Mirror Image (27 page)

"I won't force you to do anything you don't want, Victoria. You don't
need to fear me, I know this is difficult for you." He remembered his
first wedding night with Susan, and she had been so young and so
innocent, and so shy with him, much more so than Victoria, who seemed so
much bolder. But she wasn't. She was a twenty-one-year-old girl, and he
imagined that despite her broken heart, she was still a virgin.

He was sixteen years older than she, and he had time. Despite his hunger
for her, he was willing to be patient.

"I can't, " she said, burying her face against him, sounding every bit
as panicked as she had before the wedding. All she could think of now
were her raptures with a man she had loved, and the agony that had ended
in the bathroom. "I can't do this with you.

"You don't have to .. . not now .. . we have a lifetime together.

" But at the sound of his words, she began to cry, and all she wanted
was her sister.

"I'm sorry, " she said miserably. "I'm so sorry .. . I can't do this ...
"Shhh .. ." he said, and held her for what seemed like hours, just as he
would have Geoffrey if he had hurt his knee or been bitterly
disappointed. And at last, she curled up and fell asleep in his arms.

And while she slept, he got up and put on a dressing gown. He didn't
want her to be frightened if she saw him naked. He ordered tea for both
of them, and when she woke up late that afternoon, he was waiting for
her, and he served her tea and cookies.

"I don't deserve this, " she said unhappily, wishing that things were
different. She didn't even want to take tea from him. She felt as though
she had failed him. And she felt even worse when they got a telegram
from home.

"We love you. Bon Voyage and Happy Honeymoon. Father, Olivia, and
Geoffrey." It made her feel homesick just thinking of them, and she got
up and sprinted like a doe across the cabin to their bathroom. He tried
not to look at her, but she was so lovely he couldn't help it.

A little later she came back and sat with him, wrapped in the lavender
silk dressing gown Olivia had bought her.

"Don't worry about it, " he reassured her again, and kissed her gently.

He would never have admitted it to her, but his desire for her was
driving him crazy. But he made no attempt at seduction again, and a
little while later they dressed for dinner.

She wore a white satin evening gown that clung to her figure
outrageously, and was so low down her back that you could almost see her
bottom.

"Well, that will certainly catch the boys' attention." He smiled at her
happily and then followed her out of the cabin. They sat at Captain
Turner's table that night, and as soon as the music struck up, Charles
led his wife out onto the dance floor. They were playing a tango and he
could feel her moving sensuously in his arms. It was all he could do not
to rush her to their cabin.

"I don't think I can let you out again, " he said as the music drew to a
close. "You're driving all the men crazy." She laughed at him, and
clearly didn't mind the stir she was making. But when it came to him .

. she was frightened. It was so odd, he just didn't understand it.

And when he lay next to her that night, he looked at her, and was almost
afraid to touch her. But he just couldn't help it, and she knew she had
to face it too. It couldn't go on this way forever. He slipped her
nightgown off, and she lay in his arms, lifeless and exquisite.

He knew how afraid she was, he could sense it, and he was determined not
to force her. He wanted to drive her as mad as she drove him, and
introduce her to all the avenues of pleasure.

He began very gently and very slowly, but as his desire for her mounted,
he became more passionate, and he was in fact a kind and experienced
lover. Far more so than Toby, who had actually used her far more roughly
than Charles did. But the difference between them was that she had loved
Toby, and her own desire for him had been so great, that she had minded
nothing they had done, she had feared nothing at all. She had wanted all
they'd shared. And she wanted to want it now, with Charles. She wanted
to be the wife he expected of her, and yet as she felt him shudder in
her arms, and lay spent finally, she felt nothing.

He was very quick to look at her, and to call her name and kiss her, and
assure her that he cared about her deeply. He was terrified that he had
frightened her again, and then he understood what had happened.

He suddenly realized what she knew, and he hadn't.

