Chapter 28
LUCIEN
The following morning, Lucien woke with a leaden feeling in his gut.
He ought not to have addressed Marianne as he had the previous afternoon, but he had been so vexed by Henry calling her Mama and her not correcting him that he had reacted in a manner he knew was improper.
She hadn’t deserved such treatment. And really, if it resulted in her moving away from him, then perhaps that was what needed to happen. Perhaps it was for the best.
They couldn’t be together. He knew that. If she ever knew the truth, then she would leave him anyhow. At least this way, he was going to save them both much pain and suffering.
Still, as he rose and dressed himself without his man’s assistance, he couldn’t help but feel ill at the prospect of seeing her at breakfast. He made his way down, hoping that perhaps she had already risen, eaten, and had gone to tend to her own tasks, but he found her in the breakfast room, engaged in buttering a hot cross bun for Henry.
“Papa,” Henry said. “Look, I have a hot cross bun. Cook made them especially for me.”
“How good of her, but we shouldn’t ask too much of her,” Lucien told him, making his son’s face fall.
“I hardly think it is a difficult task to make hot cross buns instead of regular rolls,” Marianne said, her tone frigid and cutting, piercing him through.
He sat down like one rebuked and indicated for the maid to pour him a cup of tea. As he drank, he watched Marianne. She did not grant him so much as a single glance. Instead, she ate her roll with her attention either on her food or on Henry.
“I trust you slept well?” he asked.
“Reasonably,” she said.
“Good,” he said, noting that she hadn’t asked him how he slept, which would’ve been common courtesy, but he couldn’t really blame her.
“Have you plans for today?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
Just yes. Nothing further. No explanation.
The piece of bread he’d been chewing lodged in his throat.
He took a sip of tea, forgetting that it was still hot, and burned himself.
He nearly let the cup fall upon the saucer.
This time, she looked at him. However, there was no tenderness or warmth in her gaze, which rather resembled the way a schoolmistress might look upon an errant pupil.
“Papa and I are going riding today,” Henry said. “Are you coming, Marianne?”
He was calling her Marianne again instead of Mama. Had she corrected him? Or was it just a child’s capricious nature?
Lucien did not attempt further discourse with her. Instead, he finished his roll as quickly as he could, forcing large pieces into his mouth at a time and washing them down with hot tea after adding milk.
Then he got up and made his way out of the breakfast room.
Mrs. Greaves was approaching from the opposite direction with a smile on her lips, but when she saw his expression, it faded.
“Goodness gracious, what has happened? You look most upset.”
“I am not upset,” he said. “I am merely vexed. Lady Wexford and I had an unpleasant conversation last night, and she is quite out of charity with me this morning.”
“I know,” Mrs. Greaves said. “Juliet told me. You were unkind to her.”
“I know it,” Lucien agreed, running one hand through his hair, tugging at the roots. “But Henry called her Mama, and I am afraid I conducted myself ill. It vexed me.”
“But I saw the two of you together caring for him, and I thought something had changed between the two of you?”
“It has, but it should not have. So I have put things back to rights,” he said.
“Have you put things back to rights? It seems to me that you have made things more complicated than they needed to be.”
“They are as they need to be,” Lucien said. “They simply are.”
“I would hate to see you throw away this chance,” said Mrs. Greaves unhappily. “This one chance of happiness.”
“But it is not a chance of happiness,” Lucien replied, vexed. “It is a chance of misery for both of us. I’m saving her from a wretched future with me.”
“Whilst you’re robbing yourself and your little boy of a joyful one,” Mrs. Greaves returned.
Lucien looked at her. “Perhaps it would be better if you tended to your duties and let me tend to mine.” He didn’t usually speak to the housekeeper in such a manner, but he knew he had to. For otherwise she would not abandon the subject.
He made his way into his study and forced himself to apply himself to his work. That afternoon, he would take Henry out riding, and that would distract him from his troubles, he knew it. But for right now, he had to make himself forget the tangle his life had become.
Marianne paced her chamber back and forth, her heart pounding in her chest in fury.
Her hands were curled into fists as she stopped in front of the window.
She saw Henry and Lucien walking towards the stable.
They were going riding as a family, as a twosome.
The three of them together had been a family, but he had made it quite clear that they would not be again.
A knock on the door drew her from her reverie. She looked back to see Juliet enter.
“I have found your portmanteau,” she said, and raised the little leather case up. “Are you quite certain this is what you wish to do?”
“It is,” she said. “I cannot abide beneath the same roof as him. Not when he is perpetually changeable. I need to be away, even for just a few days. Charlotte will understand, though I fear Rhys will question me as though I were caught in the Spanish Inquisition.”
“Perhaps,” Juliet said. “Have you thought of a more permanent solution? You have not been married to him for very long. Will it be enough for people to believe that the marriage has run its course already?”
