Of Moths and Butterflies (29 page)

She was silent for a long time, and conscious of being so. All the while he looked at her, waiting for the answer. Could she give it? “I don’t know what to say,” she said quite honestly.

“Yes you do. Say it.”

“I can’t.”

“You can,” he said very gently.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. It was there already, churning and tumbling and trying to find its way to the surface, between the obstacles of fear and disbelief.

“You will not say no? Don’t say no.”

She dared to glance up at him. He was beaming down upon her with such hope, such admiration. She offered the slightest shake of her head.

“Is that a yes, then?” He raised his hands and traced his fingers softly along her jaw and then into her hair as he lifted her face towards his.

She could not help it. She was no longer in control of herself. She nodded.

Both his hands held her face now, and gently, his lips brushed hers. She received the gesture. She could not quite summon the courage to return it, but she accepted it. He drew far enough away to look at her. He seemed genuinely pleased, and she found she wanted him to kiss her again. Perhaps it was wrong of her, but she could not help it. She wanted, needed, some further assurance.

“We should go back,” he said, and took her hand. He pressed it to his lips and then placed it on his arm.

In silence, barely able to walk, breathe or think, she let him guide her back to the house where her aunt, his uncle, and his uncle’s mistress were undoubtedly waiting for them. What would they think of this? At the moment, she did not care.

He waited for her answer.

OOD HEAVEN! WHERE have you been?” Muriel demanded as her niece entered the house. “You had us worried.”

“We are back now,” Imogen answered, surprised by this show of exaggerated concern.

She looked to Archer, wondering when and how he would make the announcement, and anxious to know what would come of it.

After taking a long and evaluating look at the pair of them, Sir Edmund turned back to the library. Muriel and Mrs. Barton followed.

“I think we’ve got the details just about sorted out. Or very nearly,” Sir Edmund said as he crossed the room to stand at his desk.

Imogen glanced once more to Archer, whose heavy brow bore a slight look of alarm. He smiled stiffly and gestured for her to enter as well.

“Sir,” he began but was interrupted.

“The fourteenth of February,” his uncle said. “St. Valentine’s day. And a Monday for wealth.” He laughed. “We should, consequently, waste no time about the licence. Tomorrow, I think. Early. I’m afraid you must accompany me, Mrs. Ellison—to provide the proper proofs, of residency and consent, you know.”

“Yes, of course,” Aunt Muriel answered. “Gladly.”

“Good. And we’ll return to the Abbey until the eve of the thing,” Sir Edmund continued, “so there’s no reason to expect any complications.”

“I’m sorry,” Imogen finally spoke out. “I don’t understand.”

Silence reigned for a moment or two.

“Your walk, I take it, was successful?” he said, looking to Archer.

“Yes, sir, but—”

Sir Edmund turned to Imogen. “You’ve spent the last hour or more with my nephew. I see no reason why you should be in the dark. You’re to be married, Miss Everard. Congratulations and let’s get the thing done.”

Imogen stared, blind and uncomprehending, trying with all she possessed to grasp what was happening. And she continued to struggle, even as the aunt and uncle, with Mrs. Barton’s assistance, went on, calculating, planning, arranging…

“There is still the matter of how to divide the assets,” she heard Sir Edmund say. “And I think it would be unwise to delay much longer.”

“Sir,” Archer protested. “Have some pity.”

“I believe you gave me your word that you would submit willingly.”

Archer offered no answer, and the negotiations commenced.

No figures were mentioned, for those directing the arrangements knew them quite well enough already, but there were other matters to consider besides the liquid cash. There was the property, both real and portable, which must be divided. These things were all discussed quite openly, as though Imogen herself were of the least concern. But she would be considered.

“No!” she said, stepping forward.

“Excuse me?” her aunt demanded.

“No,” she said again. “If I am the one to be sold at auction, then I demand to set the terms.”

“Imogen, I have warned you.”

“Do you want to take it to Chancery, Aunt? That would suit me well enough. Heaven knows I never wanted this burden to bear. I knew it must end up this way, and so it has, but to think it was your doing! I have little choice, I can see that, but what power I still have remaining, I mean to use. The money will be my…husband’s.” She had to force the word from her lips, and as she did, she felt her heart begin to break. “You may take the house and everything in it, and I hope it serves you well. But you won’t touch the money.”

“You dare to defy me?” Muriel said rising to her feet. “After all I’ve done?”

“What have you done? I pray I may one day thank you for this, but at present I do not see how. You have betrayed me, and I’m perfectly willing at this point to turn my back on you and to put my happiness in the hands of someone better able than you to provide for it.”

