The apology stuck, though, and after a moment Hawk said, “Come over and we’ll talk tomorrow.” He strode off, never looking back.
Van leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, the sweet image of a pistol floating in front of him. He’d trained himself into a demon of destruction. Perhaps there came a point of no return.
He’d thought some things endured, particularly his lifelong friendships with Hawk and Con. But if Con needed his friends, he’d not found one in him, and now he’d lashed out at Hawk.
Perhaps there was no going back. He could reroof Steynings and bring the land into good heart again, but he doubted he could re-create past happiness in a house empty except for ghosts.
He might be able to do it with Maria’s help.
He couldn’t tell if this feeling was love, frustrated lust, or an insane kind of dependency, but he realized that his bleak mood, his bitterness, his attack on Hawk all grew out of the rapidly approaching end of his service to Maria.
And she insisted that he not touch her in any intimate way.
He knew what he ought to do. He ought to prepare to bid her a courteous farewell, leave to restore his home, then pick a young lady like Miss Embleborough to marry and have children with.
He’d rather shoot himself.
Maria entered her house on Vandeimen’s arm as usual, and as usual they all took a light supper and chatted. She thought he looked strained, and hoped desperately that he hadn’t fought with his friend over her. She silently berated herself for letting Major Hawkinville goad her, though how else she could have reacted, she didn’t know.
Perhaps she should write an apology, though she’d done nothing wrong. It galled her that he, too, saw her as an aging harpy prepared to suck the blood from a younger man. Did everyone? Sarah Yeovil hadn’t spoken more than the briefest word to her since that medieval affair.
And in a couple of weeks it would all be over.
If she were a weaker woman, she’d sink into tears.
Persistent Harriette was using Major Hawkinville’s appearance as a lever to open up discussion of Vandeimen’s friends and his home. He looked strained, but he was still in the room and talking, though saying little to the point.
She found herself watching him through a prism of his friend’s eyes. Major Hawkinville hadn’t seen Vandeimen for nearly a year, she assumed, and he had been disturbed. That was why he had attacked her.
She remembered the incident before dinner, and Harriette’s words. A glossy shell with nothing inside.
That was not true. There was a lot inside, all of it tangled, dark, and dangerous. And now, for some reason, he was pushed to a brink.
When they separated to go to their bedrooms she tried to persuade herself that her concerns were only tiredness—hers or his. As her maid undressed her, however, and combed out her long hair then wove it in a plait, she worried.
When she climbed into bed, she knew that tomorrow she must insist that they travel to Steynings.
It was duty that drove her. She must correct the terrible wrong that Maurice had done to his family. By now, however, it was more than duty. She had to rescue him. She could bear to let him go, but she could not bear to let him fall back into the pit.
It was as if she saw a wonderful person through crazed glass. His honor showed in the damnable fact that he’d never again tried to kiss her. His cleverness showed in the way he managed to exhibit devotion and passion in public without ever doing anything improper.
His natural kindness showed in many ways. He never made fun of anyone. He would dance with clumsy shyness as if with a beauty, talk with a bore as if with a wit, smooth over rudeness so it was almost unrecognized.
He even spent time with Tante Louise and Oncle Charles, and no one would deny that they were a sour old couple who constantly carped at each other and the world.
She began to see, however, lying there in the dark, that all his kindnesses came from dogged duty, the same sense of duty that had driven him into the next battle, and the next, and the next.
Dogged? He had been a madman, an enthusiast, hadn’t he?
Now she wondered, wondered if it had been more a case of never doing things by half measures, and whether that was what he was doing now, bleakness still in his heart.
And what exactly was he doing now, this very minute?
She tried to tell herself that he too had gone to bed, but something was screaming that he hadn’t. That he might have his pistol in hand again. After a struggle, she climbed out of bed and reached for her wrap.
Oh no. Definitely not. She was not going to look for him in her nightgown!
Feeling more foolish by the moment, she put on a shift, dug through her drawers for one of her light corsets that hooked up the front, then for her simplest round gown. She wound her plait around her head and pinned it in place.
