Joan Wolf (16 page)

Nicholas watched as Catherine slowly turned to face him. He was himself very satisfied by his explanation. It made excellent sense, he thought. Catherine regarded him thoughtfully and he looked steadily back. “It would upset your wife to discover that you had been unfaithful?” she asked.

That was a subject upon which Nicholas had no doubts. “Yes,” he said.

“Then if I were you, I should keep her away from Eleanor Rushton.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I saw her leave the room with Lady Eleanor this evening and then come back later by herself. It must have been Eleanor’s doing. I doubt if your wife would have made the suggestion of a téte-à-téte. Eleanor is hardly her style.”

Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. “If she has upset Margarita, I’ll murder her,” he said, icy rage in his voice.

Catherine’s blue eyes never left his face. “You love her, you know,” she said neutrally.

His face was taut. The eyes looking back at Catherine were inimical. Part of him knew that what she said was true, that he did love Margarita. But the part of him that was still scarred by a seventeen-year-old desertion refused to admit it. “Nonsense,” he said harshly. “I feel responsible for her, that is all.”

“Well, if you feel responsible for her and you don’t wish her to discover your, ah, peccadilloes, then I suggest that
you
keep away from Lady Eleanor
as well, Nicholas.”

There was a white line around his mouth, and Catherine’s eyes softened as she watched him. “Poor boy,” she said sympathetically, “you have gotten yourself into a tangle.”

“I know I shouldn’t have started that up again,” he said stiffly. “But, damn it. Cat, Margarita was away for over a month! I’m not a bloody monk.”

Catherine looked amused. “That is one thing you have never been accused of,” she agreed.

“Margarita will just have to understand about these things.” He sounded decidedly autocratic.

She raised an eyebrow. “Will she?”

“Yes,” he said. “She will.”

After he left, Catherine walked slowly up the stairs to her solitary bed chamber. She had always been perfectly satisfied with her life, she thought. Nothing major had really changed. She would miss Nicholas, of course, but, philosophically, she had not expected their relationship to continue forever. There were other men in the world. Why, then, did she feel so inexplicably sad?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I might have known,

What far too soon, alas! I learn’d—

The heart can bind itself alone,

And faith may oft be unreturn’d.

Matthew Arnold

It was a very uneasy and disturbed Nicholas who walked back to his own house at three o’clock in the morning. He let himself in, as he had told the night footman not to wait up for him. He did not expect anyone to be waiting in his bedroom either, as he had told his valet to go to bed, but there was someone there, seated in the big fireside chair. It was his wife. She was dressed in nightgown and robe and had a blanket tucked around her. She looked up as he came in and shut the door behind him. “Where were you?” she asked.

“What are you doing up?” he returned. “It is after three in the morning!”

“I know.” Steadily she repeated her question. “Where were you?”

He regarded her thoughtfully. “I told you I was
going to Brooks’s.”

“I know you did. I don’t think I believe you.” She was very pale and her eyes were enormous.

“Where do you think I went, then?” he asked quietly.

“To your mistress. To Mrs. Alnwick.” She put up a hand to tuck the blanket more tightly about her, and he saw it was shaking. He sighed and went to sit in the chair opposite to her.

“Margarita,” he said gently, “whatever was between Mrs. Alnwick and me has nothing to do with you. It has no effect on my feelings for you, believe me.”

“That was what I thought,” she replied, a slight quiver in her voice. “I thought it was all over. But I see now I was wrong.”

“What did Eleanor Rushton tell you?” he asked grimly. The question itself was an admission.

She wouldn’t look at him. Her voice was so low he could hardly hear it. “She told me that you had many mistresses. I would not have minded that so much if they had all been
before
you and me. But she told me you . . . saw other women . . . this last month, when I was not here.”

Her head was bent. Nicholas looked at that small brown head and felt savage rage against Eleanor Rushton. He cleared his throat. “You must understand, Margarita, that a man has certain needs. You were at Winslow for over a month!” He repeated the line he had used to Catherine Alnwick. “I am not a monk, after all.”

