The Elopement (3 page)

She said, “Tell me where.”

“The Fifth Avenue,” he said, disregarding what he must know being seen there would do to her reputation, what she had
told
him it would do. But she was beyond caring.

“Yes,” she said, and “Yes” again when he made her promise.

“Don’t leave me disappointed again,” he told her. “Or I’ll come looking for you.”

He opened the door of the carriage and she stepped out, and once the cool air touched her warm cheeks, the humiliation of what she’d just done hit her. She’d given him her virtue in a
carriage
. Could there be anything more degrading?

But it was too late, wasn’t it? One could not take such a thing back. It was done. When she went home she asked the maid to help her undress to her chemise and then shooed her away, despite the girl’s protests. She said she wanted to be alone, that she felt unwell, that she would have dinner in her room. Then, when the maid was gone, she poured water into a basin and took off her chemise, looking for all the marks of his possession. The bruises on her throat where he’d kissed her too violently, the redness on her breasts from the scrape of his beard shadow against her tender skin. There was blood on the inside of her thighs and a faint soreness. She washed the blood away, but she could not banish the bruises and the scrapes and soreness, and suddenly she was not sorry. Suddenly she
wanted
to be the woman who would give herself to a man in a carriage. A woman of impetuosity. Of passion. The marks on her skin reminded her of how it had felt to be with him. They reminded her of the pleasure that had her crying out, the desire that made her ache and strain against him, wanting more.

And yes, though she knew it was wrong and was afraid of being caught, she wanted to see him again, and she was willing to risk the Fifth Avenue to do it. The next day, she rushed to their assignation. She wore a dark, plain cloak, pulling the hood close about her face, and raced up the stairs to the room. She was relieved when he was waiting—she had been half-afraid he might reward the times she’d denied him with a denial of his own, a petty retribution. When he ushered her inside and undressed her, and she lay back on the bed and opened her arms to him, the look in his eyes told her he was as captive as she was to their desire. She had no fear of reprisal from him.

After that, she risked again and again. He was like an addiction, a drug she knew she should resist but could not. One night, at a ball, as she waited for the partner on her card to collect her for a waltz, her lover gestured to her from across the room, and she went to him, saying when she reached him, “I can’t. Not now. Lawrence Branson will be coming for my waltz.”

He smiled, his eyes glittering with a desire that was her own irresistible siren song. “Lawrence Branson? That milquetoast? He spends every spare moment catering to his mamma. Don’t tell me you want a man like that.”

He pulled her into a corner, half hidden by pillars and drapes, and drew her against him, nodding toward the dance floor, saying with a tremor of amusement in his voice, “Look at him search for you.”

She followed his gaze. Yes, there was Lawrence Branson, his fair head twisting this way and that as he pushed through the crowd, looking fruitlessly for her. She felt the obligation of him tug. Truly, it was bad of her to ignore him and hide. He did not deserve it. He had always admired her so wistfully.

She tried to step from her lover’s grasp. “I really should—”

“He looks like an organ grinder’s monkey,” he whispered in her ear, laughing softly. “I half expect to see him hold out a hat.”

She could not keep herself from giggling, because it was true. Now that he’d said it, she saw that Lawrence Branson
did
have a herky-jerky way of moving; the vision came into her mind’s eye of him cavorting about to the wheezing tune of a street organ, little red trousers on his legs, a tiny vest . . . How pathetic he was—how had she never seen that before?

“He won’t miss you,” her lover said. “You don’t want to be with him anyway. You want to be with me.”

That was true too—well, not the missing part. She knew Lawrence Branson would miss her. She saw a kind of desperation on his face as the music started, and again she thought how unkind she was and with it came a moment of guilt; it was not like her to do something like this. But she wanted to be with the man who made her pulse race, and so, when he urged her to go with him from the ballroom, she followed, leaving her partners for the next three dances to the same fate as Lawrence Branson.

When she settled herself in the carriage to go home with her father that night, she was flushed and trembling. Papa looked at her with sharp eyes and said, “What happened to you this evening? You were to dance with Michael Bayley, and he could not find you anywhere.”

