I know the world would say that I should feel shame, but I do not. I never will," she vowed, slipping a tad closer to him on the settee, her voice gentle and cooey… loving! "Your wife… did she know, or…?"
"Suspected," Lewrie said with a sigh, outlining the anonymous letter and its results, despite his father's assurances back in the summer that he'd seen Alan Connor and saw no resemblance, how there were too many other affairs hinted at. Theoni nodded patiently, and sagely through it all, sipping coffee and pouring warm-ups, but with her gaze demurely averted.
Disappointed, cause she's findin ' out I'm a total rake-hell? he asked himself as he took note of her seeming discomfort; Christ, does she harbour some notion I'd leave Caroline for her, since we have that child, together, or … ?
"So… Caroline has left me, in essence," he confessed at last, feeling alien, inhuman, in that he could say it without screaming out loud in anguish. "No divorce, but…"
"Alan, you poor man! I never meant to cause you such a pain!" she vowed, shifting even closer and opening her arms into which he rather gladly sank.
"Didn't quite plan on it, myself!" he countered, trying for the light note and almost making it, though a tad shakily. "Oh, hell…"
"I must say, though," she mused as she stroked his hair, leant quite close, almost cheek to cheek, "the look she gave me, just as we were introduced, filled me with dread. If only we had taken another pathway in the park, begun our walk earlier, or…"
"Had to happen, sooner or later, I s'pose," Lewrie graveled. "I expect, did her curiosity get the better of her, she'd have called on you on her own. Just what you need, a plague of Lewries 'fronting you in the streets. My father, my bloody in-laws…!"
"Well, Alan," Theoni all but cooed, "some Lewries are more welcome than others. I was quite surprised by your father's arrival. A very droll old gentleman."
"He behaved himself, then?" Lewrie just had to ask; he knew his father too well to trust him around any available, and handsome, lass.
"Quite well." Theoni chuckled again. "Though he does have the… jaunty? Is that the right word? The jaunty leer in his eye?"
"Aye, jaunty," Lewrie said with a wry smile. " 'Tis the tamest way for what he had in his eye to be said in polite company."
"Imagine my surprise when he did call," Theoni said, sitting up and reaching for her cup once more. "Mobley announced a General Lewrie, and I thought he had gotten it wrong… that it was you! He told me about that letter. He apologised for intruding, for… probing about at your wife's request. Barging in upon a total stranger." "What'd you tell him, then?"
"The truth," she said, bald-faced. "Though elderly, he is far too cynical to accept lies. He winced at that. Screwed up his face. But he nodded… as if he understood."
She heaved a wry little laugh, a hitching of her shoulders. "I expect that he left more than a few offspring in his path in his younger days," she commented.
"Me, included. I'm the only one he owned up to, and took as his own. Not as a Willoughby, though. Trust me, 'tis a long, sad story, and there was a pot of money involved."
"He is wealthy, now?" Theoni suddenly asked. "Aye, he is," Lewrie answered, suddenly on his guard, suddenly feeling a sinking in his innards. Of jealousy? he wondered. "Some."
"Then the world is no longer at risk," Theoni said, laughing at that news. "Well-fed sharks do not bite, usually. He might even turn mellow… into a safe supper guest who doesn't have to sing." Lewrie burst into a side-aching peal of laughter. "Oh, God! My father… safe!" He hooted. "He'd steal the coins from his own eyes on his deathbed… and pinch the chambermaid with the winding sheet!"
"Then I see where you got your spirit." Theoni tittered. "Aye… blood will tell, they say," Lewrie replied, sobering, recalling just where, and how, that adage had most recently been used. "So what will you do now?" Theoni enquired. "God knows," Lewrie said with a frown, slouching back into the settee. "Saw my solicitor, made some arrangements… safeguarded some funds and such… Most like, it's back down to Sheerness for me, to put Proteus back in the water and toddle off to sea. What I'm good at. Where I don't get in much trouble. Mostly."
"But that was where you got in trouble with me, Alan," Theoni pointed out with a becoming smirk. "At sea."
"Aye, it was," he agreed, enfired by the look in her eyes, as if she wouldn't mind a tad more "trouble," should he dare risk it. All of a sudden, the tension between them became as palpable, and as visible, as St. Elmo's Fire surging in the top-masts of a storm-cast ship!
"I… uh," he croaked, groping for lucidity. "I'd best…"
"How to say this?" she puzzled aloud, frowning. "Though I wish you no pain in your life, Alan… and I certainly do not wish to complicate things even worse than they are, I will never regret being your lover… even for such a short but blissful time. I will never regret having your son. I feel… blessed! He will be the part of you that I will have, always. All the part of you that I expected to have in this life, knowing that your wife… but now?"
"Theoni, I…" Lewrie croaked again, sure now that coming was a bad idea, that yawning before him was a gaping abyss that could sear his soul in Hellfire, should he abandon all his vows, his…
"I told your father the truth when he came, as I said," Theoni continued, sliding close once more and gazing at him with such an open and frank expression. "I told him that I loved you, Alan. That when I married my late husband, it was arranged… for the business. After a time, I came to love him, I was comfortable and content, and I had Michael, but… that's why I asked you to come call upon me today. To tell you that whatever happens, I am sorry for causing any rift. I did not pray that you and your wife would part, and that I do regret, now that I know it.
"But I want you to know that whatever happens, should you feel free, should you truly be free," she went on, stumbling a bit, waving a hand in haste, her words tumbling together, "that I will always be here for you. Not just as a 'dear friend,' Alan, but as someone who really loves you! Who would be yours completely, but for fortune!" "Theoni…" he said with a dry gulp. "Oh, I know!" she almost whimpered, getting to her feet to dash away and hide her face with her long chestnut hair, as if ashamed of his seeming rejection. "I only make it worse! But if I wait to tell you in a letter, and you a thousand miles away at sea, you'd never see me as…!
She turned to face him, though with eyes downcast at the floor, arms crossed tight below her bodice. Her eyes were wet with tears!
"If you ever come to me, no matter what your English Society has to say about it… about us," she vowed, chin up of a sudden, proudly and almost defiantly forlorn, "I will deny you nothing. Whatever we may make of stolen time together, open time together, it makes no difference. I know I'm not English, the sort one can take into the public, I know it's brazen and sinful of me, but I cannot help that, Alan. I love you so much, I have no shame!" she vowed, her face screwing up.
He'd risen, drawn by her retreat; he stood non-plussed, short of enfolding her in comfort, or lust, or whatever it was that he felt at that moment!
"Theoni, I had no idea, I…" he stammered. Now he knew that he really should go, instanter. But he couldn't, of course.
She raised one hand to dab at her eyes, and that tore it! Lewrie stepped forward and embraced her as best he could, and her arms went about his neck, her tears and muffled sobs trickled on his neck, and their loins pressed together so fiercely; almost grinding.