Page 13 of Joy to the Earl
“Leaving your room last night was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.All I wanted was to climb right in that bed next to you and not leave until morning.”
She wanted to make a joke about how that would have rendered his noble sacrifice of the room quite useless, but the look in his eyes left her shaken.Perhaps the cold made her sharper and more keen for answers.She asked bluntly, “Why didn’t you?I don’t fully remember what I said last night, but one reason I’d made it through so many glasses of wine was because I was trying to loosen my tongue enough to ask you to stay.”
He stopped and turned so that he could look her over.She leaned against the wide trunk of an oak tree, her knees suddenly weak.He raised his hands to her shoulders, making it impossible for her to turn away, though turning away was the last thing she wanted to do.
“Even if you had managed to ask me into your bed, I wouldn’t have accepted.”
Embarrassment shot through her.Hadn’t he just said he’d been tempted?Had she misunderstood?“You would have refused me?”
“Only because I knew that the words were coming from the wine, even if the impulse was sincere.I am not a moral paragon by any means, but I don’t take advantage of women.And even if I had stayed and done everything you asked me to do last night, there is still a very strong possibility that you would’ve hated me this morning, because you would’ve remembered it was me.”
“But you did want to stay?”she asked, rather overwhelmed.
He leaned in, his breath warm against her chilled cheek.He spoke so softly that not even the birds in the branches above could hear him.She shivered as his voice rolled over her.“There are so many things I dream of doing to you and only you.There aren’t enough nights left before Doomsday for me to show you all the things I dream of doing to you, and with you, and for you.The idea of your pleasure has been my one constant companion over the last ten years.”
She swallowed, her body suddenly heavy with desires she didn’t know how to name.“But ten years ago, you didn’t want me.”
“Christ, Joy.Listen to me!I’vealwayswanted you.I always regretted not proposing to you, I’ll always regret listening to everything except my own heart.I know it’s too late for us, and I know that absolutely nothing I can say to you will erase the past.But perhaps this meeting was fated, if only so I could tell you how much I wish I’d done things differently before.I think that worse than the pain of knowing another man had you was the knowledge that you despised me, and I deserved to be despised.”
She shook her head.“Don’t say that.”
“I must deserve it, for I had no joy in my first marriage.”He spoke faster, as if he could no longer contain the story once he decided to share it.“My wife had a lover before we were even married, so there was probably never a real chance that our marriage would have been a happy one.I will say that I did try.I did what I thought I should do, and treated her as well as I knew how.I bought her gifts I thought would please her, and I indulged every request she made.
“But it was obvious that she had no intention of giving up what she considered to be the true love of her life.Of course, she did very much appreciate being married, mostly for the security it provided.As it turned out, her lover was not a man of means.He was, I am informed, an artist.”
Douglas pronounced the last word with considerable doubt, and she understood why, since artist was a broad term that could refer to anything from an incredibly talented painter or sculptor to a rank adventurer who possessed no more artistic skill than a spaniel.When a man was referred to as an artist, it usually meant that he was completely unsuitable for a proper marriage.
“I don’t suppose you ever saw any of his work?”she asked.
“Not if you’re referring to something on canvas.However, I certainly saw the results of his work on my wife, because she was completely under his spell.”
“You did not seek a divorce?”Divorce was uncommon among the upper classes, but if the adultery was so blatant, it would have been seen as an acceptable reaction on his part.
“No.For several reasons.”
Then she remembered something.“Wait.You mentioned your son.So she eventually came to understand her responsibility.”
“She did give birth to a son about a year after we married.She swore up and down that it was mine, so often that I came to doubt it more than if she’d said nothing at all.However, whether he is mine or not is irrelevant.He has my name and will be my heir.Kit’s a good boy, and I am happy to raise him.Perhaps someday someone not biased by knowing me will remark that he looks like me, and that will lay any lingering doubts to rest.”
“But if you’re raising him, in your home and with your care, then heisyours.He’ll grow up to hold your values and learn the same beliefs.Learn the behaviors you teach him, and in his mind, there will be no question of who his father is.Isn’t that what matters?”
“According to society, blood is all that matters,” Douglas said dryly.“But I’ve seen too many imbeciles with impeccable ancestry.But anyway, all the people in my life whodocare about that sort of thing are pleased.There is another generation who will bear the family name and inherit the family wealth.”
“What happened to your wife?”
“About a year ago, she ran off with her lover to the Continent.”
“She left her child behind?”Joy asked, a little shocked.
“She did, and in truth I was glad of it.She was a shallow person, and I didn’t care for the lessons she imparted to our son whenever she did spend time with him.Though to be fair to her, I am quite certain she never intended to leave his life forever.She probably pictured her tryst on the Continent to be a matter of several months, perhaps.A romantic grand tour of all the artistic meccas of Europe.But as it happens, they started in Italy and got no further than Rome before my wife took ill.What was initially assumed to be some seasonal malady or exhaustion from travel soon proved to be more serious.
“She was confined to her bed at the villa where they were staying, and was attended by the sisters of a nearby hospital.I know this because she actually wrote to me, probably so bored and miserable in her confinement that even a one-sided discussion with her lawful husband was a suitable distraction.She never said so in her letters, but I had the sense that her lover was not confined as she was, and pursued his, ahem,artisticimpulses while she was unable to keep his attention.She did ask for news of our son, which I took to be a sign of the gravity of her situation.
“The next letter I received was not from her, but from the lover.In it, he explained that she passed away on the fourteenth of the month as a result of an unknown but relentless illness.In the letter, he included her wedding ring, though none of the other jewelry that I knew she had taken with her.As I said, he was not a man of means, though he was obviously a man of practicality.”
Joy digested all of that and could not help but ask, “Are you…are you entirely sure she did die?I say this not to be cruel, but if she wished to be out of the marriage, perhaps running to a faraway country, and then having her lover tell you she had died was her way of escaping.”
“I thought of that myself, almost immediately,” Douglas admitted.“In fact, I assumed that was the case, so I spent small fortune to have a reliable agent verify the truth of the matter for me.They were able to speak with the sisters who cared for her during her illness, and the priest who eventually buried her.The agent saw the grave, and saw the record of her death in the local church books.He spoke with the owner of the villa, who was quite open about all the events that transpired, and made it clear that the lover was not popular in the neighborhood.In fact, as soon as the lady herself was interred, the owner of the villa firmly invited the lover to move on.
