Page 54 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“It’s too late for that,” Luke said.
“Of course it isn’t. Why, the journey alone—you must have driven straight home—”
“Susan,” Luke interjected firmly. “It’stoo latefor an annulment.”
A terrible, meaningful silence descended upon the foyer. Lizzie felt her face grow hot with encroaching humiliation at what Luke had, however honestly, implied.
“In acarriage?” Susan whispered finally, one hand pressed to her chest in horror.
A strangled burst of mortified laughter rose in Lizzie’s throat, and she clapped one hand over her mouth in a failed effort to contain it. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more humiliated in my entire life. I would have wished to make a better first impression than this, I assure you.”
The faint pity in Susan’s gaze made her feel tiny and insignificant—like a child who had trespassed where she ought not; an interloper into a world in which she could never belong.
“Don’t bother apologizing,” Luke said. “I’ve long ceased to worry what others will think of me. There’s no reason you ought to.”
“Oh, Lucas,” Susan sighed, and her shoulders dropped in despair, compassion etched in the fine lines of her face. It was the sort of expression Lizzie would have expected to see directed toward someone who had endured a terrible loss, someone who suffered, who required comforting—but why?
“Don’t start up again, Susan, I beg you.” Luke raked his hands through his hair. “I haven’t the patience for it. If you’re determined to meddle, you can at least make yourself useful about it and show Lizzie around. I’ve a sudden strong urge for a drink.”
Lizzie took a hasty step backward, decidedlynoteager to be left alone in the company of a woman who plainly did not appreciate her presence. “That’s quite all right,” she said. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I’m certain I can—”
“Yes, all right,” Susan said overtop her. “Of course, I shall be glad to do so. Lizzie, is it? Come along, then.”
And at Luke’s short nod, Lizzie found herself gritting her teeth and trailing along after Susan, who had swept on in a flurry of ivory skirts. Behind them, Luke lingered in the foyer, fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose as if his patience had indeed been taxed enormously.
Just the right of the stairs, a door stood open. “The drawing room,” Susan announced with a flourish of her hand. “Little used recently. Ashworth does not receive many callers. Butyouwill, of course. This is where you will greet them.”
Naturally, the explanation seemed to assume that Lizzie would be unfamiliar with the concept of drawing rooms. Nonetheless, she peered within. Several small couches were arranged around a low table, as one might expect—but the defining feature of the room was the massive portrait that hung upon the wall, beautifully rendered in oils, of a young woman with glowing blond hair and sparkling green eyes. The artist had managed to capture an air of mischief, like a laugh was just about to burst from her lovingly-painted mouth. She had her chin tilted at an angle just shy of haughty, and she wore a deep burgundy gown that complimented the glinting ruby ring upon her left hand.
The same ring Lizzie wore now. “She’s very pretty,” Lizzie felt obliged to say. “Your mother?” But she couldn’t be. Of course she couldn’t be—the woman was too young, her gown too modern.
Susan hesitated, glancing back at Luke for assistance.
Some enterprising servant had, in fact, brought him a glass that was filled with some sort of deep amber liquor, and he lifted it in a mocking parody of a salute as he turned to absent himself from the foyer. “Only my late wife,” he said over his shoulder as he left. “Nobodyimportant.”
∞∞∞
A sisteranda late wife. And she’d known about neither. Curious things to omit, given that he’d hadweeksto disclose them.
Perhaps he hadn’t felt she deserved to know. After all, he’d explained the terms of their marriage clearly, that she should not expect love of him. But surely she could expectrespect?
“Her name was Celia.” The softly-spoken words shook Lizzie from her stupor and she realized she’d simply been staring at that portrait, captivated by the new tone the painting had taken with just the advent of a tiny bit of information. Now those brilliant green eyes looked almost mocking—Ihad himfirst, they seemed to say.
“Celia,” she found herself repeating, unable to quite meet Susan’s eyes. “She looks like a Celia, I suppose.” Willowy and beautiful, with a sort of grace and style that came through even in the painting.
“He never speaks of her,” Susan said, folding her arms over her chest. “Not even to me.”
“I suppose he must have loved her very much.” There was an awkward lilt to the words, and Lizzie didn’t understand why they hurt so much, why they made her throat tighten and tears sting her eyes.
“Oh, yes. He loved her desperately,” Susan said. “And Celia—well, Celia lovedallmen. I don’t think she ever met one she didn’t like enormously. And they liked her in return. Ashworth was the envy of theTonwhen he secured her hand in marriage.” A moment of silence followed, prickling with a strange energy. “And then he was the laughingstock of it once it became clear that Celia didn’t consider her vows of fidelity of any great import.”
“That’s dreadful,” Lizzie said, for want of anything more meaningful. How was she meant to render judgment upon a dead woman whom she’d never known?
Susan sighed. “I don’t mean to imply that she was deliberately cruel,” she said. “In fact, I don’t believe she was. I believe shedidlove Ashworth, as much as she was capable. It’s just that she wasn’t capable of loving only one man. And her love was like a finite resource—whatever she gave to another man was a little less that she gave to Ashworth. Less of her time, her attention, her affection. It ruined him, after a while.”
Ruined him how? The words were there, just lingering at the tip of Lizzie’s tongue. But she could not make them come. It seemed such a private thing to pry into. Perhaps a private thing that had once been made so very, very public—but that made it all the worse, somehow.
“I don’tdislikeyou, you know,” Susan said slowly, and gave an elegant lift of one shoulder when Lizzie turned toward her once more. “I don’t know you well enough to like or dislike you.”
