Angel's Touch (21 page)

That
she was herself obliged to conceal an uneven heartbeat and a
certain shortness of breath did not occur to her. She thought only
that her too active imagination had betrayed her into reading too
much into that night’s hurried exchange.

As they came close to
the ruins, Braxted, poised on a fragment of wall, saw them and
waved. In a moment he came running up, closely followed by Kittle
with the shrieking Peggy in her arms.

‘
Wystan, how do you do? And Peggy. I am so happy to see you
both,’ exclaimed Verity, as the dreamlike feeling at once drained
away.

‘
This is a capital place, Verity,’ Braxted shouted. ‘You must
come and ’splore it with us.’

‘
Pore it! Pore it!’ squeaked Peggy, although she had no idea
what her brother meant.

‘
Well, if you like,’ Verity began, but was
interrupted.

‘
Thank you, Braxted, but I think Miss Lambourn had better keep
pace with me rather than you. We don’t want her dashing about in
your neck-or-nothing style. She will end by breaking a limb or
something, and then how should we feel?’

‘
Oh!’ said Braxted, eyeing Verity thoughtfully. ‘She don’t
look that feeble to me, but if you say so.’

Verity laughed. ‘I dare say your papa is right. Besides, it
is growing a little too hot to run around.’

‘
Pooh!’ exclaimed Braxted disgustedly. ‘Not for me. Tally
ho!’

Then he was off,
charging away, and hopping nimbly from rock to rock over the fallen
masonry.

‘
Tay-o, tay-o,’ echoed Peggy, as she attempted to emulate him.
‘Peddy comin’!’ she called as Kittle quickly lifted her and hurried
after Wystan.

Verity stood looking
after them, a smile on her lips, and was almost startled when the
soft voice spoke behind her.

‘
I
hope you do not mind. After having gone to all this trouble to get
you to myself, I could not allow my son to take you away from
me.’

Verity turned, her
heart fluttering, and saw in his face that Friday night had been no
dream.

He
pointed with his cane to where a clump of trees encroached on the
ruin. ‘There is some shade over there, and we may sit on the
remains of the wall.’

They made their way
through the thickly growing weeds in silence and sat, a little
apart, on the low stone that jutted from the ancient foundations.
Both pairs of eyes contemplated the distant figures of the children
and the nurse, as they clambered about the old stones which marked
out the rooms that once were there.

‘
You asked me a little while back what I
owed you,’ the marquis said, suddenly breaking the silence. He
gestured with the cane he still held, idling between his hands,
towards the children.
‘That
,
Miss
Lambourn, is what I owe you. That I am sitting here, able to watch
my children at play, learning to know them again. All that is
directly attributable to you.’

Verity looked at him. ‘If that is so, I am glad,’ she said
quietly. ‘Though I cannot imagine what words of mine can have
brought it about.’

He
turned to her then, a little rueful smile curving his lips. ‘You
rebuked me finely, did you not? And, not content with that, you
made, in your innocent and quite understandable assumptions, such
comments as made me see how selfish I had been. Very well to punish
myself, but I had no right to punish my children.’

His
voice had grown harsh and Verity’s heart shrank within her. She put
a hand on his arm. ‘Pray, sir, don’t distress yourself
so.’

‘
Distress myself? Do you think I would not suffer twice—no, a
hundred times—the distress, could I but wipe out that one moment of
ill-conditioned temper?’

‘
Oh, Mr Haverigg—my
lord,
please—’

His
eyes, as they turned on her, were almost wild in their
passion.
‘Henry
,’
he grated angrily. ‘Call me
Henry!’

Verity stared at him,
nonplussed. She did not know what to say, much less do, but her
whole heart went out to the tortured storm within him. Without
conscious thought, her fingers reached up to touch his cheek.

‘
Poor Henry,’ she whispered involuntarily, ‘don’t be
sad.’

In one violent
movement, he caught her fingers and pressed them to his lips,
shutting his eyes. Then he almost flung her hand away and pushed
himself to his feet, limping some few paces off in a series of
jerking steps.

