Someone to Care

It had led to this.

If he had decided differently and been content merely to nod civilly to her across the width of the taproom and dining room before leaving with his brother, he would have come home, suffered through the unspeakable horror of the birthday party Estelle had planned, and been gone from here already in search of new amusement. He would have been safe.

“I cannot understand why Great-Aunt Olwen does not want to come here to live,” Estelle said from behind him. “I would in her place. I could be very happy here, Papa. It is not really small, is it? There are eight bedchambers. But it is cozy.”

He turned from the window. “And what would you do for amusement?” he asked.

She looked blankly at him before shrugging her shoulders. “What do I do now?” she asked. “I could read and paint and embroider and write in my diary and pay visits and receive visitors just as easily here as I can there. But it would be peaceful here. It would feel more like a home.”

“The dower house is not quite as cut off from civilization as it may appear to be,” Bertrand explained to Viola and her daughter. “Just through the trees behind here there are stables and a carriage house, empty now, of course, but still quite serviceable, and a wide pathway that connects with the main drive.”

“Come and see the stables,” Estelle suggested, and she led the way from the room. Abigail and Bertrand followed her. Marcel did not move, and neither did Viola. The front door opened and closed.

They gazed at each other for several silent moments.

“Does it remind you?” he asked, nodding toward the window and the view beyond. “Even just faintly?”

“Of Devonshire?” she asked. “Yes. But we were alone there.”

“It was good,” he said. “Was it not?”

She turned her head to gaze out the window. “It was,” she said. “It was exactly what it was intended to be, Marcel—a brief escape from our lives. It was never intended to be converted into anything permanent. Neither you nor I wanted that. And it had run its course. You told me on the beach that my telling you I wanted to go home saved you from having to hurt me. You told me that you hated hurting your women.”

Good God! Had he really said that? But he knew he had. “Could I possibly have been so unmannerly?” he asked anyway.

“You were merely being honest,” she said. “I know you have other women, Marcel, and always have—and always will, I daresay. I had no illusions when I decided to run away with you. It was a temporary arrangement, and I was contented with that. I am not contented with . . . with this.”

“The always will part is unjust,” he said. “When I marry, Viola, it is for all time. Until death do us part.”

She turned her head away from the window to frown at him. “What happened?” she asked him.

He raised his eyebrows and felt a chill about his heart. He knew what she was asking.

“What happened with your marriage?” she explained. “With your wife. How did she die?”

He did not want to talk about this. He did not want to think about it. The air in the room suddenly felt too thin to breathe.

“She fell out of an upstairs window to the terrace below,” he said curtly. “She died instantly.” He swung about to face the window, though he was unaware now of the view beyond it. He willed her to go away, to follow the young people. But he could not hear her go. So he added the final detail. “I killed her.”

Silence. Except for the dull thudding in his ears of his own heartbeat. He wished he were sitting down. He wished he were alone. He wished he were dead too. He wished . . .

“You cannot possibly leave it at that,” she said from behind him, and he swung about again to glare at her, fury almost blinding him.

“Why not?” he asked her. “What happened is none of your damned business, Viola. Unless, that is, you think I may do the same thing to you when I grow tired of you or when you annoy me. Go away, or I may do it now.”

Her frown was back. “I am sorry,” she said. “I am so sorry to have ripped open such a deep wound. But you must tell me.”

“Why?” he asked. “You are determined not to marry me, it seems. And even if you change your mind, you have no business prying into my first marriage. I do not pry into yours.”

“How can I believe you killed her,” she asked, “when you did not hang or even spend time in prison?”

“It was ruled an accident,” he said. “A tragic accident. Leave it alone, Viola. I will not speak of it. Ever. As for now, you tired of me in Devonshire before I had quite tired of you. You did not want to be saved from scandal when we got back to the cottage. You would have preferred to brazen the situation out rather than betroth yourself to me. You have not changed your mind since then. You made that perfectly clear last night. So. Make the announcement today, tomorrow, whenever you choose. I will not try to stop you.”

It was one hell of a time to realize that his heart would be broken, that it probably already was. When had he suddenly acquired a heart? Perhaps she had not really meant her dismissal of him; perhaps she did not resent their betrothal as much as she said she did; perhaps . . .

Perhaps nothing. She had made herself perfectly clear.

He could only make an ass of himself by telling her now that he had not got over her at all, that he did not believe he ever would. He could only make a nuisance of himself by begging her to marry him anyway. Though he knew that for the sake of his children and her own he would keep pressing her to do just that.

Good God! He had just told her he killed Adeline. Which he had done.

“You will be glad,” she said. “You do not want to marry me, Marcel. It was never part of our plan. Very far from it.”

“A thousand miles from it,” he agreed. “But we are in the devil of a coil, Viola. My sister is arriving this afternoon, along with all your family. A big party is imminent. Our children appear to like one another.”

They both turned their heads to watch the three young people make their way back about the lake in the direction of the main house. Bertrand was in the middle, Estelle on one arm, Abigail on the other.

“So,” she said, “we take the easy way out and celebrate our betrothal here. And at Christmas we take the easy way out and celebrate our wedding. And then we face the rest of our lives.”

“You make it sound like a bleak prospect,” he said.

They looked at each other, and their eyes held.

“I cannot face another marriage that might be anything like my first nonmarriage, Marcel,” she said.

He winced inwardly but said nothing.

“And you—” she said, and circled the air with one hand, in search of words that would not come.

“And I am an incurable libertine,” he said.

“Well.” She frowned once more. “Aren’t you?”

“Except when I am married,” he said, “as I pointed out earlier. But I have not been married for a long, long time, and during that time I have indeed been a libertine. I daresay you are right, Viola. I daresay I am incurable.”

But he felt hurt. He wanted to beg and protest and justify. He wanted to . . .

She did not want him. She had enjoyed their idyll and had tired of it and wanted to go home. Just as he ought to have done.

Damn him for a fool for having sent his brother home in his carriage instead of going with him and forgetting the former Countess of Riverdale.