Читать книгу Regency Rogues and Rakes - Anna Campbell - Страница 25

If, some years ago, our neighbours in sneer, called us a nation of shopkeepers, we think that they must now give us the credit of being shopkeepers of taste: we apprehend, no place in the world affords so great a variety of elegant amusement to the eye, as London in its various shops.

The Book of English Trades, and Library of the Useful Arts, 1818

Eight o’clock, Saturday morning

Despite having gone to bed only a short time before, Sophy hurried in to breakfast only minutes after her sisters. She had a copy of the latest edition of Foxe’s Morning Spectacle in her hand, and she was grinning.

“I told you I did it,” she said. “Column inch after column inch, all about the gown Lady Clara Fairfax—or ‘Lady C’ as Foxe so delicately puts it—wore to the Brownlows’ ball.” She sat down and read aloud, “‘A white satin or poult de soie under-dress, a low corsage, the front square.’”

Marcelline paused, her coffee cup halfway to her lips. She needed coffee. She hadn’t slept. “Clearly you gave Tom Foxe what he wanted.”

“And he gave me columns of space,” Sophy said triumphantly.

Leonie snatched the paper from her. “Let me see. ‘Open robe of rose noisette crepe…corsage…descends in longitudinal folds on each side.’” She looked at Marcelline. “It goes on and on, like a fashion plate description. Down to the shoes. Good grief, what on earth did you do for him, Sophy? No, never mind. It’s none of our business.”

“I told you I’d take care of everything,” Sophy said. “Never mind the rest of the description. You know what she was wearing.” She pointed. “Start there.”

Leonie read, “‘The reader will wonder at our entering into minute detail regarding the fair attendee’s attire. But no lesser tribute, we feel, would suffice for a dress that inspired its wearer not only with the confidence to decline the addresses of a duke but with the fire of poetry, for no lesser description could properly characterize the speech with which she so unequivocally rejected his offer of matrimony.’”

Thence followed Lady Clara’s rejection speech. In this context it read like a scene from one of Lady Morgan’s novels.

Marcelline put down her coffee cup and rubbed her head. “He’s the Duke of Clevedon. She loves him. He’s the world’s foremost seducer of women—and he botched it. Well, goodbye Duchess of Clevedon.”

“Goodbye to the duchess, perhaps,” Sophy said. “It may take him a while to find another. But look on the bright side. Lady Clara will come back to Maison Noirot. She understands what we do for her. You read what she said to him. ‘I’m different.’”

“Her friends will come, too,” Leonie said. “Every woman who was at that ball will want to see the creations that could give a woman confidence enough to reject a duke. Sophy, my love, you’ve outdone yourself.”

“Leonie’s right,” Marcelline said. “Excellent work, love. Brilliant, actually. I would have stood there with my mouth hanging open and my mind completely blank. But you saw how to turn it to account, as you always do.”

“Your mind never goes blank,” Sophy said. “We’ve all mastered the art of quick thinking. And this was the easiest thing in the world. But now we’ve got to give them something to see. What dress shall we put out?”

“Leave it to me and Marcelline,” Leonie said. “You need to get more rest. The ton will be all atwitter about last night, and the other scandal sheets will rush to copy this piece. It’ll be all over London by afternoon. It’s going to be a busy day, and you’ve had only a few hours’ sleep.”

Marcelline had had no sleep, but they didn’t need to know that. She’d been lying awake in her bed, reminding herself she’d done the right thing, the only thing. If there had been an alternative, she would have jumped at it. But there wasn’t: She and her sisters had devoted themselves to winning Lady Clara’s loyalty. They’d given their utmost to make more of her than she realized she was.

Clevedon had to marry her. That was the whole point.

That was why Marcelline had pursued him in Paris, mad scheme that it was. The Duchess of Clevedon was their direct route to success. She’d end Dowdy’s dominance. Then the perverse incompetent who called herself a dressmaker would no longer have the power to undermine them.

That was the plan. The Duchess of Clevedon had been the main objective.

