The Gamble (26 page)

“I certainly will, Howard,” Philip said quietly. He took an oar from the hands of his clearly horrified boatman. “Let us do it this way. Pretend to have dropped something overboard and then lean a little out of the boat, as if you are trying to retrieve it. I will pretend to reach with my oar to scoop the object toward you, and in the process of maneuvering with the oar, I will clumsily hit my wife over the head and knock her out of the boat.”

Charles Howard looked radiant. Such a plan, of course, would remove all the onus of my death from him and place it on Philip. He was not insane enough to be incapable of realizing the advantage of that.

“An excellent idea, my lord,” he said.

Wasting no time, he mimed the loss of an object overboard and then he leaned over the side of our boat as if to retrieve it.

Philip raised the oar he was holding and hit him over the head, hard. He went into the river like a stone.

Philip sat down and pulled off his Hessian boots.

“Get into the boat with her ladyship and get her to shore,” he instructed his boatman tersely, and then he dived into the water after Charles Howard.

“Take the boat after him!” I instructed the boatman hysterically.

I was afraid that when Philip surfaced there would be no boat available to rescue him.

“No need to do that, your ladyship,” the boatman said. “Look.”

I followed his pointing finger and saw one of the boats from the dock at Thames House being pulled by two of the boatmen whom the Amberlys had employed for the day. Someone must have run to fetch them from their tea.

They swept past us at a far greater rate of speed than we, with but a single man at the oars, could ever achieve.

As my own boat began to return to the shore, I kept my eyes trained on the river. No sleek black head emerged from beneath the water.

Philip
. My lips moved and shaped his name, but no sound came out.

Still the river was empty. The rescue boat flew downstream, but there was no one to rescue.

I said to my boatman, “How long can a man stay underwater?”

“A few minutes, my lady,” came the gruff reply.

I counted:
One, two, three, four, five
. . . .

I couldn’t stand this.

“Is the current bad here?” I asked next.

“It’s nae so bad on the top, but it runs strong deep under.”

I remembered Charles Howard’s words:
The current will take you along the bottom all the way to the sea
.

Philip had dived from the boat into the water. He had gone in deep.

I could not bear it. We had reached the shore, and hands reached out to help me out of the boat, but I refused to move. As long as I kept watching that river, I thought, then Philip wasn’t gone.

“Let me alone,” I said sharply, and shook off a hand.

From far down the river, much farther than I had thought it possible, a black dot appeared in the water.

I squinted into the sun. The rescue boat changed the course of its direction and began to row in the direction of the dot.

It was Philip.

I began to cry.

“It’s all right, Georgie,” Catherine said. “You can get out of the boat now. He’s all right.”

I stumbled into the arms of my friend.

* * *

The person who had sent for the rescue boat was, of all people, Lord Marsh. It seems that he had seen Charles Howard leave the terrace and follow me. Marsh had known, of course, that I was the target of previous attacks, and he had decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep me within his sight. He had arrived on the bank too late to prevent my getting into the boat with Howard, but he had run all the way back to the house to get the boatmen to launch a boat to rescue me.

Of course, in the end the boat had ended up rescuing Philip.

The incident on the river had taken place while most of the Amberlys’ guests were eating or playing lawn tennis, so only a relatively few people had seen the “accident” that had sent Charles Howard into the water. Those people, about twenty of them, were gathered on the Thames House dock, but Philip’s boat came into shore at the place where Catherine, Lord Marsh, the boatman and I were standing. Philip jumped out of the boat in his stocking feet, and I ran to him.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and held me at arm’s length away.

“Don’t, Georgie. I’m soaked. You’ll ruin your frock.”

“I don’t care about my frock,” I said fiercely.

“Well, you’ll get all wet, and then you’ll take a chill and become ill.”

His hands on my shoulders were quite firm. He really did not want to hold me.

I swallowed and stepped back from him.

“Thank God you are safe,” I said.

