Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy

CHAPTER 37

Eliza stood before the window, looking out at the spitting snow. It was her second night in Southampton and she had a decision to make.

The memory of Malcolm’s tears and the way he’d looked at her in pleading desperation had nearly been enough to send her running back. She’d been harsh—cruel even. She had asked for the truth and he’d given it, only to be met with her rage.

But he’d lied to her. Not once, but many times. How could she ever know the full depth of his betrayal? No. Reconciliation was impossible. She could no longer trust herself when it came to him.

She could return to Sherbourne House, of course. But to think of looking down the hill, each day, wondering what Malcolm was doing—she would never fully move forward. She’d already pawned her mother’s diamond necklace—it had given her more than enough money to let this room until she could make passage back to New Orleans, where she might rendezvous with Lydia and come up with a plan. It seemed the best solution. In America, perhaps she would be granted an annulment—so long as she could provide evidence of marital deception.

Could she, though? It was her word against his. And the evidence, if proved, might send him to jail. Or the gallows. The thought sent a chill through her marrow.

Eliza drew the curtains closed over the sash and lay down on the scratchy sheets. Sleep was impossible in this hotel. The other guests stomped down the hallway past her room at all hours of the night, coming in from the pubs or the theatre, the sounds of drunken lovemaking floating through the thin walls. As she tossed with insomnia, she turned her row with Malcolm over and over in her mind, replaying her harsh words as she stared up at the ceiling, measuring the moon’s path across the chipped plaster. As morning light crept over the top of the curtains, Eliza finally drifted into a deep sleep. When she woke, it was already night again. It was a disconcerting feeling, this winnowing of one day into the next, her time spent endlessly scraping the worn furrows of her mind.

Eliza opened the cheap curtains and peered out. The flurries had ceased, leaving a soft blanket of white over the streets. Across the plaza, the theatre’s marquee blinked on, spilling long columns of yellow light onto the new snow. Yesterday evening, a vaudeville had been the attraction. But tonight, an opera was touring: Rameau’s Castor et Pollux. It had been a long time since she’d seen a show—the last had been with Malcolm, the night of their first kiss in the rose garden, when the air whispered a promise of happiness. Eliza rubbed her temples. She winced as another wave of nausea and light-headedness rolled through her. The walls drew in like a squeeze-box. “I need to get out of this room.”

A show would be just the diversion she needed.

Eliza swept into the vestibule of the Grand wearing her blue velvet gown. She handed her cape to the cloak girl and joined the milling crowd queueing up at the entrance to the auditorium. Hampshire’s finest seemed to be out and about tonight, the rare snow creating a festive mood.

She was studying the program when a gentle tap came to her left shoulder. She turned.

Eastleigh in white tie and tails. God.

“We seem to encounter one another more and more these days, Lady Havenwood,” he said, his eyes skimming over her. “Has your husband gone to buy you a posy from the flower urchins? Your dress would be most enhanced with a blushing rose at your bosom.”

Eliza couldn’t hold back her sullen frown. “I wouldn’t know where my husband is, my lord, but he certainly isn’t here.”

“Well. That’s too bad. Has he rushed back to London so soon? We’ve broken Parliament for an entire fortnight.” Was it just her imagination, or did his smile widen?

The usher opened the richly carved wooden doors. The crowd rushed forward in a perfumed mass. Eastleigh offered his arm. “You might get trampled under if you try to find a seat within the orchestra. You should come sit with me.” He motioned to the gallery boxes above, their velvet depths ambient with electric chandeliers. “As I recall, you seemed to enjoy my box.”

Eliza craned her neck, looking for a glimpse of Una’s gleaming, mink-dark hair within the loge. “Shouldn’t you ask your wife first?”

He tilted his head. “Now, why would I need to ask Una, when she isn’t even here? I’d say fortune has favored us this evening, wouldn’t you?”

“I . . . I . . .” She stumbled over her words as he watched in amusement. Her cheeks flared with heat. “Charles . . . I can’t. I’m not in the right state of mind for inviting more gossip.”

“Oh, darling. It’s already too late for that.”

Indeed, heads were turning in their direction and whispers rustled behind fans. Charles lifted her hand and kissed it, his sapphire eyes meeting her own. “Come now, Eliza,” he whispered. “You’re wearing your sadness like a shroud for all to see. If they’re going to talk, we may as well have a bit of fun with it, hadn’t we?”