Lady Clara was not going to be the Duchess of Clevedon—not after that speech, in front of an audience. But Sophy had rescued them, which meant that the essential plan, of dominating London’s dressmaking trade, remained.

Marcelline’s feelings didn’t come into it. Her feelings were her problem.

Sophy, on the other hand, had spent the night on her feet, working, after a long day in the shop spent mainly on her feet, working.

“I’ll admit I met with a bit more excitement than I’d expected,” Sophy said. “I told you I’d maneuvered to a prime position near the French windows, where I could hear every word. No one noticed me. No one notices servants. Then, when I was coming away, I ran into Lord Longmore.”

Both Marcelline and Leonie looked at her, eyebrows aloft.

“Not literally,” Sophy said. “But there he was. I expected he’d look right through me and continue on his way the way they all do, as though nobody was there. Servants, like shopkeepers, are nobody, after all. But he stopped dead and said, ‘What are you doing here?’ You could have knocked me over with a feather, but I never blinked. ‘Working, sir,’ said I in my best maidservant voice—you know, the one with the hint of the Lancashire country girl. ‘What, did they turn you off from the shop?’ said he. ‘What shop?’ said I. And then, as deferential as you please, I suggested he’d mixed me up with another girl. But he wasn’t having any of it. He gave me a hard look, and I was sure he’d keep at the interrogation, and give me away, but then his mother started shrieking, and he rolled his eyes and went that way.”

“You’d better watch out for him,” Marcelline said sharply. “He’s not the fool he makes out to be, and the last thing we need is another one of us getting mixed up with an aristocrat.”

“I don’t think he wants to get mixed up with me,” Sophy said. “I think he wishes us all at the devil. I think he may even believe we are the devil.”

“Let’s hope the ladies of the beau monde don’t feel the same way,” Leonie said.

“They won’t,” Sophy said. She got up and started for the door. “I believe I will go back to bed. But don’t let me sleep for too long. I don’t want to miss the fun. Oh, and if I were you, I’d put out the grey dress.”

Downes’s shop, later that same day

Mrs. Downes grimly regarded the dress lying on the counter. “How many does this make?” she asked her forewoman Oakes.

“Six,” said Oakes.

“Lady Gorrell threw it at me,” said Mrs. Downes.

“Shocking, madam.” Oakes, who’d witnessed the event, wasn’t at all shocked. Had she been the one to learn she’d paid a premium price for a dress exactly like one her friends had seen at Covent Garden Theater last year, she’d have reacted the same way.

Oakes had warned her employer. The sleeves, she’d pointed out when she saw the patterns—allegedly sent by Madam’s associate in Paris—were in last years’ style. Mrs. Downes had assumed either that Oakes was an idiot or her customers wouldn’t notice. Many of them, accustomed to trusting her implicitly, didn’t. At first. But they were quickly set straight.

Only one dressmaker in London made such memorable attire for ladies, and that dressmaker was not Mrs. Downes. Her customers’ eyes were soon opened by their more observant friends and relatives, who recalled seeing such and such a dress at a banquet, the theater, Hyde Park, and so on. Of a dozen orders so far, six owners had returned their purchases, furious about having paid high sums for not merely copies, but copies of last years’ fashion. Mrs. Downes had been hoaxed, beyond a doubt, beautifully hoaxed.

Oakes wondered how much her employer had paid for old patterns, and how many customers she’d lose as word got about.

It was time, the forewoman thought, to find a new position.

As Clevedon had expected, the shop was mobbed that day.

He passed it on his way to White’s Club and again on his way to the boot makers, the hat makers, the wine merchant, and others. He’d shopped for things he didn’t need, simply to keep in St. James’s Street. He was waiting for Maison Noirot’s eager throngs to melt away.

He’d read the Morning Spectacle, as had most of the Beau Monde, apparently. He wasn’t amazed at Foxe’s having got hold of the story. The man was noted for that. The detail was another matter. Clearly, Foxe had planted a spy in their midst.