He gave me a strained smile. His hair was still dripping, and in the full sunlight of the river bank I saw that there was a stripped austerity about him that had not been there before our return to London. Shadows of sleeplessness marred the taut skin beneath his eyes.

Lord Marsh said, “Surely it wasn’t necessary to go in after him to finish the job, Philip. From here it looked as if you had been quite effective enough with the oar.”

Philip looked at him. “One always likes to be certain,” he said expressionlessly.

“Well, you almost got yourself killed making certain.” Marsh’s strange light eyes looked curious. “Did you get your hands on him underwater?”

“No. I was too late. By the time I got in he had been swept too far away for me to see him.”

I stood there with Catherine and listened to Lord Marsh congratulate my husband on making sure of the demise of my attacker.

I could not help but think that Charles Howard had a wife and three small children.

Philip looked exhausted. “Who sent for the rescue boat?” he asked. “I would never have made it back to shore if it hadn’t been there.”

“I did,” said Lord Marsh.

The two men looked at each other.

“I think we can say that at last I’ve repaid you that favor, can’t we, Philip?” Marsh said softly.

Philip nodded wearily. “We’re even, Richard. From now on, let us agree to stay out of each other’s way, shall we?”

Lord Marsh gave his eerie, humorless smile. “Just as you wish, dear boy. Just as you wish.”

He turned and walked away though the trees.

Philip had started to shiver. “Let’s go up to the house,” I said gently. “I’m sure the marquess will be glad to lend you some clothing so that you can get home without catching your death.”

He looked cynical. “I can assure you, Georgie, I have been in far worse straits than this.”

I didn’t think his shivering was just from the cold. “Come along,” I said with a bit more authority.

He shook his head. “I don’t want to face all those people and all those questions. I’m not ready yet, Georgie.”

There was the faintest trace of desperation in his voice, and I knew I had to listen to it.

“All right,” I said, “but I am coming back with you.”

He didn’t want me. I could see it in his face. But I was adamant, and I supposed he could see that in mine. I turned to Catherine, and said, “Will you tell your mother that I have gone home with Philip, Catherine? And tell the Amberlys and Mrs. Howard that of course we will be willing to answer questions about what happened on the river this afternoon, but . . . not today.”

“Of course,” she said gently.

I took her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you, Catherine.”

Philip merely nodded coldly. We both knew that he was furious that she had allowed me to come with her to Thames House.

He’ll get over it
, I mouthed to her, and she gave me a strained smile in response.

Philip and I got into the boat he had just come upriver in, and the boatman pushed off.

It was a silent ride back to Westminster. Philip dried off a little in the sun and the breeze, but he continued to shiver all the way back home.

My mind was preoccupied with what had happened this afternoon. Foremost, of course, were joy and relief that we were both alive. But I had to confess that I was deeply disturbed about the ruthlessness that Philip had shown in getting rid of Charles Howard.

Hitting Howard over the head with the oar to save me had been one thing. But deliberately to try to drown him was something quite else.

We took a cab from Westminster to Mansfield House, and Philip went into his dressing room to change out of his wet clothes.

“I want to see you,” I told him as we went upstairs. “Come into my dressing room when you are dry. It is imperative that we have a talk.”

He looked wary and reluctant, but under the circumstances he could hardly plead a prior engagement. I didn’t even bother to change out of my garden-party dress, but forced myself to sit on the chaise longue and wait patiently. It took him twenty minutes to come in. He was wearing a dressing gown.

“They’re filling a tub for me, so I can’t stay long,” he said. He sat down on the edge of one of the fireside chairs. “What is it that you want to talk to me about, Georgie?”

I looked at him. I saw the finely drawn look of him, the strain around his eyes, and I remembered Lord Marsh’s disturbing comment about his attempt to make certain that Charles Howard was dead.

A charge that Philip had not denied.

Like a blazing comet lighting up the blackness of the night sky, the truth dawned on me.

“You didn’t try to drown Charles Howard this afternoon, did you?” I demanded. “You tried to rescue him.”

He looked at me and didn’t answer.

“You hit him over the head because you had to get him out of the boat with me, but then you went after him and almost got yourself killed in the process.”

