The Marquess Who Loved Me

Chapter TWENTY-FOUR


“I never liked Lady Folkestone, but I did not enjoy seeing her as she is now,” Ellie said as she settled back into their carriage. She and her mother-in-law had never liked each other, but she didn’t relish the idea of the dowager falling into an irreversible decline. “I am sorry this trip was less helpful than you had hoped.”

Nick took his place across from her. There was a stillness to him that matched the carriage — the pause in the instant before a rush of action. So she wasn’t surprised when he dove into conversation as the carriage started to move. “I do not know what she was like before, but I still found our discussion quite informative.”

“How so? She could be housing a whole host of assassins and not remember it.”

“Any eliminated suspects are worthwhile. And even if her mind is no longer sharp, I trust Lady Christabel is sharp enough for both of them.”

Ellie sighed. “I wish Christabel could live elsewhere. If I had known that her blasted sisters had left her to take care of Lady Folkestone alone in this state, I would have…but I could not have done anything. Charles’s mother never did like me. It still seems we’re no closer to learning the truth than we were before. And I would just as soon have not seen Lady Folkestone again.”

“But you said you would have been a good daughter for her. Why?”

His question caught Ellie napping — but then, it wasn’t a sentiment she had intended to share. She had said those words to Lady Folkestone because she knew that her confession wouldn’t be remembered, but Ellie had momentarily forgotten her audience. She wanted to shrug off his question, but she forced herself to think over her response — not the one she wanted to give, but the one that might be a real explanation.

Nick waited, not rushing her. There was a solidity to him that she had never noticed before. Either he hadn’t had it as a boy, or solidity wasn’t something that had appealed to her younger view of romantic love. It was a solidity she could lean on, build on…not that she should be thinking of that, when his question was about the marriage she’d stupidly agreed to rather than the one she should have waited for.

“You know, I don’t know why I said that,” she said. “But Lady Folkestone was never bad, just difficult. And I don’t think I had enough patience for her. I was so wrapped up in waiting for you to come home that my ‘grief,’ such as it was, wasn’t enough for her. And then I needed to make myself ineligible so that Father wouldn’t try to marry me off again — and I succeeded in making myself seem irredeemable. It’s little wonder she came to hate me.”

“So you were more devoted to my memory than his?”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “You know the answer to that. I won’t puff you up by saying it again.”

His grin was puffed up enough already. “Tell me that Charles knew you preferred me.”

“I don’t know what Charles knew. He knew that by winning me he had scotched your chances. He seemed pleased by that.”

“Bounder,” Nick muttered. “As though the title and estate weren’t enough.”

“They may not have been,” Ellie said. “You should have seen these properties when I married him. Charles had the title, but I believe he would have preferred your wealth.”

“You can’t say he was jealous of me.”

Ellie shrugged. “He never said it. But he pursued me like a collector, not a seducer. And while my dowry was respectable, there were bigger prizes than me that season if he would have taken a lower-born bride. Still, getting one over you was a cost he seemed oddly willing to bear. Folkestone would be a crumbling ruin by now if you hadn’t inherited it. My dowry could only patch the damage, not reverse it — an odd choice to make, unless his jealousy overrode his prudence.”

Nick didn’t respond. But his amusement, such as it was, looked like the faint pleasure of recalling a bit of history that was long dead, rather than the visceral satisfaction of besting an enemy.

“Do you not care about Charles’s role in our past anymore?” she asked.

It was another of those questions she shouldn’t have asked. He leaned back in his seat. “If he were still alive, I would care. But we both know he married for spite and money, not love. The question I have is why you said you could have been a good wife to a man who would only use you.”

“And other men wouldn’t have used me? Isn’t that what aristocratic marriages are? I would have been a good wife. It was what I was raised for. I would have given him children, hosted the right parties, behaved appropriately, and had a serene, if unsatisfying, life with him. But I couldn’t be a good wife so fast, and Charles died before I accepted him. And his mother…”

Nick cut her off. “What do you mean, before you accepted him?”

She hadn’t meant to say anything. Nick hadn’t asked about her other lovers, just as she hadn’t asked about his. But on this question, about the cousin he hated, she wanted him to know the truth. “We never consummated our marriage.”

She didn’t plan to explain further, but Nick didn’t let it go. “How did you avoid it? Charles wasn’t the type to leave an advantage unexploited.”