The spy could be none other than Miss Sophia. The story—entirely about the dress, lovingly described, with the dressmaking establishment prominently mentioned—was in her dramatic style. To have done all that in time for today’s edition, she had to have been on the spot.

That, actually, was a relief.

His one great worry was that last night’s debacle would mark the end of Maison Noirot. The ton would blame Mrs. Noirot for leading him astray, and they’d shun her, as she’d warned him time and again. Clara would never return to the shop, and Mrs. Noirot would be marked down as a temptress and a harlot. Henceforth the ladies would have nothing to do with her.

But the ladies came today in an endless parade, stepping down from their carriages and peeping into the shop windows before going in. At this rate, they’d wear out the shop bell.

…a dress that inspired its wearer not only with the confidence to decline the addresses of a duke but with the fire of poetry…

The impudence of it passed all bounds.

Typical. The impudence of those Noirot women was beyond anything. And like all else they did, the article was well done, indeed. He would have liked to hug Sophia for it, but Sophia wasn’t the first person on his mind.

It wasn’t Sophia who’d kept him awake all night.

It wasn’t Sophia who’d got him up to pace and argue with himself. A futile argument.

From the time he’d escaped the party, from the time he’d stood on the pavement and realized why he was shaking, he’d seen there was only one way to put an end to this farce.

And so he waited until the afternoon waned and the ladies had gone home to dress for the ritual promenade in Hyde Park.

Then he crossed to the other side of St. James’s Street and entered Maison Noirot.

The shop bell tinkled, and Marcelline thought, Will they never go home?

She was happy, of course. This had been a day like no other—not even the day after she’d returned from Paris and the ladies had come to stare at the poussière dress. Today, though, herds of women had come. Their old shop could never have contained them all. As it was, she needed to find at least six more seamstresses in no time at all, otherwise they would never complete all the orders by the dates promised.

All this went through her head in the instant before she lifted her gaze from the tray of ribbons she was sorting, and looked toward the door.

Her heart beat painfully.

The gentleman stepped inside, and stopped and looked about. He did it exactly in the way all gentleman did when entering a shop for the first time: gazing coolly about them, evaluating what they saw, deciding whether it was worth their notice, and taking no notice of the lowly shopkeeper behind the counter.

But this wasn’t the first time he’d been here and this wasn’t any gentleman.

This was Clevedon, tall and arrogant, his hat tipped precisely so, his black hair curling under the brim. He carried a gold-tipped walking stick, and as he paused to examine the shop, he set both hands on it. His tan gloves fit like skin. She could see the outlines of his knuckles.

His hands, his hands.

She remembered his hand stroking down her back. Cupping her face. Sliding over her breast. Gliding between her legs.

Had this been any other gentleman, any shopkeeper would have stepped out from behind the counter, prepared to give him personal and exclusive attention.

She stayed where she was, bracing her hands on the counter. “Good afternoon, your grace,” she said.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Noirot.” He took off his hat and bowed.

She dipped a quick curtsey.

He set his hat on a chair, then walked to the mannequin and inspected her dress.

It was a dark grey tulle, a color called “London Smoke,” which the lavish pink satin bodice trim set off beautifully. Richly embroidered roses and twining leaves adorned the skirt.

“That looks very…French,” he said.

“I always dress the mannequin more dashingly and flamboyantly than I would dress my customers,” she said. “After seeing what the mannequin is wearing, they’re less likely to become hysterical when I propose something rather more exciting than they’re accustomed to.”

He smiled a little and came to the counter. “How fitting,” he said. “You are something rather more exciting than some of us are accustomed to.”

“Not some,” she said. “All of you. Maison Noirot is not the usual thing.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “I was glad to see that Miss Sophia turned last night’s debacle to good account. But of course, I should have expected no less.”

“I expected a good deal more from you,” Marcelline said. “You bungled it.”

“Yes,” he said. “What else could I do? I was asking the wrong woman to marry me.”

Her heart seemed to stop beating altogether. She felt dizzy.

