Her life as a respectable woman was over; her husband held legal control while extending her none of the protections and benefits afforded to a wife. How would she hold her head high in Meryton knowing that many of the townsmen had witnessed her humiliation?
She wouldn’t. From this day forward, she’d be bowed by her shame.
A lucky woman in such circumstances would move houses. Take to the sea. Volunteer to live the rest of her days as a fur trapper on the frontier of civilization. But there was no money for that. And no money for a maid that would allow Lydia to pull the curtains and avoid the scorn and stares of her neighbors. There was always water to fetch from the pump now, so much blasted water.
“Well,” said Denny, arranging his long limbs in a chair before her. “It’s been some time, hasn’t it?”
Lydia had taken a seat on the bed. She clutched at the bedclothes and felt how her neck and shoulders slumped under the weight of her cares.
What could she possibly say to this man, one of three who had offered her a chance to escape Wickham and experience untold bliss at their experienced hands? If she regretted her youthful foibles leading to matrimony, what words could adequately describe the regret she carried now, knowing for certain that Wickham’s depravities would only escalate? At twenty, she should have chosen better.
“There, now, Lydia,” said Denny, coming to sit beside her on the bed and offering his handkerchief.
She looked at it, her mind so addled that she almost didn’t know what to do next.
And then Denny brought the cloth to her face and gently pressed it into her cheek.
“I’m crying,” she said in wonder, as if commenting on the first snow of the year.
“Don’t tell me you’re incapable of your own distress,” said Denny, giving her a smile. Why he should be so kind to her after she fled their merry party to return toGeorge Wickham, she didn’t know.
She remained quiet, unsure of what she could say to her old friend. Especially after that night at the Forster’s old house, where he’d taken Lydia from behind and helped introduce her to the bliss of a rough coupling.
At last, she spoke. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t you know I live here in Meryton now!” he replied jauntily. But when he saw Lydia was serious, he gave her a compassionate look. “I heard something of what Wickham had planned and decided to see it for myself. Didn’t like the sound of it. You could divorce him, you know,” continued Denny lowly. “The courts don’t take kindly to spousal cruelty, not like that.”
“It would be a scandal,” said Lydia, twisting the handkerchief. “A man offering his wife for sale. I would be notorious for the rest of my days. His lies, trumpeted in the gazettes. My family…gad, Denny! They would simply die of shame. It might really kill my father. They’d never see me again. I certainly couldn’t go home.”
Denny took her chin in hand. “Perhaps you were meant to be notorious. You always were a girl too spirited to live by rules and propriety.”
Lydia waved him away, too exhausted by the latest turn her life had taken to think she was anything but a menace to her own happiness. How tired she was!
“Aren’t you here to ravish me?” she asked, unable to muster more witty repartee. She tried to move her hands as if this was all a lark, some grand joke, but they simply flopped in her lap.
“Dash it, Lydia,” said Denny, gently bringing her head to his chest. “How I regret introducing Wickham to you all those years ago. Not a day goes by that I don’t.”
He wore his scarlet uniform, all bright red wool and polished buttons. Denny had been promoted to captain in the years since she’d flirted with him, and he had been careful to direct her face away from the Waterloo Medal on his left breast.
Lydia’s cheek pressed into the gilded brass buttons on his coat, and she inhaled the scent of the wool cloth, shaving soap, and something that had a hint of rose. Maybe it was an attar of roses salve for his lips; they always seemed ready for a kiss. The tension in her eased minutely.
The smell of shaving soap reminded Lydia of something that had escaped her notice at first. “Your moustache! You shaved it!” she cried, reaching a curious hand to his upper lip.
Denny laughed and let her feel the smoothness of his skin.
“But it was so dashing!”
“You should have said so before I had my valet take a blade to it!” exclaimed Denny, full of mirth and clearly delighted that she’d noticed the change. “Do you miss it so much?”
“I’ll live,” she said, casting him an alluring smile, her first of the night. “Isupposeyou’ll do without it.”
“If changes to my whiskers get you smiling like that, my dear, I’ll alter myself all the time.”
“Go on,” said Lydia, pushing him slightly.
And then Denny took her chin in hand again and dropped a quick kiss on her lips.
It was nothing, really, nothing at all compared to the intimacy they’d shared six weeks ago in the Forster’s old house. But his lips were so soft, just as she suspected, and his touch so gentle that Lydia felt unmoored and floating as if in some blissful pond. It was such a change from the neglect and indifference of her lawful husband.