“They shall have to believe it, for it is true. As for my plans, I do not know. I will stay with Charlotte for a few days. Perhaps I will return afterwards. But right now I cannot endure the sight of him. I cannot live like this, forever torn between him being affectionate and him ignoring me.”
“I dare say, from what I heard below stairs, you gave him a taste of his own treatment this morning.”
She nodded. She had. She had kept herself to the briefest replies whenever possible and ignored him otherwise.
She had felt his discomfiture, and she’d been pleased with it.
He deserved it. Yet at the same time, there was a part of her that didn’t want to be like this—spiteful, small-minded. She didn’t want to be like him.
Whatever it was that was keeping him from being able to decide regarding their status and abide by it, it was entrenched within his soul.
She had tried to find the reason. She had tried to understand him, but there was no true understanding.
Whatever demons were haunting him were anchored too deeply within him for her to dislodge, and she was exhausted by the effort.
She loved him, yes. But if he wasn’t willing to let her love him, what was she to do?
She walked to the armoire and selected a few of her dresses while Juliet did the same with her belongings from the sideboard. Together, they packed the little case and closed it with a snap.
“Are you ready? Have you packed your things?” Marianne asked Juliet.
“I did the moment you said you wanted to stay with your sister. I am ready. But will you speak to him before you go?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve chosen to leave now because he is busy riding. He will not even know I am gone until this evening. I have written him a letter. Do you wish to read it?”
“Of course I wish to read it,” Juliet said, taking the letter from her the moment Marianne picked it up from her desk.
Lucien, it read.
I know our arrangement is not yet concluded, but I am visiting my sister for several days.
I find your company insufferable. You have hurt me beyond what I could have conceived.
I never sought to become a mother or a wife—not a real one anyhow.
I came here at your suggestion, and I lived by your rules, but your edicts shift like sand.
You appear to adore me, then you dismiss me.
You hold me close, then push me away. You kiss me, then treat me as though I were nothing.
But I am not nothing. If my time with the nuns has taught me anything, it is that I am worthy.
At least in the eyes of God, I am worthy.
I deserve more. Do not fret—I shall not ruin appearances.
I know that we are due to attend the ball at Mrs. Grayson’s home this Friday, and I shall be there.
I shall play the part of your devoted wife, but know this: in private, we shall remain as strangers.
Whatever has happened between us these last few days shall be as though naught had passed between us.
Do not fret. I shall be the model of wifely obedience before others until we may part without scandal.
For now, I bid you farewell.
She had signed it Marianne Langley, instead of her married name. It had felt appropriate.
“Well, it is blunt,” her friend said as she folded the letter.
“It was necessary,” Marianne said. “Now let us go. I have already told the coachman to collect us at three o’clock, and it is now ten minutes before three.”
Together, the two made their way down the stairs and waited for the carriage.
When it came, they climbed inside and let the coachman store their two small portmanteaus in the storage compartment, and then they left.
As they did, she watched her grand home recede into the distance.
She knew that she had written that she was going to return soon.
Yet as the house disappeared behind her, she found herself wondering if she would ever see it again.
What would happen at the ball when they saw one another?
Would he simply tell her to stay away? And if that was the case, would he allow her to see Henry again, to bid him farewell?
She didn’t want to vanish from the child’s life forever, but that wasn’t really up to her.
As had been made abundantly clear, she wasn’t his mother.
She took a deep breath and exhaled, her shoulders sagging.
Juliet took her hand. “You have no need of him. Just think back a few months ago—you were thinking about living in the convent forever. No man could have troubled you there.”
“That is true,” Marianne replied. “There were many things certain a few months ago that I never could’ve imagined would change. Such as my actually giving my heart to one so unattainable.”
“Love can be a treasure,” Juliet said, “but it can also be a curse. Think of all those poor young girls we shared our time with at the convent—the ones who thought they had found love in the arms of gentlemen who then turned out to dismiss them when they found themselves in unfortunate circumstances.”
“I know it,” Marianne said. “I suppose I sometimes look at my sisters and I see how happy they are, even though they came to love through difficult circumstances. And a part of me hoped that maybe that might be Lucien and me. At least, there was a time I thought so. I did not think it when I first met him. But now I know I was a fool.”
“You could go back to the convent,” Juliet said, “for a season.”
Marianne turned to her friend. “You think so? But what of you? What of our plans?”
“I did not say take your vows,” Juliet corrected her quickly.
“But I said perhaps it might be good for you to gain some perspective. Once you and Lucien have resolved this sham marriage, it will grant you time for reflection. I would accompany you, though reluctantly, I would go. Or I could precede you to wherever you choose to establish yourself and make arrangements. Whatever you wish to do, I am here for you. I am your friend. I always shall be.”
Marianne squeezed Juliet’s hand. It was true that love could be a curse. But she had found that love among friends could be the purest form of affection.