He moved to the door and turned the sign to Closed.

“We are not closed,” she said. Her voice seemed to come from miles away.

“You’ve had enough business for one day,” he said.

“You do not determine how much business is enough,” she said.

He came back to the counter. “Come out from behind there,” he said.

“Absolutely not.”

He smiled. That was all he did. But to say smile conveyed nothing. Anybody could smile. What he did—only Sophy could have words for it.

His beautiful mouth turned up, a little crookedly, and his green eyes regarded her with an amused affection that went straight to her pounding heart, and left her disarmed and weak and wanting.

“I need all the customers I can get,” she said. “I’m not at all sure that Lady Clara will return—”

“You know she will. For more dresses to give her the strength to contend with stupid men.”

“—and since there’s to be no Duchess of Clevedon in the immediate future, I’ll have to make up for it with lesser mortals.”

“I was thinking,” he said, “that you ought to be the Duchess of Clevedon.”

She stood for a moment, speechless for once in her life, though she’d sensed trouble coming. Even so, as fine-tuned as her instincts were, she couldn’t take it in. She thought her ears must be playing tricks. Or he was playing tricks.

She was tired. It had been a long, very busy day, after a sleepless, wretched night—after hearing the news from Sophy and not knowing whether to laugh with relief or weep with despair, for all her plans and all she’d borne. All for nothing. She’d done her best, and she’d paid a price higher than she’d ever imagined. Then, when Sophy came home and told them what had happened, Marcelline had looked around at all her hopes and dreams for their future, smashed to pieces.

She took a steadying breath. Breathing wasn’t enough. She needed to sit down. She needed a strong drink.

She said, “Have you lost your mind?”

He said, “I don’t know about my mind. My heart, yes.”

She scrambled for her wits. “I know what this is. You had a shock to your sensibilities. There was that beautiful girl, the one you’ve loved all your life—”

“Like a sister. She was right. You were right.”

“You’re still in shock,” she said. “Angry, I dare say. She humiliated you. In front of everybody. People applauded her, I understand.”

“Did Miss Sophia tell you that? I deduced, from today’s Morning Spectacle, that she’d been there. Her style is unmistakable.”

She couldn’t let him distract her. “The point is, you’re striking back.”

“At Clara? Don’t be absurd. She was absolutely right. she knew my heart wasn’t in it. She knew I was acting. I followed your instructions to the letter. Exactly as one follows instructions. That isn’t how it ought to be. It ought to happen of itself, because nothing else is bearable.”

“Stop,” she said. “Stop right now.” She needed to run far away, the way her forebears ran from difficulties. She needed to run because with every fiber of her being she longed to say yes. And that was a quick route to self-destruction.

“When I left that party, I was shaking,” he said. He looked down at his hands, at the beautiful tan gloves. He set them on the counter. Her hands, still braced on the counter, were not so very far away. She had only to reach a very little way to touch him. She kept her hands where they were.

“I realized it was because I’d been on the brink of the worst mistake of my life,” he said. “A mistake that would have ruined two lives. I realized that Clara had spared me. She’d saved us both. She was right. I could never be the husband she deserves. For me there can’t be anyone but you.”

Don’t do this don’t do this don’t do this.

There was a weight on her chest. It hurt to breathe. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said.

“Listen to me,” he said.

“No, because you’re not thinking.”

“I’ve done nothing but think,” he said. “Last night, all this day, while I wandered up and down St. James’s Street, waiting for the mobs to leave, so that I could talk to you. I’ve had plenty of time for second thoughts, and I haven’t any. The opposite, in fact. The more time I’ve had, the surer I’ve felt. I love you, Marcelline.” He paused. “You said you loved me.”

He wasn’t going to stop. He wasn’t going to give up. He was obstinate. Hadn’t she already learned that, over and over again? When he wanted something, he went after it, single-mindedly, and he was not over-scrupulous in his methods.

He was like her, in other words.

The irony was too rich.

