Chapter 15

It felt so very good to be back in London. Harriet traveled back alone on Tuesday morning, having declined the offer of a place in the duchess’s carriage. The duchess and Lady Sophia were not leaving until the afternoon. Lady Sophia was spending an hour of the morning walking very slowly on the terrace with Lady Phyllis. She was getting to know her future niece-in-law, she explained. Harriet was glad to be alone, to have the whole ghastly weekend behind her.

She flew up to the nursery when she arrived back in London after doing little more than poke her head about the door of the salon to announce her return to Lady Forbes. She picked Susan up and twirled her about and hugged her almost hard enough to bruise her ribs. Never, never again would she leave her for longer than a few hours, she vowed.

Susan launched into an excited account of all the places Sir Clive and Lady Forbes had taken her and of the ices and cakes they had bought her. And the doll. She dashed across the nursery to produce a wonder of porcelain and silk and lace.

“Annabel and James have a new brother,” she announced.

Harriet sat down and drew her daughter onto her lap. Julia had been right, then. Her time had been near. And now she had three children. Harriet had hoped after Susan that she would conceive again. But it had not happened. And now she was eight-and-twenty and had refused two marriage offers within the past few weeks. She did not know if she would ever be able to contemplate another marriage. Perhaps she would never have more children than Susan. But she must count her blessings. At the time she had thought of her daughter as her little miracle. She hugged her again now.

“And I was afraid that you would be missing me as much as I was missing you,” she said, smiling.

“I did miss you, Mama,” Susan said, regarding her gravely. “I cried one night when I could not show you my doll, but only a little bit. Aunt Amanda read me a story.”

Harriet kissed her cheek. “Would you like one now?”

“Yes, please,” her daughter said, getting down to fetch her favorite book. “Aunt Amanda does not read the wolf right Mama.”

It was good to be back in London. Perhaps it would be better to be back in Bath. To be home. Harriet longed for it suddenly, for the familiar safe surroundings of her own home. If only she could go back and find Godfrey there. She missed him with a welling of sadness. He had been invariably kind and dependable. There were no ups and downs of emotion with Godfrey, only the even keel of daily living—and the certainty of a deep affection.

No, she did not want to return to Bath yet. She would feel her loneliness more acutely there. Yet she knew she could not stay in London. Not when staying there would mean seeing him wherever she went—as she had done all Season so far. But now he would be more often in company with Lady Phyllis. With his betrothed. Harriet had not expected the actual betrothal to be quite so upsetting. She had known it was coming and had thought herself prepared for it. But there was a raw pain in knowing that he had chosen her as his mistress and another woman as his wife. Even though she understood the reason, she felt soiled, slighted, inferior. Unloved.

Though even that was untrue, she knew, and tried not to know it. She did not want to know if it was true. In the garden on the night the betrothal was announced she had believed it true. He had not said it, but she felt with a deep certainty that he loved her as she loved him. But if it was so, she did not want to know it beyond any doubt. The knowledge could only bring the worse pain of hopelessness.

She would go to Ebury Court, she thought suddenly. Clara had invited her, and it was ages since she had seen the woman who had been her dearest friend as well as her employer. It would be good to spend a few days, perhaps a week, in the country. It would be soothing. It would be good for Susan too.

“Would you like to go into the country for a few days to play with Paul and Kevin?” she asked Susan when the story had been read. “And see Aunt Clara and Uncle Freddie?”

“With you, Mama?” Susan asked.

“Yes, with me,” Harriet said. “You and I together. Shall we go?”

Her daughter nodded. “I’ll show Aunt Clara my doll.”

They should go tomorrow, Harriet decided, eager to be gone now that she had thought of it. She should go and avoid Thursday’s painful good-bye. The very idea of that brought on a pain so intense that she wanted to run in panic. And that was what she would be doing if she left for the country without seeing him. Somehow the good-bye was necessary. She knew that if she avoided it she would be forever haunted by something that had never been finished.

