Chapter Twenty-One
Ismay opened the door to Alistair’s room, her body filled with the worst kind of anticipation: the trepidation that came with the sure knowledge that something awful waited for her inside.
Finality. When she stepped inside, when she saw it empty, it would truly be over.
Worse than that, it would be the beginning of erasing him.
It would start with exorcising him from the physical spaces he’d occupied, like this room.
It would then slowly move on to other spaces—mental spaces, emotional spaces, until it would be as if he’d never existed.
But it had to be done. Much like the import of viewing a body in order to believe someone was really dead.
The scent hit her first. The room smelled like him: bergamot, citrus and herbs.
He hadn’t been gone long if it was still noticeable.
She breathed deeply, knowing scent would be the first thing to fade.
Ismay glanced around the room, hoping for a piece of clothing left behind, something worn close to his skin, full of his scent, but he’d been thorough in his packing.
Or perhaps the valet had been the thorough one on her father’s orders that nothing be left behind, nothing that could provide an excuse to seek him out.
Her fingers trailed over the smooth bedcoverings.
He’d not slept. He’d wasted no time acceding to her father’s wishes that he’d be gone by morning.
From the looks of it, he’d left by dawn.
Her throat tightened. Her father had not allowed time for a goodbye.
She’d not thought it would happen so fast. Maybe it was for the best. What did lingering accomplish when they had achieved what they wanted? They were free now.
There was something on the desk. A letter with her name on it and a dark leather wallet that at a distance had blended in with the wood of the desk.
She pulled out the chair and sat, her fingers trembling as she slid a thumbnail beneath the seal even as she smiled.
There’d been a goodbye for her after all.
At first glance, the note was something of a disappointment.
There were no overt protestations of love.
Did he think she didn’t want them? Perhaps.
She had not handled his first declaration well.
Neither was there any congratulatory mentions of the ruse having been achieved, perhaps out of concern the note might be read by another and expose their plan.
Instead, there were simply instructions and encouragements.
He wanted her to pursue her dreams, to start the scientific journal, to continue her research on the mountain.
Ismay hefted the pouch before opening it.
It was heavy, and it didn’t so much jingle as thunk enticingly.
Suspicion rose along with her pulse. She untied the drawstring at the mouth of the pouch and spilled a few coins into her hand.
Gold ducats! The kind he’d won at Eddington’s and the horse race.
A bag full of ducats was no small sum. Tears smarted in her eyes.
The money communicated what the words couldn’t risk.
He didn’t simply wish those things for her.
He actively wanted them for her. Because nothing said I love you like the funds to publish a scientific journal.
Dear God, what had she done in pushing him away, in making him leave?
The show of active support nearly undid her.
There were men in the accademia who encouraged her work like Teodoro Monticelli, but not one of them had offered her any tangible tools through which she might do that work.
Alistair had shown her kindness even at the last, when her family had shown him the door.
At the sound of footsteps in the hall, she wiped hurriedly at her tears and tucked the leather pouch beneath her skirts.
‘My dear, are you hiding away in here?’ Her mother entered, concerned. ‘It has been a difficult morning for all of us. Do you want to talk about it?’
This would be the dénouement, the final act. Alistair had played his part, and now she must play hers. It wasn’t hard to be both sad and angry about the news her father had imparted over breakfast. She truly was.
‘It’s too late for talking, and what’s the point?
Father will just decide as he wishes. Not as I wish.
’ But it was too late for what she wanted.
She’d thrown it away with both hands the night Alistair had asked her to decide for them, the night he’d offered her everything.
Panic was rising. If Alistair was here, he’d take her in his arms and they’d push it away together. But now she was on her own.
‘Alistair wasn’t right for you. He was not who we thought he was,’ her mother soothed.
‘It doesn’t matter if he was wrong for me.
It’s the principle of the issue. Father broke off my engagement without consulting me or asking how I felt about it.
’ But that wasn’t the real source of hurt; her heart wouldn’t let her get away with believing that.
Her doubt had not been of him, but of herself, and she’d let that doubt send him away.
‘You and I discussed the possibility before you left for Vesuvius. It should not surprise you. Besides, it was your father’s pact to break. That break is now between him and Hugh Burke-Price.’
‘But I am twenty-eight years old, Mother.’ Her anger had worked up a full head of steam now. It helped; it felt good. ‘I should be able to decide what is right for me.’
Her mother’s mouth set in a stern line. She folded her arms. ‘And what would you have decided, Ismay? To marry a gambler who took extraordinary and unnecessary risks with money? With you? Your safety? He won’t always win.
Someday he’ll lose, and his fall will be all the more hellish for it, only he’ll drag you down with him, and perhaps even us. Is that what you would have decided?’
Ismay saw the trap too late. If she said Alistair was her choice, she’d show the poor, heedless judgement her mother feared.
If she said no, there was no reason to be angry with her father.
‘I would have liked to have been asked. I would have liked him to not be sent from the house in the middle of the night as if we’re ashamed of him. ’
‘We are ashamed of him,’ her mother interrupted. ‘And you should be, too. You had a near escape with him. We offered him the world, and he turned it away. If that doesn’t tell you something about a man’s character, I don’t know what will.’
She wanted to argue her mother was right.
It did speak volumes about Alistair’s character.
She wanted to shout He turned it down for me because I asked it of him.
This was all a ruse to avoid a marriage we didn’t think we wanted.
You don’t know him at all. He is not the man he pretended to be with you.
But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t even be angry at her mother, who was only responding to what she’d been shown.
If she wanted to be mad at someone, it had to be herself.
She’d set Alistair up to be the villain.
‘I know your heart was engaged, and that is understandable. He was a handsome, energetic young man.’ That was an understatement.
More than her heart had been engaged. How had she not seen it?
Her mind, her emotions, her entire self had been engaged with Alistair.
She’d opened up to him in ways she’d never opened herself with Edward or anyone.
She’d shared her world with him, her fears, her stupid panic attacks.
He’d not laughed at her once. Instead, he’d embraced her as she was, for who she was, not as someone she might be.
She began to tremble with realisation. Tears began to fall again. She’d made a horrible mistake.
‘Ismay, darling, don’t cry.’ Her mother sounded genuinely distressed.
A handkerchief appeared in her hand. ‘It won’t always hurt this much.
The sooner you realise it’s best that he is gone, the sooner we can all move on.
The holidays are coming, and our friends will have company in town, new people to meet.
We’ll manage the broken engagement carefully so that you aren’t to blame. ’
‘I’ve made a terrible mistake,’ Ismay sobbed. This was what love felt like, what loss felt like.
‘It will get better.’ Her mother squeezed her hand reassuringly, misunderstanding the mistake, thinking the tears were tears of regret for having travelled the path with Alistair instead of the opposite.
‘I have letters to write and people to inform about our change of plans. The maids need to get in here and clean.’ That was the subtle cue she was not to dwell on Alistair, to be in his space.
Was. Move on. These were terms people used when talking about the dead, things that had been. ‘I’ll just be a moment, Mother. I have some work of my own to do.’
* * *
She buried herself in that work over the next four weeks in the hopes that it would stop her heart from breaking at the thought of him, that eventually there would come a time when she could walk into a room and not look for him, not see him in every place she went or be reminded of something he’d said or something they’d done.
But his ghost was intent on lingering. It haunted her in the mercato, in the ballrooms where they’d danced, the rooms they’d snuck away to, and at the accademia meetings where he’d stood beside her and stood up for her.