Forever Waiting (29 page)

“Of course he is!” Caroline exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “You must bring him over here, Charmaine, so we can congratulate you properly.”

Charmaine reluctantly called to him.

He broke away from George and Mercedes and joined them.

“Welcome to our family, John,” Caroline purred sweetly.

“
Your
family?”

“Why, yes! Charmaine is practically a daughter to my sister and a niece to Harold and me. She is family, John. I may call you John, yes?”

“That was my name this morning.”

Charmaine could see the devil in his eyes, but Caroline was oblivious.

“I was just telling your wife if it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t have learned about the position of governess here. It took some coaxing, but I convinced my sister Charmantes was the right move for her.”

“Then we have you to thank for bringing us together, Mrs. Browning.”

“Please don’t be so formal. We’re family now. Do call me Caroline.”

Harold fidgeted uncomfortably with his collar as Caroline blabbered on. “I owe you a thank-you, too, John. Gwendolyn writes that the distinguished Mr. Elliot has come calling on her. If it weren’t for you—”

“Oh, don’t thank me,” John replied with a magnanimous wave of the hand, “that was an accident—I mean—match just waiting to happen.”

“Oh, but I must!” Caroline gushed effusively. “It was precisely what my dear Gwendolyn needed—a handsome young man to pay her court … ”

And so it went. Mercifully, Rose glided by, announcing it was time to cut the cake. Charmaine and John fell in behind the Brownings as they headed toward the small crowd that had gathered around Fatima’s splendid concoction.

“What do you think she wants, Charmaine,” John muttered when Caroline was out of earshot, “a ship, a plantation, or a loan?”

Charmaine giggled and hugged him close.

For the next few months, John kept busy helping his father. In the evenings, the family dined together, then retired to the drawing room. Frederic, John, and George taught the twins a wicked game of checkers, and, when Yvette begged enough, poker. “I promise never to play outside of the family,” she had implored one night, her liquid-blue eyes beseeching her father. He relented. To their amazement, neither girl needed much instruction.

Charmaine continued to complain of morning sickness, though she wasn’t as ill as she had been at the onset of her confinement. Still, John did not press her concerning his need to travel abroad. She seemed so content, and surprisingly, so was he. He was enjoying his days on Charmantes as he never dreamed possible. Before he knew it, July melted into August. He could hardly believe a short year ago, his life had been about to change.

Friday, August 24, 1838

Agatha stared across her lovely room. Thanks to Paul, she wanted for nothing, and yet, she wanted nothing but Frederic.
Frederic, how can I convince you I did what I did because I love you?
She cursed her many misfortunes: Elizabeth, her parents, her marriage to Thomas Ward, Colette, and now, this! But it all stemmed from Elizabeth, revolved around Elizabeth, and ended with Elizabeth. Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth!
How I hate you, Elizabeth!

Life with Thomas Ward had been the same as her life now. He had been a British naval officer, the only son of a modestly wealthy family, destined to one day inherit his father’s small fortune, for Commodore Thomas Wakefield Ward Sr. had no intention of leaving any money to his five daughters. Thomas junior had adored Agatha for many years, and when his frigate made port, courted her in a bashful sort of way, long before she met Frederic. Because he was at sea during her time of confinement, he knew nothing of the dashing rogue who had captured her heart. When they wed, his good name cleansed the stain of her humiliation. He worshipped the ground upon which she walked, and with him, she enjoyed a comfortable life. But her heart was scarred, and she passively submitted to his lovemaking, leaving him to wonder over her melancholy moods.

Her parents were another matter. Even after Robert had departed with her illegitimate son, their contempt persisted, and they refused to look at her. Agatha’s despair turned to resentment. Only her maternal grandmother, Sarah Coleburn, defended her, later convincing her to accept Thomas Ward’s marriage proposal.

“You have been through a great deal, Agatha. Learn from it. Thomas is a fine young man. As his wife, you shall want for nothing, and someday, God willing, you will be a widow with resources. You are at the mercy of your parents now. Is that what you want?”

