Chapter Six
Matilda was buried on a sunny Saturday afternoon, in the crypt at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the ceremony was somber and a bit ostentatious.
Anthony still wore a look like he’d been terrorized by her ghost since her death.
Anthony had invited a handful of people over for luncheon after the funeral, but only Lark lingered after everyone else had left. He didn’t know what made him stay, aside from a sense that Anthony needed him.
Indeed, Anthony held up a bottle of wine. “A gift from Clairborne,” he said, “straight from a vineyard he owns in Bordeaux. Shall we partake.”
“I probably shouldn’t.”
“A single glass, Lark.”
Lark sighed. “All right. I will. Unless you want me to leave.”
“I do not. Drinking alone at home is too sad to do for one more night. If you are here, I am not alone.”
He led Lark to his sitting room, a gaudily decorated but lushly appointed room that had Anthony’s touch all over it.
Anthony loved over-the-top decorations. Everything he did had always felt just this side of too much.
In fact, most of the house looked as it had the last time Lark had seen it, at Anthony’s wedding breakfast. It was like the marchioness had never lived here.
Lark was intensely curious about all of it, but he didn’t dare ask.
Had Anthony undone her feminine touches already?
Had she made those touches to begin with?
They’d spent the summer at his country home, Lark knew that much, so perhaps the late marchioness had not lived here long enough to redecorate.
But the whole house was covered in evidence of Anthony’s predilection for ornate decorations.
Anthony gestured at a pair of chairs near the fireplace and went about opening the wine. He poured a bit into two glasses and presented one to Lark as they sat down together.
One of the maids was arranging flowers in a vase, which prevented Lark from speaking his mind. He kept an eye on her as she fiddled with the arrangement.
“The vase is new,” Anthony said, “a commission from a favorite sculptor. I ordered it months ago, but it only just arrived a few weeks ago. Did I tell you of my suspicion that the artist is not a handsome recluse, as I had imagined, but in fact your dear friend Owen’s wife?”
“What?” The accusation struck Lark as absurd.
Grace dabbled in pottery, yes, but she couldn’t have made anything that pretty.
The vase itself was much more to Lark’s taste than most of what was in Beresford’s house.
It was a tall vase, maybe eighteen inches in height, and it was pale blue with little purple flowers painted on the belly of it.
The top was made to look like the bloom of a flower and the handles looked like ivy vines.
“I don’t know if Owen knows or not, but he has a few pieces in his home that the countess made, and they are remarkably similar stylistically to the artist I like.
In fact, I thought Owen had also discovered said artist when I saw a vase in his dining room and remarked that it looked like a Makepeace, and he corrected me and said his wife had made it. ”
“Hmm.”
“I guess I see some reason for subterfuge, because surely if the public knew those vases were made by a woman, there’d be much less clamor for them, but I don’t see why Owen couldn’t have just told me. Unless I’m wrong, of course.”
The maid finished fiddling with the flowers, briefly bowed to Anthony, and then left the room.
Lark sipped his wine and thought about what he should speak with Anthony about. Not vases, surely; Lark cared not about the vessels Anthony stored the copious flowers around his house in.
But before Lark could come up with a topic, a footman appeared and said, “Mrs. Church would like a word, my lord.”
“Oh. Yes. Send her here.”
“Mrs. Church?” Lark asked after the footman left.
“The nurse.”
A woman who was perhaps in her mid-thirties appeared at the door a moment later. “I hope the funeral was not too dreary, my lord.”
“Difficult for it not to be. Mrs. Church, this is my old friend the Earl of Waring.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Did you need something?”
“Just to say that Master Henry has been a bit fussy this evening and may be coming down with something. No fever, though, and he is sleeping peacefully. I wonder if he just misses his mama.”
“We all do,” Anthony said.
“Yes, my lord. If he does not improve on the morrow, consider summoning a doctor.”
“I will. I appreciate it, Mrs. Church. Please alert me if there is something I should worry about.”
“Yes, I will. Good night, my lord.”
After she left, Anthony turned to Lark. “Should I worry about Henry?”
Lark knew even less about children than Anthony did, but he said, “She said no fever.”
“Bless Mrs. Church. I don’t know what I would do without her.”
“I’m glad you have help.”
Anthony nodded.
“I admit, this situation is not what I imagined.”
“In what way?”
“Well, I only found out you were a father about eight days ago. This is a terrible situation. I don’t know. You truly cared about Matilda.”
“I did.”
“I feel like a heel for feeling jealous of that.” And he did.
Clearly, Anthony had managed to have sex with his wife; the baby upstairs was proof of that.
That she’d had Anthony’s attention—and his body—for the last year made Lark intensely jealous, even though he knew that was ridiculous, especially since he’d pretty much pushed Anthony at his wife. Not to mention she was no longer here.
“No, it…” Anthony looked right at Lark and met his gaze. “It wasn’t like that. I was fond of her, yes. But not in the way you’re implying.”
“Then explain it to me. Since we were not speaking much when you married, tell me about how it all happened.”
Anthony sighed. “Can I be frank?”
“I wish you would.”
“I had a thought to find some young miss in trouble. To find a bride who was already with child because of some foolish affair, and thus spare me from the duty. I met a woman in just such a state shortly after you left me, but I knew the math was too suspicious. That woman gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby five months ago, you see. It would have been suspect. I know, because she was a dear friend of Matilda’s.
She moved in with her aunt in Shropshire. ”
“All right. I suppose I am impressed you managed to follow through with your wife, then.”
“She knew.”