She slid her hands from the counter and folded her arms, protecting herself. “I told you that doesn’t matter,” she said. “You can’t marry me. I’m a shopkeeper. You can’t marry a shopkeeper.”

“Noblemen have married courtesans,” he said. “They’ve married their housekeepers and their dairymaids.”

“And it never turns out well,” she said. When gentlemen married far beneath them, their wives and children paid for it. They became outcasts. They lived in limbo, unable to return to their old world and shunned in their new one. “I can’t believe you think this is sane.”

“You know it’s the only sane thing,” he said. “I love you. I want to give you everything. I want to give Lucie everything she needs—not merely dolls and fine clothes and schooling, but a father. I lost a family, and I know how precious it is. I want you and I want your family and I want to be part of your lives.”

She heard the desperation in his voice, the urgency, and she wanted to weep.

“I know the shop is your passion,” he said, “and it would kill you to give it up—but you don’t have to. I thought about that, too. In fact, I’ve been thinking about your shop for weeks.”

She didn’t doubt it. She didn’t doubt that he meant every word.

“I have ideas,” he went on eagerly. “We can do this together. Other noblemen have business interests. I can write, and I’ve the resources to create a magazine. Like La Belle Assemblée, but better. I’ve other ideas about expanding the business. You said you were the greatest modiste in the world. I can help you make all the world realize it. Marry me, Marcelline.”

It wasn’t fair.

She was a dreamer, yes. All of her kind were. They dreamed impossible dreams. Yet she and her sisters had made some of them come true.

It was a beautiful dream he offered. But he saw only the beautiful part.

“Other noblemen’s business interests have to do with property,” she said. “And great schemes. They own mines and invest in canals and the new railways. They do not open little shops and sell ladies’ apparel. The Great World will never forgive you. These aren’t the old days, Clevedon. These aren’t the days of the Prince Regent and his loose-living set. Society isn’t as tolerant as it used to be.”

“Then Society is a great bore,” he said. “I don’t care whether they approve of my going into trade. I believe in you and in what you do. I want to be part of it.”

He didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t understand what it meant to lose Society’s regard and his friends’ respect, to be barred from the world to which one ought to belong. She knew all too well.

Even if he could understand that and accept it, there remained the nasty little business of who she really was.

She had no choice. She had to be the sane one. This was one dream she couldn’t dream. He was watching her, waiting.

She unfolded her arms.

She put her hands together, like one offering a prayer, and said, “Thank you. This is kind and generous, and, truly, you do me a great honor—I know that’s what one is supposed to say, but I mean it, truly—”

“Marcelline, don’t—”

“But no, your grace, no. I can never marry you.”

She saw his face go white, and she turned away, quickly, before she could weaken. She walked to the door that led to the back rooms, and opened it, and walked through, and closed it, very, very gently, behind her.

Clevedon walked blindly from the shop, down St. James’s Street. At the bottom of the street he paused, and gazed blankly at St. James’s Palace. There was a noise in his head, a horrible noise. He was aware of misery and pain and rage and the devil knew what else. He hadn’t the wherewithal to take it apart and name its components. It was a kind of hell-brew of feelings, and it consumed him. He didn’t hear the shout. He couldn’t hear above the noise in his head.

“What the devil is wrong with you, Clevedon? I’ve been shouting myself hoarse, running down the street like a damn fool. One damn fool after another, obviously. I saw you come out of that shop, you moron.”

Clevedon turned and looked at Longmore. “I recommend you not provoke me,” he said coldly. “I’m in a mood to knock someone down, and you’ll do very well.”

“Don’t tell me,” Longmore said. “The dressmaker doesn’t want you, either. By gad, this isn’t your day, is it? Not your week, rather.”

The urge to throw Longmore against a lamp post or a fence or straight into the gutter was overpowering. The guards would probably rush out from the palace gates—and there Clevedon would be, in the newspapers again, the name on every scandalmonger’s lips.

Hell, what was one more scandal?

He dropped his walking stick and grasped Long-more by the shoulders and shoved him hard. With an oath, Longmore shoved back. “Fight me like a man, you swine,” he said. “I dare you.”

