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“Life?” he said. “Yes, I suppose it has. And brutal to you.”
“It might have been worse.” She continued to look steadily at him. His mouth lifted at one corner again.
“Sharp indeed,” he said. “What do you plan to do?”
She shrugged. “That is not your concern,” she said.
“Ah, but it is.” His eyebrows rose, and he looked suddenly arrogant-a new look indeed. But he had had almost ten years to perfect it, had he not? “As far as everyone in Wimbury is concerned, Nora, you are my wife. And everyone will have heard the story of how you must have been thrown from the curricle so that no one even realized you had been there until I found you again inside the i
“I did not ask you to lie for me,” she said sharply.
It was his turn to gaze steadily at her.
“Are you sure it was a lie, Nora?” he asked her.
“Of course it was,” she said.
“And yet,” he said, his voice soft, “I distinctly remember a nuptial ceremony.”
“It was not legal or valid,” she cried.
“Just because it was performed in Scotland?” he said. “Just because it was not performed by a minister of the church? Just because you ran away almost immediately after?”
“It was not consummated,” she said, and then felt her cheeks flame with heat. It was too late to recall the words, though.
“It is a curious fallacy that many people seem to share,” he said. “That an unconsummated marriage is an a
She offered no response. She swallowed awkwardly instead.
“Besides,” he added as she felt she was looking at him down a long tu
Once. Fumbling and almost inept. Two eager, nervous virgins groping in the near-darkness caused by heavy curtains and gloomy rain beyond the small window of their bedchamber. Performing the act swiftly and inexpertly and painfully-for her anyway.
Hideous beyond belief.
Wonderful beyond imagining.
Young love ought never to be underestimated.
She broke eye contact with him and looked down at her hands.
“There was no marriage,” she said. “It was not a real marriage.”
“I suppose not,” he said with a soft laugh, which sounded more menacing than amused. “Money made it go away. Money can accomplish many things, as I have discovered to my delight in recent years. You were fortunate, Nora, that there was no child.”
She had thought there was. She had been more than three weeks late, and then she had bled horribly. She had often wondered since if there had been a child, or at least the begi
She had been sick with relief and disappointment.
She had been sick for a long time. Even getting out of bed each morning had been almost too much of an effort. Even setting one foot ahead of the other. Even eating.
“I am going,” she said. It was begi
She hated her helplessness. It seemed to her that she had always been helpless. Though she had fought it once in her life-one glorious, short-lived act of defiance and freedom. And even in recent years she had refused to be dependent. She had refused to allow her brother to support her but had taken employment instead. She must not be too harsh on herself. But she felt so helpless.
She reached for her bo
“You had better stay here,” he said, his voice brisk and impersonal. “It is just for the rest of the day and tonight. You might as well be safe here. And you will be quite safe. I have no wish to repeat our wedding night-or evening, to be more precise. It was really quite forgettable, was it not?”
The words, she believed, were meant to insult and hurt. They did both.
“So much so,” she said, looking up at him, “that until you reminded me, I had long forgotten-as you apparently had not. But you are quite right. I believe it really did happen. It was very forgettable.”
There was a gleam in his eyes for a moment-a gleam of pure amusement, surely. Again, it was an achingly familiar expression. Why should so much about him be familiar? She had not set eyes on him for ten years. And she had spent every day of those years forgetting him.
Richard.
So briefly her husband. And then not.
“It is May Day,” he said. “And it looks as if this village is all set to celebrate the holiday in style. The maypole is up and there are booths all about the village green. And the sun is shining. It feels almost like a summer’s day. Let’s go outside, Nora, and enjoy the fair. We have to fill in the hours of this day somehow.”
“Together?” she asked him.
He shrugged.
“Wimbury is not a large village, is it?” he said. “We would have a hard time avoiding each other even if we tried. And it would look odd if we did so, as if we had quarreled. We would draw more attention to ourselves than either of us would welcome, I believe. It would be easier if we stayed together. Besides, you never did answer my question. Is your purse quite empty?”
“That,” she said sharply, “is none of your business.”
He nodded. “I thought so,” he said. “You are going to need to eat and drink again today. We will stay together.”
She hesitated. But everything he had said made sense. There was going to be no avoiding him for the rest of the day, she supposed. And tonight they were going to be here together in this room-a thought she did not wish to dwell upon. She might as well spend the day in his presence, too, even if only to curb gossip.
“Very well,” she said. “But this is all your fault, Richard. If you had not hailed me downstairs with your ridiculous claim, we would not now find ourselves in this predicament.”
“If you had not tricked me into eloping with you ten years ago, Nora,” he retorted, “that ridiculous claim would not even have occurred, would it? I could merely have played Sir Galahad and offered my room to an old acquaintance while I betook myself to a billet elsewhere.”
Tricked!
If you had not tricked me.
She felt almost blinded by hurt as her fingers fumbled to tie the ribbons of her bo
Chapter Four
Was the keeping up of appearances so important to him, then? Richard wondered as they left the i
Or did he really feel responsible for her? But that was ridiculous. He had not set eyes on her for ten years, and surely he had not thought about her, wondered about her, worried about her for every day of those years. Or had he?
Or was it just that he felt sorry for her? She had come as far down in the world as he had gone up. Farther, in fact.
“Shall we stroll about the green and see what the fair has to offer?” he suggested.
It all looked very inviting. Booths shaded with striped awnings circled the green, the thatch-roofed and whitewashed cottages of the village beyond them. And in the center of it all the maypole awaited the dancers. It struck Richard that if he had to be stranded for a whole day, he might have been landed in a far worse place and at a far worse time.
But what bizarre type of fate had stranded Nora here, too?
“Yes, let’s,” she said, and they set off on a clockwise circuit of the fair. He did not offer his arm, and she made no attempt to take it.
There was a large crowd out already-though of course it must be close to noon by now. All the villagers and people from the surrounding countryside for miles around must have turned out for the occasion. Young and old were dressed in their Sunday best, and all seemed to be in a festive mood for this rare treat of a holiday.