Only Enchanting by Mary Balogh

17

Flavian had called at Sir Winston Frome’s town house at Portman Place the afternoon before. The Fromes were his neighbors in Sussex, after all, and if he intended to spend time at his country home in future, as he surely must now that he was married, then he would inevitably meet them socially there. It would be as well to dispel any awkwardness caused by their last meeting.

If it could be dispelled.

And if Velma was going to be living with them again, as it appeared she was, then he would have to meet her again too—in the country as well as here in London. There could be no avoiding her forever. Len’s home had been in Northumberland, and he and she had stayed in the north of England after their marriage, where Flavian was unlikely to run into either of them ever again.

It was too bad Len had died.

Good God, it was too bad he had died.

They had met as young boys at Eton. Each had blackened an eye of the other when they came to fisticuffs the very first day. They had both had their backsides caned as a result, and they had been firm, almost inseparable friends thereafter. Len had even spent most of his school holidays at Candlebury, Northumberland being too far away for short visits. They had purchased their commissions at the same time and in the same regiment. Len had sold out six months before Flavian was wounded and sent home. Len had returned home on the death of his uncle and the acquisition of his title, as Flavian had not done on the acquisition of his. In retrospect, their differing reactions to the new responsibilities their titles brought was perhaps the first small herald of the rift that came between them.

They would never see each other again now, never talk things through, never. . . . Well, there was no point in dwelling upon such thoughts. They were stranded on the opposite sides of death, at least for now, and that was all there was to it.

Flavian went to call upon the Fromes, well aware that perhaps his real purpose in going so soon and in going alone was to see Velma again, to try to sort something out in his mind, to try to put a tangled multitude of baggage behind him.

For a headache threatened whenever his mind touched upon that baggage. And that sense of panic he could never quite account for.

What there was to be sorted he did not quite know. She had broken off their engagement and married Len, and now, when she was free again, he had married. He was safe from any renewed matchmaking schemes of their combined families. And they would have been renewed. Why else had Velma and her parents been awaiting his arrival at Arnott House a few days ago? Just as if the marriage of his betrothed and his best friend had been a minor irritant of a delay in their nuptials.

He was still not sure exactly how he had he felt when he walked into his own drawing room to find her coming toward him, a look of glad welcome on her face. It did not matter how he had felt. He was married to Agnes. But what if he really had married her, as his mother and sister had accused him of doing, to punish Velma? And himself. What sort of a blackguard would that make him in regard to Agnes?

He needed to work out some answers. And so he went calling—alone.

There were only ladies present when he was shown into the drawing room—Lady Frome and Velma, two sisters, Mrs. Kress and Miss Hawkins, and a young child clad in her frilly best to be shown off to the visitors. She was dainty and blond and pretty, with a strong resemblance to Velma at that age, and also a disturbing resemblance to Len.

The other two visitors took their leave almost immediately, and the little girl was instructed to make her curtsy to Lord Ponsonby before her nurse took her away. Then Frome himself wandered into the room and inclined his head frostily to Flavian.

There was a sudden sag in the conversation, which had centered about the child for a few minutes.

“I a-am sorry,” Flavian said, addressing himself to Velma, “about L-Len, I mean. I really o-ought to have written. It was b-bad of me not to.”

Had he already said this a few days ago?

She smiled at him, her eyes filling with tears. “Almost his last thoughts were of you, Flavian,” she said. “He never forgave himself, you know. It seemed the right thing to do at the time. We both thought it was something you would like us to do, and Mama and Papa and even your mother agreed. We did not believe . . . Well, your physician held out no hope for your recovery. But Leonard felt wretched from the first moment of our marriage until he drew his last breath. He believed he had betrayed you. We were a comfort to each other, but when we heard that you were recovering after all . . . Well, it was dreadful—for us. And wonderful for you. Leonard was so very happy for you. We both were. But . . . we had made a tragic mistake.”

Flavian had forgotten how soft and sweet her voice was. It wrapped about his senses, as it always had.

Len had never written to him. Perhaps he had found it as difficult to put pen to paper as Flavian had after Len’s death. He wondered how much his friend had been to blame for that marriage, and his mind blinked, as it had an annoying habit of doing from time to time, and then shut down again. There was the faint stabbing of pain above one eyebrow.

“You must not upset yourself, Velma,” Lady Frome said as her daughter raised a lace-edged handkerchief to her eyes and blotted away tears.

“It was Leonard’s dearest wish as he lay on his deathbed,” Velma said, lowering the handkerchief again, “that you would forgive me, Flavian, and that you and I would . . .”

She bit her soft lower lip.

“There is n-nothing to f-forgive,” Flavian said.

