Chapter 12 #3
“I have been observing your wife. I do not believe she loves you. I do not even believe she likes you.”
He was silent for a long time. Louisa hoped he was at least chagrined that anyone would toss such a thing in his face. It was almost enough to make her embrace Lady Tremaine in friendship.
“My wife does not like to make her sentiments public,” he said at last. “What she feels, only she and I know.”
Lady Tremaine snorted at his answer. “So I’m right, then. Don’t worry; I won’t demand to know the why and wherefore of her sentiments. Or yours. I am interested only in what you can do to help me sleep better.”
Louisa found it difficult to remain quiet. She seemed to be able to take in air only in huge gulps. Even with her hands over her mouth, her trembling inhalations echoed in her hiding space.
“Since we are both awake in the middle of the night,” continued Lady Tremaine, “come and make love to me instead. At least you know I like you. In fact, sometimes I adore you.”
“Hmm, a tempting offer,” he said.
“One that you’d regret declining.”
“Would I?” His words were low and soft.
“You remember what it was like.” Lady Tremaine’s voice was all willful seduction. “We were magnificent together.”
“I remember.”
“Midnight, then.”
“I haven’t said I’d come.”
“You’d be a fool not to, wouldn’t you?”
And she departed on that triumphant note, walking out of the library. The closing of the door echoed in the silence.
Louisa gasped when the bookshelf was pushed aside.
“I thought you might be here,” her husband said coolly, as if he hadn’t just failed to turn down an invitation to adultery.
And what should she say in return? Sleep with her and I will give you a concussion with my telescope stand?
“Yes,” she said, “it’s a comfortable spot. Pretty view, too.”
“I will leave you to your reading, then.”
“Thank you,” she said politely.
Then she bent her face to her book, indicating that she had nothing else to say to him.
A few seconds later, the bookshelf slid back into place, shutting her in.
* * *
Felix remained where he was.
He wanted to leave, but his feet were rooted in place, and his hands kept reaching out to push the bookshelf aside again.
Madly enough, he didn’t want to shove her against the wall and claim her with the force of an asteroid strike.
In his mind, he sat down next to her and together they watched the clouds depart in the wake of the rain, revealing a clear, spotless afternoon sky.
He left only when he must, to supervise the preparation of the fire pit, with an emptiness in his heart that felt, unhappily, all too familiar.
Along with a strange anxiety.
He wasn’t worried about what Lady Tremaine might or might not do. He knew her very well: If she wanted him, it was only as a distraction—something about her Scandinavian trip had upset her.
His wife, on the other hand…
On bonfire nights, no formal dinners were laid out. Instead, a buffet supper was served on the grand terrace, which had been lit with dozens of lanterns suspended from a pergola set up specifically for the occasion.
His sense of misgiving doubled when she appeared on the terrace clad in the same dinner gown she’d worn on their wedding night. Without looking left or right, she went directly to Drummond, who bowed and kissed her hand.
They stood by the balustrade and chatted, ignoring the buffet supper altogether.
As they spoke, with only the barest nod at subtlety, Drummond inched toward her.
She seemed perfectly conversant with the game.
From time to time, she would rest the tip of her closed fan against his chest, to slow his inexorable progress.
And once in a while, she would slide a foot to the left, to keep a respectable distance between them.
Then, all of a sudden, not only did she stop moving away, she leaned toward Drummond. And when he lowered his head to say something in her ear, she tilted her face and gave him a sideways smile.
A smile that spoke of a Greek folly lit by torches, of slender columns that could barely conceal a grown woman, and of hot, frantic coupling in the shadows, perhaps only a few yards from those who oohed and ahhed over the display of fireworks.
In the wake of the smile, she whispered to Drummond and pointed to the very pavilion across the water, the one Felix could not look at without an echoing sense of loss.
She left Drummond with a flirtatious caress of her fan down his arm, to mix with the other guests.
Felix felt as if there were a hand at his throat, choking him.
He had not agreed to an adulterous affair; surely she could recall that.
He had not turned down Lady Tremaine flat because he had not wanted to interrogate her on why she was propositioning him out of the blue, knowing that they were not truly alone.
He found Lady Tremaine and led her down to the lawn, out of earshot of the others. “Regretting it yet?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You do know what I mean. You were wondering whether to have a headache or pretend to be too drunk when I showed up at midnight.”
She sighed. “Why must you know me so well?”
“I assume it’s not anything your Scandinavian lovers said or did.” He doubted that she’d had any lovers at all; she was not the sort to sleep with a man on a short acquaintance.
She looked away. “Tremaine was in Copenhagen.”
Her permanently absent husband. “At his sister’s house?”
“No. I mean, I’m sure that’s where he was staying, but we ran into each other quite accidentally.” She exhaled. “And he had a woman with him.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “It’s just the shock of it. I will be all right in no time.”
He touched her on her arm. “Come back at Christmas. I’ll pack the house with handsome men and you can have your pick.”
She laughed rather valiantly, her hand reaching up to adjust the scarf his valet had draped about his neck against the eventual chill of the night. “That’s right—instead of the ugly men you usually host.”
Her barely-beneath-the-surface pain reverberated inside his own chest. He was feeling too much these days—and no longer knew how to stop.
He squeezed her hand. “I will even get rid of the homelier footmen, just for you.”
They both laughed rather valiantly at that. She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Felix.”
And of course his wife would choose that moment to look his way, her gaze hardening into daggers.
* * *
At ten minutes to midnight, Felix walked into the folly.