Eliza batted her fan to cool her flushed skin. A forlorn sense of guilt rankled at her as the crowd below turned in their seats to stare up at her, although Charles didn’t seem to mind their scrutiny a bit. He sat himself so close to her that each time he shifted she felt the nudge of his knee against her own. A waiter brought a tray of fresh oysters and poured bubbling champagne into flutes adorned with the Eastleigh crest rendered in gold leaf. Eliza removed her opera gloves and helped herself to the refreshments, her appetite grown ravenous as the salty-sweet taste of the oysters slid down her throat. She hadn’t had a proper meal since she’d left Havenwood Manor.

“Why are you alone in S’oton?”

Eliza took a long swallow of her champagne, the bubbles tickling her nose. “We had a fight—a row. A bad one.”

“I daresay, for you to walk out alone. How long have you been here?”

“Three nights now.” Eliza closed her eyes and let her breath out through tight lips. “I’m considering going home. To New Orleans.”

Charles turned, gazing at her with concern. “Surely you can’t mean to seek a legal separation. You’d need grounds for such a thing. They’re rarely granted to a woman. What has he done?”

“Plenty, my lord.” Malcolm’s tear-streaked face briefly flashed into her consciousness. She was at the edge of a precipice. Here she sat, with her estranged husband’s rival. Anything she said now could be used to Eastleigh’s advantage. She clipped her words, biting the inside of her cheek. Still protecting him. Why?

“Is it about his mistress?”

Eliza felt the color drain from her face. “What?”

Charles’s eyebrows gathered. “Oh. I take it you didn’t know about Annie?”

Eliza barked a laugh. “I should have known there was more, shouldn’t I? I might have guessed when he didn’t write from London or send a forwarding address.”

“She’s very ill, Annie. Quite mortally so.” Charles took out a tin of cigarettes and offered them to Eliza. The new Pall Malls. “Would you like one?”

“I’d better,” she said, her fingers shaking as she gingerly placed the cigarette between her lips. Charles lit it for her, and she drew the strong, acrid smoke into her lungs. “How long?”

“Many, many years. She was his first, I believe.”

“Is she a prostitute?”

“Courtesan would be a better word,” Charles said with a grin. “She had a reputation for training up the young gentlemen of society. At least . . . until she fell ill.”

“No wonder he’s so bloody talented,” Eliza spat, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

“Yes. Well. I’d be mindful about yourself. Have you ever noticed any sores?”

Eliza took a draw off the Pall Mall. “What? No, never.”

“Perhaps a rash? On his hands, or across his shoulders?”

“No. Not that I’ve seen.”

“Very good. That’s good news, indeed. It’s likely you’re not infected, then.”

The chairman stood before the stage, the footlights flaring for the pre-show. “Ladies and gentlemen! Direct from Paris, I present La Troupe Sauvoir!”

A trio of acrobats went tumbling across the demilune stage, dressed in red-and-gold motley. Everything before her began to blur. A mistress! After all his protestations otherwise. “Was that what you meant at the train station, then? When you said he became another person entirely?”

“I’m afraid so,” Charles said, his surly frown contrasting with the laughter rocketing through the theatre. “He has a tendency to become quite the vulgar swell at a party. And if he’s been with Annie lately, you’d do well not to share his bed again. She’s got the French disease. There’s no cure.”

The acrobats were climbing on top of one another’s shoulders now, creating a tower. When the smallest reached the top, he pulled off his cap. A circlet of false flames ignited on top of his head, and he went tumbling off to the side, howling in distress. The audience roared. Eliza’s head spun and her stomach dropped.

“Syphilis?”

Hours later, after the interminably long opera was over, Charles walked Eliza across the plaza to her hotel. They stood beneath the beam of a streetlamp, the snow gusting in billowing, feathery flakes around them. The muffled clip-clop of hooves on the slushy pavement and the whisk of carriage wheels were the only sounds. If her mood had been happier, Eliza would have felt as if she were in a scene from a romance. Instead, she felt like a toy dancer in a music box, wound too tightly and left to spin recklessly out of control.

“If you need a place to stay until you’ve made a decision, you could come to London with me tonight. I’m leaving on the last train,” Charles said, winking. “I’d be happy to put you up in my new townhouse.”

Eliza regarded Charles coolly. “And what would be the expectation, my lord?”

