An Anne Perry Christmas_ Two Holiday Novels - Anne Perry [14]
“Was that really a cruelty?” she said aloud, meeting his eyes for the first time in their whispered conversation.
Omegus did not hesitate. “Yes,” he answered. “There are some things to which we need to wake up slowly, and the weaknesses of someone we love are among them.”
“But surely she needed to see what a frail creature he is before she married him!” she protested.
He smiled. “Oh, please, think a little longer, a little more deeply, my dear.”
She was surprisingly wounded, not bluntly as by a knife, but deeply and almost without realizing it for the first few seconds, as a razor cuts. She had not been aware until this moment how much she cared what Omegus thought of her.
Perhaps he saw the change in her face. His expression softened.
She found herself pulling away, her pride offended that he should see his power to wound her.
He saw that, too, and he ignored it. “She would have accepted him,” he said, still quietly. “She had no better offer, and by the time she had realized his flaws, he might have begun to overcome them, and habit, tenderness, other promises made and kept might have blunted the edge of disappointment, and given other compensations that would have been enough.” He put his hand on her arm, so lightly she saw it rather than felt it. “Love is not perfection,” he said. “It is tolerance, dreams past, and the future shared. A great deal of it, my dear, is friendship, if it is to last. There is nothing more precious than true friendship. It is the rock upon which all other loves must stand, if they are to endure. She should have made her own decision, not have it made for her by someone else's desperate realization of defeat.”
She did not answer. His words filled her mind and left no room for any of her own.
Ten minutes later when Isobel still had not appeared, Vespasia decided to go and fetch her. She went back up the stairs and along the west corridor to Isobel's room. She knocked and, when there was no answer, turned the handle and went in.
Isobel was standing before the long glass, looking critically at herself. She was not beautiful, but she had a great grace, and in her bronze-and-black gown she looked magnificent, more striking, more dramatic than Gwendolen ever had. Vespasia saw for the first time that that was precisely the trouble. Bertie Rosythe did not want a dramatic wife. He might like to play with fire, but he did not wish to live with it. Isobel could never have won.
“If you do not come now, you are going to be late,” Vespasia said calmly.
Isobel swung around, startled. She had obviously been expecting the return of her maid.
“I haven't decided if I am coming yet,” she replied. “I didn't hear you knock!”
“I daresay you were too deep in your own thoughts.” Vespasia brushed it aside. “You must come,” she insisted. “If you don't, you will be seen as having run away, and that would be an admission of guilt.”
“They think I am guilty anyway,” Isobel said bitterly. “Don't pretend you cannot see that! Even you with so…”
Vespasia had been at fault. “I did not intend my remarks to give them that opening,” she answered. “I am truly sorry for that. It was far clumsier than I meant it to be.”
Isobel kept her head turned away. “I daresay they would have come to the same place anyway, just taken a little longer. But it would have been easier for me had the final blow not come from a friend.”
“Then you may consider yourself revenged,” Vespasia said. “I am subtly chastened, and guilty of my own sin. Are you now coming down to dinner? The longer you leave it, the more difficult it will be. That is the truth, whoever is to blame for anything.”
Isobel turned around very slowly. “Why are you wearing purple, for heaven's sake? Is anyone else in mourning?”
Vespasia smiled bleakly. “Of course not. No one foresaw the necessity of