So Agatha stepped into the role of wife, departing her parents’ home without a backward glance. It didn’t matter. They were relieved to be rid of her and showed no remorse the day Robert returned to Liverpool with Frederic’s letter. When she learned he had been willing to marry her after Elizabeth’s death, her resentment festered into unmitigated hatred. If they hadn’t driven her from their home, she could have wed the man she loved.

She began to believe she was cursed. By the time she had received Frederic’s letter, she had been Mrs. Thomas Ward for nearly six months, and though no one knew it, she was pregnant again. The fate of her unborn child was sealed with Frederic’s second proposal. She cried on her brother’s shoulder, insisting he return to Charmantes and become Paul’s guardian. She kissed him, took him to her bed, and pledged undying love for him, all in the name of revenge.

The day he departed, Agatha aborted Thomas’s baby, refusing to be bound by his offspring. If Thomas were to die, she would be free to pursue her heart’s desire: Frederic. She nearly bled to death from the resulting miscarriage. Thomas was granted a leave of duty to minister to her. He remained by her bedside for nearly a month, and, quite unexpectedly, she grew fond of this tender, compassionate man. He never learned she had destroyed his baby.

When she recovered, she resigned herself to a life without Frederic. As with Paul, he was lost to her forever.

“There will be other children,” Thomas had promised, finding succor in her genuine embrace. But the months turned into years, and she never became pregnant again. Agatha knew she had done irreparable damage when she’d jabbed the sharpened twig between her legs and terminated the life of his unborn child.

“I worry for you, my dearest,” he fretted over the years that followed. “My father wants a grandson to carry on his name and has threatened to leave his fortune to my sister’s son should I die without an heir. We must get you in the family way again. Let us seek the advice of a physician.”

Fearing her husband might discover the cause of her infertility, Agatha pacified him by insisting she take the matter up with Robert. “During your next voyage abroad, I shall travel to Charmantes,” she suggested. “Robert will know if something can be done.”

That was the summer of 1813, and Paul had just turned five. He was growing into a fine lad. If she was apprehensive over her reception on Charmantes, she needn’t have been. Frederic welcomed her into his home and insisted she stay as long as she desired.

As handsome as ever, he remained aloof. She valiantly kept him at arm’s length, resisting his magnetism. She should hate him, she reasoned. He had stolen Paul away, and now, she would never know the joys of motherhood. She was irrevocably barren; there would be no other offspring. When she passed from this life, only Paul and the children he would someday sire would mark her existence. Paul became her obsession.

Then there was Robert, always sniveling at her feet. She knew he still adored her in his own possessive, repugnant way, so, occasionally, she allowed him to make love to her. He repaid the favor by denouncing John and promoting Paul as Frederic’s flesh and blood. Because of Robert, Frederic believed the lie, doting on Paul and scorning John. Though she basked in that knowledge, she could not rest until Paul was the sole heir to the Duvoisin fortune—his birthright.

When she left Charmantes, she resigned herself to three things. First, her struggle to forget the past was futile. She was hopelessly in love with Frederic. When she returned to Charmantes she would seduce him. Second, she would not leave Thomas. Sarah Coleburn was right; he would be a well-off man someday, so long as he outlived his father, and if she remained by his side, she would benefit from his wealth. She would always desire Frederic, but she’d learned not to rely on his love. He had used her and discarded her when she’d been most vulnerable: in love, pregnant, and alone. If she were widowed tomorrow, she could not bank on a proposal from him. His guilty conscience had prompted the last one. Never again would she be without resources. Third, time was on her side. With Elizabeth dead and John spurned, she could bide her time.

By the following summer, she was living two very different lives: a respectable British officer’s wife when in England and a sultry seductress when her husband’s naval obligations took him far from British soil. She ventured to Charmantes as often as possible, and she and Frederic became intimate again, resurrecting all those glorious feelings. Leaving him grew more and more difficult, but Thomas’s father was growing feeble, and it was only a matter of time before Thomas inherited his estate. When Thomas died, she could count herself an independent woman, something she deserved after all she had suffered and sacrificed. No matter what the future held, she’d be secure.

