Chapter Ten

 

Verena’s pulse quickened. Oh, but this was too dangerous. She snatched her hand away, and got up. He rose too, and she faced him, her barriers up, although she felt as if her mask could not anywhere be found. Not in this man’s presence. Not any more.

‘The risk is too great, Denzell,’ she uttered roughly. ‘Besides, even were it possible, were you to find some way to change me, I could not leave Mama. She needs me.’

‘That I appreciate,’ he conceded.

‘Then don’t speak of this again,’ she pleaded. ‘I must go back now.’ She hesitated, and managed a. slight smile. ‘I do thank you.’

Denzell shook his head. ‘Don’t. And you are premature. I will escort you home.’

From this determination he would not be moved, and Verena accepted his arm with gratitude. The remembrance that she could not leave Mama had brought back the present problem to her mind. Yet she was eased in having told her tale, and found herself much less agitated, although still nervous of the outcome of the enforced private conference.

Denzell left her at the front door, and she knocked in some trepidation. It was opened almost immediately by Mrs Quirk, the landlady. The woman was looking quite agog, Verena noted, but she refrained from asking any questions. The reason for this was not far to seek, for as Verena started up the stairs she discovered Betsey waiting for her above, in full sight of Mrs Quirk.

‘A rare day’s entertainment for her,’ whispered Betsey, seizing her young mistress’s arm.

‘Betsey, what has happened?’ Verena asked.

‘He’s gone,’ reassured the maid. ‘And Mr Adam with him.’

Verena fixed eyes of painful enquiry upon Betsey’s face. ‘Mama?’

‘In the parlour, waiting for you.’

‘Oh, thank heaven!’

She hurried along the passage and threw open the door. Mrs Peverill, who was seated in the armchair that half faced the door, looked up at her entrance. She smiled, and stretched out a hand.

‘My dearest girl!’

Verena ran to her, dropping to her knees beside the armchair, and seizing her hand. ‘Dear heaven, Mama, I was so afraid you might have gone.’

Mrs Peverill stroked her face. ‘As if I would have done so without your knowing.’ She smiled again, with an effort, Verena thought, and gestured to the other chair. ‘Sit down, dearest. I want to talk to you.’

Rising from her knees, Verena was conscious of an instant drop in her chest. This boded ill. What did Mama wish to talk about? She was not distressed, but she seemed subdued, and thoughtful. On what had she determined?

‘What had he to say for himself?’ she asked, seating herself in the other chair.

Mrs Peverill gave a tiny sigh. ‘He assures me he has changed.’

‘I thought he would say so.’

Her mother shook her head. ‘Do not speak so harshly, Verena. I believe he was speaking the truth. There can be no doubt that he is—different. He does realise his wrongs to me, and he has had a lesson, which he will not forget.’

‘Until the next time,’ cut in Verena on a bitter note.

‘No,’ said Mrs Peverill. ‘He is truly repentant.’

‘I cannot imagine why you should think so. He always claimed to be repentant, and yet he always did it again.’ A note of desperation entered Verena’s voice, for she was beginning to fear the worst. ‘Why should you think him changed? Why should you suppose it will be any different?’

‘Because it is as I said,’ stated Mrs Peverill. ‘He is different. He knows that he may lose me entirely, and that is new for him.’

Verena looked at her, acute suspicion writ large across her countenance. ‘Mama, do you tell me you are contemplating a return? In your sane mind, can you even think of it?’

Her mother chose not to answer this directly. She met her daughter’s eyes. ‘What of your future, Verena?’

‘We have been through all that,’ she returned with impatience, brushing it aside.

‘But it is another case now, is it not?’ insisted Mrs Peverill. She smiled. ‘I am not blind, Verena. And I could not mistake Betsey’s veiled hints.’

A trembling began inside Verena. This was what she had feared all along. Now what was she to do? Before she could think what to say to dismiss this wholly unwanted subject, her mother threw her into even more confusion.

‘Does he love you, Verena?’

It was out before she could stop it. ‘He says so.’

‘And do you love him?’

‘No!’ She knew her hands were shaking; and she bunched them into her lap. ‘No, Mama. I don’t...I can’t. There is no possibility of—I told him so. I cannot love anyone. Heavens above, Mama, you must know how it is with me!’

Mrs Peverill sat up, and leaning across to the other chair, reached her fingers out to close over those unquiet hands.

‘Because you have set your face against it, that does not mean it cannot happen, my dearest.’

