“Then why worry. If I am not real, you may do what you like with me. It can do no harm to anyone.”

At that, Roger did open his eyes. He felt the logic was faultless. Then he thought he had perhaps accepted that conclusion too quickly because it was what he desired. While he considered it, he reached down and drew off his breeches and underpants. Then he realized he was naked. Leonie, or whoever it was, he could see standing just in front of him and watching him—she had not touched him. He lifted a hand toward her, realized it was clutching his underpants, and dropped them hastily with a feeling of embarrassment. In the next moment, he was smiling beatifically. He must have taken off all his own clothes himself. The image—whatever it was—was right. If the bad gin were causing this delusion and killing him, it was already too late to save himself. He might as well enjoy his last moment or hours of life.

“My darling,” he sighed, holding out his arms to Leonie, “my love, heart of my heart, well of my life, my precious jewel—come to me.”