Dawn in My Heart (22 page)

T
ertius surveyed Gillian across the great hall of the house. She was laughing at something an older gentleman was saying to her. Suddenly she caught his eye and her own twinkled back to him, as if telling him,
See, here's our tedious squire
.

He bowed his head to her and turned back to the group of gentlemen he was standing with.

“You're lucky you weren't here during the Luddite uprising,” old Mr. Haversham said in a throaty growl. “We were afraid to go to bed at night, for fear they'd torch us. We had the militia patrolling every night.”

“Those Luddites were a fiery rabble. Demanding we shut down the factories and return the hand loom to them!” Another well-fed squire snorted into his drink. “Against all progress. They were lunatics. Hanged a bunch of them and transported the rest. Good riddance, I say.”

“You should be grateful you were out in the Indies. Though you had to face slave uprisings, no doubt.”

“Yes, that was an ever-present danger. When you take away a man's freedom, he is bound to rebel,” he added quietly, his mind going to his wife.

As the men looked at him askance before resuming the topic of the Luddites, Tertius thought about Gillian. He knew he must allow her back her freedom, but he didn't feel able to let her go quite yet. If only he could have a little more time to win her forgiveness.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he told the company, “but I believe I promised this dance to my wife.”

“A most gracious lady, the new Lady Skylar,” the men all remarked. “We congratulate you.”

“I thank you,” he told them with a bow before making his way across the room.

“May I have the honor of this dance?” he asked, taking her hand in his.

“Very well, my lord,” she answered. “I must leave you, Sir George,” she said to the portly gentleman at her side.

“I wouldn't dream of keeping you from your charming husband, my dear lady.”

Tertius escorted her to the set. “I'm sorry to interrupt your tête à tête with the amiable Sir George.”

“If you hadn't rescued me from his tiresome conversation, I should have accosted the first gentleman to pass by and demanded a dance.”

“I'm glad I saved you from that fate,” he answered lightly, leading her in the steps as the music started up. It was a lively country dance so they had little chance to talk.

He enjoyed watching her and feeling her hands in his each
time they came together. Although she had not been involved in any of the preparations for the house party, she was behaving as the model hostess. He realized for the first time what an ideal wife she was for a man of society. She had spoken to each of her guests for at least a few minutes and had let none of them commandeer her company for very long. She put the matrons and their plain daughters at ease, so although she was clearly the most fashionable among them, they warmed to her.

When the dance ended, he bowed again and said, “Perhaps another?”

She gave a fluttery laugh. “What, two dances in a row? Of course not, or we run the risk of being like those unfashionable husbands and wives who monopolize each other's company at a social function.”

As she walked away from him, already in conversation with someone else, he felt a pang. He shouldn't feel the hurt at her careless remark, clearly addressed more for the benefit of those around them than for him.

As he watched her get in line for the next set, he told himself that her behavior only reaffirmed something he'd known all along—he was too old for her. He'd spoiled her youth. He'd left her alone for so many months. He still had no clue about her disgrace and no longer thought it important. Perhaps because God had shown him the extent of his own sin, hers paled by comparison.

The best thing he could do for her would be to take her back to London as soon as possible where she could be among her own kind.

But he hated the thought of giving up the tenuous closeness they had achieved in this wild and lonely house
on the edge of the moors. In London he'd likely rarely see her, if this gathering revealed anything of her social nature. How would he ever restore his marriage in London? he cried silently to the Lord. But he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being selfish in keeping her isolated here. He must give her back the freedom he'd taken away from her.

 

Gillian continued dancing every set after that, with whichever gentleman asked her, from old wheezing squire to pimply, stammering youth. As long as it wasn't with Tertius, and as long as it kept her from him.

The dance had been too unsettling. Each time he'd taken her hands or held her close, she'd felt shaken. It confused her. It had all begun the afternoon he'd taken her hand in his.

She wouldn't let him weaken her resolve at this late date. She was going to leave him. She swore it. It would be fitting retribution for all he'd put her through.

Although she kept far away from him, she couldn't help observing him. He was a charming host. She noticed he didn't dance anymore. She also noticed that although spirits were served, he partook of very little. It seemed more as if he enjoyed watching the others enjoy themselves.

Humph! He probably thought he was above all forms of earthly pleasures now. There would undoubtedly be no more card games as well. He'd become like that sister of his in her plain dresses and quiet manners. Althea would be halfway pretty if she took a little trouble over her appearance, but then she probably enjoyed the fate of a spinster doing her good deeds.

Gillian turned to the young gentleman approaching her
and graciously accepted his compliment. She'd had enough of these evangelicals for one evening.

 

Late that evening, when she and Tertius waved to the last departing guest, they reentered the great hall.

The new footman Tertius had hired locked and bolted the large double doors behind them.

“Will there be aught else, my lord?”

“No, thank you. Go on to bed.”

“Very well. Good night, m'lord, m'lady,” he said, bowing to each in turn.

“Good night.” Tertius turned to her with a smile—too warm a smile. “Although he doesn't yet have a proper livery, I think he adds quite some elegance to the establishment, don't you?”

“Oh, yes, with his broad Yorkshire accent,” she replied disdainfully. “I vow, I can hardly understand half your tenants when they speak.”

“You've met them?”

She floundered around for a reply, flustered for some reason. “Isn't that what the lady of the manor is expected to do, visit the tenants?” she countered.

“Yes. It surprises me a little, is all,” he said.

“That I should have seen to my duties? Don't be unduly alarmed. I didn't go out of my way. I've only met a few on my walks.” She didn't want him thinking anything good of her at this late date.

“How did you find their living conditions?”

“Deplorable—what little I saw,” she answered in an offhand way, already turning away and heading toward the staircase.

