She watched him inhale, but she swept onward before he could say anything else. "I loved Hedley," she said. "I /adored /him, in fact. I would have died in his place if I could. But I was never /in /love with him. I was never - " She swallowed awkwardly and closed her eyes. She had never said any of this aloud before. She had tried very hard not even to think it. "I was never aroused by him. I never wanted him in /that /way. He was my dearest friend in the world." There was a horrible silence. "But he was dreadfully in love with me," she said, laboring onward. "Not because of my looks, of course. I think it must have been my cheerfulness and laughter and my willingness to be with him. He was so very ill and weak. If he had been robust and healthy, I daresay he would not have loved me at all even though he had always been my friend. He would have fallen in love with someone who was prettier." Still he said nothing, and she had stopped looking up at him. She gazed at her hands, which were now tingling with pins and needles. "You are big and strong and healthy," she said. "What happened between us was… well. I have never enjoyed anything so much in all my life.
And then afterward, when we had returned to the main house and I had learned about Crispin and realized how dreadfully unhappy Meg must be and then you were gone for the afternoon and I was alone and it was raining - well, /then /I remembered Hedley. And I remembered that I had pushed his portrait down the side of my trunk when I left Warren Hall and I went and got it. I thought of him and I mourned his early death and the fact that I had never loved him in the way he thought I did. I felt guilty for having enjoyed myself so much with you when I had never really enjoyed myself with him. And then I felt guilty for feeling guilty - for I ought not to feel guilty at enjoying myself with my new husband, ought I? Indeed, I ought to /try /to enjoy myself. And here I am getting tied up in words again just when I so much want to explain myself clearly to you." She stopped - and listened to him inhale deeply and then exhale. "I am no good at dealing with Cheltenham tragedies, I am afraid, Vanessa," he said. "I am to feel gratified, am I, that you were not in love with Dew though you loved him? There /is /a difference, I take it?
I am to be doubly gratified that you felt such eager lust for me during the three days following our marriage - such eager /satisfied /lust - that you completely forgot the man you loved, but with whom you were never /in /love?" He had succeeded in making her confession seem trivial. She had bared her soul to him, and it had left him cold.
She raised her eyes to his. He was looking steadily back. "You are /not, /it is to be hoped, in love with /me, /are you?" he asked her.
She hated him at that moment. "No, of course not," she said. "I married you in order to help my sisters gain an entrГ©e into society, just as you married me to solve the problem the three of us posed for you and to beget your heirs. But even a marriage of convenience need not be an unhappy marriage, Elliott, or a marriage in which the partners rarely speak or spend time alone together. I want us to have a workable marriage. I know you might have chosen someone far lovelier and more suitable than me if you had waited, but it was you who chose not to wait. What else was I to do when you came to offer for Meg but offer myself instead?" He regarded her with narrowed eyes. "It is probably as well that we are /not /in love with each other," she said. "Then we might not even try to be happy. We might rely upon the feeling of euphoria that being in love doubtless brings and not bother to work at building any sort of lasting and amicable relationship. But we can be happy again if we try." /"Again?" /He raised his eyebrows. "And what does this /trying /involve, Vanessa? If you expect me to bare my feelings at every turn, you are doomed to disappointment. That is something strictly for females." "Well, for a start," she said, "surely you do not need to be from home all day every day. Neither do I. Sometimes we could do something together that will bring us both pleasure." "Like going to bed?" he asked.
She would not look away from his eyes though she felt her cheeks grow hot again. "For longer than five minutes at a time?" she said. "/That /would be something. Though a workable relationship must rely upon more than just that. There is to be tomorrow night's ball, of course, but that is only /one /thing, and it is sure to be dreadfully formal. But every day there is a pile of invitations that I look through with your mother. May /we /perhaps decide together upon a few that would suit us both?" He inclined his head, though he did not say anything. "Marriage is not easy to accustom oneself to," she said. "And I think it is often worse for the man. Women are used to being dependent, to thinking of others as well as themselves. Men are not." "We are selfish bastards, then?" he asked her.
She was horribly shocked. She was not sure she had ever heard that word spoken aloud before now.
She smiled slowly. "If the cap fits…" she said.
For a moment there was a gleam in his eyes that might possibly have been amusement. "Have you seen the Towneley collection at the British Museum?" he asked her. "No," she said. "They are classical sculptures brought from the ancient world," he said. "Some ladies will not go to see them, and some men will not take them even if they wish to go. They have not been provided with clothes, you see, and are shockingly naked. They provide a marvelous glimpse into one of the world's greatest civilizations, though. Do you wish to go?" She stared at him. "Now?" "I suppose," he said, his eyes moving over her, "you will wish to have breakfast first and change into something more suitable." She jumped to her feet. "How soon do you want me to be ready?" she asked him. "In one hour's time?" he suggested. "I will be ready in fifty-five minutes," she promised, and she flashed him a bright smile before turning to hurry from the room and dash up the stairs.
She was going to go out with Elliott!
He was taking her to see the Towneley collection, whatever that was. She did not care. She would look at a field of mud if that was where he chose to take her - and delight in it too.
She paused when she was inside her dressing room and had rung for her maid.
He had asked her if she was in love with him - adding that he hoped she was not. /Was /she?
It would add an unfortunate complication to a life that was already proving difficult. /Was /she in love? With Elliott?
She could not answer the question. Or would not.
But suddenly she felt the ache of tears at the back of her throat and behind her eyes. "I have sorted through the post," George Bowen said when Elliott returned to the study. "The invitations for the ladies to look at are in this pile. The letters I can deal with myself are here. The ones that need your attention are there. The one on top - " " - will have to wait," Elliott said without glancing at the pile - or at his secretary. "I will be spending the morning with her ladyship." There was a short pause. "Ah, quite so," George said, making a great to-do of straightening the third, small pile. "I will be taking her to see the Towneley collection at the British Museum," Elliott said. Later, he wished he had not added the next words. "It is her wish that we do some things together." "Some wives are funny that way," George said as he mended a pen though there was no sign that he intended to put it to any immediate use. "Or so I have heard." "I need to go upstairs and change," Elliott said. "You do." His friend looked him critically up and down. "A suggestion, Elliott, if I may?" Elliott had already turned toward the door. He sighed and looked back over his shoulder. "I suppose the museum and the collection was your idea," George said. "And a fine one it was too. But take her to Gunter's afterward. I daresay she has never tasted an ice. It will please her. She will see it as a romantic gesture on your part." Elliott turned fully to face his secretary again. "And you are suddenly an expert in romantic gestures, George?" he asked.