A moment later, they’d torn off their coats. In the next instant, their fists flew, as they tried, steadily and viciously, to pummel each other to death.

Marcelline sent Sophy out into the showroom to close the shop.

Though she was so tired, tired to death and heartsick, she knew better than to go to bed. Lucie would think she was ill, and she’d get panicky—and very possibly do something rash again.

In any case, Marcelline knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She needed to focus on making beautiful clothes. That would calm her.

She was trying to redesign the fastening for a pelisse when Sophy came in. Leonie trailed after her. Sophy hadn’t said anything before, but she’d given Marcelline a searching look. Even wearing a card-playing face, it was hard to hide one’s emotions from one’s own kind.

The two younger sisters had come to find out the trouble and comfort her as they always did.

“What happened?” Sophy said. “What’s wrong?”

“Clevedon,” Marcelline said. She jammed her pencil into the paper. The pencil broke. “Oh, it’s ridiculous. I ought to laugh. But I can’t. You won’t believe it.”

“Of course we will,” Sophy said.

“He offered you carte blanche,” Leonie said.

“No, he asked me to marry him.”

There was a short, stunned silence.

Then, “I reckon he’s in a marrying mood,” Sophy said.

Marcelline laughed. Then she started to sob.

But before she could fall to pieces, Selina Jeffreys came to the door. “Oh, madame, I beg your pardon. But I was just out—I went to get the ribbons from Mr. Adkins down the bottom of the street—and when I came out of his shop, there were the two gentleman fighting down at the palace, and people coming out of every shop and club, and running to watch the fight.”

“Two gentlemen?” Leonie said. “Two ruffians, you mean.”

“No, Miss Leonie. It’s his grace the Duke of Clevedon and his friend, the other tall, dark gentleman.”

“Lord Longmore?” Sophy said. “He was here only a little while ago.”

“Yes, miss, that’s the one. They’re trying to kill each other, I vow! I couldn’t stand to watch—and besides, there was all sorts of men coming along to see. It wasn’t any place for a girl on her own.”

Sophy and Leonie didn’t have Jeffreys’s delicate scruples. They ran out to watch the fight. They didn’t notice that their older sister didn’t follow.

Sophy and Leonie returned not very long after they’d gone out.

Marcelline had given up trying to create something beautiful. She wasn’t in the mood. She looked in on the seamstresses, then she went upstairs and looked in on Lucie, who was reading to Susannah from one of the books Clevedon had bought.

After the visit to the nursery, Marcelline went into their sitting room and poured herself a glass of brandy.

She’d taken only a few sips before her sisters returned, looking windblown and sounding a little out of breath, but otherwise undamaged.

They poured brandy, too, and reported.

“It was delicious,” Sophy said. “They must practice at the boxing salons, because they’re very good.”

“It didn’t look like practice to me,” Leone said. “It looked like they were trying to kill each other.”

“It was wonderfully ferocious,” Sophy said. “Their hats were off, and their coats, too, and they were trampling their neckcloths. Their hair was wild and they had blood on their clothes.” She fanned herself with her hand.

“I vow, it was enough to make a girl swoon.”

“It put me in mind of the Roman mobs at the Coliseum,” Leonie said. “Half of White’s must have been there—all those fine gentlemen, and all of them shouting and betting on the outcome and egging them on.”

“Leonie’s right,” Sophy said. “It did look to be getting out of hand, and I was thinking we ought to find a safer place to watch from. But then the Earl of Hargate came out of St. James’s Palace with some other men.”

“Straight through the crowd of men he came, pushing them out of his way—and he must be sixty if he’s a day,”

Leonie said.

“But he carries himself like Zeus,” Sophy said. “And the men gave way, and he ordered his grace and his lordship to stop making damned fools of themselves.”

“They weren’t listening,” Leonie said.

“It was the bloodlust,” Sophy said. “They were like wolves.”

“None of the other men had dared to try to break it up,” Leonie said.

