Twenty-Three

Cora had never experienced anything like that in her life. It had been euphoric. She had heard women talk about sex before. Fanny’s friends were progressive as far as that went, and Fanny herself had been known to indulge in love affairs. Jenny had written home to her about a particular man she had fallen in love with in Paris. She had known that sexual encounters could be pleasant, but nothing had prepared her for this.

Release had felt like she had come out of her body. From the look of him, her husband felt that way, too. He had fallen to sit on the window seat, his back against the panes of glass. His chest rose and fell with his breaths as if he’d come from the football pitch. The muscles of his chest and shoulders were on full display, and she immediately regretted not being able to feel them properly during the encounter. But there would be more. She was certain of it. No one could do what they had done so spectacularly and not want more.

His eyes were hooded as he looked at her as if he’d awoken from sleep. He cupped her face in his palm, and his thumb traced her lips, spreading his semen. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized it was still there and she probably looked a mess as she knelt at his feet. Her body was still thrumming pleasantly, so she hadn’t even considered that. Her fingers automatically flew to her mouth. He sprung to action, leaning forward and using his robe to wipe her mouth and chin clean.

“Christ, Cora.” He kissed her forehead and leaned back again, his gaze fixed on her face. “That was . . . unexpected.”

She smiled up at him. “It was.”

“I’m not typically so clumsy.”

Her smile brightened at how he was completely undone. His composure was in shambles. She had never seen him this relaxed or at a loss, and she quite liked him this way.

“I didn’t notice,” she said.

His mouth tightened. It was her first inkling that she wasn’t going to like what came next.

“Cora . . .”

“Leo.” A bloom of dread opened in her stomach. If this was going to bring them closer, his tone wouldn’t be so off. Something was wrong, and she had a suspicion he was regretting everything. But she didn’t want to lose this closeness with him. The very idea of it made her feel sick.

He took in a breath through his nose, and the silence grew.

“You didn’t mean for it to happen, did you?” she asked, hating what she knew his answer would be.

“It shouldn’t have happened.”

Nothing could have prepared her for the pain that sliced through her. It was the worst thing she had ever felt. Worse than the last night Mr. Hathaway had visited them years ago. That night flashed before her eyes and she was back there, hiding outside the door to their music room as he argued with her mother about money.

“You will not receive a penny more than the monthly allotment we’ve agreed upon. Not a penny more, Fanny.” Mr. Hathaway’s voice had rumbled through the wall. He might have also stomped his foot. Something shook the crystal drops on the table lamp in the hallway where Cora knelt listening through the keyhole.

“Keep your voice down, Charles. There is no need to wake the girls with your tantrum.”

Fanny’s voice was measured in a way that it hardly ever was, as if she was trying very hard to stay calm. That more than her godfather’s raised voice had made Cora’s skin prickle with cold. Mr. Hathaway’s rare visits were usually in the mornings when she and her two sisters would be presented to him in their Sunday best. Strange that he was here now, late at night.

The silence in the room was thick like vapor. Cora could almost imagine it seeping under the door to stain the hem of her nightgown as she shifted to her knees and peered through the keyhole. She couldn’t see anything except the box piano that stood in the center of the opposite wall between two windows.

“If you call this a tantrum, what in God’s name do you call that stunt you pulled in Newport?” Mr. Hathaway’s voice shook with his anger. “My entire family was there.”

“You’re right, for once your entire family was in Newport,” Mama quipped. Her voice came from the left, which meant they were on opposite sides of the room.

“You know what I mean.”

“There was a time when we were your family.” Hurt had overtaken the anger in Fanny’s voice.

“Things are different now,” he said quietly.

There was a rustle of fabric, and Fanny’s skirts came into view as she closed the distance between them. Her voice had softened considerably when she spoke. “They don’t have to be.” Sighing dramatically, she added, “This isn’t about the money. I . . . I know I shouldn’t, but I still love you, Charles. Even though you’ve married that woman and I feel cast aside.”

He let out a sound that seemed half sigh, half torture, and said, “No! Don’t say such things. That is in the past.”

“It’s the truth. Despite what you say, I know that you still love me. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be this difficult. Just admit it. Say that you love me. Say that you wish you got to come home to me in your fancy Fifth Avenue home every night. Say that you wish it was me—”

“Damn you!”

For a moment, he took up the entirety of the view from the keyhole as he crossed to her mother. Cora had the horrible thought that he meant to strike Fanny or punish her for speaking to him that way, and she made to rise, but that isn’t what happened. He grabbed Fanny, but only to pull her against him. They were kissing. Fanny was kissing him back. One of her slender hands gripped his hair so tight Cora winced, while her other clung to his shoulder as if she didn’t want to let him go. They appeared frenzied, and he lifted her against the piano.