She had forgotten that one of the three she’d abandoned was Mr. Bayley. Again, she felt a little twinge of quilt. She said, “Mrs. Brown wished to talk to me about Amanda’s debut. I quite forgot the time.”

“Oh, Mrs. Brown,” Papa said, as if that made it all right. But then he said, “You should send a note of apology to Mr. Bayley. He’s a good man. And he admires you greatly.”

She did, the next day. She sent not just a note but accepted Michael Bayley’s invitation of a carriage ride, and as they wound their way through Central Park, he made her laugh at a story of a horse auction he’d attended, and a gray mare he had almost bought. He had a good sense of humor; it was one of her favorite things about him. She liked to laugh, she realized. It was what she enjoyed about her lover as well, that witty cleverness.

Michael Bayley said, “Your father said Mrs. Brown had concerns about her daughter’s debut?”

It took her a moment to remember the lie she’d told her father. Then she said, “Yes, but I think I allayed them well enough.”

“It’s kind of you to offer your help. Miss Brown has a nervous constitution.”

She had never thought Amanda nervous. In fact, she had never thought much about Amanda at all. She looked at him in surprise. “Why do you say that?”

He shrugged. “One can easily see it in her. I’m afraid it might frighten any suitors away. I’ll dance with her, of course, but . . . I think she would benefit from your counsel.”

“Why mine in particular?”

His smile was warm; it crept over her—not with the shivering desire she felt at her lover’s smile, but with a reassuringly rosy glow. “Because you’re always so self-possessed. There’s a confidence in you that other women don’t have. But not arrogance. You’re unfailingly kind.”

She was not, she knew, but when he said it, she wanted to be. She wanted to be the woman who thought to offer Amanda Brown a steadying hand not because it was simply the first lie that popped into her head but because it was true. She wanted to be as he saw her.

She said, “You always think so well of me. I’m not certain I deserve it.”

He gave her a thoughtful look, a rather wistful smile. “We’re all so prepared to think the worst of each other. I rather think it’s an epidemic. But everyone has feet of clay in certain circumstances. Life is difficult for each of us, don’t you think? I’d prefer to believe that everyone wants the same things I do. Love, security, friendship. I’d like to think that everyone tries in good faith to have those things without hurting others. We cannot all be so far apart as we sometimes think.”

It was something she’d never considered, and it seemed to settle like a little jewel inside her, a tiny glimmer of something fine she’d never expected to hold. When they returned from the ride, she sent a note to Mrs. Brown offering to help Amanda choose a gown for her debut, and the fervent thanks she received by return messenger made her glad she had made the gesture and glad too that Michael Bayley had inspired it.

When she met Amanda Brown at the dressmaker’s the next day, the girl said giddily, “I was just so happy you offered. I’ll confess I’m very nervous. I hope it doesn’t show.”

“It doesn’t,” she lied kindly. “But you’re so lovely, Amanda—don’t you know it? And no . . . not the yellow, though it
is
pretty. You’re made for darker colors. I know pastels are the fashion, but they will only make you look sallow, and I think you have the courage to step out just a bit, don’t you? As it works so well to your advantage? Ah . . . here’s a lovely blue. Oh, how perfect it is for you! They’ll be falling over themselves to ask you to dance.”

And then, at Amanda’s debut, she made certain that men
did
fill up the girl’s card. It was not so difficult—she hadn’t lied about how pretty the girl was; all Amanda needed was a bit of confidence, and she did look stunning in the blue.

Michael Bayley squeezed her elbow gently and whispered to her, “You’ve worked miracles with her. Her father said they’d been afraid she would be too shy to say a word.” He gave her an admiring look. “You’ll be an excellent mother.”

She flushed with pleasure; in that moment she wanted very much to be a mother, and to be the one Michael Bayley saw. She wanted to raise a graceful daughter or a charming son or both. Or perhaps two of each . . . The thought of children racing about the house, playing in a garden, squirming in her arms while their father looked tenderly on . . . it made her chest feel full and tight with yearning.

Her lover sought her out at the punch table and said, “Miss Brown is pretty enough—but she still laughs a bit like a cockatoo.”

