Page 30 of Cupid Comes to Little Valentine

“Oh, very well. I’ll indulge you and ask what you have been up to of late, does that make me a better friend?” Stonehaven asked, leaning across the table towards him, curiosity alight in his eyes.

“Marginally,” Beau grumbled, making a show his irritation so Stonehaven didn’t think him entirely deranged, but still took the opportunity to talk. He had the sudden desire to tell someone about Little Valentine and, whilst Stonehaven would surely think he’d lost his mind, he needed to explain that the place was special in ways he could not articulate, and that the people too, had struck him as real in a way he did not quite understand. Except so much of his life was spent putting on a spectacle, presenting Beau Beaumarsh to his peers so they might admire him and ape his superior way of speaking, dressing and being his wry, cynical best. They did not know him at all, for he did not allow them to do so. Yet, in the brief time he’d been in Little Valentine, he’d been entirely himself.

“Little Valentine?” Stonehaven repeated sceptically. “Did you make that up?”

“No,” Beau replied, irked. “It’s quaint, I grant you, but the town is utterly charming. It’s all winding cobbled streets and pretty cottages, and I swear the sea is as blue as any you’d see in the south of France or in Italy. The people, too, were most kind,” he added, realising too late there had been a slightly wistful note to his voice.

“Oh, now I understand. There’s a woman,” Stonehaven said, smirking.

Beau scowled. “There is not a woman. I am trying to explain that it felt different, more honest than the life we lead in town! The people cared about each other,” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands and then crossing his arms tightly across his chest.

Stonehaven looked at him, frowning with concern. “All right,” he said slowly. “I’ll quit ragging on you. Tell me about this little town. What was there about it that has you reevaluating your life? I take it that is what we are doing here?”

Beau continued to glare at him but could not keep it up. Instead, he sighed. “I suppose so,” he admitted. “I’ve finally realised how shallow my existence is, not that I wasn’t aware of it, but to realise how little it matters to anyone, myself even, is an uncomfortable feeling. Oh, ignore me. I’ve probably just enjoyed a little respite from the real world and now I’m feeling out of step with my old life.”

“Probably,” Stonehaven agreed amiably. “Tell me anyway.”

So Beau did. He told him about Captain Dearborn and Major Hancock, about the Honeywell family, about the reverend and his daughters, about Miss Honeywell’s plot to entrap Edwin and its satisfying denouement.

“The reverend is a wise old bird, you know,” Beau said, watching as Stonehaven refilled his glass. “He seems to know what you are thinking, to know you when he doesn’t know you at all. Isn’t that strange?”

Stonehaven shrugged. “Not really. If anyone ought to understand and know human nature, one presumes it would be a man of the cloth.”

“He said I was a good man,” Beau mused.

“I take it back. Man’s a fool.”

“Arsehole.”

Stonehaven grinned at him. “There, see? I rest my case.”

“If you’d stop acting the halfwit for five minutes, you’d realise that the fellow made me think,” Beau replied, still rather astonished that he was having this conversation at all. “He’d lost his wife, you know. Years ago. He raised his daughters single-handed. Yet he was so filled with gratitude for having had the woman in his life. Mary, her name was, and Reverend Honeywell loved her with every fibre of his being. I could tell that without him having to say so, though he did say it too. It shone from him.”

Beau shook his head and raked a hand through his hair. What the devil had got into him?

“Sounds like an interesting fellow,” Stonehaven said, his tone neutral.

“Yes, and you think I ought to go and have a nice lie down in a dark room until I’m feeling better,” Beau said, his lip curling cynically.

Stonehaven chuckled and shook his head. “It might surprise you to learn I’m not as shallow as you might assume. I think the reverend sounds a fascinating fellow. Truly.”

“He said I should find my soulmate and marry for love.” Beau could have bitten his tongue off, for he wished the words unsaid the moment he’d uttered them. Glancing at Stonehaven, he expected to find disgust or, at the very least, mocking amusement in his expression. He did not.

Instead, Stonehaven looked interested. “Fellows like us don’t do that.”

“Well, obviously, but what if we did?” Beau asked. “Would the world implode? I mean, I do not need to marry for power or land, or financial reasons. I don’t doubt my old man would have strongly disagreed with that, but he’s long dead, so I need not heed his opinion. I’m plump enough in the pocket, so why not please myself? Why not find a woman who actually makes me happy, rather than some ornament to take out and flaunt to make other fellows jealous when I can’t stand the sight of her? She’ll only take lovers behind my back the moment it’s turned. I don’t want to live in a house where I’m at war with my wife, Stonehaven, I really do not.”

“Your lovely wife, whom you married with your heart in your eyes, might also take lovers, Beau,” Stonehaven remarked, returning to the cynical fellow Beau had known for such a long time.

Beau sighed. “Yes. Yes, I know that. I’m not entirely a fool, you know.”

“Where would you even find such a paragon, supposing there’s a woman fool enough to fall for your ugly mug?”

Beau rolled his eyes. “Just because I’m prettier than you are, there’s no need to be snide.”

Stonehaven laughed. “A fair point. However, my opinion is also one you ought to consider. So, do you think the candidate for your countess resides in Little Valentine? Perhaps I ought to visit myself, if the ladies are lovely enough to get you thinking of matrimony.”

“I’m not thinking of matrimony, per se,” Beau said, tutting with impatience as he tried to articulate the thoughts that had occupied his mind of late. “I’m just thinking that maybe the reverend is correct. I’ve been refusing to even contemplate the idea of marriage because I cannot stand the thought of a fashionable union, the kind we see all around us. It’s just too depressing. Whilst I have not the least desire to experience such depths of love and devotion for the idea of suffering the loss of a woman who had become so very important to me is… well, horrifying, I want more than some hollow partnership. I am honest enough to know I do not have the courage for such a feat of bravery and foolishness as the reverend recommends. But, at the very least, I should like to be friends with my wife, I might even be fond of her.”