“Oh, Arch. You are too good.” He really did see the best in people. No wonder his friends were so loyal to him. “I adore you for saying so, but you think too highly of everyone. Father is like Olive: he knows how to scheme. As to Mr. Bull, I found myself at home alone with him, the banns having been called that morning, so I allowed things to . . . progress.”
“Did you, ah . . . know what that entailed?”
She paused. Archie was her friend, and she trusted him absolutely, but this was still discomfiting. “I did.”
“You’ll forgive me for asking, but I am under the impression that young ladies, perhaps especially motherless ones, are not always schooled in such matters.”
“I have been an observer of nature for quite some time.” He chuckled, though she had not been trying to amuse. “But I take your point. Olive, for example, speaks as if she’s worldly, but in some ways, I think she’s actually quite innocent about the . . . details.”
“I gathered as much from her lack of reaction to the topiary garden and from your later report that she thought Sir Lionel’s creations of the . . . fungal variety.”
It was Clementine’s turn to chuckle. “Olive wasnotthe observer of nature I was.”
“Indeed.”
She considered what to say next. She had recounted the necessary plot. Olive would say there was no need to expound upon motivation. But the more they talked—the more Archie let Clementine talk without rushing to judgment—the more comfortable she felt. “In all honesty, I was interested in trying it. It is the act that underlies the world, is it not? It is the basis for all creation, for all the beauty in the world, for lifeitself.”
“That’s a very high-minded way of looking at it,” Archie said wryly.
“So I have learned.”
Archie let loose a sharp exhale. “Clem, I am endeavoring to remain calm, to remember that this is your story and not mine. But honest to God, if he hurt you, I will go to America myself, find him, and—”
“No. No. The, ah, act itself was . . . well, it was underwhelming if I’m being honest.Heseemed to enjoy himself immensely, but . . .” He made an indistinct, strangled sort of noise, and she rushed to finish her story before she gave him an apoplexy. “So that was fine. Well, not fine, but, as I said, merely underwhelming.” A bit of pain followed by what felt like a purely mechanical act. “It was afterward that . . . gave me pause. He had barely, ah, rolled away when he declared that we would be going to Scotland after the wedding, and henceforth on to the Continent—permanently. I objected. We had not talked about that at all, and unlike my sister I have no wish to tour the great cities of the world.”
“Olive wishes to tour the great cities of the world?”
Drat. She should not have said that. Olive had confided in Clementine about her heart’s fondest wishes, and Clementine shouldn’t be sharing those wishes with anyone else, even Archie. Hoping to deflect, she returned to her story. “Mr. Bull also informed me that we would not be having children, which was also not something we had discussed. He had, ah, removed himself before spilling his seed, saying he did not wish to get me with child.” In the moment, she’d thought it an act of consideration on his part—his not wanting to get her with child before the wedding in order to preserve her reputation. “When I asked him about it after we’d dressed, it turned out he had ideas about the surplus population I did not share. This led to the discussion about children, which escalated into an argument. When I expressed my opinion, he grew enraged.” She paused and unclenched her fists. Her fists remembered what had happened next. “It was as if he shook off a disguise he’d been wearing, and I saw his true face. He told me all I had, including my person, was his, and that we would be going where he wanted us to go and procreating or not as he chose. He grew wild with anger when I would not stand down. He struck me.”
She sensed Archie tensing beside her. “All right, now—”
“Don’t worry. I struck him back.”
“Good girl.”
Just as she had sensed Archie’s going rigid a moment ago, she somehow knew he had relaxed, at least enough that he was done interrupting her. “I didn’t do much damage, but I shocked him enough that I was able to run out of the room. I locked myself in the library and waited. He must have seen himself out, because when my father and sister arrived home an hour later, there was no trace of him.”
“So that’s when you called off the engagement.”
“Yes. Or tried to. I wrote him a letter, he wrote back accepting my decision, and I thought that was the end of it, but . . .” Part of her wanted to turn over and look at Archie, but she was afraid. Not of him, precisely, but of the prospect that what she had told him might change things between them, just when she had gotten her old friend back. “You know the rest. Father wanted me to go through with it. He wrote to Mr. Bull assuring him that I’d merely had an attack of nerves and would come around.”
“Sir Albert wanted you to go through with it even with the bit about not having children? Did you tell him about that?”
“I did, and even then, he was not persuaded to my view of the matter.” She felt a stab of pain. “I understand that there are many happy marriages that do not produce children. And I realize it’s odd for me to say I want children, when I’ve also been saying for so long, and am saying again now, that I do not want to marry. It’s just that if Ihadto marry, especially if I were reconciling myself to a loveless union, Iwouldwant children. They would be a sort of . . . compensation. That sounds cold, doesn’t it? Trying to make the best of a less than satisfactory situation by bringing innocent children into it?”
“No. I understand. I think it is possible for children, for families, to be that to each other—to be compensation, and ballast, against the trials of the world.” He cleared his throat. “That is my impression, anyway.”
That is my impression, anyway. That sentence struck Clementine as sad, for it indicated Archie had no firsthand experience of such.
“Did you tell your father that Mr. Bull struck you?” Archie asked.
“I did! I must admit, it hurt me so very much when eventhatwould not dislodge Father from his position that the betrothal must be salvaged.”
“Of course it did.”
“He said he would have a word with Mr. Bull about it. Of course I did not tell Father about the rest, about us having been intimate. I considered it, despite how mortifying it would have been, but concluded it would only harden his resolve that I must marry Mr. Bull.”
“I think that was a wise omission on your part. Besides, it isn’t his concern.”
