Hope - Lesley Pearse [92]
She paused, looking off into the distance. ‘He called one afternoon when William was out riding, and we walked in the garden together,’ she said. ‘We sat for a while in the summerhouse and suddenly he was kissing me. It was like a madness, Nell, so sweet and thrilling.’
She went on to say how in the months following she tried to fight against the passion she felt. How she would have Bridie stay in the room if Angus called and William was out.
‘It was the same for Angus,’ she said sadly. ‘I saw everything I felt mirrored in his eyes. He didn’t call often because he was off soldiering, a whole year went by once without my seeing him, but he was on my mind constantly. Then William went to America, and sometimes I’d go out riding alone, and it was on one of those days that I ran into Angus.’
‘And you slipped up?’
Lady Harvey nodded. ‘As God is my witness, I tried very hard to resist the temptation. I did love William; we had some happy times together. But this thing I felt with Angus was very different, so strong, it swept away morality, loyalty and everything else I held dear. It was so beautiful and powerful, Nell, nothing mattered but to possess and to be possessed. If I’d had only just one tiniest bit of that with William everything would have been different. But I saw then that what William and I had in our bed was a duty; a furtive kind of fumbling that gave neither of us any pleasure, only shame. And I realized that William did not and would never desire me.’
Tears sprang into Nell’s eyes as she remembered the humiliation of her own wedding night. She had been so willing, so eager for lovemaking, but Albert had pushed her away, making her feel dirty and loathsome. ‘Maybe we have been led astray into believing all men are earthy creatures,’ she said hesitantly, tempted for a second to admit that her own marriage was even emptier. ‘But you had Rufus!’
‘The one good thing to come out of all this mess,’ Lady Harvey said with a snort. ‘When William came home from America I was so very low. I was racked with guilt and convinced that all that I had been through with my first baby was God’s judgement for my wickedness. But fortunately William came home with renewed enthusiasm for producing a son and heir, and maybe because I had more knowledge of pleasing a man, it happened.’
‘Surely that was enough for you?’
‘Our child’s birth marked the end of William’s physical duty to me.’
‘But at least you have a child,’ Nell reminded her. She thought she would gladly settle for that.
‘That isn’t enough when you have known the bliss of being in the arms of a man who does desire you,’ Lady Harvey said with a break in her voice. ‘For some years Rufus was enough for me. Angus was safely abroad, and we had parties and house guests to distract me. But now—’ She broke off as she began to cry.
‘William goes off alone, he drinks and gambles too much. He speaks to me as if he hates me,’ she sobbed. ‘Last night I asked him why he’d left me in Sussex so soon after the funeral and he said that the three days he was there with me were more than enough for him. I thought he meant the difficulties with my sisters, but he didn’t. He meant being in my company.’
Nell had to grit her teeth to stop herself from interrupting Lady Harvey as she helped her with her toilette. A torrent of words flowed from her mouth – how wonderful Angus was, how despicable she found her husband – yet almost in the same breath she said she had written to Angus while at her family home to say their relationship must cease. It was the outpouring of someone who was entirely self-obsessed. She had also clearly forgotten that Nell had come to her with a serious problem.
She even asked at one point if Nell thought it wicked of her to wish for widowhood to release her from her unhappy marriage.
‘My mother used to say, “Be careful what you wish for,”’ Nell retorted, tempted to smack