In Compromise with the Earl by Ava MacAdams
Chapter Seven
In his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, Oswald began to pace the ten feet of the pagoda hard enough that he feared he might wear a rut into the floor.
Second thoughts were starting to set in, and he wondered what had possessed him to ask Aphrodite to meet him there? What was he going to do? Bare his soul and his demons to her? Tell her his vulnerabilities and his fears?
He raked a hand through his hair, and he paced. This was a mistake and as soon as Aphrodite came, he was going to apologize to her and ask her to put it behind them.
“You walk like a man possessed,” she said from behind him. The ivory gown she wore left her shoulders bare, the bodice glimmering with the subtle embroidery and the skirts flaring from a nipped-in waist. Oswald temporarily forgot to breathe.
She came closer and cocked her head. “Look at that. I’ve rendered you speechless.”
Shaking himself out of his stupor, Oswald said, “I apologize. I shouldn’t have called you here. Please go back inside.”
“No.”
He rubbed his face, “I won’t dissuade you, will I?”
“I sense you already know the answer to that,” she smiled while seating herself on one of the wooden benches. “Having second thoughts I see.”
Standing with his back on a column, he lifted a boot to it and crossed his arms. “I wonder is its right for me to tell you things that I have not even told my mother.”
Her bows rose. “If you fear that I might tell your secrets to the gossip columnists—”
“No,” he shook his head. “And you would not have to go far for that, my dear. Isn’t your bosom friend the principal of them?”
“Lady Pandora and I are not as close as you might think,” Aphrodite said, with a twist of her lips. “But we are not here to hear my story, are we?”
Before he began, he asked, “Where is your chaperone?”
“Inside, waiting on me.” Aphrodite said. “Unlike some other misses who go to the trouble of evading their companions, mine trusts me enough to know that I can handle myself.”
“T’is a fine line you are walking,” he remarked.
She shrugged. “Seems that I have been walking it for most of my life. Please, go on.”
Looking at the swaying trees beside them, the memories of when he had first met Claire swam back to him as crystal clear as the day he had met her. Only this time they came with hollow regrets and pain instead of the giddy excitement he had first felt.
“When I met Claire, I had almost given up on finding a wife,” Oswald said to the trees instead of Aphrodite. “My mother encouraged me to go some ball at Vauxhall and she was there, more beautiful than the fireworks that decorated the sky that night.”
“It felt as I had been enchanted, totally bewitched. I had to find her the next day and I did. Three hours later, I had a courtship agreement in place with her father and I thought to myself I was the luckiest man in England. Funny how I look back it and realized that I was the buffoon of England.”
“What went wrong?” Aphrodite asked.
Oswald felt bitter anger. It had taken him months, bottles of blue ruin, harlots and hermitage to get him to a semblance of peace in his life. “You know what went wrong. Funny enough, she was a coy and a blushing virgin with me. Over the two years of courtship, she allowed three kisses, and when we married she was the vestal virgin in the marriage bed.”
“While she was entertaining men here and there,” Aphrodite said.
“And from what some Lords have flung into my face, she was a wild one in bed,” Oswald grunted. “From then on, I vowed to never again let my emotions overrule my rationality.”
He paused to swallow down the bitter gall in his stomach. Edging closer to her, he found a warm pinkness on her cheeks. “Have I told you too much?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s just I realize that I’d done more with you in two days, than your late wife did in months.”
He grasped her hands, his warm callused hands enveloping her small, softer ones. “Are you regretting it?”
“No,” she sighed tremulously. “I just wonder why this connection we have is so strong that it made me wanted to kiss you.”
Dropping her hands, he sat near her and dropped his between his legs. “I wish I could answer that.”
“And you have regrets for more than the part you played in this debacle,” Aphrodite said. “Don’t you?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I wish I could get her to tell me why she betrayed me in some of the worst ways. Why she had to callously lie, manipulate and trick me into seeing what she wanted me to see instead of who she truly was.”
“Sadly,” Aphrodite shook her head, “and now with her gone, you will never know.”