A little of the strain left the corners of his eyes. “I was too late. You can’t see in the water of the Thames, and by the time I got into the river he was gone.”

“But you kept on looking for him, didn’t you, Philip? That’s why you were underwater for so long.”

He rubbed his hand across his eyes. “I thought about leaving him. He had tried to kill you, after all.”

I smiled at him, trying to bridge the chasm that still yawned between us. “I’m glad you tried to rescue him, Philip. I’m proud of you.”

He looked ineffably bleak. “Don’t be proud of me, Georgie. That is a mistake.”

I got up from the chaise longue and went over to stand directly in front of him, too close for him to get up without bumping into me.

“I want you to tell me what is wrong, Philip.”

He started to say something, but I cut him off. “Don’t try to deny it. Something is very wrong with you. You have been avoiding me lately as if I had the bubonic plague. If you don’t like me anymore, if you don’t find me desirable, then please just say so. I can’t bear this situation where I am left feeling rejected and I don’t even know why.”

“Not find you desirable?” His laugh was painfully harsh. “Why do you think I haven’t been coming home? It’s because I can’t bear to lie next to you in that bed and not make love to you.”

“But why can’t you make love to me, Philip? Have I said or done anything to indicate to you that I don’t like it when you make love to me?”

“No.”

His face was stark.

I put my hands on his shoulders. Under the heavy silk of his dressing gown, the tension in them was palpable. I asked reasonably, “Then what is the problem?”

He drew a deep, unsteady breath. “Do you remember, when you were telling me about Maria, how you said that you couldn’t understand how men could take advantage of poor young girls like her?”

“Yes.”

“Georgie.” He looked up and met my eyes. His own were clouded with pain. “My father took me to my first brothel when I was fourteen years old. I am one of those men whom you so rightly despise. How could I possibly touch you when I knew that? I didn’t have the right.”

I stared back into the dense, pain-filled blue of my husband’s eyes. Dear God, I thought. Fourteen years old. What kind of a monster had he had for a father?

I ran my thumbs caressingly along his cheekbones. “Philip,” I said gently, “you are not to blame for what happened to you when you were fourteen years old.”

“But it continued,” he said. “Don’t you see, Georgie? It became a way of life with me.”

A little silence fell between us as I contemplated his words. So this was the cause of the distance that had always lain between us, I thought. This sense of his own unworthiness.

I tipped his face up, so that he had to look at me, and said, gravely, “Philip, if I forgive you for the sins of your youth, will you promise me that you will forgive yourself?”

He didn’t say anything.

“You had a wretched upbringing. You had no one to teach you right from wrong, no one to teach you the importance of being kind. I think it is nothing short of a miracle that you have turned into the kind of man who can be gentle to Anna, the kind of man who can risk his life to rescue a would-be murderer like Howard. I admire you more than any man I have ever known. And I love you. If you don’t love me back, I will surely die.”

“Georgie,” he groaned. “Oh God, Georgie.”

He clamped his arms around my waist and pressed his face against my breast. I held him close to me, my lips buried in his midnight-dark hair.

We remained like that for many moments.

Then he said, “I have felt so desperate. I wanted you so badly.”

“Well, you made me thoroughly miserable,” I returned. “I was beginning to think you had a mistress somewhere.”

At that, he lifted his head from my breast and looked up at me incredulously. “A mistress? Are you serious?”

“Well, what else was I to think?” I asked reasonably. “We were so close at Winterdale Park, and then, when we returned to London, you didn’t seem to want me anymore. You acted as if I was polluted or something. I didn’t understand.”

He reached up, pulled me down so that I was half-sitting, half-reclining on his lap, and then he kissed me. Thoroughly. Dizzily. Wildly. When finally he lifted his mouth, my head was lying limply against his shoulder and his hand was lying possessively upon my breast, gently massaging my nipple.

“I love you so much, Georgie,” he said. “I thought I should go mad this last week.”

My heart rang like a bell at the sound of those longed-for words.