‘Mama, don’t speak of it, pray,’ begged Verena shakily. ‘You loved, and look how little good it has done you.’

Mrs Peverill nodded and sat back again. ‘That is true, but only because there was so little time.’

The trembling abated, for this did not make sense.

‘What in the world can you mean, Mama? You must have loved Nathaniel once, I quite see that.’

Mrs Peverill looked full in her face, a note of finality in her voice. ‘You are wrong, Verena. I never loved Nathaniel.’

‘What?’

‘I never loved him,’ she repeated. ‘Which is the reason he used me so shockingly. He knew from the beginning, for I never pretended. I tried to love him, God knows. Perhaps if he had not taken to abusing me, I might have succeeded. When that began, I tried even harder. But it is difficult to love someone who mistreats one so badly.’

Impossible, Verena would have said, could she have said anything at all. She was astounded. Could it be true? It did not make sense.

‘Why did you not leave him years ago?’ she asked, finding her tongue in a rush. ‘How could you stay, allow him to use you thus, if you did not love him? And how can you speak of having loved, Mama—and try to tell me that I should love?’

At that, Mrs Peverill’s features softened into a smile of such tenderness that Verena was startled.

‘I do not mean Nathaniel when I speak of having loved, dearest. I am talking of your father.’ Her eyes glowed. ‘Lambert and I were so much in love that we neither of us cared for the consequences.’

Verena was feeling more and more bewildered. ‘But Grandpapa Whicham told me that the Chaceleys treated you shockingly, refusing to assist you when you were widowed. You have yourself told me that Nathaniel rescued you from an unenviable situation.’

‘He offered me the chance of respectability, of security,’ corrected Mrs Peverill. ‘Come, Verena, you know very well that my station in life was not what I am raised to now. Papa was a lawyer.’

‘I know, and therefore the Chaceleys cast you off.’

‘Not me, Verena. They cast off poor Lambert for making a misalliance. At least his father did.’

Verena knew the story. Mama had been sent to the seaside under the care of a cousin to convalesce after a bout of fever. There she had met with Lieutenant Lambert Chaceley, on his way to re-join his vessel at Chichester. After they were married, Lambert had returned to sea, and was drowned in a skirmish in which his ship had been engaged.

Verena had been born fatherless. It was Nathaniel whom she had known in that capacity from her earliest years, but him she had repudiated once she knew what he was doing to her mother. She had never again called him ‘Papa’ from the day she found out, preferring to be fatherless once more, and forever. This possible aspect of Mama’s feelings for her real father had never entered Verena’s head.

‘But if you loved my father—’ she began.

‘We fell in love at first sight,’ recounted Mrs Peverill, a long-forgotten dream in her countenance. ‘It was on the beach at Little Hampton.’

‘Little Hampton?’ echoed Verena. Then that was why her stepfather had chosen to search in that place. But Mrs Peverill was still lost in memories.

‘Nothing would do for him but my promise to marry him on his very next leave. We would not have waited as long, but that there was no time to arrange a marriage and I was under age. His papa refused his consent, but we were married in spite of it, and my own papa swore he should house us both.’ She sighed. ‘I do not know how it would have gone had Lambert lived. Perhaps his father might have relented in time.’ She looked at Verena again. ‘But this I do know. Our love was strong enough to have withstood any amount of trouble, and Lambert would have died before he raised a hand to me.’

‘How can you be sure?’ Verena uttered, out of those deep-seated fears that would not allow her to feel—what she knew she could feel. ‘How can you possibly know?’

‘I know, Verena, because Lambert had my heart. You see, my dearest, Nathaniel knew me before my marriage to Lambert. He had always an eye to me. Papa persuaded me to accept his proposals in the end, for I had you to think of, and Papa was ill, and he feared for my future if I was left alone with a young child to bring up, and already you were two years old. So I married Nathaniel.’

‘To your cost,’ Verena said.

‘And his, Verena,’ said Mrs Peverill. ‘I married him without love, for advantage only. He was jealous, you see, dearest. He did love me, and he never could forgive me for loving Lambert instead of him.’ She gave a rather wan smile. ‘Sometimes I think it was a judgement on me for marrying above my station.’

‘Oh, Mama,’ Verena protested. ‘God is not so cruel.’