Margarita was not amused. She raised her head and looked very steadily at Nicholas. “No,” she said. “You are not a monk. You are my husband.”

He was finding it difficult to sustain that clear, brown gaze. “What do you want me to do?” he asked, his feet moving restlessly on the carpeted floor.

What she wanted was reassurance. She wanted him to promise her never to touch another woman again. Above all, she wanted to be told he loved her. But she could not extract any of those things from him because he felt guilty and uncomfortable. They had to be freely given. She sat in silence for a long minute, hoping, but nothing came. Finally he spoke, his voice now quick and hard with exasperation. “Don’t just sit there looking like a tragedy queen. I tell you those women mean nothing to me. You are my wife. You are the mother of my son. That is all that matters.” Then, as she continued to sit silent, “Margarita!”

“That is not how my father treated my mother,” she said quietly.

“This is England,” he responded curtly. “We do things differently here.”

“Yes, I have found that out. I thought we were different, you and I, but I see now I was mistaken.” She rose from her chair, and even in her night robe and clutching a blanket, she managed to look dignified. “Very well, my lord, since that is your wish, we will have an English marriage. I have, according to your custom, done my duty by you. I have given you a son. In future you will be perfectly free to do whatever you choose to do. I will expect, however, that you leave me alone.” She walked to the connecting door between their rooms, went through, and locked it behind her.

Nicholas’s mouth fell open. He shook his head a little dazedly and went to try the doorknob. He shook it. “Margarita!” he shouted. “Open this door! Now!”

There was no reply. He looked speculatively at the door and tentatively put a shoulder against it. Then he stepped away, a very grim look around his mouth. He could break through if he wanted, he had no doubt about that, but he could not do it. There had been too much violence in Margarita’s life. He could not add to it. He would frighten her half to death if he came crashing through that door into her room.

He went back to sit in the fireside chair, stretched his legs out in front of him, and spent the rest of the night staring despondently at the carpet.

* * * *

Margarita did not sleep either. She did not cry, but lay awake, feeling that a heavy weight was pressing down on her chest.  She wished desperately that she hadn’t gone to Lady Jersey’s ball, hadn’t talked to Eleanor Rushton. Last night she had lain here in Nicholas’s arms. Last night she had thought he loved her.

For Margarita, Nicholas’s behavior could mean only one thing. He did not love her. She had thought he did. She thought love was behind the caresses, the lovemaking she found so ecstatic. And now she knew that he did the same things with other women. Said the same things to other women. It was as if the bottom had dropped out of her life. All the security and faith and peace she had found in him were destroyed. Nothing in her life would ever be the same again.

* * * *

At first Nicholas did not think that Margarita would hold out long against him. With all the enormous charm he could summon up when he wanted to, he set himself to woo his wife. He met with a solid wall of resistance. She managed, with a skill that he remembered from the first months of their marriage, to largely avoid being alone with him. And when he did manage to get her by herself she would look at him watchfully and edge toward the door, like a captive anxious for escape. All the warmth and glowing life was gone from her face. In its place was the still, guarded look he remembered too well.

There was nothing he could do, short of forcing himself on her, and that was impossible. The only times she was her old self were when she was with Nicky. Nicholas came into the nursery one afternoon to find her sitting on the floor playing a peek-a-boo game with the baby. Nicky was chuckling excitedly and Margarita was laughing along with him, cooingly, soft and gentle, deep down in her throat. Nicholas’s face lit with pleasure at the sight and sound of them, but when she looked up and saw
him,
all the joy died out of her eyes.

He did not know what to do to break through to her. She had given him his freedom, but he did not again make the mistake of turning to another woman. All of London was convinced that the young Winslows had a very solid marriage. In fact, those friends who were closest to them were in no doubt at all that Nicholas truly loved his wife. The problem was that this pleasant conviction was not shared by either of the two parties most closely concerned.

