“Perhaps you will tell me one day, when you want to.”
He wanted to tell her now. The start had been hard, but now the rest demanded to be heard.
“I told her my plan after we arrived here. Before we left, we would marry. She was happy. Delirious with joy. The night of the fire, however, she asked if my family would attend. I could not believe she did not understand. I am sure I had explained it all. I did again, however. They would not attend. They would not know. No one would until my father passed away. She said that insulted her, that to have such a marriage and keep it a secret was not fitting for her. She said I must write to my father and inform him before we left Scotland. I refused. He was already showing the signs of the illness that eventually killed him, and I would not burden him with this. We had a row. She was distraught, furious, despondent. Violent.”
“You also did not want to tell your father for your own reasons, I think.”
“I only realized that during the argument. Later, as I lay in bed, I admitted I should not marry a woman I could not claim publicly. It was not love but something baser that held me. My mind stepped to one side and saw how I was behaving. It was just then, as I slapped myself out of the madness, that I smelled the smoke. It came from my dressing room.”
“There was no way it could have been an accident?”
“There were no candles. The hearth was cold. It turned out it was just one of several fires she had started.” He looked above the plantings. He could just make out the wall of the ruin, and a man up there chipping at mortar and stone. “The one on the main stairway—the smoke overcame her there. I found her as I was leaving. I dragged her out, but she was gone.”
The story exhausted him. He might have run ten miles.
He could not tell what Davina thought of the sorry tale. She appeared thoughtful, though neither shocked nor critical.
“I am told she was beautiful.”
“I suppose. I never see her in my memories that way. I see her during that argument, and there was nothing beautiful then.”
They had reached the house. “Thank you for telling me,” she said. “It is better to know than to wonder.”
* * *
She reached her chamber before the emotions she held in check burst from her. She paced out the agitation they created, tried to find rational reasons not to feel so empty and alone.
It was a horrible story. A dreadful one. She felt sorry for Brentworth. Sorry for that poor woman. Angry that medical knowledge of the human mind had not progressed much since ancient times. She must have been deranged to start those fires. Who but an insane person would do such a thing? She had been too lost to consider how she would get out herself. But then, perhaps she did not intend to get out.
No rules. She could guess what that meant. She was not ignorant of the more exotic sexual tastes some indulged in. What had occurred in their marriage bed was child’s play in comparison. She tried to imagine what it was like to be a young man who pursues and catches a woman who has no rules. He would have been in his early twenties. She could believe he became enslaved to that passion. She pictured him throwing over all those duties and lessons and expectations that had bound him all his life and would tie him forever. She could believe the freedom had been its own kind of madness.
He did not call it love. Not now. He probably did then. She would take him at his word, though. Jeannette had not been the great love of his life. Fine. She would hold on to that. She had, however, been the great passion of his life. He knew he would never experience anything like it again. He would never allow himself to. Not with his mistresses. Not with his lovers. Not with the woman he married out of obligation and convenience.
That night at dinner they did not talk about it. She doubted they ever would again. Both of them overdid the small talk and joking, as if each wanted to prove all was the same. Only it wasn’t for her. That empty spot would not go away.
As the meal ended, he became more serious. “I think we should return to London. Tomorrow next, if you agree.”
“Perhaps. I would like to sleep on it, and think whether there is anything more for me to do here.”
“Our departure can be delayed a day or so if you prefer.”
She only nodded. Her mission here, her great quest, had not even entered her mind today. She needed to remember why she had come, and what still could be accomplished.
She had the girl in that night to prepare her for bed. She hoped Brentworth would not visit. She wanted to be alone. She needed to accommodate all this, think about why that spot in her heart simply would not fill.
He did not visit. She did not sleep. Nor did her thoughts dwell on her legacy and her grandfather and all the other reasons she was here. Instead, Brentworth filled them. She even came to understand that odd sensation in her chest, that hollow weight, that void.
She had hoped—like a girl, she had thought that maybe—She laughed at herself, but it hurt to do so. She felt a little better, however.
She stopped dwelling on herself and turned to the man himself. He had risked much in telling her what he had today. It was not something she thought a man like him admitted to easily, or at all. She did not think his friends, the other dukes, knew of it. If they saw that scar and he said,That? I was careless and got burned, they might just accept it and not press for particulars. Men were like that.
Yet today, he had put it into words. Did it become more real when he did? Were the memories sharper? Saying the words, admitting the truth, was much harder than thinking about a transgression or guilt. There was a reason the Catholics insisted that confession be verbal.
Perhaps he did not sleep either. Maybe he lay awake too, also accommodating the revelations. He might be in his bed right now, reliving those weeks and that night.
She rose and slid on her dressing gown. She took a candle and eased into the corridor and walked to his chambers. She entered as silently as possible and went to his bed.
“Eric, are you awake too?” she whispered.
