Chapter Seventeen
Meg tried to keep her chin up and a smile on her face as she stood in her brother’s home the next day, but as Emma entered the parlor, all the bravery she’d been trying to portray collapsed under its own weight. As her lip began to tremble and her eyes filled with tears, Emma raced across the room to her.
“Oh, dearest, dearest,” Emma cooed, taking her to the settee and waving off the servant who had come to inquire about tea. “There, there.”
Meg buried her head in Emma’s shoulder as great shuddering breaths racked her. “I’m sorry,” she murmured at last, drawing away from her friend’s embrace. “I should not have called when I am in such a state.”
“Because you are in such a state, that is when you must call!” Emma argued. “I want to see you, to help you. You’ve been very brave in these past few weeks. You have earned a good cry and a place to be entirely honest. Now tell me.”
Meg met her eyes. “Oh, Emma, we’ve talked about this before, I know, but I am at such a loss. I have dreamed almost my whole life of marrying Simon. Even when I was engaged to Graham and pretending to plan my life with him, I dreamed of Simon. It was wrong, I know, but utterly true. I have loved him since I was fifteen!”
Emma’s expression softened. “I thought as much, even if you didn’t say the specific words.”
“But he is resistant to anything beyond what we share in his bed,” Meg continued. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but that is the heart of it.”
Emma’s cheeks had flamed, but she didn’t look offended as she said, “I see. So he makes love to you but will not connect with you outside that realm.”
“And it is utterly confusing,” Meg said, rising to her feet and pacing the parlor restlessly. “When we are together…physically…it is wonderful. I feel all his passion for me, his desire, I feel that he cares. And I always wish, hope that when it’s over he’ll allow the connection to continue.”
“But he pulls away,” Emma said, a frown drawing down her lips.
Meg nodded. “He pulls away physically, but also he throws walls up between us.” She stopped pacing and faced Emma. “I-I know that it is his guilt over the betrayal of Graham that causes some of it. But I’m beginning to wonder if there is…more to it.”
“More?” Emma asked. “What more could it be?”
Now it was Meg who felt heat rushing to her cheeks. She moved to the door and shut it. She leaned against it and said, “The day James found us in the cottage…God, it feels like a lifetime ago…he and Simon were arguing, and he said something. He—he said that the reason he picked Graham for the betrothal to me was that Simon was whoring around London at the time. And he and the Duke of Roseford were, er, sharing women.”
Emma’s eyes bugged wide and her mouth opened and shut a few times. “Oh. My. I-I-oh…”
Meg nodded. “Yes, my response exactly. I’m not even certain how that would work.”
Emma tilted her head to the side. “I suppose one of the men could be taking her while she sucked…you know, it doesn’t matter. It seems like they were talking about something that happened a long time ago. As titillating an idea as it is, what does it have to do with you?”
“What if I’m not enough?” Meg whispered. “What if all his rejection, which he says is because of Graham, is really because he needs me to be more than what I am, than what I could ever be?”
Emma got up and moved to her, catching her hands. “Meg, you are enough. James occasionally makes noises about the trouble Roseford continues to get himself into around Town, but to be truthful, he has never said anything about Simon. If he was once less than prudent with the lovers he chose, if he was doing something wild, the time has passed for that. I don’t believe for a moment that his problem is you not satisfying him. If you didn’t, why would he have pursued you for sex the moment the engagement was announced? If he didn’t want you, he would have waited.”
Meg nodded slowly. “I suppose so. And I suppose when I think of the way he touches me, the way he kisses me, I know he does want me, even if he once desired something far more outrageous than I’m able to provide. But it doesn’t make me feel better, because he still pulls away. He still refuses to have a true marriage or life with me. So what do I do, Emma?”
Emma stared at her a moment and a light came into her face that Meg had never seen before. Normally Emma was sweet, gentle, but there was a warrior fire in her expression as she grabbed Meg’s upper arms and held tight.
“Fight!” Emma said with a little shake to Meg’s shoulders.
“I have been, haven’t I?” Meg whispered, for she had certainly been in many a battle with Simon since that night in the cottage.
“You have. But I know you’ve been going about things indirectly, haven’t you? Being careful with Simon? Being understanding?”
Meg nodded. “Yes. I’ve been giving him his space.”
