Chapter Fifteen
Martin had never been one for parties, and he was especially glad when Maulvi’s assembly ended.
It was too strange to dance in a room full of mourners and too hard to try to avoid looking Martha’s way.
He wanted to be done with all of it: the obligation of displaying his feelings for Maulvi, the small details about Thatcham villagers he needed to remember of which normally Maulvi would have reminded him, the press of so many people in the barn, the threat of scrutiny if he so much as smiled at Martha.
They had danced together for only a moment, during an early quadrille, yet when Ellen had reclaimed him as her partner, she had given him so searching a look Martin thought he must have kissed Martha in front of the whole assembly.
That was, of course, what he had wanted to do.
If he could have had his way, he would have pulled two overstuffed chairs into a corner of the room and sat with Martha all night.
That being impossible, he would have settled for dancing with her as his sole partner through all the sets of quadrilles and minuets and reels.
That being ridiculous, he would have eaten his supper beside her to hear her observations on the evening.
As it was, he could not even ride home in the same carriage as her.
To avoid talk, Martha climbed into the gig with Mr. and Mrs. Chow to return to Northfield Hall, while Martin took the family carriage with his daughters and Eddie.
When they got home, he would have to surrender her to her bedroom without following her in, for on this night of all nights, Sophia and Ellen and Caroline would likely stay up talking and catch anyone sneaking through the corridors.
He was a horrid old man to consider threatening Martha’s reputation like that, anyhow. He knew the correct way to behave, and it was high time he showed her the respect she was due, which was to not take advantage of her just because she told him he could.
He had bid everyone goodnight and retreated to his dressing room when his daughters knocked on his door.
At first, he thought it was only Ellen, and he assumed he had dropped something in the corridor as he shrugged out of his coat. Then Sophia and Caroline followed her into the room, and true fear gripped his stomach.
“Is there bad news from abroad?” he asked—devil that he was, hoping this was about a topic that had nothing to do with him.
“No, nothing like that,” Ellen assured him. She stood by his washstand, one hand on its smooth wooden mirror post. Sophia guarded the door while Caroline seated herself on his sofa.
Martin couldn’t remember the last time his children had been in his dressing room. When Lolly was alive, probably. He had the strange urge to usher them out, as if they were intruding on him naked and not properly ashamed.
“We are concerned about you, Papa,” said Ellen, her voice gentle yet firm, no doubt the tone she used to warn her children from foolish ventures.
“Caroline told us about the rumors of an intrigue between you and Mrs. Bellamy. I thought for sure it was vicious gossip, but what I saw with my own two eyes alarms me.”
Martin withdrew a dressing robe from his armoire. It was not his favorite—that one lay in wait for him across the foot of his bed—but it gave him some armor as he defended himself. “What on earth could you have seen that alarmed you?”
“Mrs. Bellamy is in love with you.”
The words resounded in his ears, or perhaps that was his heart pounding doubly hard. “Then surely this is a conversation you should be having with her.”
Ellen grew shrill. “Mrs. Bellamy is in love with you, and you haven’t a care for her reputation!”
“Perhaps Papa is in love with her,” Sophia suggested.
Martin’s head spun. Of all his children, Sophia was the one he would expect to understand that his arrangement with Martha need have nothing to do with love. He couldn’t see any reply except: “Of course I am not in love with her.”
“Everyone knows you two are carrying on,” said Caroline. “Mrs. Chow told me she thinks it is wonderful, and she wouldn’t say anything about it if she didn’t know it was absolutely true.”
“Even the mighty Mrs. Chow can be wrong sometimes.” He heard how bitter his words sounded, and he regretted them—of course he did, for not only was he lying, but he was denigrating poor Mrs. Chow as he did so!
She had nothing to do with him and Martha; she had very little to do with him and Caroline, for that matter; he wished he were a better man.
Since he wasn’t, he added, “It is beyond my imagination that you three would consider this a worthy topic of discussion, much less at this time of night. Let us go to bed and forget about it.”
Ellen jerked away—giving Martin hope that she might heed him—but Sophia remained by the door.
“We haven’t anything against you taking a lover, Papa.
It’s the manner in which you do it that matters.
Mrs. Bellamy has nothing but her reputation to live on.
You mustn’t look at her in the middle of an assembly as if you want to tear her clothes off. ”
Caroline objected to this with a sound of disgust, and Martin couldn’t help but growl at those words coming from his daughter.
“More importantly,” Ellen said, “you mustn’t make promises you won’t keep to that poor woman. I am quite sure she thinks you will marry her, Papa.”
“Oh yes, if you were to marry her, it wouldn’t matter how you look at her,” Sophia amended, “but as it seems you are behaving like every other man and denying your own sin, you really must have a care.”
“Do you want to marry her?” Caroline asked.
Martin didn’t know how the conversation had gotten so out of hand.
“Of course I do not want to marry her. You are letting gossip chase the sense out of your heads. I am a responsible man. I would not take advantage of a poor, lonely widow when she is my guest. What, do you think I have been sneaking into her bedroom at night to ravish her? How can you accuse me of such things?”