"It wasn't the first time, was it? " he asked hoarsely, as he buried his
face between her breasts, and then returned to face her as she shook her
head sadly. "You might have told me, Victoria. I was terrified I'd hurt
you."

"You didn't, " she said quietly. She had gone nowhere at all while he
was transported by passion. She felt closer to him, but only because she
felt so sorry for him, and what she didn't have to give him. And she
didn't believe what they said now.

You didn't learn these things.

You didn't "grow" to love someone. You either did, or you didn't. And
she knew she had been cheated, and she had cheated him.

They would not "grow" to anything. They would simply spend a lifetime
together, as strangers.

"And you loved him, didn't you? " Charles wanted to know it all now.

"Yes, " she said honestly. She didn't avert her eyes this time.

It only seemed fair to tell him. "I loved him."

"How long did it go on? "

"Almost two months." Charles nodded, at least it hadn't been a year or
two, not that it really mattered. "He lied to me. About everything.

He never really loved me. He told me he was trapped in a loveless
marriage, that he was leaving her and getting divorced. And I believed
him.

I'd never have done it otherwise, " and then she thought about it, "or
maybe I would. I don't know now." She looked miserable, but at least she
wasn't lying to him. That was something. "He started telling people,
laughing about it. And when they asked him, he said I seduced him.

He said I meant nothing to him, it was all a lark. He never intended to
leave his wife, or marry me. In fact, she was expecting a baby all the
time I loved him." "What a bastard. And now you don't trust me, do you?
"

"It's not that, " she said miserably, touching his face with her
fingers. "I don't know what it is. I just can't .. . it's like a wall
between us .. . between me and everyone .. . any man ..

. I don't want anyone to touch me." It certainly did not bode well for
their future.

"Did anything else happen, Victoria, that you're not telling me?

" He suspected it even before she told him. She started to shake her
head, and then she looked at him, and shrugged. That was one thing she
really didn't want to tell him.

"Nothing .. ." But this time he knew she was lying. He cupped her breast
with one hand, and wished that she wanted him, and she only looked at
him sadly.

"I was pregnant, " she said in the smallest of voices.

"I thought so."

"I fell off my horse and lost it almost as soon as we got back to
Croton. Olivia was with me, but I hadn't told her. She saved me .

.

. I was hemorrhaging .. . it was awful .. . I think I almost died and
they took me to the hospital in an ambulance." Tears rolled slowly down
her cheeks as he held her hand, wishing that things had been different.
"I never want to have children."

"It doesn't have to be like that. It doesn't have to be terrifying and
awful and wrong .. . alone on a bathroom floor, with the baby of a man
who didn't love you." But he couldn't tell her that he loved her, not
honestly, and she knew that. And it wouldn't have mattered if he did,
she didn't love him.

"My mother died when I was born. I killed her, " she said, as fresh
tears rolled down her cheeks and he held her.

"I'm sure that's not true, " he said, certain that there was more to the
story.

"She was fine when Olivia was born, and I was so big that she died right
after she had me. I was born eleven minutes after Ollie."

"But you didn't kill her, " he explained, she was naive in some ways,
even though she had lost a baby. "I don't mind if I never have another
child, " he explained, "but I don't want you to feel that you shouldn't.

Having Geoff was the happiest moment of Susan's life, or .. .

afterwards at least, " he smiled. It hadn't been easy for her either,
and Geoff had been a big baby. But he still remembered the look on her
face the first time he saw her after Geoff was born, as the baby lay at
her breast and suckled. He had never seen anything as sweet, and he had
cried when he saw them. It was hard to forget that even now, ten years
later.

"You should have a baby one day, Victoria. Eventually, things will be
different. We'll get used to each other. We'll both forget the people we
once cared for, or put them away, along with the sorrows, and the things
they did to hurt us."

"What did she ever do to hurt you? " Victoria asked, surprised, and
wishing that she could believe that one day things would be different.

