Zachary had gone to bed long before, assured that his puppy would be returned to him in the morning. She had had to insist on Ben’s taking it for the night, since it was likely to cry for its mother and the unfamiliarity of its surroundings for the first little while. And doubtless Zachary would take it into his bed if allowed to keep it for the night, and his sheets and blankets would be soaked in the morning.
Barbara had tried to settle to her book, but the adventures of Joseph Andrews had no more power to hold her attention than they had had all week. She went upstairs and fetched the silver locket and the linen handkerchief, which was lying on the chest beside her bed.
The locket sprang open to her touch upon its catch. But it was as empty as it had ever been. She wished, as she had wished a thousand times before, that she had a picture of Zach. Though portraits never did justice to the original, of course. Nothing did. No picture could have captured the youthful eagerness and energy of Zach, his boyish good looks that would have developed in time into undisputed handsomeness. But there had been no time. He had died one month before his twentieth birthday.
Poor Zach. So much zest for life. So many plans and dreams. All smashed to nothingness by a French shell. But the pain of the thought, the rawness in the throat, the bitter sense of loss, would no longer come. They had not come for a long time. Only the restlessness and the frustration of knowing that she was tied to that one girlish and passionate love for the rest of her life.
She would not call it a mistake, for Zachary was never a mistake. And never regretted and never unwanted from the moment of his conception, even after she had been told of Zach’s death. Not a mistake. Only this unending bond to a long-dead love.
She closed the locket and held it regretfully in her hand for a long moment before setting it down beside the handkerchief. And she picked the latter up, carefully opened its folds, and looked down on the sugared sweetmeat lying there.
And the tears came and dripped onto one corner of the handkerchief.
He would be dancing now. With Eve. Smiling at her with those kindly blue eyes. Perhaps he had already asked her. Perhaps the announcement had already been made. Perhaps he had a new Valentine’s Day to remember to ease the memory of the single one he had spent with his wife. Perhaps all was celebration at the house.
She wished him happy. She closed her hand about the handkerchief and sweetmeat and shut her eyes. She wished him happy. And he would be. Eve was a good girl. Heedless and flirtatious, it was true. But the errors were on the side of youth and exuberance. Under the influence of her husband she would mature well.
Her husband. Viscount Brandon. Barbara felt his fingertips light against her one cheek again and his lips warm against the other. He had wished her a happy Valentine's Day.
Oh, God! She threw back her head, her eyes still closed, and felt hot tears running down her cheeks and dripping onto her dress. Had the pain been this sharp when she had lost Zach? This unbearable? But it must have been. Of course it must. Zach had been her world and she had just borne his child. Life was perhaps merciful in that way, she thought. Just as pain and grief faded, so did one’s memory of just how dreadful they had been.
And would this pain fade too? And its intensity be forgotten? Of course it would. She had but to be patient. But what was ahead of her? Nothing but emptiness and more emptiness. She set the handkerchief aside and gave in to despair and self-pity. She spread her hands over her face and cried and cried.
She was coming downstairs half an hour later, having bathed her face in cool water and combed her hair and picked up her embroidery bag, when there was a knock on the outer door. She stood quite still, waiting for a servant to answer it. It could not be. There was a ball in progress at the house. He was with Eve. He was probably betrothed to her already. It could not be. But who else could it be?
He was wearing a black evening cloak and beaver hat, which he removed and handed to Ben, bidding him a good evening and asking if Lady Barbara was at home. Beneath the cloak he looked even more magnificent than he had looked two evenings before. His brocaded coat was burgundy, his waistcoat and knee breeches silver silk, his linen and stockings a sparkling white. There were copious amounts of lace at his neck and wrists. Diamonds sparkled from among the folds of his neckcloth.
“I am here, Ben,” she said, “thank you.”
And he looked up at her and smiled and she saw nothing else as her servant withdrew to the back of the house again. She did not know if she returned the smile or not.
“Good evening, my lord,” she said.
She was dressed very plainly in comparison to the ladies he had just left in the ballroom at Durham House. She wore an unadorned long-sleeved, high-necked silk dress of dark blue. Her hair was dressed neatly and simply. She had been crying. There were no telltale red marks on her pale cheeks or about her eyes, but he knew she had been crying.
She looked beautiful.
“Good evening, Lady Barbara,” he said. He felt suddenly anxious, unsure of himself. If his guess was correct, this was a painful anniversary for her. Her son must have been conceived on this day eight years before. Had she been crying for her dead lover? “I seem to be making a habit of calling at improper hours.”
She came down the remaining stairs. Would he know that she had been crying? That she had been crying for him? She felt mortified. She wished he had not come. Had he come to tell her of his betrothal? But why would he do that?
“Will you come into the parlor, my lord?” she asked him. “Shall I have tea brought up?”
“Not for me,” he said, following her into the parlor.
She wished he had refused both invitations. She wished he had stated his business and left again. And she wondered desperately if his visit would be as short a one as that afternoon’s, if he would leave before she could grasp onto his presence for one more memory to carry into the emptiness ahead.
Perhaps his visit was an intrusion on this day of all days, he thought. Perhaps she wished to be alone with her memories. Perhaps she would be insulted by his ill-timed attentions.
“Am I disturbing you?” he asked.
She shook her head and indicated the chair he had sat in two evenings before.
“You have been crying,” he said, and she shot him a glance, doubly mortified. “Is my presence here distressing to you, Barbara? Would you prefer to be left alone? Or can I lend a sympathetic shoulder to be cried on?”
“It was nothing,” she said. “It is over now. Are you not dancing?”
“Later,” he said, smiling. “There is plenty of time left.” Though he knew that he would do no more dancing that night unless she danced with him. Was he intruding? “You loved him very much?”