Besides, if she was strictly honest with herself, then she must admit that she could not resist the temptation to see him one more time, to be alone with him once more. Except that there could be nothing between them except the good-bye. He was a betrothed man.

“We’ll go on Friday,” she said. “In the morning bright and early. I’ll send word so that they will be expecting us.”

“I can’t wait,” Susan said.

“Neither can I.” Harriet hugged her.

He had returned to town with his grandmother and his aunt on Tuesday afternoon. In the evening he had escorted Lady Phyllis to the opera as a member of a party that included her parents. On Wednesday he drove her in the park. In the evening he danced two sets with her at the Sefton ball. If the ton had not drawn the obvious conclusion with certainty, then all their doubts were put to rest on Thursday morning when the announcement appeared in the Morning Post.

Phyllis was unhappy, he knew. Although they seemed to have set the foundations for a cautious amity while he was at Barthorpe Hall, she had become icy, quite uncommunicative since their return to London. He wondered if he was succeeding in playing a better part. Since for years he had retreated behind a public facade of aloofness and a certain haughtiness, he guessed that he probably was. And he was making every effort to set the girl at her ease, to make himself agreeable to her. He had no intention of deliberately punishing her for the mess he had made of his own life.

He lived for Thursday afternoon and dreaded it. He feared the inflexibility of Harriet’s moral principles. She had bent them recently in order to become his mistress, but he knew that doing so had put a severe strain upon her conscience. He suspected that she would go no further. He had encountered her inflexibility, like a brick wall, six years ago. He dreaded that the afternoon would have no more to offer than good-bye. He dreaded that it would be the end, that after Thursday he would not see her again except by chance and at some distance at a social function they both attended.

One of his fears, at least, was eased when he saw her hurrying toward his carriage only three minutes after the appointed time, and his coachman lifted her inside. She glanced at him and sat in the farthest corner, her hands clasped in her lap. Had she not been wearing gloves, he was sure he would have been able to see the white of her knuckles. Perhaps this would be the last time, he thought. He was going to have to fight the battle of his life to get her to continue their liaison for a while longer. He had begged for one more meeting and she had granted it—to say goodbye. He sat in his own corner of the carriage, looking at her, saying nothing.

For the first time since they had begun their affair, she hesitated when they were in the sitting room of his house. But his hand at the small of her back guided her firmly on into the bedchamber. He was not going to lose her. He could not lose her. It was the one thought that pounded through his head. He turned her as he shut the door, drew her to him with both arms, and set his mouth to hers. He felt her mouth and body leap into instant response.

“Harriet.” He trailed kisses along her jaw to her ear. “I have missed you. It has been an agony being without you. Tell me you have missed me too. Tell me.”

Her body sagged into relaxation. “Don’t, Archie.” Her voice was flat devoid of emotion. “Let me go.”

He dropped his arms and took a step back from her. “You came,” he said. “You promised today. Harriet, we need today.” He reached out both hands to her.

“Today is forbidden,” she said. “Until today we have harmed no one but ourselves. It has always been wrong, but it is only our own moral values and our own sense of right and wrong that have suffered. Today we harm someone else. Today your fidelity is pledged to someone else. You do wrong to meet me, and I do wrong, knowing that you belong to someone else.”

Her face was pale and set. The speech sounded stilted and rehearsed. He guessed that she had been able to persuade herself to come only on the understanding that it was strictly to say good-bye.

“I am not married yet,” he said, possessing himself of her hands and tightening his grip when she would have pulled them away. “It is not forbidden yet, Harriet.”

“A promise to marry is as binding as the marriage vows,” she said. “I came to say good-bye, Archie.” There was momentary pain in her eyes, but she blanked them immediately. She had herself under iron control.

“You could have said good-bye at Barthorpe Hall,” he said harshly. “Or at Lady Sefton’s ball last evening. You could have found a moment to say the single word. You came here to be alone with me. At least let there be some honesty between us.”