“Come, sit with me a few moments in the sitting room before you retire,” Tertius bade her, as she reached the first steps. “I don't know about you, but I'm too keyed up at the moment to sleep.”

She struggled for a moment, a part of her wanting to accept. “Very well.” She didn't want to be alone with him, and yet suddenly neither did she want to go up to her bed.

She preceded him into the room but didn't sit down immediately, too aware of being with him in a house where everyone else had retired.

“Your party was a success,” she told him, standing behind the couch, her hand resting on its back.

“Thanks to you. You were a wonderful hostess,” he said, handing her a glass.

He touched his glass to hers and they each took a sip.

“Did I tell you how beautiful you look?”

“Only about three or four times,” she replied, refusing to let him see that the words meant anything to her.

“Then let this be the fifth.” He raised his glass to her. “You are a beautiful woman, Gillian.”

“La, sir, but you are most unoriginal in your compliments,” she said, turning away from his warm look, conscious of her evening gown. It was the first time she was wearing anything remotely fashionable since London.

She walked to the far end of the couch and sat down.

He came and sat beside her, leaving enough space between them to turn and face her.

“Tonight I saw the Gillian who has probably been gracing the London ballrooms for the past few seasons, charming all and sundry of the ton.”

“Is that a criticism?”

“Not at all. It's a compliment.”

“You can save your Spanish coin,” she said stiffly, determined to hang on to her resentment. He wasn't going to make her relent of her plans with all this softness and tenderness. She wasn't going to forget what he'd done to her.

He watched her for a few moments in silence. “Tell me, Gillian,” he asked finally, “what will it take to put a smile—a real smile, not those false smiles you wore for our honorable squires this evening—on your face?”

She felt an irrational anger swell inside her. “You dare ask me that, when you've taken away my freedom and held me a virtual prisoner in this tumbledown hall of yours for the past seven months, two weeks, and five days!”

Suddenly she felt the full extent of her frustration. Its force overwhelmed her. Every dark thought she'd thought about him over the months since her banishment rose to the fore.

She stood and turned on him. “I'll tell you what you can do! Let me go! I never wanted to be married to you. Mama forced me to. And you proved yourself an absolute brute.”

She moved away from him. “I never want to talk about that—that awful night, but I want to make it absolutely clear, I shall never forget what you did to me! I shall
never
forgive you for that.”

She held out a hand to stop him from whatever he would have replied. “As if that wasn't horrible enough, you sent me so far away…away from any friendly face, with no money, with not even my personal maid—” Her voice broke then as she remembered, but she backed away from him when he stood. “Don't come near me. I can't bear it when you touch me.”

He drew back immediately, and she felt a curious satisfaction that she had managed to hurt that manly pride of his.

Her voice grew quiet. “When they brought you here, I thought you were going to die. It was the only thing that gave me hope—to be your widow. But that's not going to happen now, is it? Your great, merciful God has played a fine trick on me. I hate you. Do you understand? You've ruined my life—any chance at happiness.”

“I'm sorry, Gillian,” he began, but she didn't let him finish.

“All I want is my freedom. I'll go away somewhere,” she entreated, “to the Continent, where you needn't ever see me again.”

She saw his face work, his jaw tighten, and again she felt gratified that she had succeeded in robbing him of his new-found joy. He looked a bit like the old Tertius even, the enraged one of her wedding night. But he didn't come near her or touch her, although she noticed his clenched fists.

“Good night, Tertius,” she said coldly, then turned and left him.

 

When the door had shut behind her and the final timbre of its closing had died, Tertius brought his fists up to his face.

Oh, God, I've tried everything I know. How can I get through to her? She wants nothing to do with me. Is it Your will to let her go as she asks, to give her a divorce?
The ugly word brought a shudder through him.
Is that all that's left to us?
he cried in despair, pacing the confines of the room.
Just when You've given me love for her, all she feels for me is hate. Divorce will only bring her more disgrace than me. How can I do that to her? Yet, she will be satisfied with nothing less than total separation from me
.

Finally he knelt at the couch, at the place where she'd been sitting, seeking the Lord's guidance for his life and for his marriage.

 

He didn't see Gillian the next morning at breakfast and assumed she was sleeping late after the party. He went to work in his office, reviewing what little he could find on the running of the hall over the past ten years. It wasn't until dinner that he saw her.

“Hello, Gillian,” he said with a nod. She stood by her chair, presumably waiting for him.

They were seated and the food was served. He bowed his head to pray—following the example his sister had shown him. When he raised his head to begin his meal, he noticed Gillian had started without him.

They ate in silence. He noticed she ate little. He, too, had little appetite. How long must they endure this uneasy stalemate?

When the final dish had at last been cleared away, he sat back in his chair and asked for God's grace to say what he had resolved in the course of the night.

“Gillian,” he said, before she could rise.

She looked at him without speaking.

“I've been thinking of what you said to me last night.” As soon as he mentioned the subject, she looked down at her lap.

“I can't rectify the past. I shan't refer to what is painful to you. All I can hope to do is change the future.

“I have always intended to return you to London. I was wrong to send you away—and in such a brutal manner.

“Although you've never told me what…happened to
you…prior to our wedding night, I won't ask you about it. I would like to hear about it, if you ever care to tell me. I give you my word I won't condemn you.”

He cleared his throat, having received no reaction from her. She seemed determined to keep her head lowered, her hands in her lap.

“As I said, I promise to return you to London as soon as possible.” At these words, she raised her eyes and he could read hope in them. At his next words, the hope died. “There we can discuss your ‘freedom.'” Clearly, she didn't like the implications that he wouldn't give her her freedom right away.