Page 30 of Lord of the Darkness

Chapter Twelve

At Benedict’s invitation, James called on a brisk and sharp late January afternoon when the sun was fast transforming from a pale haze of white in a cloud-filled silver sky to a ball of red and pink. They sat in his study drinking brandy, while Benedict recounted the events of his marriage since their last conversation.

“I worry that this is just going to keep happening,” he said, “that for every advance in our marriage there’s going to be an even worse setback.”

“Did you talk to her about her father’s behaviour? Before his death, I mean.”

James sipped his brandy appreciatively, and waited as Benedict thought, reviewing the last few weeks closely in his mind. There really had only been that one very short conversation…

“A little – I told her that I wished I’d never listened to his advice, that I thought it had not helped us. And she accepted that.”

“Then I’d start with that – address it properly. Now that he’s gone, there’s no reason to let the shadow of his attitudes darken your future. And, until you apologise for the ways in which you treated her when you were first married, she’s going to keep worrying that it might happen again. Sit her down and explain to her that you’re not going to let her father’s wrong ideas about marriage dictate how you treat each other. Make sure that she understands that you were never truly that man – that you allowed your natural inclinations to be led astray by his advice.”

“I’ve been wanting to tell her that ever since she told me about her friend’s death. There she was, a woman still profoundly affected by grief, and no one ever told me – they just expected that she would get over it, and that it wouldn’t affect our marriage, that I didn’t need to know anything of it! So I couldn’t understand why she was acting the way she did, and I got angry and frustrated.” Benedict was beginning to wonder if he would ever forgive himself for that. “Then again, if she had only talked to me, it might never have happened.”

“You’re going to keep feeling bad about it until you apologise,” said James.

Just then there was a thump on the window, as if someone had thrown a stone at it. Benedict flinched, though James looked as placid as ever. A second later there was another thump and then another.

“Is it hailing?” Benedict asked in surprise.

James rose and went to the window, peering out. He turned back, and met Benedict’s eyes.

“Looks like it. I really think you ought to talk to her, as soon as possible.”

“And say what, exactly?”

“Tell her you’re sorry for ever thinking that her father was someone whose advice could be trusted, with respect to marriage.” James had to speak loudly now over the increasing sound of rain and hail. “Let her know that henceforth you’re going to be nothing but kind and loving.”

“I can’t promise her that,” said Benedict, “because what if I get angry? What if… what if, as my father feared, that anger and cruelty runs in my blood? And anyway, my father always said it was a mark of weakness to apologise to a woman. He said no wife would ever respect a man who said he was sorry.”

“Well… you could listen to your father, just like you listened to her father… if you want your marriage to go on being as happy as it is now.”

Silence filled the room for a moment, and Benedict took a rather large swallow of his brandy. James was right, again.

“Ah… yes, I see what you mean…”

“Have you given her the thing yet?”

James voice was softer, and filled with a quiet intensity which had not been there before. Benedict frowned, unsure what he meant by the question.

“What thing?”

“‘What thing’? You know exactly what thing!”

The potion. Benedict had, in part, hoped to avoid discussing that. He still felt rather odd about having believed that such a thing might work, in the first place.

“Yes, but I felt bad,” said Benedict, “so I stopped giving it to her.”

“That was your second mistake. Around when did she start avoiding you again?”

Benedict didn’t have to think hard about it.

“Around the time I stopped giving her the potion.”

“Well, problem solved,” James said briskly. “Apologise and start pouring a few drops of the potion into her tea every night. I can guarantee she’ll be her usual docile, subservient, loving previous self in a day or two.”

But Benedict wasn’t so sure that he wanted Ariana to be what James had just described. He felt guilty and embarrassed at having given her the potion in the first place, and when Ariana had begun to sleep in the same bed with him again, he had not moved to take advantage of that fact, although she had seemed possibly receptive, because if she welcomed his advances, he had realised that he couldn’t be sure that she was acting of her own volition. He wanted her to choose him, for who he was, not just because he had dropped a potion into her tea. He sensed that the relationship would quickly unravel if she ever learned the truth of his desperate experiment with potions!