‘No, no, dearest. The judgement was that I should have lost Lambert, not that I should have been punished by Nathaniel.’ She sat forward again and leaned across to take one of Verena’s hands. ‘I am telling you this, my dearest, to show you that love can be a very different thing from my experience with Nathaniel. So, if you do care for this young man—’

‘That will do, Mama,’ said Verena, rising to her feet. ‘There is no question of that. I know what you are thinking. That you must make it possible for me to be free to marry. Well, I tell you now, I will not hear of such a thing. You must not think of it. Where is Nathaniel now?’

‘He has gone back to the New Inn with Adam,’ her mother told her, getting up. ‘He is waiting for my decision.’

Verena turned a face of horror upon her. ‘You mean you have allowed him to hope? No, no, Mama. You should have sent him packing. Lord in heaven, he will come back and coerce you, I know he will!’

Mrs Peverill came to her and patted her arm. ‘Verena, don’t fret yourself to flinders. He has promised he will not create any scenes, but will wait for my decision, and respect it.’

‘And you believed him? Heavens, Mama, what does it take to convince you? He has broken so many promises. I have lost count of the times he promised never to hurt you again, yet he did so—I know not how often.’

‘Yes, that is true, dearest,’ Mrs Peverill conceded. ‘But you and I, Verena, cannot continue in this way forever, of that I am certain. Don’t you see? I must seriously consider this opportunity.’

Verena thought she was going mad. Opportunity! Had Mama taken leave of her senses? Desperately, she clutched her mother’s arms.

‘Mama, you are out of your mind! Believe me, I will kill Nathaniel before I allow you to return to him. Do you imagine I could enjoy an instant’s happiness with Denzell, knowing what you must be suffering?’

Mrs Peverill reached her hands up to her daughter’s shoulders, an odd look in her face. ‘Verena, do you realise what you have just said?’

Verena’s heart stilled. What had she said? She had talked of Denzell—and enjoying happiness with him. Oh, sweet heaven, she was going mad! This could not be. She wrenched herself away.

‘You have confused me, Mama—all this talk of love and my father. Don’t you know you are more important to me than anything in the world?’

With that, she turned and rushed out of the parlour, almost running into Betsey as the maid came towards her.

‘Now what’s amiss?’ demanded Betsey, catching at her young mistress and holding her. ‘Steady now, Miss Verena. What’s to do?’

‘Oh, Betsey, help me,’ Verena cried. ‘We must leave here at once. Go far away—abroad. Yes, abroad! Anywhere—only so that we get away from here.’

She glanced back to the parlour door, but Mama was still within. Hustling Betsey, she pushed her into her own bedchamber and shut the door.

‘Betsey, give me an answer!’

‘I would, my dove, if you would but tell me the question,’ said the maid, bewildered. ‘Now simmer down, do, and talk sense.’

Verena drew a steadying breath. ‘Betsey, how am I to persuade Mama that I have no interest in Denzell? You must help me to disabuse her mind. We must convince her I am not in love with him.’

‘And what about you, Miss Verena?’ demanded the maid shrewdly. ‘Are you convinced?’

‘Oh, Betsey, don’t you begin. In any event, he has not asked me to marry him. He has promised, besides, that he will not speak of the matter again.’

‘Has he now?’ said Betsey.

‘Betsey! Don’t tease me, pray. Whatever I felt, you cannot possibly conceive that I would allow Mama to sacrifice herself for me.’

‘No,’ agreed Betsey, adding, ‘but I’m certain sure she’ll try if she thinks there’s a fair chance of you being settled.’

‘Exactly.’

If Betsey agreed with her, then the fear was very real. Verena was calmer now. She knew what she must do. Mama might believe what she liked of her daughter’s emotions, but she did not know Denzell. Therein lay salvation. She drew a determined breath.

‘There is nothing for it, then. She must be made to believe otherwise.’

***

 

The High Rocks revellers were in fine fettle, attending the Friday night dance at the Rooms with renewed energy. Even Sir John Frinton claimed to have enjoyed it.

Despite his abstraction, Denzell laughed. ‘Are you trying to convince me, Sir John, that you spent the day clambering among those huge boulders?’

Sir John twinkled. ‘In this heat? Come, come, my dear boy. Though I have done so in my day.’

‘Your day, sir, seems to have consisted of enough mayhem to tire out the hardiest spirit,’ Denzell said tartly.

The old man laughed. ‘But you see, my dear young friend, with your attention elsewhere, I am able to flirt outrageously with all the other pretty females. That is why I enjoyed myself that day.’

‘I can readily believe it.’