Muriel, without a moment’s hesitation, struck Imogen across the cheek.

“Dear heaven! I don’t think that’s necessary,” Archer said, stepping forward in an effort to shield Imogen from any further abuse, and perhaps to comfort her if she would let him.

She avoided him and flew from the room.

“Well that, I should think, is that,” Sir Edmund said. “Do you object?”

Muriel considered. The house was no small thing, nor the treasures she imagined it contained. That it must contain! But would it make up for the money she had hoped to gain outright? It might. It very well might.

“No,” she said eventually. “I think I had better not.”

*   *   *

“Miss Everard!” Archer called after her. “Imogen!”

She stopped, but only for the obstacle of the street she could not cross.

“I’m sorry,” he said, catching up to her. “I’m so very sorry.”

He didn’t know what else to say. He might have said he hadn’t known it would be this way. But he had. At least he’d known his uncle’s intentions, and he knew the man well enough to have supposed he could have behaved so unfeelingly. Speechless, he observed her. She made no attempt to reply.

And observing the bright mark on her face, and the welt that crowned it, he asked, “Are you all right?”

“Will you get me a cab, please ?”

“Imogen.”

“Please?”

Reluctantly he obeyed, and when one had been signalled, he turned to her again.

“This isn’t how I intended it. It’s not how I wanted it to be.”

“No.”

He looked once more at the mark made by Muriel Ellison’s hand and the too large ring she wore upon it. “You have my word I’ll never hurt you,” he said.

“Your word means very little to me. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve already broken it.”

The cab had by now stopped before them, though he did not see it, or ignored it. The driver descended from his place to open the door and to lower the step. She hesitated half a moment, then entered.

“Imogen,” Archer said again, pleading, begging her to allow him to explain.

She would not listen. She did not even look at him. The door closed between them, and the carriage pulled away from the curb, taking her away with it.

If only it could take her far away from here. Any place where no one could find her, where no one could lay claim upon her. But she had tried that already.

Turning to the window, she rested her head against the glass. What a fool she had been to have allowed herself to be so taken in. He had pleaded so fervently, how could she resist? She couldn’t. She hadn’t. She raised her fingers to her mouth, recalling that gentle kiss. She had never realised she could feel that way. She had believed he loved her. A part of her believed it still. How could he speak so? How could his touch stir her as it did if it were all artifice? And yet, had he really loved her he would not have lured her just to spring the trap. But she was captured now, like any other of his winged insects. Pinned, she was soon to be placed in a box for all the world to see and to judge and to despise as she deserved to be. To think she had believed he wanted her! Not the money. Her. Would she never learn?

RCHER AND HIS
uncle returned to the Abbey the following afternoon. With the last hours of his bachelorhood now before him, and with nothing to do but contemplate the fact, he vainly tried to come to terms with the week’s events, and what was likely to come of them. The look on Imogen’s face as she had left him had nearly brought him to his knees, and he had then begun to understand just how gross an error he had committed.

He sat alone in his book room contemplating these things and grasping desperately at every rationale that might ease him of the guilt and hopelessness he felt. He had just begun to find some little success in the endeavour when the door flew open.

“Claire!” he said rising.

She entered the room and unbuttoned her wrap before throwing it onto a nearby chair, after which she proceeded to pace the room, one hand on her hip and the other fidgeting with the fob of her pendant watch.

“You are to be married,” she said at last.

“Yes.”

“I won’t congratulate you.”

Archer didn’t answer this and, after another long silence, she turned to face him with an expression he had never before seen on her usually placid face.

“What were you thinking?” She seemed about to cry. “What in heaven’s name can you have been thinking!”

“I didn’t have much choice, Claire.”

“You have all the choice in the world. You alone can stop this.”

“It’s too late.”

“It’s not too late. Not yet. You can speak to her. I’ll speak to her. The money–” She waved her hand as though it were all inconsequential. “You can find another way. I’ll help you. Whatever it takes. But you must stop this.”

Archer’s voice was low but steady. “I don’t want to stop it.

“I can see that,” she said with a furious huff of breath.

“I spoke to her, Claire. She did agree.”

“Before or after she knew it was arranged?”

Again, he offered no answer. There was no need. Claire understood the matter already.

“You have betrayed her. Do you see that you have betrayed her?”

“I truly had no choice, Claire. Yes, the way this has come about is regrettable, reproachable, even, but if she would not have me, if I do not have her, the alternative is unthinkable.”

“For you. But have you considered her?”

“Yes, of course. It’s not all I’ve considered, granted. But think, Claire. She is unhappy where she is. Her cousin would marry her, but he’s unworthy of her. And through me, through us, she can be raised to what she truly ought to be.”