“Ah,” she said with a sigh, “but obviously there is, or you would not have punished me so cruelly. It is cruel, you know, and perhaps to more than just me. Poor Lady Ponsonby. She does not know, I suppose? Who is she?”

“She is the daughter of a Mr. D-Debbins from Lancashire,” he said, “and the widow of a Mr. Keeping of the same county. And she is my wife.”

“Yes.” Velma smiled again and put her handkerchief away. “And I wish her well, Flavian. And you. I ought to bear a grudge, perhaps, but that would be unfair of me. I hurt you badly once, though that was never my intention.”

Frome stood at the window, his back to the room, his hands clasped behind him, his stance rigid.

“And I expect you will have a happy future, Lord Ponsonby,” Lady Frome said, “now that you are well again and now that you are settling down.”

Flavian had always liked her. She was a comfortable, amiable lady whom Sir Winston had married, or so it was rumored, because her father’s fortune had rescued him from the considerable financial embarrassment his love of the card tables was forever bringing upon him.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

Sir Winston turned from the window and looked steadily at him but said nothing. He was less forgiving of the slight against his family and his daughter, his expression seemed to say.

Flavian took his leave, not sure whether his visit had cleared the air or made matters worse. But it had gone better than he had feared. Although Velma had all but admitted being disappointed, she had behaved with dignity and some generosity of spirit toward Agnes. Perhaps there would be peace after all between Candlebury and Farthings.

What he ought to do now, he thought, was go home in the hope that Agnes was back from her day of shopping, and tell her everything. Get it all off his chest and convince her once and for all that he had married her because he had wished to do so. She would probably not be back yet, though, not if he knew his mother and Marianne, and he could not bear the thought of being at home and pacing the floor, waiting for them to return.

He headed off for White’s instead to fill in an hour or two in congenial male company.

By the time he arrived home later, just in time to dress for dinner, he had changed his mind. Telling Agnes everything would surely be quite the wrong thing to do. How would he ever convince her that his hasty marriage proposal to her and his impulsive dash off to London to procure a special license had had nothing to do with any need to punish Velma? He did not even know himself what his motive had been.

The last thing in the world he wanted to do was hurt Agnes.

The very last thing.

He ended up not telling her anything about his afternoon—not even that he had called upon his neighbors, the Fromes.

*   *   *

By the time Agnes arrived home from the library, two of the dresses she had purchased from Madame Martin had been delivered. They had been ready-made items, both of them evening gowns, and had needed only minor alterations. They were also, fortunately, up to Madeline’s exacting standards.

Agnes was ready to face the world, then, her mother-in-law declared, even if only in a minor way. They would have Flavian escort them to the theater that very evening after dinner. It would not be packed with many of the people who really mattered, of course, the ton not having returned to town in any great numbers yet, but it would be a start. And perhaps a wise start. Agnes would be able to ease her way gradually into society instead of being overwhelmed by it at her presentation ball.

Agnes felt more like crawling into her bed and drawing the curtains tight about it. But since that was impossible, an outing seemed preferable to an evening spent at home with only her husband and her mother-in-law for company.

She could not get Lady Hazeltine’s lovely face out of her mind—or her sweet, light voice telling Agnes that she ought to have waited for her only true love.

Agnes did not say much at dinner, but allowed Flavian and her mother-in-law to carry the conversation. She did not say much in the carriage or at the theater either. Fortunately there was a play to be watched—with great attention, though she would not have been able to say afterward what it was about. And during the intermission there were people to be met and greeted and conversed with—Marianne and Lord Shields and a few acquaintances of the dowager’s and Flavian’s.

It was a pity her mind was so preoccupied, she thought a few times in the course of the evening. She should have been overwhelmed by her first visit to a theater, by the splendor of her surroundings and by the excellence of the acting, as well as by the pleasure of wearing a new and flattering evening gown and of knowing that her hair looked elegant and becoming.

It was one of the worst evenings she could remember.

She waited for Flavian when the evening was over, standing at the window of her bedchamber and staring down on the square. There were still lights in several of the other houses. A carriage was drawn up outside the house next door. She could hear the distant sound of voices and laughter.

And then the voices were silent, and the carriage was gone, and most of the lights had been extinguished, and she realized she had been standing there for a long time. She shivered and realized that the air was chilly. She had not put a dressing gown on over her nightgown.

She went to fetch one from her dressing room. She looked at the bed on her return. Was he asleep in his own room? Were they to sleep apart for the first time since their wedding? And was that only a week ago?

Had he even come up to bed? She had not heard him.

She picked up the single candle that still burned on her dressing table and went back downstairs. He was not in the drawing room. She found him in the book room, which was lit only by the fire that burned low in the hearth.