But she didn't. They were too far apart. And the truth was, other than
sympathy, she felt nothing for him.

"She died, " he said bluntly, "she went down on that damn ship.

That's what she did to hurt me. She gave her seat up to a child, to
someone I don't know and don't care about, and she left me." There were
tears in his eyes now, he had known pain and grief and loss and anger.

He had known agony, but he had come back now.

And he was willing to hold a hand out to Victoria and to let her join
him. But the truth was, she didn't want to. We can't give up, " he said
quietly, "we can't just look back at the people who've left our lives.

Even if he hurt you terribly, if he betrayed you, you have to forget
it."

"I can't yet."

"You will eventually. And I'll be there waiting."

"And in the meantime? " she asked, looking worried. It was by no means
perfect between them at this point, but it was more than Charles had had
in years and he was willing to settle for it for the moment.

"We do our best .. . we wait .. . we become friends ..

. I'll try not to upset you more than I have to." But she knew she had
no right to refuse him. Yet she didn't want him, and he knew that.

We'll see ...
it's the best we can do, Victoria. We're married."

"You deserve more than I have to give you, Charles, " she said and meant
it.

"If that's true, then I'll find it someday. And so will you.

Until then, this is all there is .. ." He smiled at her philosophically,
willing to accept her as she was, a beautiful young woman who stirred
him to his very soul, but didn't love him. But he knew she was young
too. She would forget Toby eventually. She would come to want the man
she had married. And when she did, he'd be waiting.

Chapter 15.

Their honeymoon was definitely not what Charles had hoped it would be.

Victoria's recalcitrance with him did not improve in the course of the
trip. And then they arrived in Europe on the twenty-sixth of June, and
two days later seven young Serbian nationalists attacked and killed the
nephew of the Austrian emperor, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife,
in the town of Sarajevo.

It appeared to be only an isolated incident, but within days it had
caused considerable consternation in Europe. Victoria and Charles were
in London then, staying at Claridge's, and seeing friends. And Victoria
was more interested in the suffragettes' march on Washington, back in
the States, and their demand for voting rights for women. Even among
Charles' friends in London, she had met several suffragists, and she was
fascinated by what was going on there. But her fervent wish to visit the
Pankhursts in jail had been thwarted. There, Charles had put his foot
down. He did not want his wife visiting anyone in prison.

There had been a heated argument over it, but Victoria had not
prevailed.

Charles was willing to be tolerant, but not to be pushed beyond his
limits.

"But I've corresponded with them, Charles, " Victoria said, as though
that would alter the way he viewed it.

"I don't care if you've seen them in religious visions. Visiting those
women in jail is out of the question. You'll get yourself put on some
kind of blacklist, and get us thrown out of England." .

"That's absurd. They're far more open-minded here, " she said naively.

"Somehow I doubt that." He was anything but amused, and he seemed testy
these days, but they both knew why. All his attempts at getting their
physical lives on track had been anything but successful.

And by the time they reached Paris, a week after they'd arrived,
Victoria shuddered each time he touched her. She didn't know why she
felt that way. It was visceral. She didn't want any man touching her
again, she didn't want to feel any of the things she'd felt before, she
didn't want to trust anyone, and she was adamant that she didn't want a
baby. She had said as much to him, and he had assured her that there
were precautions that could be taken. He had even availed himself of
some of them, but they never got that far. She began to cry and shake
now each time he touched her. And although he tried to be patient with
her, he was beginning to get angry.

"Why didn't you say something before if you felt that way? " He
reproached her late one night, after they had tried again in Paris.

And it was beginning to affect him too. As badly as he wanted her, he
didn't want to continue to make love to a woman who was either crying or
shaking. He felt like a rapist, and he was rapidly becoming a very limp
one.

