Page 24 of The Curse of Penryth Hall
“Were you the one who snuck into my bed and tried to do me in?” I teased, earning me a cross look.
“Do be serious.”
“I’m nothing but.”
She turned away, allowing me only the back of her head. The jeweled comb she wore in her hair winked in the afternoon sun. “I have something to tell you and I need you to listen.”
“Very well then.” I settled myself down on the settee, watching the curve of her neck apprehensively. “Tell me.”
She didn’t. Not at first. The silence stretched on. The ticking of the clock, the soft groan of the wooden floorboards as she paced back and forth. And then at last she spoke. “I didn’t love him.”
“Edward? I don’t blame you. Who would? He was a dreadful man. I still don’t quite understand why you married him in the first place.”
“You shouldn’t say such things. I told you why a dozen times, but you never listened.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my tweed-clad thighs. “Tell me again.”
She turned back for a moment, worrying her lower lip. “Do you recall when he was brought into the hospital? How things were then?”
“Of course, he was mad for you. They all were.”
She shook her head. “Not that. How I was.… what it was like for me at Amiens?” She twisted her hands nervously.
I found myself watching them. The way her brilliant sapphire ring winked in the light. A pang of guilt struck me as I realized I didn’t know. Tamsyn never spoke of herself, of her wants. Instead she’d let me go on about my bad dreams, the men I’d helped, the miles I’d driven under fire. I wanted to apologize, and yet I realized that perhaps my words weren’t the ones she needed right now, so I kept my silence.
“Do you know what it’s like to want something, Ruby? To want it so badly that you would do anything in the world to make it happen?”
“You loved him then? Desired him?” I couldn’t conceive of it. But stranger things happened.
She shook her head. “No. Not like that. I think… I think I wanted things to go back to how they were. The war… the future.” Her eyes squeezed shut as she struggled putting a voice to all the things we’d never said to each other. “Everything was coming so fast and Edward offered me something… Something I thought I wanted at the time. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I didn’t. Not at all.
“I suppose I cared for him a little then. And I regret he’s dead, but I don’t… I don’t find myself sad that he’s gone. I don’t want to weep. And a part of me, the wickedest part, is glad that I’m free, that he cannot torment me any longer.”
“Did he strike you? Is that where the bruises came from?” I asked sharply. “He’s gone now. He can’t hurt you.”
She shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder if it’d have been easier had he done it. I’d have been able to lay a finger upon it and say ah-hah!Thatis why I should leave. But instead I stayed when I ought not. And now I’ve—” She caught herself fromgoing further, and I was suddenly very curious about what she might have said. “—but I’m glad he’s dead. What does that make me?”
“A merry widow?” I offered.
She laughed, throwing a frivolous little cushion at me. I caught it at once and placed it in my lap, toying with a bit of the emerald-green fringe.
“You shouldn’t tease me so. I may not have loved him, but I didn’t want him to die like that. But the women.” She let out an exasperated laugh. “Oh, Ruby, you wouldn’t believe the number of mistresses he had. Every week another would show up at the door. You’d think a man’s cock would give up and walk away after that many. Surely it’d be exhausted!”
I snorted at the image of said beleaguered appendage. “I rather think the cock enjoys it. Otherwise what’s the point?”
She stifled a laugh and then her expression grew grim again. “Oh, Ruby, it’s just that I ought to feel something for him yet the only emotion in my whole wretched body is worry for my son. For myself. I couldn’t care a bit about Edward. Isn’t that horrible?”
I walked over to her, brushing her hair back from her brow and wrapping her into my arms. “Oh, my darling, you will soon. I knew men like this during the war. The initial shock numbs it, then the reality sets in. Enjoy the numbness while it lasts.” I rested my chin on the top of her head.
She stilled in my arms, frowning against me. “Perhaps I didn’t want you to be quite so serious.”
“Beggars cannot be choosers, Tamsyn Chenowyth.”
She frowned but remained in my embrace. Her head against my shoulder. “I suppose you’re right. But I’m grateful you’re here. I don’t know that I could bear all this alone.”
“You won’t have to. I’ll stay—as long as you need me.”