“Only to lock the doors when you leave and turn down the lights at night to save on my electricity bill. I’ve even installed a telephone and tiled floors, like a Roman bath. It’s all rather decadent.” Charles’s full lips curved into a smile. “Look, Eliza—regardless of the things your husband may have told you, I’d never force myself upon you, in any way. I’m a married man, and people may very well talk after seeing us together tonight, at any rate. I cannot deny my attraction to you. Setting you up in a household would help you gain your independence. I’d expect no more. Unless you’d decide otherwise.” His eyes narrowed. “And it would be most advantageous if you would.”

Ah, there it was. The proposition she’d been expecting.

Eliza laughed. “I hardly think becoming your mistress would solve any of my problems.”

“Even with a generous allowance? Until you’re granted a separation, you may become destitute in the meantime. Havenwood does have a petty streak.”

An uncomfortable silence lingered between them. Eliza wasn’t sure what to say next.

Charles scrutinized her face as if he saw the struggle there. “It’s a lot to consider. Take however long you wish. There are no other prospects for the position, I assure you. Please say you’ll at least entertain the thought. I’d spoil you, Eliza. I’d treat you leagues better than he ever has.”

Charles lifted her hand to his mouth. As he did, a surge of unexpected vengeance rolled through her. She thought of Malcolm with his whore in London. He was probably there now, slaking his sorrows in her bed. Eliza shook with anger at the thought, remembering how he’d shamed her that day in his study when she’d tried to seduce him, comparing her to a prostitute. All the times he’d lied to her, then made her question her own mind. He’d never do it again.

The alcohol had gone to her head, just enough.

Before she could change her mind, she pulled Charles to her by the lapel and locked her lips to his, taking his breath as she kissed him, in full view of anyone who happened to be watching. It was a brutal, violent kiss, full of tongues and teeth. Charles returned her affections ruthlessly, his hands grasping and pulling at her as if possessed. When she broke the kiss, her lips felt so raw they could bleed.

He drew back to look at her, his eyes clouded with lust. “I knew it,” he growled. “You and I are the same, after all. I shall take your kiss as a promise and meet you at the platform later tonight, eager as a bridegroom.”

Nothing.

That’s what she’d felt when she kissed Charles. Nothing but her own bitterness, anger, and regret.

And now there would be consequences. The scandal sheets would be flooded with talk of her salacious behavior. Malcolm would know, and he’d be well within his rights to divorce her. Well within his rights to ruin her. Their legal covenant had been broken the moment she threw herself into Charles’s arms.

And then there was the venereal disease. What if Malcolm had been infected when he lay with her, and her recent nausea and dizziness were the first of much uglier symptoms to come?

Her mother’s words mocked. Who will want you now?

She wilted against the red brick of the hotel’s façade, her vision blurred by tears.

Curious passersby stared at her. Some laughed. She could only imagine how she looked—her face streaked with kohl, her hair speckled with snow, frizzing up like a charwoman’s. She stumbled back to her room, her head throbbing with her drunkenness. Instead of packing to join Charles, she ordered up a magnum of champagne and drank it, wishing she had laudanum instead. As the night grew long, she thrashed on her bed, still in her evening gown, her shoes leaving muddy streaks on the white eiderdown. When she woke, hours later, her own vomit cold on the coverlet, she sprung from the bed. Disgusting. Wouldn’t Maman be proud?

But no. Even on Eliza’s best days, her mother had never been proud of her. With every childish attempt Eliza had made to court her love and attention, she had only shown criticism. If only she’d tried harder, it might have made a difference. Perhaps.

Too late for that now.

She’d failed at everything that ever mattered.

Eliza ran a bath and stripped off her clothing, leaving it on the honeycomb-tiled floor. She climbed into the steaming tub, hugging her knees. In the soap dish, alongside a pristine bar of lemon verbena soap, was a cut-throat razor, its blade closed. It was as if a silent wish had been granted. Eliza picked it up, opening it with wet fingers. What was stopping her, truly? It was a way out of the mess she’d created of her life, once and for all. She could put an end to all her memories and failings with two strokes of a sharp blade.

If she did this, even with a practiced hand, it would be painful—she remembered that well. The water would sting and burn. There would be a slow slide into unconsciousness. And then? She held the blade up to the light, watching water bead and drip from the edge.

How silly she’d been to think she could ever be happy. That she’d ever deserved love, or an easy life.