“You don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Don’t I? I saw as well as you how ill-suited she was to a life of servitude. Now she will be mistress of it all.”

Claire closed her eyes and the look on her face frightened him.

“You do not understand. You cannot understand how a woman used to being always the object of some man’s desire must feel now that she has been made irrevocably so. And by you. Archer, I cannot believe it!”

“I can restore her, Claire,” he said, though his voice wavered under the intensity of his cousin’s accusing gaze.

Claire crossed to the fireplace and with one finger she pointed menacingly at the Blue Morpho on the mantelpiece.

“She is not one of your butterflies, Archer. She is not some creature you can collect. You cannot put the dust back on her wings. You cannot take the pin out of her back. She’s not the butterfly. She’s the glass box. Do you understand?”

But he didn’t. Not really.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“I will earn her regard, Claire. I don’t care what it takes.”

“You haven’t the first idea what it will take. You’ve never had to make such sacrifices as will now be required of you.”

He was hurt by this. Claire had never before treated him with such disdain, and he could not comprehend it.

She sank down into a chair and looked at him as though he were some truant child in whom she was bitterly disappointed. “Why couldn’t you have broken with your uncle? You might have had some chance then.”

“I can’t leave him. Not now. Perhaps there never was a time. But do you see? I’ve at last done what he has all along wished for me to do. I restore him, too.”

“Archer,” she hissed.

“I have to believe it, Claire, or there is no hope at all.”

“Yes,” she said with a toss of her head. “That’s the problem. You believe what you want to believe. One day your uncle will love you. One day the woman you’ve bought will love you. When are you going to learn that love cannot be bought or bartered?”

“Claire, please.”

“What would make you agree to this?”

“I think I’ve just told you.”

“You love her.”

“Yes.”

“So much so that you will trade every last vestige she has of self-respect, for the fortune she brings with her. This is love?”

“My reasons are not entirely selfish.”

“Aren’t they?”

“Her aunts, Claire, are determined to sell her. To somebody. To anybody who will agree to give them their share in return. My uncle is determined to have it.”

“Through you.”

“So long as I’m willing. But there are others every bit as willing, and with far less regard for her welfare than I.”

She looked at him, puzzled for a moment, and then suddenly gasped and covered her mouth.

“I do see that this is wrong. I do understand that I have a great deal to do to make up for this. But I believe I can do it, Claire. At least I want the chance to try. And if the alternative is to watch her be married to Roger Barrett… Or worse, Wyndham!” He shook his head. “It’s unthinkable.”

Claire leaned back hard in her chair. It was several minutes before she found her voice. “This is dreadful, Archer,” she said and then fell silent again for a long time. “What she’s suffered already... What it will take to mend her... I don’t think you have it in you.”

Archer blinked in receipt of this.

“I hope I’m wrong. I pray that you can somehow make this right. But I don’t, at present, see how.”

“What has she suffered, Claire?” he dared to ask. “Do you know?”

Again, Claire was silent, thinking. “Have you ever wondered why I’ve never married?” she said at last.

“As a matter of fact, I have. It’s not for want of admirers, I know that much.”

“I can love very deeply, very intensely. From a distance, from an arm’s length, I can adore with all the fervour imaginable. But there is a line impossible to cross where that adoration ought to become that which I would have for husbands and lovers. I can’t get there. I won’t let anyone close enough to persuade me. Not again.”

“Why not?”

“Because, were I to open myself up like that, were I to be betrayed in that openness, I would never recover. It is the same for her.”

“So it’s impossible.”

“I don’t know. If you are the one who has ultimately betrayed her, then I’m afraid it may be. You have time on your side, I suppose. Unless she finds a way to extricate herself.”

“Claire!”

“She may. I would not blame her.”

“You would not help her? You would not betray me?”

Claire was silent for a minute or two. “Good heaven, Archer!” she burst out at last. “Above all others do you know how I have loved you?” Her hands shook as she spoke. “I have placed such hope in your becoming the kind of man I could love.”

“Claire, what are you saying?”

“It’s impossible. I know that and have always known it, but it’s true nevertheless. If you could become that man, Archer! But how to do it now? I simply cannot believe you have allowed this to happen.”

And Claire began to cry, great silent tears. His feet were pulled from beneath him. He’d never seen her like this before.

“I think I almost hate you now,” she said and arose to take up her coat.

“Claire,” he pleaded.

But she did not answer.

“Claire,” he tried again.

She did not acknowledge him in any way, only walked from the room and out of the house.