* * * *

Margarita was profoundly unhappy. The dark cloud created by Lady Eleanor’s cruel words was constantly with her, making everything black and wretched around her. She walked through her days in blank misery, knowing there was nothing to be done, there was no place of consolation to be found. She was not angry at Nicholas. The desolation she felt did not permit any room for such a vibrant emotion as anger. And she knew she could not blame him for her despair. He had told her not to ask him for love. It was she who had allowed herself to believe he loved her, she who had depended on him, unfairly, for all that was meaningful in her life. No wonder now he looked at her in bewilderment and hurt. But she could not help the way she felt She could never turn to him with confidence again.

* * * *

On June 20, Lord and Lady Winslow attended a party given by the Regent at Carlton House. Nicholas had made plans to return to Winslow with his family, but those plans were disrupted by the Regent’s unexpected invitation. One did not refuse a request to attend a party at Carlton House, particularly if it was the first time one had been invited, and so the Winslows delayed their departure and Margarita bought a new dress. Nicholas was not overjoyed to have his plans upset. He was anxious to get Margarita back to the country, where he hoped things between them would return to a more normal state.

On the evening of the party, Margarita appeared in an Italian silk gown of pale lemon yellow. It was sophisticated and stylish, and along with the diamond tiara that added to her height, it lent her courage. She had never been to Carlton House and never met the Regent, and she felt distinctly apprehensive.

The imposing, brilliantly lit portico of Carlton House was extraordinarily impressive. The Win-slows were directed by masses of footmen to proceed through the hall, which was lined with Ionic columns of brown Sienese marble, and more footmen bowed them up the graceful double staircase to the Chinese Room.

Margarita’s eyes were huge. She had never seen anything like Carlton House before. “Versailles could not be more magnificent,” she whispered to Nicholas, and he cocked an eyebrow in agreement

There were over a thousand people present, and the dancing had already started in the Chinese Room when the Windows arrived. They stood together for a minute, looking on and seeing very few people under the age of forty.

“You don’t want to dance, do you?” Nicholas said. “Left explore.”

For the first time in weeks her dimples appeared. “Yes, let’s,” she said. And so husband and wife wandered off by themselves to investigate the marvels of the Regent’s palace. It was marvelous indeed. The supper table was set up in a conservatory that looked like a cathedral, with Gothic pillars, tessellated ceilings, and marble floor. Margarita was entranced by the tropical plants and exotic flowers, many of which she recognized from home.

They moved on from the conservatory to other rooms, stopping to admire exquisite pieces of furniture from France, Gobelin tapestries, magnificent Sevres china, and marble busts by Coysevox. In front of a lovely landscape by Claude, they met the Regent himself.

Nicholas was surprised when the Regent recognized him immediately. “Winslow,” he said, warmly shaking him by the hand. “I’m glad to see you here. I hope you are going to give me a chance to buy some of your uncle’s paintings.”

Involuntarily, Nicholas grinned. So that was the reason for the invitation. He had wondered. “Of course. Your Royal Highness,” he answered. “My wife and I will keep some of them, but I certainly plan to put a large number up for sale.”

“Splendid. You must let me know which ones you are selling. There are a number of paintings I am particularly interested in.”

“I shall certainly do so, sir.”

The Regent smiled at Margarita. “You may present your wife to me, Winslow.”

“Your Royal Highness, may I present Lady Winslow,” Nicholas said obediently, and Margarita, glancing at him fleetingly, curtsied.

The prince made a few pleasant remarks to her, and she replied in the low voice she used when she was feeling shy. She was not sure how to address him, felt embarrassed and wished he would stop talking to her and go away. The Regent was pleased by her delicate loveliness, apparently didn’t mind her obvious shyness, and after a few more minutes took himself off, leaving a relieved husband and wife behind.

The remainder of the party was easier. They returned to the Chinese Room where they met several people they knew. Margarita danced a number of times and had a very pleasant conversation with Lord Bingley about the Spanish painter Velasquez. They had supper in the Gothic conservatory and took their departure at about one-thirty in the morning.

“Well, we brushed through that pretty well, I thought,” Nicholas said, as they were waiting for their carriage.