“What?”
“Matilda. She knew everything. I could not in good conscience go into a marriage under false pretenses. Shortly after we became engaged, I took her on a carriage ride in the park, and we managed to get far enough away from her chaperone that I just told her everything. That I am a man who prefers the company of other men, that I’d recently ended an affair with a man, and that I was not entirely confident I could be a full husband to her. She agreed to marry me anyway.”
“Why?” Lark asked. “That is, I mean no offense. You are obviously a handsome, wealthy, and accomplished man and a desirable husband, but I am curious.”
Anthony nodded. In the past, this would have earned Lark a snide comment, but Anthony just carried on speaking. “It seems that since her father passed, she has been under the care of her uncle. Said uncle is…not a good man.”
“Oh.”
“That is to say, he hit her. Never in a place where her bruises would be obvious to the public. And just before our wedding, she told me he’d gotten a look in his eye that made her feel acute danger, that he might try to take advantage of her.
She felt trapped in that house where she felt she was in danger daily, so when I offered for her, she said yes immediately because she saw me as her escape.
I think…that is, I was happy to help her, to provide a safe home for her.
So we began our marriage with an understanding. ”
“That is kind of you.”
Anthony shrugged. “I do have some good qualities, I suppose.”
“And now you have a son.”
“Yes. She desperately wanted children, so I agreed to try. I played some mental games and managed to do the deed. And once we were certain she was expecting, it was almost a relief to be done with it, although I do not mean to say I was repulsed by her. She just did not…arouse me the way a man would have.” He sighed.
“She was good company, you know? Held her own in a conversation. Had a fine sense of humor and knew her way around a good jest. Tolerated my eccentricities. Teased me relentlessly, but in a loving way. Read the newspaper in the morning with me the way you used to. I did like her. I keep expecting her to appear in the doorway to tell me this last week has been a joke.”
“Your mourning is genuine. No need to convince me of that. I can tell.”
“I thought, well, if I cannot have Lark, I will make this situation the best it can be. And then Henry was born, and we were briefly so happy, but within a day, her skin turned yellow. The doctor said it was an infection, which I suppose is quite common. And now I am alone.”
“You are not alone.”
“No?”
Lark reached across the space between the chairs and took Anthony’s hand. “I do not know what we are to each other now, but I’ve missed you desperately and I do not wish to be apart anymore. If you need a friend, I am here. You are not alone.”
“Thank you.” Anthony sighed. “What changed?”
“What do you mean?”
“What has changed between us that you are willing to sit with me now?”
“You need me.”
Anthony shook his head but then leaned back in the chair.
He squeezed Lark’s hand. “I suppose I do. But I am… I barely recognize myself right now. The sadness and fear I feel are overwhelming. My mother tells this will get better with time, but I cannot…that is, I really do need a friend right now. I am not sure I have anything else in me.”
“I understand that. I am not asking you for anything. I just want to help. Honest.”
Anthony nodded. “I blame myself,” he said, sounding a bit watery.
He took his hand back. “I was the one who…but she told me, toward the end, that she wanted Henry more than anything and that it was not my fault. I am trying to take that to heart. I am trying not to feel like the bloody worst man on Earth for drinking this wine. Clairborne lost his sister, after all. He does not seem to blame me, either, but it’s hard not to think… ”
“Please do not do this to yourself. Sometimes the universe… Random things happen.”
“Do you believe in God, Lark?”
“I don’t know.”
“I never gave it much thought, you know? I suppose I always assumed there was some higher plane of existence we all ascend to when we die, that there is a benevolent being overseeing our time on Earth, but I do not know how he could let something like this happen. She was a good person, Lark. She did not deserve to have her life cut short. She may not have been the love of my life, but she was my friend, and I miss her. I wake up in the morning and I don’t know what to do, and this sadness, it is crushing.
How will I ever…how can I ever be myself again? ”
Lark found his own eyes stung. He stood and offered his hand to Anthony, who took it but stood up on his own. Then Lark wrapped Anthony in a hug. Anthony buried his face in Lark’s neck and took a heavy sigh. His body seemed to relax into Lark. Lark rubbed his back and then just held him.
“Anthony,” Lark said. “I want you to know, I love you more than I love my own life and I wish I could take away all of your pain. I can’t, but I can hold you and support you and help you in any way I have the capacity to help you.
You may never fully recover from the events of the last year, from your grief from this loss, and you may never fully forgive yourself, although you should.
But I think you will rediscover who you are.
It could also be that you’ve changed, and that’s all right, too. ”
“Lark.”
Lark could feel the moisture from Anthony’s tears against his neck. Anthony clung to the fabric of Lark’s coat, grasping it as though he were holding on for dear life.
Anthony pulled away slightly. He wiped at his tears with one hand. Lark swatted that hand away and wiped away Anthony’s tears with his thumbs.
“I have missed you every day since you kicked me out of your house that night,” Anthony said. “I think of you daily, and it sits like a weight in my chest. If you are back in my life, I am glad for it, but I am a wreck right now.”
“It’s all right. Take the time you need to mourn.”
“I still love you, too, for what it’s worth. I am not capable of acting on that right now, but I will take anything you have to give.”
“I will give it freely. No need for reciprocation.”
Anthony closed his eyes. “Thank you for coming back to me.”
Lark pulled Anthony back into his arms. “I’ve been miserable without you. I don’t think I was wrong to send you away, but every day without you has been brutal.”
“Let us not dwell on that now.”
“All right.”
“Just…hold me a while longer.”
“I can do that.”