But his attention was not on the conversation, and Sir John, apparently recognising the fact, wandered away in search of other amusement. Denzell’s attention was indeed otherwhere. He had only one end in view in repairing to this local haunt.

Would she come? He had not felt he had earned the right to intrude upon the family gathering—albeit a gathering from which its members expected to derive little pleasure—by returning to the lodging to discover the outcome that was of such vital concern to Verena. But to hear nothing for two days! To see nothing of any member of the family, let alone Verena herself.

He could only possess his soul in what patience he might, passing the time at the Ruishtons’ in relating to Unice all the new evidences that had come to light, and hope that his love would put in a public appearance this Friday night.

He was obliged to parry a number of claims to his attention, but at length his patience was rewarded. Verena entered with her mother. They were alone. All must be well, Verena’s worst fears unrealised. Relief flooded him, and the now familiar sensation of warmth at sight of her burgeoned in his breast. She was once again the fairy princess, in cobweb lawn that seemed to float about her as she moved, her honey-warm tresses unbound and free.

He wanted to fly across the room and drag her into his embrace. A procedure that was, unfortunately, ineligible. Neither here in public, nor—to his intense frustration—in private. Not yet, in any event. For after those intimate confidences, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, he could not suppress a growing feeling of hope. He was himself in the apricot and cream wedding garb tonight, the russet coat on his back—an unacknowledged omen perhaps.

Verena might have reassumed that serene look of hers that gave nothing away, but Mrs Peverill’s demeanour was encouraging. She was in spirits, pretty in lavender silk—now he could see where Verena had her looks—dispensing smiles and laughter to the crowd of gentlemen gathered about the little group. She could not possibly have decided to return to her husband.

By and by, Denzell found an opportunity to move towards the usual court surrounding Verena, without appearing to particularise his interest. Rather to his surprise, Mrs Peverill herself singled him out.

‘Mr Hawkeridge, how do you do?’

Her hand was held out to him, and he clasped it. Did he imagine it, or was she pressing his fingers rather more strongly than tradition dictated? He eyed her with some little puzzlement as he politely responded.

‘I hope I find you well, Mrs Peverill?’

‘You find me excellent well, Mr Hawkeridge,’ she said in a tone that seemed to wish to encourage him in some way. ‘I believe I may safely say I am on the road to full recovery. I cannot think but that Verena will soon be able to cease worrying over me.’

Denzell blinked. He could not mistake the significance of this. It was lightly done, but he had heard that note in the tongues of too many matchmaking mamas in the past not to recognise it. She knew of his interest, and she was trying to tell him she approved of it.

Instinctively, he glanced at Verena—and suffered a severe shock. She was fully armed, and icy. His heart dropped. What had been said? What in the world had occurred since he had seen her two days since, to cause her mother to make a play for him while the object of this intention showed herself to be against it?

No, no, this was not to be tolerated. He must express to Verena that he was at the mercy of her desires, not those of her mama. She could not believe he would enlist Mrs Peverill’s support when Verena had so clearly forbidden him to speak of his love. Yes, he wanted to win her. But win her, not entrap her!

‘I am relieved to hear you say so,’ he replied to Mrs Peverill, in a certain tone—one that he had long ago mastered—which was a nice blend of deference and politeness, but which in no way admitted that he had taken the hint.

He saw a question come into her face, and smiled. ‘I am sure all your friends must be delighted and encouraged by this improvement in your health and spirits.’

‘Thank you,’ she responded, and he was glad of the faint disappointment in her face. Capital! Now she could no longer be certain of his supposed interest in Verena.

Denzell stepped aside to make way for another gentleman, and discovered Verena had managed to free herself, shifting away from the crowd.

He moved towards her, a quick word of reassurance forming on his tongue. But Verena was too strung up to be capable of noticing his carefully structured response to her mother.

She had seen Denzell when she entered the room, and was thankful that she had herself so well in hand. Deliberately—and desperately—she had tried to keep her attention off him. And then Mama must needs attempt to force the issue by that embarrassing display. Verena neither knew nor heard how Denzell answered. Her whole concentration was on maintaining control, so that she might carry out her intended design of keeping away from her unwanted suitor—and of driving him from her side when he chose to claim her attention.

As he came up, she showed him her blandest face, complete with that faint smile of total disinterest. She nodded dismissively, and murmured, ‘Mr Hawkeridge.’

Denzell stopped dead, a frown forming between his brows. His voice was hard. ‘Good evening, Miss Chaceley.’