He felt physically ill. His hands trembled, his skin grew clammy, and if he had to say another word, he thought he might vomit.
Caroline threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t believe you, Papa!
We don’t believe you. Maybe when we were younger, we would have swallowed your lie, but we are not children.
I really wanted you to admit to it because then, at least, I could go to sleep knowing my father is an honest man.
Instead, I just have confirmation of what I already knew.
You’re a coward and a liar and you won’t stand up for half the lofty principles you always claim.
” Pushing herself to her feet, she snarled at her sisters, “I told you that it wasn’t worth trying,” and barreled out of the room.
Martin counseled himself not to say anything, for he had learned in the past few years that this was the emotional state in which he only said harmful things.
Besides, there was no defense against Caroline’s accusations.
“We are not trying to shame you, Papa,” Sophia said, her voice calm. “We are trying to help you see the situation as others do so that you may make the right decisions. Everyone knows Mrs. Bellamy has lived here alone with you for the past few months.”
“Alone with a dozen servants!” Martin objected.
“You asked her to be your private secretary and have been locking yourself away in the study with her.”
“Only if you mean ‘locking’ euphemistically,” he lied. “Anyone can enter at any time.”
“Leyla told me she did try to enter once to take away your lunch tray and that all the doors were locked,” said Ellen quietly.
“Besides,” said Sophia, “you have never needed a secretary before. Like George III, we always said, didn’t we?”
Her words were not a question. Martin summoned a logical defense. “She has been helping me consider a very private matter that I did not want anyone to interrupt.”
Sophia rolled her eyes. “Please, Papa, do not take us for idiots.”
“I am not lying. She has been helping me with my will. Perhaps you can understand why I did not want Leyla or the Chows or anyone else to overhear.”
“What could you have to discuss about your will that is so private? The land is entailed and the money…” Sophia suddenly frowned. “You are leaving us money, are you not?”
He was so relieved to be telling the truth that he continued to do so: “That is what I have been weighing.”
“You have been weighing whether or not we merit the family legacy?” In an instant, Sophia went from calm to angry, the old anger that Martin used to imagine shook the entire house.
“Of course, why should we expect any money from you? We are only your daughters. We cannot inherit Northfield Hall. We cannot fight beside you in Parliament. I thought at least I could expect that being a Preston meant I wouldn’t have to worry about money to live a modestly comfortable life.
But I should have known better. After all, you hardly even agree to send me the coach money to visit you. ”
“This is not a question of your merit, Sophia. I must consider the legacy of Northfield Hall.”
“Oh, Northfield Hall will sustain itself whether you send me an extra few pounds for travel or not.”
Martin felt justified to rejoin, “You are the one who chose to marry a man without a fortune. You mustn’t be shocked that you must now make do with a different lifestyle than that to which you were accustomed.”
“And yet if Caroline were to ask you for that money, you would give it to her without a question. If Ellen needed it, you would send it immediately. It is only I you are stingy with because I am the one you have always found wanting!” To his surprise, Sophia’s eyes reddened with tears.
“I should have learned my lesson when you left me to rot at Robin Abbey rather than come to my defense.”
The anecdote was from so long ago that Martin almost didn’t remember what she referred to. “Did I not send Max in my stead?”
“It should have been my father.” Sophia glared at him, the tears gone, replaced by her fury.
“I don’t care that I am the thorn in your side who refuses to live by your rules.
That doesn’t change the fact that I’m your daughter, Papa, and I am worthy, and I will not let you treat me as a burden any longer. ”
“Sophia!”
She whirled away, and he could not follow because Ellen remained, stiff as a rod. Martin said helplessly, “How am I to convince her none of that is true?”
“Perhaps by admitting what is true.”
Stuck on the accusation that he had not helped Sophia in her hour of need, he said, “I thought I had a chance at passing a bill to abolish slavery once and for all. If I had left, it would have lost all its momentum.”
“It didn’t pass anyway.”
“I didn’t have the benefit of knowing that.”
“You were not the bill’s only sponsor, but you were—and are—Sophia’s only father.”
He swallowed Ellen’s words, trying very hard not to drown them out with his own defenses. “She was always getting herself into scandals. I didn’t realize that was the one she would remember.”
Ellen gazed at him with hardly any emotion. “And what of Mrs. Bellamy, Papa? What is true now?”
Martin had no choice but to stick to his earlier denial. “None of it. I swear to you, Ellen, none of it.”
Oh, he hated himself for saying it. A part of him wished he could go back and admit to the affair as soon as Caroline had mentioned it in the garden drawing room weeks ago. Then, at least, his daughters could not accuse him of lying, though they would know all his other terrible deeds.
A sheen of tears fell over Ellen’s eyes. “I learned a long time ago that you were fallible, Papa, yet still I thought you were constant. But now—” She searched him with those heartbreaking eyes. “I don’t even recognize you.”
Martin reached out for her, but she, too, deserted him.
He did not have the courage to follow any of them.
He did not have the words to put anything right.
He did not even have the strength to make an honest man of himself.
And it was this terrible version of a man that Martha encountered when she entered the dressing room.