Mary Blayney - [Pennistan 03] (3 page)

Meryon had grown used to the dark. He could see well enough to make out the furniture, if not any details. He searched for another door.

He’d sat near the fireplace and saw no door on that wall. Facing the fireplace, he identified a settee. A game table and chairs filled the other half of the room. He saw no door on that wall either.

If it was a couple fumbling with the door latch between kisses, he would have the upper hand. No one wanted that kind of gossip spread.

He waited, curious, impatient, and just a little amused to see who had found his hiding place.

A woman came in, alone. Her fragrance announced her presence, roses with a hint of musk beneath, more alluring than sophisticated.

She wore a gown of gray taffeta with an iridescent quality that caused it to glimmer in the light from the passage. A Juno rather than a fairy, the upswept hair emphasized her height. He could not see her face but wondered if it was as fine as her figure.

Elegant came to mind first.

Distraught second.

She remained silent, her breathing ragged, the very air between them filled with her distress. She closed the door and leaned against it, staring at the floor.

“Oh, Edward.” She breathed the name, then stumbled to the settee that faced the fireplace, not more than six feet from where he stood.

She sat down, covered her face with her hands, and began to sob. Not quiet tears, but the kind that railed against fate. Lyn completely understood her barely suppressed scream of desperation.

He recognized grief, especially a woman’s grief. She had lost a lover or a husband, perhaps not to death but lost as surely as if he had died. Each uneven breath drew one from him, each sob made his own heart hurt until he had to swallow against an answering lump in his throat.

Why could women not grieve in silence? Their voluble sensibilities always left him uncertain. A feeling that made him as uncomfortable as their tears did. With Rowena, his attempts at comfort had always made things worse.

Escape
. He took a step away from her. He needed to escape. She wanted privacy. She could have it.

Meryon took another step toward the door.

She looked up at the ceiling and still did not see him.

“God, oh God, please give me the strength … Edward, please help me. I feel so alone.”

She whispered the prayer, speaking as softly as her tears would allow. When she drew a deep breath, he could tell even without words that she had done with crying.

All at once, the woman straightened and stood. When she saw him in the shadows, she gasped and raised a hand to her heart.

He had been discovered.

I
BEG YOUR PARDON
, madame.” Meryon stepped out of the shadows and bowed. “I am neither Edward nor God, but you are not alone.”

“Yes, yes. I can see that. What are you doing here?” Asperity laced her voice.

“The same thing you are,” he said, smiling a little. “Though I suppose I could have been waiting for someone or hiding from a man who wants to sell me his horse.”

“Is that so?” Interest replaced her brusqueness.

Now he had started a conversation. God help him.

“If you are doing the same thing I am, then you must be either grieving or hiding.” The woman leaned forward. “Or perhaps both.”

Meryon did not answer immediately, trying to identify her. Not one of The Gossips and definitely not the too-forward girl from the dance floor. This woman had
left childhood behind a delightful number of years ago.

“Ahh.” Her voice sounded all-knowing. “You want to hide, even from me. I am so sorry to have intruded. I will find another room.”

“You do not owe me an apology. I will go. You need the privacy more than I do.” He moved closer to the door, had his hand on the latch before the woman spoke again.

“My husband died almost eighteen months ago.” She spoke quickly. “One moment he held his violin, practicing Mozart. The next he lay at my feet, dead.”

She sat down, as though the truth had drained her.

“I am sorry.” Meryon turned back to her. “So very sorry.”

“Thank you for your sympathy, sir.” She spoke the perfunctory phrase without obvious emotion, but in the deep quiet he could hear her trying to control her tears. She blew out a sharp breath of annoyance, a singularly inelegant gesture.

“I will leave you alone, madame,” he tried again.

She reached a hand out, not quite touching him. “No, please stay. For a few moments more.”

Meryon could count a number of reasons why a woman would want to speak to a gentleman in private. The obvious did not apply, for surely a woman her age, and a widow, would know that she could not trap him into marriage with a game as old as this.

“I thought I had finished with the tears,” she explained, “and then tonight I heard someone playing a violin. He had too much talent for the orchestra and did his best to play down to their level. It reminded me of so
many things, but mostly of Edward. I needed to cry.” She tried to smile, but it was a miserable failure.

Her words made him feel a fool. The whole world did not live to trap him, to catch the Duke of Meryon in some peccadillo. Garrett had the right of it. His brother-in-law insisted that grief distorted all sensibilities.

He relaxed. Then the Duke of Bendas came to mind. Once the bastard felt the web of ruin tighten around him, Bendas would try for retribution. Could he have already figured it out? Was she part of his retaliation?

Meryon stared at the mystery woman. “I do understand the need to grieve, madame, and I
am
sorry.” He moved closer. “My wife died a year ago.”

“Oh.” He heard new tears in the single word as she reached out again and this time touched his arm.

In that touch he could feel the confusion of her heart: warmth, sincerity, sympathy, pain, hope. If she was acting, it was a brilliant performance wasted on an audience of one.

“I hear heartache in those words, sir. You have my deepest condolences.”

“Thank you.” He sat down beside her, near the spot she patted with her hand. They sat quietly, she with her eyes closed. In the frail light from the street he studied her profile. The dark lashes resting on her cheeks, her full lips, the rise and fall of her chest as she grew more composed. She had the face of a Madonna, of a grieving princess of some European country, lush, lovely, and not quite a part of this world.

“Cry if you must, madame.” Meryon recognized a kindred spirit with a gaping wound where the heart
should be. The pain had brought a wisdom that he would have been happy to live without: that life was filled with opportunities he’d ignored, thinking he had forever.

