“The little swirls in front of my nose...” She pointed. “I suppose I’m meant to be snorting?”
“Yes. I believe so. Like a bull. Because we’re both meant to be beasts. You’re snorting like a beast. Mrs. Beast.”
One little drawing could hardly devastate her if all of the other vicissitudes of her life hadn’t yet. Rowlandson was famously merciless to everyone.
If, however, it carried on... if the ton at large decided the Mr. and Mrs. Beast theme was great fun—and she could easily see how they would—it mightneverend. There might be endless variations of those images, the way there were apparently endless verses of “The Ballad of Colin Eversea.”
The idea of this wasn’t funny in the least.
It was odd. Somehow, sitting here in this pleasant suite, fresh from her bath, it seemed so easy not to do anything to besmirch her husband’s good name. Let alone wind up in jail and become an indelible Rowlandson caricature. And yet the evidence that she had managed to do just that was undeniable.
“I expect you can imagine the potential ramifications of this.” He said this almost dryly.
“Yes.” Her voice was frayed. “I am imagining them now.”
“I have a sense of humor, Alexandra. But it’s quite another thing to be viewed as a public laughingstock. Another man might find the patience within him to stoically tolerate the... relentless illustrated campaign that might ensue.” He paused. “I find that I am not that man.”
She could feel her pulse ticking in her throat.
She swallowed hard.
“No. You should never have to tolerate it.”
“Your conduct is a reflection on me.” He stated this evenly, as fact.
She nodded. She found she could no longer speak.
“I was called back to London in part because there have been talks to the effect that the king intends to create Letters Patent designating me the Earl of Montcroix. It will be a hereditary title. Should this come to pass, this of course means your title, for the rest of your life, will be the Countess Montcroix.”
She blinked. She was stunned at what seemed a sudden and glorious change of topic.
Genuine joy suffused her. “Oh, my goodness. Congratulations, Magnus. That is quite extraordinary. Nobody deserves such an honor more.”
He merely nodded. “But the warrant instructing the Lord High Chancellor to prepare the Letters Patent creating the title has not yet been delivered to him. As you are no doubt aware, His Majesty’s popularity is a tenuous and fluctuating thing, a matter of much concern to him, as he wishes to be beloved.”
He said this rather dryly: there really was no hope of King George becoming beloved. He’d made his own bed, as it were. And as it so happened, parliament refused to grant the king his divorce, which had been a process so thoroughly messy and degrading and public it ought to discourage anyone from attempting a divorce in England for decades to come.
“And he still might conceivably decide he’d look even more foolish if he elevated to the aristocracy a man whose wife had the poor judgment to consort with an alleged carriage thief, even if the thief was her hapless third cousin Lord Thackeray. Needless to say, even more attention will be called to the alleged carriage theft if I am indeed made a peer of the realm.”
And now she was alarmed.
Oh God. Her poor cousin! Was he still in prison?
“In light of this recent event, and for other reasons, it is increasingly clear to me that, in order to live our lives with dignity and peace, it is best if we effect as permanent and complete a marital separation as possible within the limitations of the law.”
Her breath left her. She stared at him as if he’d whipped out a broadsword.
Ice flooded her stomach again.
He’d made it clear to her on their wedding night that both divorce and annulment were out of the question, as it would be nearly impossible—even attempting one would be financially and socially annihilating for both of them, and particularly humiliating for him. The granting of a divorce required an actual act of parliament and public hearings. Her family’s name would be tarnished forever, and she in particular would become a pariah. The one—theonly—impulsive, foolish, brief indiscretion she’d ever committed would become not only national knowledge, but part of English history.
“He knew I was happiest here in England, among my family,” was all she’d said when anyone she knew inquired about his absence. “We correspond regularly. He will return one day.”
None of this was entirely untrue.
She always adroitly and firmly steered the topic of conversation to generalities when the subject arose.
And Brightwall had, as he’d promised the evening he’d outlined her fate, remained entirely silent on the subject. He’d merely nobly fallen on his sword.