Cora fell back in shock, closing her eyes so tight that white spots danced behind them as she tried to make sense of what she had seen. It still didn’t make sense when she opened them. Her heart pounding, she hurried on her tiptoes to the stairs, intent on hiding in her bed and pretending she had never come downstairs in the first place. She had only made it to the first step when the door to the music room flung open and Mr. Hathaway’s heavy footfall sounded in the hall. Instead of hurrying up the stairs, which would surely get her caught, she sat on the step near the wall and hoped the shadows hid her.

It didn’t work. He paused when he came abreast of her, his eyes widening in surprise. “Cora,” he said, and for some reason the sound of her name in his voice was a surprise.

“Mr. Hathaway.”

“I won’t see you again for a long time,” he finally said. “I am sorry for that.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she nodded.

“Charles . . .”

They both looked back to see her mother leaning in the doorway, as if standing took too much effort. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears.

Mr. Hathaway drew himself up, as if gathering his strength, and the expression on his face shuttered. “Should you need me, send a message through my brother. As long as you don’t contact me directly again, Fanny, your allowance will continue unabated.”

He went to turn away but paused and glanced down at Cora. A spasm of pain crossed his face for a moment and then it was gone. He gave her a nod, his goodbye, and then walked the few steps to the front door.

He gave Fanny one last look. “You and I are finished with each other. For good,” he added in case there had been any doubt.

The slam of the front door seemed to echo in the silence he left behind. Her mother approached silently and sank down beside her on the narrow stair. The heaviness she brought with her was the scariest thing Cora had ever encountered. Her mother was always happy and smiling.

“Never love a man, Cora,” Fanny said and put her arms around her.

“I hate him.” And she did. She hated him in that moment as she had never hated anyone before. Not even Jenny when she stole her hairbrush, the one with the pretty pearl inlay, and broke it.

That same cold ache spread over Cora now, and she recognized it for what it was: rejection. She wasn’t good enough. She hadn’t been good enough for her own father, and now she wasn’t good enough for her husband. He had taken from her the same way Mr. Hathaway had taken from Fanny, and now he was discarding her.

It wasn’t quite the same. She knew that. She did. She wasn’t being cast away out of sight. She wasn’t forced to watch him marry some other woman and raise children with her. But the wound of his rejection wasn’t logical and it refused to see the difference. It hurt with the same desperate ache.

“I . . . I . . .” She couldn’t push any words out past the lump in her throat. This wasn’t supposed to be happening after the most intensely pleasurable experience of her life. Not with him. “Why shouldn’t it have happened?”

“Because I can’t do this.” For the first time, he seemed to notice that he was still disheveled and exposed. He quickly wrapped his robe about him and stood, stepping around her and turning away to arrange his drawers.

The emerald and rose patterns in the carpet swam before her eyes. She refused to cry, but she couldn’t look at him and keep her composure. Rage and anguish warred for space inside her, and one of them was bound to win.

“You don’t want me,” she said.

“No . . .” His hands took her shoulders, making her start because she hadn’t heard him come back to her. He knelt before her. “That’s not what I meant. I do. Obviously, I do. What I mean is that I cannot do this.” His gaze was fixed to her breast, and she realized that when he had ripped it earlier, he had broken the strap, leaving it dangling. That side of her chemise fell down to expose her breast.

She reached for the linen with numb fingers and brought it up to hold over her nipple.

“We can be friends or we can be lovers, but we cannot be both. Forgive me for touching you. I don’t know what came over me.”

She shook her head. “Please don’t apologize. I wanted you to do that.” She had thought they were sharing something together. His apology now only made her feel even more alone.

He regarded her intently and then nodded.

“Why can’t we have both?” she mustered the courage to ask.

“I cherish the friendship we’ve created.” He took in a breath, and she emerged from the fog of her pain enough to realize that he was laboring to speak. He appeared pained. “I don’t have many friends,” he whispered in an admission that sounded costly. “If we become physical and things end, then I . . . I’ll be . . .” Pain wracked his features. “Please don’t ask me to give this up.”

What was she supposed to say to that? “Okay, I won’t.”

He let out a breath, and she could almost see the tension leave his face. He gently squeezed her shoulders and then let her go. “I should go get dressed,” he said after a long and awkward pause.

She nodded and waited until the door closed behind him to start crying.