Verena took in the tone. Dear heaven, but he had taken it amiss! He must not speak to her. Not in that mood. Not in any mood. From panic at what he might say, she jerked out under her breath, ‘Go away from me, for the love of heaven!’

Instant hurt registered in his eyes. Verena’s heart gave an involuntary twist. Oh, heavens. But she could not afford the tiniest degree of sympathy. Turning away, she moved towards a knot of people by one of the graceful pillars and engaged herself in their conversation.

Denzell gazed after her. There was an actual physical pain inside him. He’d had no notion one could be subject to such a sensation. It dulled after a moment, leaving him with a sense of bleak disillusionment. He had not deserved that. Had his conduct been so alien to her that she could not give him credit for any degree of thoughtfulness? Did she not know that as far as she was concerned, he must ever be endlessly considerate? Oh, Verena.

Turning away from the distressing sight of her icy mask, he recollected all at once that he was in company, and must behave accordingly. Only he could not. Making as swift a passage through the throng as he might, without drawing attention to himself, he left the Assembly Rooms and made his way out onto the Pantiles. There were a few couples taking the air—or engaging in light dalliance—but Denzell was too preoccupied to notice them.

Darkness had not yet fallen, although the shadows were gathering, hollowing out caverns within the spaces between the slim pillars of the colonnade. Unknowing where his feet led him, Denzell wandered up the paved walkway, and down again, dallying foolishly between a desire to make away with himself or to shake Verena until the teeth rattled in her head. The realisation that he was even contemplating such a violent act towards the woman who held his heart captive so much disgusted him that he turned again, and paced restlessly back up the Pantiles once more.

‘Denzell!’

The whisper came at him out of one of those dusky holes in the colonnade. He halted, turning to peer into the blackness there. A shadow moved in a gap between two of the houses that made up the sequence of little shops running the length of the Pantiles.

His heart thrilled, for although he could see only the ghostlike wisp of a gauzy outline, he knew it was she. He moved swiftly in that direction.

‘Verena!’

‘Hush!’ she begged, and he saw the whiteness of her hands reach out.

He took them in his, and they pulled to draw him into the shadows with her so that they stood together in the narrow gap, barely silhouetted in the fading light.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, low-toned.

Heaven only knew, she thought. Except that she did know. She had seen him—with that peripheral vision that betrayed her into watching him when everything dictated she must not—moving steadily out of the big room towards the entrance. Without even thinking, she had sought some excuse and sneaked forth to waylay him thus clandestinely.

‘I slipped out unseen,’ she answered. ‘I could not bear you to think me so ungrateful.’

‘If that is what you believed me to think,’ he uttered in a rough tone, ‘then you are vastly mistaken. Besides, I have no use for your gratitude!’

Her fingers tightened on his, for both tone and words were poison to her. ‘Don’t be angry, Denzell, pray. There is—there is a reason for the way I acted.’

‘So I should imagine,’ he retorted. ‘Only I was not aware that you thought so little of me.’

‘Think little of you? But that is not true.’

‘Is it not?’ He released her hands. ‘I do not know why your mama should take it into her head to encourage me. But could you not trust me to obey your wishes rather than hers? Could you not, Verena?’

His eyes were adjusting to the lack of light, and he thought he discerned a tear glistening on her pale cheek. It had the effect of turning his anger against himself, but it did not assuage the hurt. Such hurt as even her rejection of his initial declaration had not dealt him.

‘You need not weep,’ he said in a dead voice. ‘I have brought all this upon myself. You owe me no vestige of trust, nor loyalty. It is my own misfortune that I should have crossed your path. I am not the first man to be disappointed in his hopes of marrying the woman he loves.’

Verena blenched, her distress deepening. But so attuned was she to him at this moment that she recognised the underlying pain beneath his words.

Quietly she asked, ‘Is that designed to repay the hurt I have inflicted upon you?’

Denzell’s tone hardened. ‘I am not trying to make you feel guilt, if that is what you mean. I have no secret desire to hurt you, Verena.’

‘No more had I, Denzell, when I spoke to you so harshly in the Rooms. I was in no case to be thinking of what you might or might not do, not with any rational consideration. You see, Mama has conceived the notion that I—’

She faltered on the words hovering on her tongue. That was not an admission she wished to make, not even to herself. But Denzell had caught it.

‘That you?’ he prompted, an eager note in his voice.

She was silent.