She raised her chin a little. “Yes,” she said, and reached for something else to say. Obviously she had not prepared an answer for just that charge. Her eyes wavered for a moment. “Yes, you are right. I needed to say it—when we were alone.”

“A single word?” he said. “You needed this clandestine meeting, this place, this whole afternoon, just to say a single word to me?”

“Yes.” Her eyes filled with sudden tears and she bit her upper lip and dropped her head. “It is not easy, Archie. I am unaccustomed to affaires de coeur. I cannot take them lightly.”

“Harriet.” He cupped one palm about her cheek. What had he done to her? God, what had he done in his selfishness? He should have known when she offered herself to him at Kew that it would tear her conscience apart if he took her. And now it was too late to correct the error.

She moved forward, as she had done in the garden at Barthorpe Hall, and set her face against his neckcloth. “It is not easy,” she repeated, her voice high-pitched with emotion. “Please, let us have done, Archie. Take me home. Please take me home.”

It was the only decent thing he could do—take himself out of her life as speedily as he could and give her the only thing that might bring healing to her conscience and her emotions—time. Time without him. He belonged to Phyllis. He should turn and open the door and escort her back downstairs and into his carriage. He would do it—in just a moment.

“Harriet.” He set a hand beneath her chin, lifted her wet face, and set his mouth, open, over hers. My love. My love. My love.

“Archie.” Her arms were up about his neck, her body pressed to his. “Archie. It is not easy. Oh, please, it is not easy.”

Yes. It was the only way to say good-bye. With their bodies. With their whole selves. Just once more. And perhaps then he could persuade her to prolong their affair for a little longer. Until the end of the Season. Until his marriage. She would not have the guilt of adultery on her conscience until his marriage. He was not married yet. Yes, this was the only way.

He heard a button thud onto the carpet as he pulled ungently at the opening at the back of her dress. She was sobbing against his mouth. Her arms had a stranglehold about his neck. He stooped down and scooped her up into his arms. He undressed her when she was lying on the bed, dragging her clothes down over her body, flinging them over the foot of the bed. He tore off his own clothing and came down on top of her, into her reaching arms. He found her mouth with his again, pressed his knees between her thighs and pushed them wide, slid his hands beneath her, and thrust deeply into the welcoming soft heat of her.

Harriet. My love. He could not lose her. He would not lose her. He needed her as he needed the air he breathed. He lay still in her, his mouth covering hers. She was his. They belonged together. This was not good-bye. She must feel it too. He lifted himself onto his elbows and smiled down at her, resisting the urge to begin moving in her, bringing them both to the climax that was not far off. Her face was wet and reddened with tears.

“It need not end yet,” he said. ‘‘There can be many more times before we need say good-bye. Does that feel good?” He stroked her once and paused again. “Tell me it feels good.” He lowered his head to touch his lips softly to hers.

Her eyes filled with tears again. “You are not even an honorable man,” she said. “I thought at least you were an honorable man.”

A stinging slap across the face or a pail of cold water thrown over him could not have been more effective. He looked down at her for one frozen moment and then withdrew from her body and rolled off the bed. He dressed quickly, his back to her. She did not move.

“Get dressed,” he told her. He could hear the coldness in his voice. “Get dressed before I turn around. I might be tempted to continue my rape of you.”

He did not turn until he was sure she had clothed herself. Her face was set and pale again when he did so, with traces of redness from the tears.

“It was not rape, Archie,” she said. “I consented.”

He hated her suddenly and quite unreasonably. And hated himself. No, only himself. He loved her. And yet when he spoke he lashed out at her. “Yes,” he said. “It seemed to me that you did, Harriet. You came here to be raped, did you not? So that you could have your final forbidden piece of pleasure without the guilt. No, you say, and then yes, and no when your body is mounted and it seems too late. Were you glad that I am without honor? Were you disappointed when I did not give you what you were asking for? You spoke too soon, Harriet. You could have had your thrill and your little moment of righteousness too if you had waited until after I had spilled into you.”