“Unless you happen to know a witch,” he said dryly.
Laughing quietly, she replied, “No.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Those were the barebones of my marriage. The tale gets deeper and darker as you go along.”
A lull hung in the air before she reached over and rested a hand on his forearm. “Don’t worry, I have candles.”
* * *
What am I doing?
The thought barely crossed his mind before he reached out, framed her cheek with palm and coasted a thumb over her cheekbone. “Damn, but you’re a breath of fresh air. You’re a surprise.”
She leaned into his palm. “I’d prefer that to hearing how much I should stay away from you.”
“You should,” he responded, before he laid his lips on her pillowy soft ones.
His slow kiss simmered with intensity, as a fire he had not expected to feel lit itself inside his chest. If it were up to him, he would have kept the connection going, but when she parted her lips to deepen their connection, he drew back.
“You should go inside.” He swept his thumb under her bottom lip. “And no objections now. Go.”
He hoped she would understand that he needed some time to himself. She met his gaze, held and searched it before standing. “I understand. Oswald, don’t rip yourself to pieces for her hateful actions.”
His laugh was hollow. “Keep that in mind when I tell you how I defended her when everyone knew she was in the wrong.”
Aphrodite left and Oswald kept his eyes on her until she stepped onto one of the many back porches and slipped inside the Manor. Now that she was inside, he slumped into the seat and pressed a hand to his chest.
It may have been a simple conversation with her, but she had no inkling how hard it had been for him to dredge up those memories and put them into words while brushing away the emotions that came with them.
He wished, dearly wished that he had not been so blind to see her treacherous ways. How pleasant it must be for one to wear a halo that blinded the other from life’s ugliness.
Staring into the darkness, his gut knotted as he thought of Claire, the woman he had once loved, but who had never loved him—his late wife. She had used him to put her humble-background family into the realm of riches while manipulating him to standing with her while she was out there spreading her legs to anyone who smiled at her.
He regretted the very day had had gone to see the woman whose betrayal had destroyed his good name among his peers and made him a laughingstock and a cautionary tale to other young men. He could not number the days he walked in a haze of denial and hollowness heavy on his heart.
Nor could he count the nights when heartbreak had been so sharp that he had asked God to have mercy on him and steal his life away while he slept. Heavily, he stood and made his way to the Manor and his chamber, hoping that he would sleep like the dead that night.
* * *
It was an insistent knocking that woke Oswald and he blindly reached for his robe. It would not do to blind whoever was on the other side of the door with his naked body.
He opened to see a black-and-white, uniform-clad maid, who promptly curtsied. “Good morning, My Lord. A visitor is here for you, a Mister Leo Bristol.”
Oswald’s brow lifted. “My cousin is here?”
“Yes, My Lord,” she said. “Lady Pandora allows visitors in the blue drawing room or outside in the pagoda.”
“I’ll take him outside. Please give me a moment and I will be right down, thank you.” He closed the door and went to do a quick but thorough wash before he dressed and headed down to see Leo.
He spotted him in the drawing room, his dark priestly clothing somber and sticking out like a sore thumb with the gaiety around him.
Smiling widely, he clapped a hand on Leo’s shoulder. “Welcome to the circus, my friend.”
Snorting, Leo said, “I don’t see any prancing animals.”
“Oh, there are some, don’t worry,” Oswald said. “Take a stroll with me and look around.”
Taking him from the drawing room to one of the many side doors, they stepped into cool morning air and headed in the opposite direction of the stables. Lady Pandora had greenspaces for croquet and shuttlecock set up and from the gay laughter he heard coming from a section of it, he sensed a game was underway.
“So,” Leo started. “How is it here? Have you found a lovely lady to be the next Countess Tennesley?”
“I have met a few,” Oswald replied as they headed to where the games were underway. “One is, forgive me, a terrible bore, another is a merchant’s daughter, and two others whose engagements have been broken by their intended. I think this should be a house of heartbreak instead of a matchmaking situation.”
“If only the church could help,” Leo said. “Things would be much easier.”