Verity stayed where
she was, watching him doff his beaver hat and wipe the back of his
hand across his brow. She was no longer afflicted with those
nervous flutterings of the heart, for her heart ached. Blindingly,
as if she had not suspected it before, the knowledge came to her
that she loved him. She did not know if she had the power to
assuage the tempest in his soul, but at that moment she knew that
she would give her life to do it.

Presently he turned and came back to reseat himself beside
her, in control once more. He placed his hat on the wall alongside
and rested his cane by it. Verity said nothing as he did so,
waiting, willing to follow his lead, to spare him any way she
could.

‘
I
have to beg your pardon,’ he said calmly. ‘I brought you here to
talk of that very matter, but I had no business to hurl my
uncontrolled emotions at you.’

‘
Quite like a Gothic monster,’ Verity said lightly.

He
smiled. ‘It must have seemed so indeed. I am so sorry.’

‘
Oh,
do not mind it. Only consider how useful it will be to my next
story.’

He
laughed out at that. ‘My God, a model for the villain, no
less.’

‘
Naturally. Did you expect to play the hero?’

He
looked at her. ‘In this story, yes.’

Verity coloured a little, but she did not look away. ‘But I
thought I had explained how much of a bore I found all the virtuous
heroes.’

Henry grinned suddenly, and his black eyes gleamed mischief.
‘As well, then, that you have seen the worst of me.’

‘
Have I?’ she asked shyly.

The
grin faded. ‘My angel, I sincerely hope so.’

A
rosy glow invaded Verity’s heart at this endearing form of address,
but she was well aware that its use was premature. Before she could
think of a suitable way to express this, however, the marquis had
begun to speak again.

‘
Verity, I want you to know the worst of me. That is the real
reason I needed to talk to you. I want you to have no illusions
about what happened here. I want no rumours, no half-truths to come
between us.’

‘
Oh,
no,’ Verity protested, suddenly afraid. ‘No, Henry, no, you need
not tell me. It is quite unnecessary. What I have already heard is
enough. No, I beg you, say no more.’

‘
I
must,’
he insisted. ‘Please understand. I have no desire
to distress you with a tale of horror. And it is horrible. But I
cannot, will not, go further with what there is between us, unless
you have heard the truth from me.’

‘
Well, if—if you must, then—’ Verity faltered. She stopped and
smiled at him. ‘I’m sorry. I was being stupidly fearful. Tell me
anything you wish.’

He
drew a breath. ‘Thank you.’

There was a pause,
during which Verity could see him struggle with himself. She was
tempted to say again that he need tell her nothing, but she saw,
with a wisdom born of her discovered love for him, that he needed
to unburden himself; that he was in fact conferring upon her the
greatest privilege he could by imparting to her what had probably
never wholly been confided to anyone.

‘
It
began with a quarrel,’ he got out, in a light tone at variance with
the turmoil of emotion this story had cost him. ‘Margaret, you see,
was a social butterfly. She loved nothing better than to go into
company, while I—well, we need not go into that. Suffice it that
our tastes on this matter were widely divergent.’

‘
There is nothing in that,’ Verity commented with a laugh. ‘I
could name you as many as a dozen subjects upon which my sisters
and I are at variance.’

‘
I
dare say. But between husband and wife it can be—’

Again he shied away
from revealing too much, and Verity guessed that the quarrel he had
mentioned had not been the first to be provoked between them.

‘
Yes, I take your point,’ she said.

‘
Don’t misunderstand me,’ Henry said quickly. ‘Though I did
not care for the same sort of pursuits as Margaret, and would as
lief have avoided them for the most part, I put no bar in the way
of her enjoyment. I trust I was neither so selfish, nor so unkind.
But on this particular occasion I confess I was recalcitrant. It
seemed so pointless an expedition. Some party at a neighbour’s
place—to relieve the tedium of those few unoccupied weeks at the
end of summer and before the London little season, I suppose. I
knew she had missed much of the previous season, for little
Margaret was born then. But she had been to Bath for most of the
summer to recuperate, and I would have thought—however, that is
neither here nor there. She wanted desperately to go and I did not.
Oh, I had a reason, though to be sure Meg thought it petty. Perhaps
it was.’