“You are no gentleman,” she said.

He laughed. “Men without honor rarely are,” he said. “But you have known that fact about me for six years, Harriet. Gentlemen do not take ladies to bed without first making them marriage vows, do they? Or not in your prudish little world, anyway. Did you hope until the last possible moment that I would make you those vows after all? You are naive, my dear. Men do not marry for what is voluntarily and eagerly given free of charge.”

He could not believe what he was saying. He watched her eyes widen in shock and bewilderment and wanted to hurt her more. Because he was hurting. He knew what was happening, knew himself for the blackguard he was, and could seem to do nothing to stop himself. He was angry and upset and hurting—and full of self-loathing.

“Good-bye, your grace,” she said, moving suddenly in the direction of the door. “I shall walk home.”

“The devil.” He caught none too gently at her arm. “Men without honor still like to pretend in public that they are gentlemen, ma’am. I shall escort you home. You will be quite safe with me, I assure you. I usually attempt rape only once in an afternoon.”

“You are despicable.” She was almost whispering. Her large, candid green eyes looked directly into his. “I am glad I have seen you as you are at last. I should have known it, of course. You knew I was an innocent, and an impoverished innocent at that, six years ago, and yet still you pursued me and would have ruined me. And this year you pursued me again, although you knew very well that you must select a bride before the Season was over. I pity Lady Phyllis, your grace. I am glad my eyes have been opened. Suddenly it is not difficult at all to say good-bye. Quite the contrary. And I would prefer to walk home than have to spend more time in your presence.”

He allowed her words to whip about him like a lash. Yes, perhaps it was better this way after all. He had hurt her enough. She was right. He was no gentleman. He would have set her up in a way of life that would have killed her spirit. And now he had allowed her to sacrifice her conscience when he might have offered his name as well as his body. She was right. It was better that she had seen the truth and had come to hate him. Perhaps she would suffer less.

“I shall not inflict my company on you, ma'am,” he said, making her his most elegant bow. “Allow me to escort you to my carriage. It will convey you home.”

They walked side by side and in silence down the stairs, past the impassive servant who opened the door for them, and out to his waiting carriage. He handed her inside and waited for her to settle her dress about her, clasp her hands in her lap, and stare straight ahead with pale, set face. He hesitated, decided to say nothing, and closed the door quietly. He watched as the carriage disappeared down the street. And then he went back inside the house and upstairs to fling himself diagonally across the rumpled bed, his face buried in the pillow that still bore the imprint of her head.

He had always treated with some amusement the ridiculous poetic idea of a heart breaking with love. He did not feel at all amused at this precise moment.

Clara Sullivan had been thin and pale and unable to walk when Harriet had worked for her. She had suffered a lengthy, debilitating illness during the years she had spent in India with her father, an illness that had killed her mother there. She had married Frederick Sullivan, knowing that he was a mere fortune hunter, because she was lonely and twenty-six years old, and because he was, so she had told Harriet, beautiful.

When she came down the steps outside the house at Ebury Court to greet Harriet, as soon as the latter alighted from the carriage Sir Clive had insisted she travel in, it was almost hard to realize that she was the same Clara. Slim, but no longer thin, elegant, her cheeks tinged with healthy color, her dark hair short and wavy, her dark eyes shining, she looked almost beautiful and certainly happy. She hugged Harriet tightly and bent to exclaim over Susan's prettiness and to admire her new doll.

And Frederick Sullivan, who had come out with her, still darkly and quite devastatingly handsome, was greeting her with what seemed like a smile of genuine welcome. He looked now, Harriet thought, like a potential lady-killer who had decided that perhaps it was more satisfactory to kill only one lady—with love. It was Freddie, dissolute gambler and wastrel, who had somehow convinced Clara that she could walk again, who had somehow brought joy into the life of a lonely woman. And who somehow seemed to have fallen in love with her in the process.