"I didn't know it would be like this, " she said between sobs at the
Ritz Hotel. Their best suite was all but wasted. And the romance of
Paris only seemed to make her more nervous. She didn't want to be
trapped here alone with him. She wanted to be talking politics, and
meeting suffragists, and going to meetings. And it was beginning to seem
to Charles that the last thing she wanted was a husband. "It wasn't like
this with Toby, " she blurted out unexpectedly, and finally pushed too
far, and humiliated beyond words, Charles had stormed out of the suite
and gone for a long, solitary walk around Paris. She apologized
profusely to him when he returned, and she made a sincere effort later
that night to make it up to him. She was young and sensual, and very
exciting. He could feel her respond to him, but almost as quickly, he
could feel her recoil in terror and revulsion.

"You won't get pregnant, Victoria, " he reassured her almost in the heat
of passion, but as he writhe and rolled, he could feel her in his arms,
it was as though she weren't really there. There was something dead in
her, and nothing he did revived her. "I'm not a doctor, or a magician, "
he said, almost in despair. He had never had an experience like this
one, a woman who excited him so much, and seemed to feel absolutely
nothing. It was torture, and by July it had done very little to improve
his disposition.

They had heard from Olivia several times by then. And Victoria seemed to
live only for news of her, or to read about the suffragettes in the
papers. Very little else seemed to matter to her. And she seemed far
more comfortable these days in the company of other women. He was
beginning to wonder if she even liked men. Perhaps there was more of a
problem here than anyone had ever dreamed of. And he could only wonder
what nightmare Edward Henderson had foisted on him, and if he had known
what he was doing. Charles didn't like to think so.

Olivia said that they were well. It had been unseasonably hot all along
the Hudson River. Their father was enjoying good health these days, and
Geoffrey was thriving at Croton-on-Hudson. He had learned to ride
beautifully, and she reassured Charles that there had been no further
mishaps. In fact, if he continued to ride as well as he had been, Olivia
was thinking of buying a new horse for him, one that would suit him to
perfection. They could leave it in Croton with her, and he could ride it
whenever he came to visit.

She assured them, lest they were concerned, that Chip was doing very
well too. He was gnawing on all the furniture, and had made excellent
inroads on eating both carpets in her bedroom.

And most of all, she hoped that they were well, that they were happy and
prospering, and that the absurd incident in Sarajevo hadn't caused them
any concern. They had heard news of it too, but there was no reason to
think that the conflict would go any further. The Austrians were
undoubtedly annoyed, but the rest of the world appeared to be
unaffected.

Charles completely shared her view, even when in the last week of July,
while they were in the south of France, they heard that Austria had
declared war on Serbia. But it was hardly surprising. What surprised,
and disturbed, them far more was when four days later, Germany declared
war on Russia, and again two days later, when they declared war on
France as well. Things appeared to be deteriorating rapidly in Europe.

They were in Nice then, at the Hotel d"Angleterre, and Charles wanted to
return immediately to England.

"But this is ridiculous, Charles, " Victoria objected vociferously.

She loved France, and she didn't want to leave yet. They had been
planning a trip to Italy a few days later. "I'm not going to change all
my plans because some ridiculous European country has a temper tantrum."

She looked at him with complete annoyance.

"That temper tantrum is called a war. We are now in a country that is at
war, and Germany is not ridiculous, and may very well attack at any
moment. Pack your bags. We're leaving."

"I'm not going." She crossed her arms and sat down calmly on the couch
in their suite at the hotel.

"You're crazy. And you'll leave here when I say so." She was anything
but easy, and he was getting tired of it. It had been a long summer.

They were still arguing about it the next day when German troops invaded
Belgium. And this time, Victoria got the message without any pressure
from her husband. She packed their things, and they left Nice the
following morning, the same day that Montenegro declared war on Austria.

Europe was rapidly becoming a tangle of declarations and accusations.

They went back to Claridge's, and for the next week watched with
fascination as the Serbians declared war on Germany, the Austrians on
Russia, the Montenegrins on Germany as well. And then finally, on August
twelfth, both Britain and France declared war on Austria, and in London,
there were banner headlines.