Emma shook her head. “Then you must stop doing that. This has been a war of small battles, it may be time for a far larger one. Something more direct. Simon loves you—anyone who looks at you together can see it, even if he wants to deny it out of some misplaced sense of guilt. You have to force him into seeing that the future is where he must go, not live in the past.”
Meg drew back, for Emma had just said the thing she longed for most. The thing she couldn’t believe at the moment. “Loves me?” she repeated softly. “He has wanted me, cared for me, but he’s never said the other.”
“I know. Have you?”
She tensed. “No,” she admitted softly. “I’ve been too afraid of his rejection. If he turned away, I think I would have to…to leave. I couldn’t bear having him know that I loved him and him not care in the slightest.”
“That is what fighting is,” Emma said. “It’s knowing that we might lose what we desire, but doing it anyway so that we can get what we need even more.”
“Did you fight for James?” Meg asked, thinking back to earlier in the summer when her brother and Emma had circled each other. She hadn’t ever believed their love was easy, but she hadn’t considered that Emma was going into battle.
Emma smiled softly. “Yes. I misunderstood something I saw him do and my life became very clear in that moment. Despite everything my father was threatening, despite the danger posed to me by outside forces, I told James I didn’t want to marry him.”
Meg’s mouth dropped open. “You did?”
“On the morning of our wedding, no less. I told him I loved him and would accept nothing less from him.” Emma shivered, like even the memory still touched her. “It was terrifying to stand there, looking at him after I’d said those words, waiting for him to respond. I think that moment must have stretched out forever. But the risk was worth the reward. James didn’t know how I felt. And once he did, it opened up a world of honesty and passion and love that has made everything else I ever went through fade in its intensity, replaced by contentment and joy.”
“But what if James hadn’t said he loved you?” Meg asked, trembling as she pictured Simon turning away from her.
Emma swallowed hard. “Then at least I wouldn’t have lived a lie like my mother did or your mother did. At least I would have known how to proceed with my eyes wide open.”
“I’m afraid,” Meg admitted, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides as all the worst outcomes of the bravery Emma described played through her head.
Emma nodded. “I know. But being brave is really about being afraid and doing something anyway. Be brave for yourself and for him. Whatever happens, at least you won’t regret staying silent or passive about your own future.”
As they stood together, Meg felt some of Emma’s strength swirling into her and giving her what she lacked. “Yes, you’re right of course,” she whispered. “I’ve held back with Simon, as much as I’ve accused him of doing the same. I’m going to face him head-on. At this point, I think I must.”
She let out a long breath and moved toward the parlor door. Emma laughed, “You are going right now?”
“Yes. Simon went to his club, but he should be back before supper. I think I’d best go home and make some preparations before he returns.” She gave Emma one last look that she knew reflected her fear. “And before I lose my nerve.”
Simon sat in the corner of White’s, a drink in hand and a newspaper folded in his lap. He was meant to be sipping the drink and reading the paper, but neither was on his list at present. He was too distracted by thoughts of Meg and also by the chilly reception he had received since his arrival an hour earlier.
Oh, the men around him said hello, but no one had dared approach him and publicly declare they would remain a friend to him. Of course, he recognized he fully deserved that outcome.
Meg didn’t. He did. But he would destroy them both socially thanks to his lack of decorum when it came to his feelings for her.
“Why did I follow her?” he muttered as he snapped the paper open and lifted it.
“My very question,” came a slurred voice.
Simon froze, for he knew the voice as well as his own. He lowered the paper to watch Graham flop himself into the chair across from him. His friend’s normally bright blue eyes were bleary with drink and he clearly hadn’t shaved for a week.
Simon shifted, watching all the eyes on them from all around the room. In that moment, all he cared about was his friend.
“Graham,” he said softly. “I-I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Should I hide away and let you have White’s?” Graham snapped.
“No, of course not,” Simon said, ducking his head. “There is no reason for you to hide from anywhere. You did nothing wrong.”
A flash of raw emotion moved over Graham’s face at that statement, but then it was gone. Only the understandable anger remained there, the disgust.
“Damn right,” Graham muttered, downing the rest of his drink and setting it on the table between them.
“Would you like…would you like me to give up my membership here?” Simon asked.