He stopped, biting his
lip, and Verity, watching him, thought that he had gone over this
argument with himself many times. At the back of her mind she
noted, almost in passing, his use of a pet name for his dead wife,
and an involuntary pang shot through her.

‘
What was the reason?’ she prompted quietly.

A
short, mirthless laugh escaped him. ‘My one fatal conceit. A race.
If I have a passion, it is for driving. I flatter myself I am a dab
hand at the ribbons. Nothing, it seems, has the power to curb it,
not even—’

‘
Why
should you wish to curb it?’ Verity broke in, unable to bear the
bitter self-accusation in his tone. ‘Every man must have a
hobby.’

‘
I should wish to,’ Henry grated through
clenched teeth, ‘because the—the
accident
was directly attributable
to that
hobby.’

There was a momentary
pause. Verity could feel his tension. Her own pulse was uneven. Her
voice shook a little.

‘
Go
on, Henry.’

Henry did not look at
her. His eyes fixed themselves on a point in space, where the
pictures in his mind paraded before him.

‘
I
had arranged to run a race the following day. A friendly affair
with a fellow addict, over by Faversham. I wanted to retire early,
but Margaret was bored and very insistent.’ He drew a breath, as if
the story was becoming more painful to relate. ‘We quarrelled.’ He
shook his head. ‘A stupid affair. In the end Meg insisted she
should go alone. I could not permit that, of course, and so, with a
very ill grace, I gave in.’

His
voice went flat. ‘The party was quite as insipid as I had expected,
and did nothing to improve my temper. Worse, Meg sparkled like the
diamonds about her neck, and took—or so I thought—a deal of
pleasure in demonstrating her enjoyment to me. I was determined to
leave early and so get my rest in spite of her. She was furious and
we had more words while the coach was being fetched.’

Again he paused, his
breathing ragged. Verity, her own heart shrinking at what was to
come, dared not utter a word.

‘
It was then that I—I took a false step. I
could not bear the thought of a journey plagued by recriminations.
I told the coachman to get up behind and took the reins myself. It
was a—a
criminal
act. The act of a lunatic. For I was the worse for drink and
my judgement was impaired.’

The
dull ache in Verity’s heart sharpened into acute pain. She longed
to reach out, to hold him, to
silence
him. But she could not.
Horrific as the tale was, she had to hear it.

‘
There was little moon that night and I
drove recklessly, taking out my ill-temper on the horses and the
road. Trying, I think, to give Meg the most uncomfortable ride of
her life.
Which I did, God help
me.’

His voice throbbed
with anguish, but he went on, jerking out the words in a disjointed
way.

‘
There was a bridge—I was going too fast—scarcely saw it. I
swerved the horses—and misjudged it. The coach swung wide. Smashed
through the barrier.’ He was gasping now. ‘I was—thrown off. Flung
to the—other side of the bridge. I hit the stone and fell—badly.
Couldn’t get up. I knew the coach was in the water. Meg—they told
me later—hit her head. She was unconscious.’ He flung his hands
over his face. ‘She drowned before the coachman could get to
her.’

He was shuddering, his
breath coming short and fast, while Verity, chilled to the marrow,
sat as if turned to stone. Her befogged mind was incapable of
registering anything other than the ghastly picture conjured up by
the shocking events he had related. Almost as if she was a part of
him, she could feel his anguish, and the mental lash with which he
scourged himself.

Presently, the warmth
of the hot sun penetrated the icy blanket that enwrapped her. A
little shiver shook her, and she opened her clenched hands to find
them clammy with perspiration. She turned her head and looked at
the profile of the man beside her.