“But Lord Hargate waded right into the fight,” Sophy said. “And he got in the way of Longmore’s fist. But the earl dodged the blow—oh, Marcelline, I wish you’d seen it—and then he grabbed Longmore’s arm and pulled him away from Clevedon. And one of the gentleman with him—it had to be one of his sons—the same features, build, and coloring. Whichever one it was, he took hold of Clevedon.”

“And then the earl and his son dragged them away.”

“And one of the other gentlemen was threatening to read the Riot Act, and so we came away.” Sophy drank her brandy and poured some more.

“I’m sure we needn’t wonder what it was about,” Marcelline said. “Longmore avenging his sister’s honor, or some such.”

“Why should he need to?” Sophy said. “Everyone thought Lady Clara avenged her own honor very well. Anything Longmore did would be anticlimactic, don’t you think?”

“Then what provoked fisticuffs in St. James’s Street?” Leonie said.

“Don’t be thick,” Sophy said. “It’s not as though men need a sane reason. They were both in a bad mood. One of them picked a fight. And I’ll wager anything that now it’s over, they’ll be getting drunk together.”

“Why was Longmore in a bad mood, Sophy?” Marcel-line said. “You said he’d been here, after Clevedon left.”

“He came to plague me about the ball and call me a traitor for spying for Tom Foxe on his sister and friend. I pretended not to know what he was talking about. Oh, Lord.” Her pretty countenance turned repentant. “Oh, Marcelline, what horrid sisters we are. We hear of a fight, and off we go, little bloodthirsty cats, and there you are, your heart breaking—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Marcelline said. “Save the drama for the newspapers.”

“But what happened, dearest?” Sophy set down her glass and knelt by Marcelline and took her hand. “What did Clevedon say and what did you say—and why are you pretending your heart isn’t broken?”

Clevedon House

Sunday 10 May, three o’clock in the morning

The house was dark, everyone abed but one. In the library, a single candle flickered over a solitary figure in a dressing gown whose pen scratched rapidly across the paper.

The Duke of Clevedon had done his best to beat Long-more to a bloody pulp. Afterward they’d emptied one bottle after another. Yet he’d come home all too sober. It seemed there wasn’t enough drink in all the world to dull the ache in his heart or quiet his conscience and let him sleep.

Nothing to be done about the heartache but endure.

His conscience was another matter.

It drove him to the library. Then, even before he took up his pen to write to Clara, he knew how it must begin:

Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments, or renewal of those offers, which were last night so disgusting to you.

It was the start of Mr. Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, Clara’s favorite novel. He could easily imagine her reluctant smile when she read it. He continued in his own words:

I was wrong to make an offer, and you were right in all you said, but you said not half enough. Our listeners should have heard the thousand ways I’ve taken you for granted and tried your good nature and the ways I’ve thought only of myself and never of you. You’ve been true to me for all the time I’ve known you, and for all that time I, too, have been true only to me. When you were grieving for the grandmother I knew you dearly loved, I abandoned you to jaunt about the Continent. I expected you to wait for me, and you did. How, then, did I return your patience and loyalty? I was neglectful, insensitive, and false.

He wrote on, of the many ways he’d wronged her. She’d brought joy and light into his life when he was a lonely, heartbroken boy. Her letters had brightened his days. She was dear to him, and always would be, but they were friends and no more. Surely he’d known in his heart this wasn’t enough for marriage, but it was the easy way and he took it. He’d been false to her and false to himself, because he’d been a coward, afraid to risk his heart.

He acknowledged all his thoughtless and unkind acts, and concluded:

I’m sorry, my dear, so deeply sorry. I hope in time you’ll forgive me—though I can’t at the moment suggest a reason to do so. With all my heart I wish you the happiness I ought to have been able to give you and a hundred times more.

He wrote his usual affectionate closing, and signed with his initial, as he always did.

He folded up the letter, addressed it, and left it in the tray for the servant to take out with the morning mail.

Then, only the heartache remained.