Graham stared at him. “Not return to White’s?”
Simon nodded. “If it would make it easier for you.”
“Well, if we’re talking about easier,” Graham said, leaning forward. “Why don’t you just leave London?”
Simon flinched. “I-I could do that.”
“And that house we bought in Scotland,” Graham continued.
“The hunting lodge?” Simon blinked. That was common property of all the men in their club. “We each own a part of that.”
“You sell your part to me or to James,” Graham clarified.
Pain ripped through Simon at the idea that he would be removed from his circle of friends. Because that’s what selling his portion of the lodge would represent: that he was being removed from the club. He would lose everything.
“Very well, I can arrange that.” Simon tilted his head, for Graham didn’t seem to be finished. “What else?”
“What makes you think there’s more?” Graham slurred, though his gaze was very focused now, almost clear.
Simon shrugged. “I know you. I know you value loyalty and what I did betrayed you. My penance cannot be so easy as this. What more do you need? What more do you need to take in order to balance the scales between us?”
Graham stared at him a long time. “Meg.”
Simon stiffened. “What about Meg?”
“Maybe you don’t prance around together, being a happy couple,” Graham said slowly, his voice suddenly low and dark.
Simon paused. What Graham was demanding was exactly what Simon had already been doing, trying to distance himself from Meg as atonement for his sins. Now that Graham was actually asking him to do so, the reality of the request rang in his ears.
Meg was already skating on the edge with him. She reached out and he backed away, not because he wanted to, but because he felt he should. It wouldn’t be very long before Meg would stop trying. She would be a fool not to. And then he would lose her.
So what Graham was asking for was for Simon to destroy his marriage. Finally and fully.
Before he could reply, Graham pushed to his feet. He wobbled slightly as he glared down at Simon. “You’re a fucking coward, aren’t you?”
Simon slowly rose, not to fight, but to defend himself if need be. Graham had always thrown a wicked right cross and one didn’t want to be seated when it landed.
“I know I hurt—” he began, wanting to apologize. To help somehow.
“Goddamn it, Simon, don’t fucking apologize to me,” Graham interrupted as he shoved him hard.
Simon staggered but didn’t move forward, even as the other men in the room began to circle toward them, wary but interested in this very public faceoff.
“What do you want me to do then?” Simon snapped, his patience fraying.
“Fight,” Graham growled.
“I’m not going to fight you,” Simon said softly.
Graham rolled his eyes. “Of course you’re not. You never have. Not even for a woman you clearly love. You told me you love her, didn’t you? But I mention that you should walk away from her and from friendships you’ve held for over a decade and you just…sit there.” He shoved Simon again, and this time the force drove Simon into the table. It tipped over sideways and both their glasses shattered on the floor.
“Stop,” Simon ground out. “I don’t want to fight you, Graham.”
Graham tilted his head back and laughed. “I’d respect it more if you punched me in the mouth and told me that Meg was your wife and that was the end of it. I’d respect it more if you fought for anything.”
He shoved Simon one more time and this time it was enough. Simon set his jaw and pushed back as hard as he could. Graham moved like he’d come forward again, a grin on his face, but before they could actually come to blows, the others lunged forward. Arms grabbed for Simon, others caught Graham, and they were separated at last. Strangely, Simon regretted it. Perhaps a few punches between them was exactly what they needed to ease the tension.
“Go on,” one of the gentlemen said, ushering Simon toward the door. “He’s drunk and your being here only makes it worse. Go on then.”
Simon edged to the door, but threw one last glance over his shoulder at Graham. His friend…or was it former friend…now had a bottle in his hand and he was offering loud toasts to uncertain futures as the others surrounded him, clearly trying to calm him down.
Simon frowned as he exited the club and waited for his horse to be brought around. He had always known he’d encounter Graham. They were both too prominent not to have that faceoff. But it hadn’t been what he had expected. Graham was angry, yes. Graham was betrayed, one could see it written all over his face. Graham was even spoiling to fight.
But his challenge to Simon to actually take what he wanted and stop apologizing for it was unexpected. How could that be what Graham wanted after everything that had happened? Wasn’t it spitting in the man’s face to be happy and carefree with Meg?
He’d been telling himself for weeks that it was. And now he was left uncertain of what to do and how to proceed.