Thus, the years slipped by, and she and Frederic remained lovers. But this satisfactory arrangement was most unexpectedly annihilated.

In the spring of 1829, Agatha met Colette Duvoisin. Paul had been off to university in Paris, and she hadn’t traveled to Charmantes in nearly four years. She was horrified to find Frederic had married this young woman, thirty-four years his junior. A whirlwind wedding they called it. Robert surmised it was something else, for Colette had come to the West Indies on John’s arm. But Agatha’s raging intuition dismissed his assertion. She shuddered with the memory of that introduction, Frederic’s desperate, consuming love for his child-bride branded on his face. He had barely looked Agatha’s way, and she was on fire with covetous hatred. Elizabeth had returned, the battle for him resumed.

She turned to Robert. But he made light of her predicament with a shrug. “Frederic is married to her now. There is nothing you can do.”

“Nothing? She is Elizabeth reborn, can’t you see that?”

Robert laughed incredulously. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

“I tell you, she
is
Elizabeth. Frederic knows it, too. I can see it in his eyes! She’s come back, I tell you, she’s come back to—to—”

“To what, Agatha?”

“To curse me—and Paul—to patch things up between Frederic and John!”

“You are wrong, my dear, very wrong.”

“Can’t you see? John stole her away, and John has brought her back!”

Robert laughed at the preposterous premise. “John and Frederic’s questionable kinship has finally ruptured. John loathes his father now, his departure permanent. I should think this would please you, my dearest. So, if you hate Frederic as much as you say you do, let
this
be your revenge. Frederic may very well disinherit John if you use Colette as the wedge between them, and then Paul
will
have it all. It stands a better chance at succeeding than any of your other mendacious schemes.”

Agatha was desperately forlorn when she returned to England, and Thomas was at a loss. His father’s death and mother’s widowhood distracted him, however, affording Agatha time and space to ponder this newest adversity.

Her sour disposition abated when news arrived all was not well between Frederic and Colette.
She cried out for John over and over again during her labor
, Robert had written,
though Frederic was there
.

Agatha eventually recognized the potential in exploiting the discord between Frederic and John, but first, she had to get back into Frederic’s bed. It was easier than she had imagined. Robert set the stage with three simple words that he repeated like a mantra to both Colette and Frederic:
No more children
.

Another visit and it became obvious husband and wife were no longer intimate. Agatha couldn’t quite piece the puzzle together. Frederic obviously lusted for his young wife, and intuition told her Colette desired him as well, yet they remained estranged. Why? Was John truly to blame?

Agatha capitalized on Frederic’s frustrated desire and seduced him before he returned to Colette’s bed. Then Colette had her affair with John. Betrayed, Frederic never made love to his wife again.

So where had she failed? Somehow, Elizabeth had won; even in death, then in life and in death again, she had won.

Agatha rubbed her brow with both hands, her torment manifest in an excruciating headache that threatened her sanity. She closed her eyes, and her sister’s caramel-colored eyes swam before her, taunting her as they turned smoky blue.

Elizabeth, the war is not over. I am not defeated! Frederic belonged to me first. I’ve shared his bed more times than you and Colette combined. Very soon, he will realize I did what I did for him, our son, and our undeniable love
.

Saturday, August 25, 1838

Paul scoffed down a light dinner and had retired to his study when the door banged open. His mother stood silhouetted in the low lamplight.

“Frederic?” she asked timidly. “Is that you?”

She stepped deeper into the room, and the light illuminated her face. Her cheeks were pale, her eyes vacant, yet searching, as if he weren’t there.

Paul stood. She attempted to compose herself, sweeping the disheveled hair from her brow, smoothing the wrinkles from her robe.

“Frederic,” she sighed, “it
is
you.”

“No, Agatha, it’s not Father, it’s me—Paul.”

“Frederic—I need to tell you, I need to explain. You’ll understand—”

“Agatha, you’re still asleep. Let me—”

“—I’m going to explain everything. Then you will love me again … ”

Chapter 6