He kissed Harriet’s cheek as he shook her hand. “Harriet,” he said, “you are looking remarkably smart. Slaying the poor male population of London by the score, I would not doubt.”

“Modesty forces me to admit, Mr. Sullivan,” she said, “that it has been by the dozen, not the score.”

He offered her his arm as Clara took Susan by the hand. “Now before we set one foot inside the house,” he said, “let’s have done with this Mr. Sullivan nonsense once and for all, shall we? My name is Freddie. A rather disreputable-sounding name, perhaps, but you must blame my parents for that.”

“Freddie,” she said, smiling and blushing.

“We must take Susan up to see the boys, Freddie,” Clara said. She turned to Harriet as they entered the house. “Kevin may still be sleeping, but we promised Paul that he could come down when Susan arrived. He wore Freddie ragged this morning by positively refusing to get down off his pony’s back when our ride was over. They stayed out for longer than an hour after I had brought Kevin inside.”

“Ah, one escaped convict,” Frederick said as a very dark, wiry little boy came streaking down the stairs toward them. “And one distraught nurse left behind in the nursery, I would not doubt.”

Harriet could feel herself relaxing. It felt so good, so very good, to have left London and the past month behind her. So very good.

Paul wanted to go outside. Without a moment’s delay. So did Susan. Frederick sighed, chuckled, bent to swing his son up onto one shoulder, looked down into Susan’s wistful face, stooped down again and lifted her more gently to his free shoulder, and retraced his footsteps down the stairs.

Clara linked her arm through Harriet’s. “Will you mind if we do not join you immediately, Freddie?” she called after his retreating back. “I want to hear all about London and the Season. Have you had great success, Harriet? I am sure you must have. You have not lost one iota of your beauty since I first knew you, and now you add great elegance to it. Have you met anyone special? I do hope you have. I know Lord Wingham was special to you, but as I keep saying to Freddie, I do hope you will soon find someone with whom you can spend the rest of your life in happiness. Someone just like Freddie.” She laughed.

“Well,” Harriet said, “I have had two offers of marriage, one of them very eligible indeed. But it is too soon yet. Too soon after Godfrey. I have been content merely to enjoy myself. And I have certainly done that.” She smiled brightly as they entered the drawing room and Clara rang for tea.

“Have you?” Clara looked at her closely. “I am glad, Harriet.” She hesitated. “Freddie says that Tenby has been in town.” Clara had been fully aware of her painful infatuation with Lord Archibald Vinney six years before.

“Yes,” Harriet said, still smiling. “I have seen him, Clara, and even danced with him once or twice. He has just become betrothed to Lady Phyllis Reeder, the Earl of Barthorpe’s daughter.”

“Yes, she would be,” Clara said. “He was always very high in the instep. There was no—leftover-feeling there, Harriet?”

“Oh, goodness no.” Harriet laughed. “He is still as handsome as ever. But fortunately I am older and wiser, and being married to Godfrey taught me that there is far more to look for in a relationship than good looks.” She sighed. “I wish Godfrey had lived longer. He was not an old man.”

Clara smiled her sympathy. “He gave you Susan,” she said. “She is quite delightful, Harriet, and so like you that it is almost comical. I sometimes envy you your daughter except when I remember how weak with love and pride I am over my sons. They are both going to be as handsome as Freddie. Did you know that Julia and Daniel have had another boy? Daniel was quite upset, apparently, when he knew there was a third on the way.”

“I called on her yesterday morning,” Harriet said. “He is positively fat, Clara, and quite adorable. And Lord Beaconswood did not look at all upset. He had that look—oh, that look I remember on Godfrey’s face when Susan was born.” She settled gratefully into a conversation about children.

