Page 22 of A Tryst By the Sea
“She did something terrible, if she vexed you to that degree.” Something he and Penelope had never discussed.
“Bella would not leave me alone when I craved solitude. She would not allow me out of the house when I needed fresh air. She forbid even my closest friends to call and nearly stopped me from going to divine services. She countermanded my orders to the servants, decided I should have only bland food when I craved a good spicy curry. Her meddling was without end, and had it not been for MacMillan quoting orders to Bella that I doubt you had left in truth, that woman would have sent me to Bedlam.”
“I’m sorry.” Gill thought back to those miserable, dark weeks, when the grief had still borne a leavening portion of shock. “I don’t recall how Bella ended up in Town. I certainly did not send her to you.” Though Tommie had repeatedly told Gill not to thank him for making the sacrifice of parting from Bellaat such a time.
“She just presented herself, uninvited, because ‘family doesn’t need an invitation.’ She turned away my sister’s offer to visit, and I would not have learned of that perfidy except that my sister mentioned it several years later. I longed for you, Vergilius, not because I could be any sort of comfort to you, but because if you were on hand, you could make Bellago away.”
Gill wrapped his arms around his wife. “Mama and Tommie would not let me leave the Hall. They had one excuse after another for why I had to meet with the solicitors again, the steward, the vicar. Then it was planting, the condolence calls… and Mama was insistent that I leave you privacy in which to recover from both the ordeal of birth and the loss of our son.”
Penelope gave him her weight. “I’m sorry, Vergilius. I should have told MacMillan to have the horses put to and taken myself down to the Hall, without a word to Bella.”
“I should have had my horse saddled and come home to you, without a word to anybody.”
This, too, had become part of their conversations—regrets, increasingly sharp.Shouldsandoughtsandwhy didn’t I’salong with many, many apologies, freely given and freely reciprocated.
“Promise me something,” Gill said, keeping his embrace loose. “Promise me that if you should ever be in need, if you don’t trust your solicitors, if you aren’t getting along with whatever trustees we choose, you will let me help. Send for me, drop me a note. Don’t be all noble and distant and stubborn.”
She eased away, her expression hard to read. “That is an odd request to make of the woman who is precipitating the most monumental scandal ever to sully the Summers escutcheon.”
“Promise me, Pen. Please. I cannot keep you trapped in a marriage that has failed you, but I cannot ignore that, for ten years, we were man and wife, and marriage to me has cost you much.”
“I cost you as well, Vergilius.”
That was the sort of comment that begged for a change of subject, but if Gill did not pursue the topic now, he might never learn what had prompted such an outlandish observation.
He led Penelope by the hand to the cottage’s front door. “What did you cost me?”
“Another woman, a stronger woman, would not have been laid so low by the baby’s death. Bella has had disappointments. Your mother lost a child. They both assured me that my grief was unnaturally intense, selfish even, and I must…”
“Soldier on?” Gill said, finding a new least-favorite phrase. “Bella and Mama both had other children, other sons. They had been married much longer than a year when their losses befell them, and they weren’t twenty years old and wed to a man stumbling into a title when his wife needed him by her side.” He opened the front door, wishing good manners allowed last-minute cancellation of their dinner plans. “A stronger, wiser husband would not have left you to contend on your own for so long, Penelope.”
That had needed to be said aloud. Gill had chided himself in the odd moment for those months apart, but had followed his moments of self-doubt with reassurances that Penelope could have come down to the Hall if she’d wished. He’d invited her to often enough, while she had returned his invitations with silence.
“It’s chillier than I expected,” Penelope said, joining Gill on the front terrace. “I should wear my cloak.”
“I’ll fetch it.” Gill left her by the door and went to the wardrobe in the bedroom. Penelope’s purple merino cloak hung next to her old dressing gown, some sort of metaphor for the woman versus the viscountess.
Gill took out the cloak and draped it around Penelope’s shoulders and let the stroll up the path put distance between sad, intimate discussions and an hour intended to be social. At the dinner table, he exerted himself to be pleasant to Lord Tregoning and his lady. Gill smiled, he listened politely, and in the back of his mind, he turned over a puzzle.
That old dressing gown, the one that was four sizes too big for Penelope, had belonged to Gill long ago. The elbows were worn, and one lapel was frayed, suggesting regular use. Penelope’s jewelry box had been open, and atop her trinkets and earbobs had been Gill’s embroidered handkerchief. A shiny green ormer shell had glinted among her necklaces and bracelets, the thin chain of a golden locket wrapped about the shell.
Unless Gill was mistaken, that locket held a curl of his hair and his likeness.
Penelope’s determination to end the marriage was at least tinged with regret, which broke Gill’s heart all over again, yet some more.
“I had not appreciated how much of a service the present marquess has done us by living into great old age,” Amanda, Lady Tregoning, said. “We had a chance to find our balance as husband and wife and to weather a few storms before William had to start taking on the duties that go with the title.”
She gazed fondly at her husband’s retreating form. The waiter who’d brought out the fruit-and-cheese course had informed Vergilius of a note arriving for him at the front desk. Lord Tregoning had excused himself to have a word with old friends seated nearer the veranda, and thus the ladies had a moment to themselves.
“How long have you been married?” Penelope asked.
“Ten years,” Lady Tregoning replied. “Arranged, though we were cordially acquainted prior to the betrothal. We finished growing up together, to the extent anyone ever finishes growing up. You and Summerton seem quite settled.”
That erroneous observation was kindly meant. “We are contemplating a separation.” Penelope should probably have kept that admission to herself, except the knowledge of what lay in store at week’s end loomed larger and larger in her awareness.
Summerton was granting her wish, her dearest, most heartfelt wish, and now… she wasn’t sure her wish made such great good sense after all.
“I’m sorry,” Lady Tregoning said. “William and I reached the same point after the second miscarriage. We raised the topic of a separation gingerly at first, but then realized that it wouldn’t solve anything. We’d still be childless, we’d still be relying on the younger brothers to see to the succession, but we’d…”
