“Tell me,” he said softly. “Help me to understand. There is a gap, a huge yawning hole in the story you told me. It is a hole filled with horror and part of me does not want to know. But I must know if I am to understand. I will not be able to live with this unless I understand. Tell me.”
And so she did.
But as she drew breath to speak, she lost control of her voice, and she yelled the words at him.
“I killed him!”she shouted at him. And then she stood panting for a minute before she could go on. “Do you understand now?I killed my husband.I took a gun and I shot him between the eyes. It was quite deliberate. My father taught me to shoot despite the disapproval of my mother. He taught my brother and me, and soon I could shoot better than either of them. And when I used to come here, I would shoot with Dicky—always at a target, of course, never at anything living. And more often than not, I could outshoot him.” She paused for a great, heaving breath. “I shot him.I killed him.”
She was panting for breath. Her body pulsed with pins and needles from her head to her feet.
He was motionless and staring at her.
“Now ask me to marry you,” she said. “Ask me to tell you that I love you. Do you understand now? I do not deserve tolive,Percy. I am breathing and existing as a penance. It is my punishment, to go on year after year, knowing what I did. I expected to die with him, but it did not happen. So I have to be made to suffer, and I have accepted that.” She paused a moment to calm her breathing. “I did a terrible thing almost two weeks ago. I decided to give myself a holiday for what I expected to be a brief sensual fling. I had no intention of involving your feelings and hurting you. That I did both is fitting for me. I deserve that extra burden of guilt and misery. But for you? Go away from here, Percy, and find someone worthy of your love. And then come back if you will, for this is your home now. I will go from here. You will never see me again.”
He was still standing like a statue, his head slightly bent forward, hat low over his brow, hiding his face from her eyes.
“I killed Dicky,” she said, her voice dull now. “I killed my husband, my dearest friend in the world.”
And she walked away, back in the direction of the house.
“Imogen—” he called after her, his voice desolate, full of pain.
But she did not stop.
24
Percy was convinced that going back to the ballroom—smiling, mingling, talking, dancing—was the hardest thing he had done in his life. And it was not made easier when his mother and then Lady Lavinia and Miss Wenzel and several other people asked what had happened to Imogen and he had to tell them that she was tired and had gone to bed. He was not sure if any of them believed him. Probably not. Doubtless not, in fact.
“Oh,Percival!” was all his mother said, but her facial expression spoke volumes of reproach. And she only ever called him by his full name when she was exasperated with him.
Getting up the next morning to be cheerful and hospitable all over again with his family and friends and the few neighbors from more distant parts who had stayed for the night was further torture, especially after a largely sleepless night. He had stood outside Imogen’s room for perhaps fifteen minutes at some wee hour of the morning, his hand an inch from the knob of the door, which may or may not have been locked. He had returned to his own room without putting the matter to the test.
She did not come down for breakfast. He wondered if she would come down at all. Perhaps she was watching from her window, waiting for him to leave the house before putting in an appearance herself. He obliged her after he had seen all the overnight guests on their way. He went riding with Sidney and Arnold and a group of cousins. And no, he told Beth when she asked, he had not seen Cousin Imogen today. She was probably tired after last night.
It was only when luncheon was announced much later that Lady Lavinia decided she should go up and see if Imogen was perhaps indisposed. It was unlike her not to be up early in the morning even after a late night—and she had gone to bed before the end of the ball.
She was not there. A note was, however, pinned to her pillow and addressed to her aunt—who read it aloud when she returned to the dining room.
Do not be concerned about me,she had written after the opening greeting.I have decided to leave early for Penderris Hall. I shall write when I arrive there. Please convey my apologies to Lord Hardford and his family for not taking a proper leave of them. It has been a pleasure to make their acquaintance.
An hour later they were all—with the exception of Percy—still buzzing over the strangeness of Cousin Imogen’s sudden departure, two days earlier than planned. A search of her room had convinced her aunt that she had taken almost nothing with her—only, perhaps, a small valise and whatever it would have held. All the carriages and horses were accounted for in the carriage house and stables. How had she left Hardford? Onfoot?
That was exactly how she had left, as it turned out. No sooner had they all finished luncheon than Wenzel and his sister were announced.
“We have just returned from a short journey,” Wenzel explained after some opening greetings and a smile for his betrothed, “and thought it best to come straight here. Tilly and I arrived home from the ball last night to discover Lady Barclay sitting on our doorstep—she did not want to wake the servants by knocking on the door. She had hoped to wait at the inn for the stagecoach, but all the doors there were locked for the night. She asked if she might stay with us until the early coach was due. I did not think it appropriate for her to travel on the common stage, and Tilly backed me up when I told her so.”
“We offered to take her to Penderris Hall,” Miss Wenzel said, “or at least to send her in our carriage, but she would not hear of putting us to so much inconvenience. The best we could do was to persuade her to travel post and then take her to the posting house in Meirion. We did that this morning and have just returned from seeing her on her way. She will be quite safe, Lady Lavinia, though she flatly refused to take my maid with her. And she has only one small bag of belongings.”
“I will see that a trunk is sent after her,” Percy said, and found Miss Wenzel’s eyes resting thoughtfully upon him.
“I daresay,” she said, “youmay know what this is all about, my lord. Imogen was not saying.”
It was what everyone was thinking, of course, and had been thinking ever since he walked back into that infernal ballroom alone last night. Everyone’s attention was suddenly riveted upon him. The air fairly pulsed with expectant silence.
But it was not the time for charm or easy social converse. Or lies. Or the truth.
Percy turned and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.
I killed him! Do you understand now? I killed my husband. I took a gun and I shot him between the eyes. It was quite deliberate.