“I’m sure it would,” Oswald muttered as they turned a corner. The stretch of green before them had a lovely scene; a few women were on picnic blankets with finger foods near them, while others were playing badminton on the green; Aphrodite one of them. She had her hair up and was using her racket expertly to keep the shuttlecocks in the air.
She twirled like a dancer, the movement unfortunately showing an inappropriate length of her legs. She glowed under the benign sunlight and in the middle of another twirl the pin in her hair slipped with golden locks tumbling down her shoulder.
“Oh,” she dropped her racket, but then laughed and shook her head. “That’s probably better.”
Oswald felt his hand clenching at his side, his palm aching to run through that silky mass. Leo must have followed Oswald’s line of sight or he had seen his clenching fist—one or the other and hummed.
“I see someone had captured your attention,” Leo mentioned quietly. “Tread carefully, Cousin. You do not need another light skirt to tarnish your name.”
His cousin’s simple words snuffed out the fledgling heat in his chest. Turning to Leo he sighed. “She is not a light skirt.”
“Who is she?” Leo asked.
“Lady Aphrodite Newfield, daughter of William Newfield, Viscount of Kingsley,” Oswald said. “But never fear, she is almost already spoken for.”
“Good,” Leo said, “Remember what dear Aunt said, you need a demure lady to marry, one who embodies the ideas of an honorable lady; meek, gracious, kind, respectful and nurturing.”
Oswald nearly rolled his eyes, but Leo was right. Those should be the qualities he should be looking for in a lady, but who was to say those qualities could not coexist with daring, tenacious, and utterly maddening? “You’re right,” Oswald said.
“I would hate for you to marry another like her,” Leo said, scornfully. “A strumpet masked in the dress of a lady. You are a good man, Oswald, and you need the same spirit. Not one who will contradict you at every turn or bring more disgrace on your life.”
Slanting a look to his cousin, Oswald wondered why Leo was pushing the matter when his point had already come across. The only thing he saw on his cousin’s face was pious honesty. His cousin was only being truthful.
Sighing, Oswald nodded. “I know, but on the other half of this equation, this lady will have to accept me as I am, scandal to my name and all, that is not easy as hardly anyone will want to be tied to such shame.”
A look of dawning realization crossed Leo’s face. “I had never thought about it that way. I suppose your position is just that much harder than I had imagined.”
Taking a last look at Aphrodite, he rested a hand on Leo’s shoulder. “T’is not your fault. Even when she came to you for guidance, you could have never known infidelity and dishonestly was in her heart.”
“I should had some inkling,” Leo grimaced.
This time Oswald laughed. “You’re a priest Leo, not a seer. Don’t blame yourself. All that sin rested on her and she paid the ultimate price for it.”
“To this day I shudder when I remember seeing her in her carriage, that jagged blade stabbed right through her heart.” Leo shuddered. “Whoever the blackguard who killed her is, he is a heathen of the worst sort.”
“I know,” Oswald said. “And to this day the investigators have no inkling of who that man is. I suppose it is another thing to add to my already long list of unsolved issues. Let’s head back. I suspect you do not have much time to spare. By the way, when you go home, just tell Mother that I’m fine, would you?”
Turning away from the party, Leo gave Oswald an unconvincing look. “Why do you think Aunt has something to do with my visit?”
Instead of replying, Oswald gave his cousin a long, level look, causing Leo to chuckle. “Fine, fine, I’ll relay the message that you are the portrait of perfect health.”
“Thank you,” Oswald said.
Later that night as they congregated for another of Lady Pandora’s matchmaking sessions, Oswald had to silently thank his cousin; Leo had reminded him why he was there and what he should be doing. He should be looking for a demure, modest lady to be his wife and his last chances were mingling in the parlor up ahead of him.
He entered the room, decided on seeking out a lovely lady to keep him company—and his eyes landed on Aphrodite, clad in boots, buckskin breeches and a spencer jacket and all thoughts of a demure woman vanished from his mind like water through a sieve.