“It is a weakness to cry now. It has been so long.” She shook her head, her pretty earrings swinging with the motion. “It will hurt my throat.”

When she turned to him, her composure seemed fully restored. “Edward insisted that tears made everyone uncomfortable. I am impressed, sir. Few men tolerate crying with such equanimity.”

“I had practice. When my wife was increasing she was inclined to tears.”

Her smile of understanding drew one from him.

“Were you in town when the princess and her infant died last November?”

“No, I was in France until recently. My sister tells me that everyone mourned; tears and sober clothes were the order of the day everywhere, even in Derbyshire, where she lives.”

“Yes, I heard this too.” She paused. “And yet, sir, it is less than three months and she is forgotten, or at least no one mourns.” Her sorrow had disappeared, replaced by anger. Or was it disgust?

“It is what the Regent wants. He himself held a soiree in February. And I cannot fault him, madame. He must give his brothers time to marry and beget an heir. Of all people his daughter would understand.”

She was silent again as she considered his words. How rare that was, at least in his experience of women. “It could be. Men are more practical than women.”

“That is obvious flattery, madame. My wife would insist that I never gave a thought to what was involved in even the simplest request.” Meryon smiled, not meaning to sound cynical. “As for the prince, we both know there is more to it than that. He does not wish to face the truth that he too will die someday.”

“That is what I think as well! Though I have not met him and have only heard stories of his excesses.”

“I have been in his company more than once, madame, and, from what I have seen, he surrounds himself with as much pleasure as he can as though that will make up for what is missing in his life.” Meryon stood and looked away. That was not the wisest thing to have said about a man to whom he pledged allegiance.

“Yes, I see we think the same in this. It’s as though he is armoring himself against a devil that beats at his door, not realizing that pleasure is the devil’s finest ally.”

Meryon’s raised eyebrows were his only comment.

“Oh dear, you think I have spent too much time among Papists.” She tossed off the comment without sounding either apologetic or embarrassed. “You may be right. You see, I have lived in Italy until recently.”

“Ah, yes, and Italy is full of Roman Catholics. It would be hard to avoid them.” He spoke through a laugh. “But that is not why I kept silent.” He sat next to her again. “In essence I agree with you. Prinny thinks he will find what he needs by sharing his wealth and living extravagantly, wasting money that could be used more wisely.”

“But, sir, whether it is used well or not, money cannot buy what he needs most.”

“Your gown is not made of sackcloth, madame.”

She laughed. “How kind of you to notice. But,” she faced him with a rustle of her skirts, “you will also notice that neither one of us is among the crush on the dance floor, seeking entertainment while we look for that ever-elusive quality called happiness.”

“Ever elusive describes happiness perfectly. I have found contentment, but happiness has proved too much to hope for. I’ve never liked the social whirl, the Season,” he admitted. “Now I like balls and parties even less.”

“I would rather practice the harp for hours, and I do dislike the harp, than watch men and women meet, mate, and think that will guarantee happiness.”

“You do not believe in happiness?” He had yet to meet a woman who denied it.

“I believe in happiness. Too much so, sir.” She sighed. “I had it in my marriage. But the loss of it is so very hard to bear.”

“But loss is a blow that one can recover from,” he said.

“You think so?” For the second time their eyes met and held. She stared into his and did not look away.

“One
can
recover?” she asked.

“We have to believe it, or how could we go on?”

“Yes.” She lowered her head. “Yes, I suppose we can. It merely requires that we lie to ourselves.”

Silence fell again. Meryon heard the ticking of a clock somewhere in the room.

The quiet was companionable, but filled with sensibilities he had avoided for too long. She stared at her hands; he watched them too, not surprised when a tear or two fell on her fingers.

“The truth is that one moment all is well, as well as it can be,” she whispered and raised her head. “Then death puts an end to the effort.”

“For me Rowena’s death was a mix of nightmare and relief together.”

“Was your wife ill for a long time?”

Thank God she’d misunderstood his relief. To admit that it had been a relief to stop trying to understand Rowena was more honest than he needed to be. “She died in childbirth.”

“Aha, like the dear princess.”

“Yes, except my baby, a girl, survived.”

“Oh, sir, such bitter and such sweet.” She raised her hand to her mouth and then dropped it back into her lap. “Your daughter lived.”

“Yes, now my son has a sister. Her mother wanted me to name her Alicia. It was the last thing Rowena ever asked of me.” Meryon stared at the ceiling and waited until his eyes were dry. “Alicia started to walk this week.”

“You are so lucky to still have that much of your wife with you.” She stared over his shoulder. “Sometimes I think I should not have come to London. I have no memories of Edward here.”

“Memories are not always a comfort.”

“You may say that aloud but your heart knows.” She spoke with conviction. “Why else would you have sought out a quiet place to sit?”

“I had decided I made a mistake and was about to leave.” Read that truth, he thought, and looked at her with challenge. She did not abandon the debate.

“I am glad that you did not. Perhaps we are each to
the other a gift from God because now we are able to speak of our loss to someone who understands.”

I do understand
. He did not have to say the words aloud; she read his expression as surely as he read hers.

“I decided months ago that I must do my best and take care of those still living. Use my love of Edward to inspire me. It sounds so presumptuous to voice it aloud.”

“Not presumptuous, but perhaps too noble.”

“How else can I prove his death did some good somewhere?”

“Why should it? Madame, I do believe you must be the kind who tries to find good in the worst of situations.”