The Duke of Tenby got up early on Friday morning so that he could ride in the park and give his horse its head without endangering anyone’s life but his own. He should pen some apology, he had been telling himself since the afternoon before. He should write to her and apologize for everything, particularly for his harsh and unfair words of the afternoon. And yet he could not write. The fairest treatment he could afford her was to honor her good-bye, to leave her strictly alone. It was better if she thought him an utter scoundrel, who could not even beg her pardon for insults given.

Had it been rape? He had been haunted by the possibility. She had said no. But she had told him it was not easy, and he had felt the control she had tried to keep imposed on herself. He had deliberately broken through that control and turned her no into a yes. A temporary yes. Did that constitute rape? A yes reluctantly given? A yes that he had known in his heart was really no? She had released him of that charge, at least, but he was not sure he could release himself.

He was to accompany Phyllis and her parents and his grandmother to a garden party that afternoon. Before then he must come to terms with himself or at the very least retreat safely behind his customary mask. He must. He owed it to his future wife to appear to be glad of her company. Perhaps he could redeem himself somewhat in his own eyes if he could at least treat his fiancee with the proper respect and perhaps even affection. He must cultivate affection for her.

He resolutely put Harriet out of his mind, or at least as far back in his mind as he could force her.

Both his grandmother and his aunt were in the breakfast room when he arrived home. His grandmother was often up early. His aunt claimed to have been driven up by cramps in her legs.

“Dear Archibald,” she said as he bent to kiss her cheek. “I always had a weakness for gentlemen in their riding clothes. They always look at their most virile then.”

“Sophie!” the duchess said, shocked, while the duke chuckled.

He opened his letters—mostly invitations and notes of congratulation—after exchanging greetings with the two ladies. There was nothing of great importance, he thought, scanning them quickly. Until he came to the bottom of the pile and found a whole letter to be read. He glanced down at the signature. “Phyllis.” He raised his eyebrows and read.

His grandmother was explaining something loudly to his aunt when he raised his head. She turned and looked inquiringly at him.

“You look as if you had seen a ghost, Archibald,” his aunt said.

“Lady Phyllis wrote this last evening,” he said “She was going to leave a similar note for her father to read this morning. She was eloping with Lockhart last night. Poor girl. Her reputation may never recover from the scandal.”

His grandmother stared at him, her expression wooden.

“Well, bless the girl,” Lady Sophia said. “She don’t need society, Archibald. All she needs is that pleasant young man and his place in the country. Scandal won’t harm them there.”

The duke looked keenly at her. “What have you done, Aunt?” he asked.

“Eh?” she said. “Don’t whisper, Archibald. Some people are willing to take advice. Some people don’t mind benefiting from the wisdom of their elders. I want you to take me to see my little pet this afternoon. I have missed her pretty face all week. No one to talk to. Is someone going to bring me more coffee?”

A footman hurried forward.

The duke folded the letter carefully and set it down beside his plate. He felt numb. Too numb to feel relief.

“Well,” his grandmother said, “I was obviously sadly mistaken, Tenby. The breeding was not there after all. But it was extremely naughty of her to allow matters to go so far. I suppose you are happy about it?”

He did not answer.

“I suppose your first thought is of that other woman,” she said. “I’ll not have it, Tenby.”

“And I’ll not have the matter discussed now, Grandmama,” he said, looking her steadily in the eye. “I have some thinking to do. When I have done it, perhaps I shall consult you. It is still my hope and my intention to keep my promises to you.”

“But not with that woman,” she said.

“I shall consult you, Grandmama,” he said, “when I have had time to think.” He hesitated. “That woman is Lady Wingham. A lady, Grandmama.”

“I suppose,” she said stiffly, her back very straight, “I have some thinking to do too, Tenby. I have always wanted your happiness. You must know that I have always wanted that.”

His tone softened. “We will talk later, Grandmama,” he said. He raised his voice. “I shall escort you to Sir Clive Forbes’s after luncheon, Aunt Sophie. And come there half an hour later to bring you home again.”

Lady Sophia sipped her coffee and said nothing.

Old fiend, the duke thought. Wonderful old fiend.