“Ah,” he said again.
“Is thatallyou 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-wantedmeto 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 Ican’t remember. David wasd-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.