Ellie frowned. “Charles wasn’t evil, you know. He was hardly different from most peers — a little selfish, a little too convinced that it was talent and not an accident of birth that gave him everything. But he had a strong sense of duty and took his responsibilities seriously. If I hadn’t had a dowry and the right bloodlines, he wouldn’t have married me no matter how much he hated you. He may have had…unfair opinions about you, but he wasn’t a monster. So when I pled my time of the month after the wedding and asked for a week, he didn’t force me. Which I’m grateful for even more now — if he had died in my arms rather than with that opera dancer, I never would have forgiven him. I would rather deal with the scandal of where he died rather than having him die on top of me.”

Nick exhaled, then closed his eyes. Ellie sighed and buried her hands even deeper in her fur muff. In the shadows, with his hair swept back under his hat and his shoulders tensing up under the capes of his greatcoat, Nick suddenly looked like a stranger — a dark traveler who heard her story with passing interest and would forget it before he reached the next town.

“The way you smiled at your wedding…” Nick said. “I thought you wanted him.”

He opened his eyes — with the way they burned, how could she have ever imagined that he was disinterested? But his statement confused her. “How do you know how I smiled?”

“I was there, Ellie. Hiding in the back like a damn beggar, waiting for you to change your mind.”

This time, she closed her eyes. She hadn’t seen him at the wedding — but then, she hadn’t seen much, since she was trying so hard to look calm and not retch during her vows. “I had to smile,” she said. “It was either that or be sick. I didn’t want to be known as the bride who cast up her accounts on the altar at St. Paul’s.”

When she looked up at Nick, the burn was gone. Cool contemplation took its place. He steepled his fingers in front of his face, resting his chin on his thumbs. His words, when they finally came, were quiet, as though they’d had to sneak past the bars of his hands. “And you thought you could be a good wife?”

“Yes. Not the best wife, perhaps, and I might never have felt anything stronger than affectionate concern for Charles. But I’d made my bed. And I would have settled into it eventually. Don’t you see?” Her voice, like her heart, turned urgent. “When I knew I was bound to Charles, I could make a life around that, however bad it was. But add even the slimmest bit of hope that you might come back for me…it was the hope that made those first years unbearable. I could have borne a pleasant, passive marriage. I couldn’t bear all those painful, useless dreams.”

“Do you really think that? That you could have been happy if you’d fully lost me?”

“Not at first, perhaps. Not for ages. But perhaps I would settle for peace now. As you are so keen to remind me, I’m not the girl you loved. I’ve abandoned my childhood fantasies of happily ever after. As have you, I’d wager.”

“Childhood fantasies? I never had them.”

“Now there’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one,” Ellie said. “You may not have dreamed of princes and castles and large families, but you dreamed. And they’ve come true, haven’t they? Enough money to buy the ton’s regard and a title to secure it. Would that I had dreamed your dreams — I had all that ages ago.”

He dropped his hands away from his face. “You seem to confuse goals and dreams. Goals are what I’ve accomplished. Dreams are something else entirely.”

“Then what are your dreams?”

He frowned. “You are full of questions today.”

“Would you rather I not care?”

“It would be easier if you didn’t.”

“What would be easier?”

He looked down at his hands. “Revenge. Atonement. Call it what you will.”

She didn’t know what to call it. She couldn’t name any feeling between them, when hatred felt like love and revenge felt like a gift. “You said you hate me. Revenge is easy with hatred, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer, just kept looking at his hands until she thought he would never acknowledge the question. Finally, he said, “I don’t hate you. I hate what you did. But perhaps it had to happen that way.”

“I would take it back if I could.”

“I know. But if we had stayed together then, we wouldn’t be who we are now. I find the woman you are preferable to the girl you were.”

It wasn’t forgiveness. And yet the sentiment moved her, far more dramatically than any meaningless words of rapprochement.

The carriage pulled to a stop in front of Folkestone. The spell broke before she could sift through her thoughts and find whatever truth she wanted to share with him. But as he started toward the door, she reached for his hand. “I am glad you are home, Nick. No matter what happens between us.”

He squeezed her fingers but didn’t respond. A groom opened the door and Nick jumped out to help her down. He didn’t say anything more — just looked at her with an unfathomable expression, then offered his arm to escort her into the house.

So she went. Her hosting duties awaited; he no doubt wished to further harass her guests. But that look she couldn’t read would haunt her — just as her own unreadable heart did. Could they reconcile, truly? Or would all his anger and all her regret conspire to keep them apart?