He looked up when she came in, and smiled his hooded smile.

“Sleeping Beauty s-sleepwalking?” he asked.

She set her candlestick on the mantel and stared down into the fire for a few moments. She had not realized just how chilled she was.

“Tell me about the Countess of Hazeltine,” she said.

“Ah,” he said softly. “I w-wondered if that was it.”

She turned to look at him. He was sprawled in his chair, his neck cloth and cravat discarded, his shirt open at the neck. His golden hair looked as if he had passed his fingers through it one too many times. There was an empty glass on the table beside him, though he did not look drunk.

“I met her at Hookham’s Library this afternoon,” she said.

“Ah.”

“You called upon her yesterday.”

“Her and Sir Winston and Lady Frome.”

She waited for more, but more did not come.

“She had an unhappy marriage,” Agnes said. “She told me she ought to have waited to see what would happen with her first and only true love—her words. I thought she meant your brother. I thought perhaps she had loved him after all.”

“Ah,” he said again.

“Is that all you can say?” she asked him.

He heaved an audible breath, held it for a long moment, and exhaled it on a sigh. “She was sowing m-mischief,” he said. “I wondered if she would.”

Agnes wrapped her dressing gown more closely about her and sat down on a chair some distance from his. In the flickering light of the candle and the dying fire, he looked almost satanic. His head was against the chair back.

“We grew up together,” he said. “When we were both fifteen, we f-fell h-head over ears in l-love with each other. I was home from school for the summer. We saw ourselves as t-tragic figures, though, for she had always been intended for D-David and still was. He was nineteen by that time and p-painfully in love with her. Painful because he was thin and a b-bit undergrown and not at all robust, while she was already b-beautiful. She knew her duty, though, and I loved my brother. We renounced each other, V-Velma and I, thinking our love the stuff of legend. After that, we tried to stay away from each other. But David guessed. When she turned eighteen and they were to be officially b-betrothed at last, he surprised everyone and r-refused to do it. He set her free. It broke his heart.”

Flavian’s eyes were closed, and he was frowning and rubbing the side of a tight fist back and forth across his forehead as though to erase the memories.

Agnes stared at him, her heart turned to stone. Though stone did not ache unbearably, did it?

“Then they all w-wanted me to marry her,” he said, “because it was obvious I was going to be Ponsonby sooner rather than later. They were overjoyed about it, actually. They d-did not even try to get David to change his m-mind. And they did not even want to w-wait for him to d-die first. I was eighteen too. I was old enough at least to be betrothed, even if not married. I wouldn’t do it. I w-wouldn’t. I m-made David purchase me a commission instead and went off to war. I suppose I thought myself one d-devil of a noble fellow.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her then. He laughed softly and closed them again when she said nothing.

“Every time my mother wrote, it was to say David was w-weakening,” he said. “Finally, when it was clear he was d-d-dying, I took leave and c-came home to see him. I spent most of my time with him at Candlebury. I was going to stay home until he died. I r-remember that. Velma was in London—it was the Season. And then she was back home. I think she must have come because of David. But I saw her again, and I—”

He was frowning and rubbing his forehead again. Then he used the same fist to pound on the arm of his chair over and over again until he stopped and spread his hand over it, palm down.

“I can’t remember. I can’t bloody remember. Oh, dash it all, Agnes, forgive me. But I can’t remember. David was d-dying, and I thought I would die too, and yet suddenly I was in love with Velma again, and our engagement was being announced, and a big betrothal ball had been planned in London for the day before I was scheduled to return to the P-Peninsula. My mother and sister were ecstatic. So were the Fromes. I think—yes, I think they w-wanted it to happen before David died, so that the mourning period would not delay it. I suppose I wanted it too. I w-wasn’t going to leave David at all, but I ended up going to London and dancing at my b-betrothal ball, and setting off back to the Peninsula the very next day. The n-night I sailed, David d-died.”

Agnes had one hand over her mouth. Surely, oh, surely there was more to the story than that. It made no real sense. But he could not remember. She had come down here to accuse him, to force the sordid truth out of him. It was sordid indeed if it had happened as he remembered it.

“I did not even come back to England after I heard,” he said. “I stayed where I was. I did not come home until I was c-carried home. I was c-conscious, but I could not speak or f-fully understand what was happening around me or what p-people were saying. I c-could not even think c-clearly. I was d-dangerous. V-Violent. George came and g-got me eventually and took me off to C-Cornwall, where he f-found some g-good treatment for me. But j-just before I went, Velma came to t-tell me there was to be an announcement of the end of our b-betrothal in the morning papers next day, and that a few d-days later there was to be an announcement of her b-betrothal to Hazeltine. My b-best f-friend since school days. She said she was heartbroken, that they both were, but that they would f-find comfort together and w-would always love me.”