The sudden spurt of hope died again in Denzell’s breast. Yet her words had lifted him. She had not intended to repulse him. She had been victim of her own emotions—would they might be what he so ardently desired.

‘Forgive me,’ he offered, ‘if I have misjudged you.’

No, that was more than she could bear. ‘You have not misjudged me. I am so little mistress of my own heart, Denzell, that I cannot answer for myself. Yet I must distance you. If Mama thinks there is any slight possibility of my finding a future with you, she will return to Nathaniel. He is even at this moment waiting for her answer. Now do you understand?’

‘Deuce take it, yes!’ he said at once.

In some dim recess he treasured those hasty words she had uttered about her own heart, but the purport of this speech hit him all too strongly.

‘Even were it possible, Denzell, that I could think of—of loving you, or of marriage, I could never seek my happiness at the cost of Mama’s renewed sufferings.’

‘No, nor ever forgive me for making it happen.’

‘You do understand!’

‘For what do you take me?’ He caught at her shoulders, unheeding that he crushed the delicate fabric of her gown. ‘Verena, why did you not send to me, and tell me this? You must know I would not dream of putting you to the risk of such a thing.’

‘I should have known. Had I not been set so much into a frenzy, had I been able to think rationally—’

‘Never mind it. Rest assured that I will not approach you or show by the flicker of an eye that I have any serious intent towards you. I can dissemble almost as well as you when necessity arises, you know.’

A choke of laughter escaped her. ‘I had not noticed it.’

He grinned at her in the darkness. ‘No, because all my effort with you has been in the direction of proving my sincerity.’

‘There is no need of that,’ she said, so warmly that he reacted without thought, jerking her towards him, his arms slipping about her. She stiffened against him.

‘No, Denzell!’

He did not release her, but held her so, looking down into the pale oval of her face, her features barely discernible except as a silhouette—the mere shape of her lips all too enticing.

‘Verena,’ he breathed. ‘Am I to hold aloof forever? Is this all there will ever be?’

His closeness sent her senses soaring, and her stiffness melted away. She felt too weak to resist, even to protest. Her eyes closed without volition as the shadow moved above her. Then a gentle pressure, soft and yielding, caressed her lips. A kiss so tender she all but lost her senses.

It could only have been an instant or two later, although it felt to Verena like an age, and he drew back, his hands dropping from about her. Intensely she felt it. So intensely that she almost cried out. She was bereft.

‘You had better return to the Rooms.’

His tone was roughened by the strength of the passion he was resolutely keeping in check. To Verena it seemed harshly alien, a painful distancing that threw her on the defensive. But she answered with a calm born of her instant resumption of the control that had ever come in against pain.

‘Yes, I shall be missed.’

She began to move away, but Denzell’s hand on her arm stopped her.

‘One moment! How long do you wish me to keep up a pretence of disinterest?’

‘Only until Nathaniel has gone. After—’ She hesitated, for she knew that her next words must wound him.

‘After? What then?’

Had he guessed what she would say? There was suspicion in his voice. She drew on her remaining strength.

‘After he has gone, we will find another refuge.’

There was a silence. Then Denzell rapped out, ‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. I only know we must remove from here. I cannot trust Nathaniel to accept Mama’s rejection.’

Denzell gave a soft laugh. ‘I see I must prepare myself to search the length and breadth of England’s watering places to find you again.’

‘No!’

‘What do you mean, no? Dare I imagine you will tell me where you decide to go? No, that is asking too much.’

Verena came a step closer and reached out to place a hand on his chest. ‘Denzell, it will be kinder—to both of us—if you let me go.’

His hand closed over hers. ‘Then I fear I must be unkind.’

She did not withdraw her hand, but a distinct plea entered her voice. ‘You said this morning I might command you in anything.’

‘I didn’t mean I would be willing to commit suicide!’

‘Don’t jest!’

‘I’m not jesting.’

‘Denzell, you will do me the greatest service imaginable if you will only leave me.’

His breath was ragged, but she could see even in the dim light that he was shaking his head.

‘I cannot do that, Verena. I would die for you, but leave you I cannot!’

Her hand slipped out of his clasp. ‘Then you will force me to vanish in secret.’

He was silent, a heaviness settling about his heart.

From the depths of his being, he asked, ‘Do you know what you are asking me to do?’

There was a cry in her own heart, but she forced it down. ‘I know.’

He felt dead. It did not seem as if his voice belonged to him. But he said the words nevertheless.

‘Then so be it.’