She had never heard Amanda Brown’s laugh before that moment, and suddenly she could not
stop
hearing it. She put her hand to her mouth in horror. “Oh, I wish I had counseled her on that!”

He smiled at her, saying cynically, “She’ll have her husband even without your help, you know. You’ve only wasted your time. She has four thousand a year.”

She looked across the room, to Amanda Brown surrounded by supplicants, and realized that of course what he said was true. The girl was of the highest pedigree. Amanda had not needed any help to get a husband, and it
had
been a waste of time. She felt deflated and foolish. When Mrs. Brown sent her a box of sweets to thank her, she gave them to the maid.

She began to notice an uncomfortable plasticity in her character. She began to feel that her own will was not strong enough to command her. She tried to view it in a good light—surely there was nothing wrong in being accommodating? But it also made her uneasy in a way she could not explain.

She and her lover were meeting often now, though she was still very careful not to be seen. She believed she’d been successful. She’d heard not a single rumor, nor caught a single measuring, too-curious glance. When she was with him, she forgot about Amanda Brown and children and the yearning she’d felt at the thought of motherhood. She forgot to lament the weakness she sensed in herself; it only seemed good to surrender to him. She let passion defeat her—when she was with him, nothing else felt real. The rest of the world faded to insignificance, something she could toss away and never miss.

One day, as they lay tangled in bed together, he said sleepily, “I saw you in the park with Bayley the other day. You looked besotted.”

She felt uncomfortable, foolish again, tensing in anticipation of whatever cynical comment he might now make. “Besotted?” She tried to say it lightly; she tried not to think of the way Michael Bayley made her laugh. She did not want to hear her lover make fun. She ran her hand through his curls where his head lay cradled on her breast. “Oh, I would not say besotted. Though he’s very amusing. Why shouldn’t I ride out with him?”

“He’s very amusing,”
he mocked, and she could not help but flinch. “Is that what you want? Amusement?”

“Sometimes,” she said.

“He’d bore you in a week.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Why, because he’s a
good man
. And good men are for good women. Which you are not.”

She was a bit offended, though it was hard to stay that way, with his hand moving as it was over her hip, raising little tingles on her skin. “How do you know? Maybe I am good. Maybe I want to be.”

“You’re not good now. Good women don’t trifle with men the way you do. They don’t ride out in the park and smile as if he’s the center of their universe and then rush to the Fifth Avenue Hotel to take off their clothes for someone else.”

She went hot. “That’s not—”

“I know who you truly are,” he whispered. “You don’t want only what society’s willing to give you. You want more.”

And yes, it was true. When he said it, she did want that. She felt she had the courage to take it.

He smiled. “And besides, we both know you’re in love with me.”

That he’d said it so boldly surprised her. She wanted to deny him, to say
How arrogant you are. I don’t love you at all.
But there was a part of her that had gone hot and goosefleshed at his words, that wanted him to say it over and over again, that wanted what followed such a declaration. The conventions of marriage and commitment. A life beyond a hotel room and hurried fumblings at public affairs.

She thought he might mock her for it, so she wouldn’t admit it. She twisted a curl of his hair about her finger, pulling a bit. “Do we truly know that? I’m not so certain. How can I be in love with you when I like Michael Bayley so very much?”

“Better than you like me?” he countered. He lifted his head to look at her, tugging gently from her hold. His eyes were dark. He bent to kiss her collarbone. “Better than you like this?” He kissed her breast. “Or this?”

And again she was breathless, consumed, addicted. He knew just what to say, what to do. She felt helpless beneath the onslaught of him. “No, not better.” Her voice sounded rasping and strange.

He whispered, “He’s not clever enough for you. He’s boring and staid. You’ll have two children within two years and join the Ladies’ Benevolent Society.”

He was moving, his tongue and his lips making a glowing, tingling path downwards. She could barely manage to say, “No, I won’t. You’re wrong. I won’t.”

“He’ll have you kowtowing to dowagers and suppressing everything you think. You’ll be his glittering ornament and nothing more. Before you know it your only excitement will be in helping young girls plan their boring little debuts so they can marry their boring little husbands and have their boring little children. You’ll start to believe it’s what you
like
to do.”