Oh.

“I understood what she s-said,” he said, “but I could not t-talk. Not even with a s-stammer. Only gibberish came out of my mouth when I tried. I was d-desperate to stop them. After she had g-gone, I destroyed the drawing room. I was d-desperate to talk to L-Len, but he did not c-come.”

“Your best friend,” Agnes said.

“They m-married each other,” he said. “She told you they were unhappy?”

“She said they lived virtually apart for the last two years of his life,” Agnes told him.

His mouth twisted with mockery, and he laughed without humor.

“I should be gloating,” he said softly. “But poor Len.”

“You knew she was back with her parents?” Agnes asked.

“My sister wrote while I was at Middlebury Park,” he said, “and then my mother. They could not call on her at Farthings fast enough.”

“Both families hoped to revive the old plan for the two of you to marry?” she said.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “The whole l-lot of them.”

“Lady Hazeltine too, I suppose,” she said. “And so you married me.”

For a moment there was a buzzing in her head, but she shook off the impulse to just faint away and so avoid facing the truth. It must be faced sooner or later.

He did not rush into denial—or confirmation. He turned his head her way and stared at her with hooded eyes, though not with his usual lazy mask of mockery.

“I married you,” he said at last, “because I w-wanted to.”

She stared back at him for a while and laughed softly.

“What a very heartwarming declaration,” she said. “Because you wanted to. You married me, Flavian, to avenge yourself upon Lady Hazeltine and upon your families, who did not stop her from marrying your best friend. And your choice of a plain, uninteresting nobody was inspired. I can see that now. No one could fail to get the point. Least of all me.”

“You are neither plain nor uninteresting nor a nobody, Agnes,” he said.

“You are right.” She got to her feet, hugging her dressing gown about her. “I am not—except in the eyes of your mother and sister and the woman you love and her family, and that is all that really matters, is it not?”

“Agnes—” he began, but she held up a staying hand.

“I am not putting all the blame upon you,” she said. “I am to blame too. Marrying you was utter madness. I did not even know you, or you me. I knew it was madness, but I married you anyway. I allowed myself to be swept away by passion. I wanted you, and finally I persuaded myself that the wanting was enough. And then, after we were married, I convinced myself that what happened between us really was enough, when in reality it was nothing but base physical gratification, divorced from either mind or reason. I have been no better than a—a courtesan.”

“Courtesans feel no passion, Agnes,” he said. “They are too busy arousing it. Their living d-depends upon it.”

“Then I am no better than my mother,” she spat out.

She turned toward the embers of the fire again so that she would not have to look at him.

“Unlike her, you have not left me for someone else yet,” he said.

“Passion is a destroyer,” she told him. “It is the ultimate selfishness. It kills everything but itself. She left me when I was little more than a baby. Worse, she left Dora with all her hopes and dreams forever destroyed. Dora was seventeen, and she was pretty and eager and vivacious and looking forward to courtship and marriage and motherhood. Instead she was left with me. It was the lesson of a lifetime for a young child—or ought to have been. Passion was to be avoided at all costs. I chose wisely the first time I married. But at the first advent of passion into my life with you, I grabbed it without having any thought to anyone or anything else. Because I desired you in the basest physical way. And for that I do not blame you. Only for your dishonesty.”

“Agnes—” he said.

“I am going back to Inglebrook,” she said. “It will not make any difference to you. You are stuck with me for life anyway, and that will be enough to feed your revenge. You cannot also marry her unless I die. I am going back to Dora. I ought never to have left her. She deserved better of me.”

“Agnes—”

“No!” She swept around to look down at him. “No, you will not talk me out of it. When you think about it—if you ever do stop to think, that is—you will find yourself glad to have me out of your life. I have served my purpose, and I am going. Tomorrow. And you need not concern yourself. I will go on the stage. I have enough of my own money to pay for a ticket.”

Suddenly his mask was firmly in place—hooded, lazy eyes, slightly twisted mouth.

“Agnes,” he said, “you are a p-passionate woman whether you wish to be or not. And you are m-married to me whether you wish to be or not.”

“Passion,” she said, “can and ought to be controlled. And when I go home, I can forget that we are married.”

He raised one mocking eyebrow, and she wanted nothing more than to sink to her knees before the hearth and curl into a ball and sob her heart out. Or stride toward him and smack him hard across the cheek.

She had been married for revenge against the woman who had once hurt him beyond bearing.

But what about the woman who loved him?

What about her?