***

 

It was eleven of the clock before Denzell left his room next morning. Even then he was moving with some care, for fear that the dreadful symptoms that had attacked him might start up again. The headache had reduced to a bearable level, but any sudden noise or movement made him start and wince.

His hosts, he was informed by the manservant Mayberry, had repaired to the garden, whither Denzell followed them, having rejected with loathing an offer of breakfast and requesting that some hot coffee might be sent outside.

He paused on the threshold of the rear door that led from a small back parlour to the neat patch of lawn behind the house, lifting one hand to shut out the glare and frowning under it towards the chestnut tree. Unice, looking cool in her muslin, was seated in one of the iron garden chairs dotted about the tree, the infant Julia in her arms, while Osmond, in his shirtsleeves, lay at his length on the grass, his two boys gambolling about him.

The sight of this contented domestic bliss did nothing to lighten Denzell’s grey mood, belied somewhat by his having allowed his valet to help him into his olive-green coat and waistcoat. Moreover, the shrieking welcome of Felix and Miles served to make him close his eyes in anguish.

Osmond laughed out. ‘That’ll teach you to roll in drunk as a wheelbarrow at three o’clock in the morning, Hawk!’

Denzell held up a hand. ‘I thank you, the lesson has already made its mark.’

But Unice was eyeing him with a grave look in her face. ‘It is not in your style, Denzell.’

His shoulders shifted, as if a full shrug demanded too much of him. ‘Much that I do these days is not in my style.’

He carefully sat himself down under the chestnut tree, thankfully leaning his back against the trunk and closing his eyes again to the persistent and unwelcome memory of last night’s events. He had been as good as his word. Returning to the Rooms, he had conducted himself in a manner that had drawn down even Sir John Frinton’s censure upon his head.

During a brief lull in his flirtatious perambulations among a selection of young females whose faces he had not even seen clearly, having been performed in a travesty of his erstwhile game and over a sensation of blankness that had dulled all feeling, the old roué had approached him with the faintest of disapproving frowns between his brows.

‘To what, my dear young sir, do we owe this sudden excursion into your old tricks?’

Denzell had been unable to summon the vestige of a smile. ‘To circumstance, Sir John.’

‘It would be well,’ the old man had returned tartly, ‘if your circumstance did not inconvenience a series of vulnerable young females with hopes raised unnecessarily.’

Denzell’s jaw had tightened. ‘I cannot help that. There is more at stake here than you know.’

The light of compassion had entered the other’s eyes. ‘Matters go against you, do they? Is there anything I can do, my boy?’

‘Nothing, I thank you.’ He had grimaced. ‘Unless you care to ensure that my remains are suitably interred in a hackney cab later tonight?’

Sir John’s brows had risen. ‘You are not, I trust, contemplating a violent end?’

‘I am contemplating a violent inebriation!’

The aged exquisite had laughed. ‘You may rely on me, dear boy.’

He had been as good as his word. Better, in fact. For not only had he accompanied Denzell to the Gentleman’s Rooms, matching him glass for glass—deuce take it, the man had a head like a rock!—but he had seen him escorted into his own coach and personally deposited the body into the hands of Osmond Ruishton himself.

Denzell came out of his reverie to discover his hosts calling for Dinah and the infant’s new nurse, both of whom were within earshot. His eyes flicked open, to find that the boys were being led off to the larger ground beyond the garden to play, while the baby was lowered into a basket crib and removed to a position just outside the house.

‘Now then,’ said Osmond on a determined note.

Denzell glanced from one to the other of them. Unice was still watching him with that solemn look in her face, while Osmond was frowning.

‘What?’ he demanded.

‘Yes, that’s just what we want to know,’ said his friend. ‘Not like you to be secretive with us, Hawk. And just because we didn’t accompany you to the Rooms last night, does not mean we haven’t heard of your doings.’

‘Doubtless Sir John told you,’ groaned Denzell.

‘Dash it, Hawk,’ said Osmond for answer, ‘what should take you to get into a sudden burst of flirtation with every pretty girl in the room—’

‘Except Verena,’ put in Unice.

‘—and then, just as though you’d exhausted the supply of eligibles, go off to drink yourself to death in the Gentleman’s Rooms?’

Denzell put up his fingers to knead at his aching brow. ‘What would you have me do? I was obliged to demonstrate to Mrs Peverill that she was mistaken in supposing me to be interested in Verena.’

‘I should think you did that all right!’