Charles came hurrying back to the suite as soon as he heard, and he had
already exchanged their tickets at the Cunard office. They had planned
to stay another week in Europe, but that was over now. He wanted to get
Victoria back to the States as soon as he could. And they were sailing
on the Aquatania again the next morning. By the time Victoria came back
from her shopping trip, their bags were packed, their plans were made,
and he had sent a telegram to her sister. He explained all of it to
Victoria as she put her coat down.

"That's it? We're leaving? " She looked shocked when he said it.

"Without even asking me what I thought of it? "

"That's right.

Germany has just declared war on Britain. I'm not going to wait around
here until bullets start flying, I am taking my wife and going back to
America, to safety."

"I am not a thing you can just pack up, Charles, without any
discussion."

"We seem to do a lot of discussing these days, Victoria, and actually,
I'm tired of it. I find it a waste of time, and rather exhausting."

"I'm sorry to hear that, " she said unhappily. She had been in a bad
mood all day, and she had a headache.

They had had one of their unfortunate interludes, as she thought of
them, the night before, and both of them had wound up frustrated and
angry. She didn't know what was wrong with him, or with her, but her
whole body seemed to convulse when he came near her, and his turned to
jelly. She had very little experience to compare it to, but all she knew
was that this had never happened with Toby. And Charles said he didn't
want to ever hear her say that again and he assured her that it had
never happened with Susan either. Which left both of them angry,
isolated, frustrated, and very lonely, since neither Susan nor Toby were
around, and all they had now was each other.

"We're leaving at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, " Charles said coolly.

As far as he was concerned, their honeymoon had been a nightmare.

"Maybe you are, Charles, " Victoria said, daring to antagonize him
again, but the worst of it was that she found she liked it. There was
something about baiting him that excited her, and she couldn't stop it.

"But I'm not. I'm staying."

"In Europe? At war? Over my dead body.

You're coming with me."

"Maybe there's something to be learned here, Charles. Maybe there's a
reason why we're here in this place, at this moment." Her eyes were
alight with excitement, and she almost frightened him, but worse yet,
just looking at her that way, made him want her. He .

wondered what demon had found his soul and had given him a wife who
aroused him so much, and whom he could please so little. "This could be
part of our destiny, to be here as war breaks out in Europe." She looked
young and beautiful, and as far as Charles was concerned, maybe even a
little crazy. She had a streak of rebellion and adventure in her that
defied all reason. Perhaps that was why Edward Henderson had been so
anxious to get her married. He had very sensibly kept the sane one.

But even in his worst anger at her, Charles knew that Victoria wasn't
crazy.

She was just difficult to get along with. And he felt too old to argue
with her over every point at every moment. The worst of it was that she
loved it. He could see that. She loved torturing him, tormenting him,
arguing with him, refusing to do the simplest thing, and then insisting
on doing something dangerous and foolish, like staying in Europe.

"I know this will sound boring to you, Victoria, he said, trying to stay
calm. She had taken to driving him to his limits. "But it's not sensible
to stay in a country that has declared war, or which another country has
declared war on. And if I leave you here, your father will kill me. So,
like it or not, agree with me or don't, whether it is our destiny to be
here at this time, or merely an accident, I am taking you back to New
York tomorrow morning. And if you find it utterly unbearable, then I
suggest you think about your sister. She will be worried sick if you
stay here, as will your father. For myself, I am going to go home
because I have a ten-year-old son, who has already lost his mother, and
I don't intend to stay over here, and get killed needlessly by a random
bullet. Does that explain the situation to you clearly enough? " This
time, she nodded in silence. His mention of Olivia had finally brought
it into perspective. And although she wouldn't have admitted it to him,
she knew that Olivia would have said all the same things he did. But she
still thought that going home now was incredibly dull of him. It would
have been fascinating to stay in England to see what would develop.