‘But, Denzell, why?’ asked Unice. ‘Why were you so obliged?’

He dropped his hands and looked up at her. His voice was bleak. ‘Because Verena wished it. And, if you must have the full sum of it, I steeped myself in liquor because I could not otherwise bear the command she has laid upon me.’

It took Unice and Osmond some little time to drag the whole story out of him. But it was told at last, to the accompaniment of a cup of hot strong coffee which his hostess pressed upon him, poured from the pot the butler sent out by the hand of one of the maids, and a good deal of critical comment from Osmond at least, who was inclined to think Denzell should count himself well out of it.

‘I mean to say, Hawk, if you have been unable to win the girl out of her indifference—’

‘She is not indifferent,’ Denzell interrupted, and winced at the discomfort his own raised voice cost him. ‘She is—I will not say “in love” because the very thought of love is anathema to her—but she does care for me. She very nearly said as much.’

‘Did she indeed, Denzell?’ asked Unice eagerly. ‘I must say, that is very much the impression I had myself—if only she will allow herself to feel it.’

Denzell nodded, and his features dropped, drawing down into despair. ‘There’s the rub.’ He laid down his empty cup. ‘And as long as her mama is in question, I don’t believe she will allow herself to feel it.’

Osmond snorted. ‘Dash it, Hawk, this ain’t like you. Never known you to be so defeatist.’

‘Circumstances alter cases.’

Unice was looking thoughtful. ‘Is there not some way in which her mama might be accommodated—within your future with Verena, I mean?’

‘What future? According to Verena, we have no future.’

‘Yes, but that is because she is unable to think beyond the present necessity. There are always other solutions. Why should not Mrs Peverill live with you both at Tuttingham, for example?’

Denzell’s features lightened for a moment. He stared at Unice. ‘I had not thought of that.’

‘Think of it now then,’ Unice urged.

But Osmond was shaking his head. ‘That’s no use. You don’t suppose Verena will agree to have the whole story let out to Lord and Lady Hawkeridge, do you? Dash it, the woman has left her husband! It ain’t a thing you bruit about lightly, Unice.’

‘But no one could blame her for leaving such a husband,’ Unice protested. ‘Why, I should suppose Lady Hawkeridge must be the first to condemn such brutal practices.’

‘She would, of course,’ Denzell agreed, but he sighed too. ‘Yet I believe Osmond is in the right of it. Besides which, Verena will not wish to have her mother sue to strangers for an asylum.’

Unice was daunted for a moment, but she rallied. ‘Not strangers, Denzell. They would be her parents-in-law.’

‘You are forgetting, Unice,’ Denzell said, ‘that I have first to overcome Verena’s reluctance even to consider the question of marriage—let alone allowing her mother to become the pensioner of myself or my parents. She has a great deal of pride.’

‘Yes, false pride. I declare, I am very much of a mind to talk to her myself.’

‘I doubt it would do any good.’

‘I agree with Hawk,’ chimed in Osmond. ‘If he can’t persuade her—given that she does care for him—then I don’t see her paying any mind to you, my love.’

‘And before that, I must persuade her also there are men who do not demonstrate their love by beating their wives.’

‘Well, if she won’t accept even that, then there’s nothing for it, Hawk. You’ll have to do as she asks.’

‘I have already given my word that I will.’

‘There you are then. Forget the girl, dash it.’

‘That,’ said Denzell flatly, ‘is impossible.’

‘Pooh! It is only because you can’t have her that you want her so badly. Mark my words. Within a month or two, you’ll be mooning over some other wench.’

‘Osmond Ruishton! I don’t know how you can be so blind to your best friend’s deepest feelings.’

‘Well, but—’

A commotion at the rear door interrupted them. There was a hubbub of raised voices within the room behind. Mayberry came through the open door, and was rudely shoved aside. Verena herself pushed past him, and stood glancing frantically about the garden.

Hatless, out of breath, and plainly distraught, she cast about until she spied the trio around the chestnut tree.

‘Denzell!’ she cried, and, lifting her muslin skirts, began to run towards him.

Denzell, for a moment blank with surprise, no sooner took in her distressed condition, than he leapt to his feet, disregarding the instant twinge to his head the sudden movement caused him. He took two strides before she reached him, and had only time to seize the hands she was holding out before words started tumbling from her mouth.

‘Denzell, help me! Oh, pray help me! What am I to do? He has prevailed and it is all in vain. Mama has gone!’