Sweet Awakening (28 page)

“I heard that you were willing to testify for Clare, Sabrina,” said Lucy Kirkman. “That must have been terrifying to contemplate.”

“It wouldn’t have been difficult for me, Lucy, since I wasn’t the one in danger,” Sabrina responded quietly. “It was Clare’s story that convinced the jury.”

“Imagine little Clare Dysart having the spirit to defend herself! Why, I remember when I dumped fish bait on her, and she only stood there, waiting for Giles to rescue her.”

“Some of us change as we grow up, Lucy.” Sabrina’s comment, although uttered in dulcet tones, was still insulting enough to make even Lucy Kirkman shut her mouth, and when Lord Avery asked her for a dance, Lucy was quite eager to give it to him.

Sabrina was praying that Giles would arrive soon and come to her rescue when she saw Andrew approaching her. She gave him the warmest and most spontaneous welcome of their acquaintance, and he thought to himself that perhaps he was being foolish to rein in his feelings for his friend’s sister. Then he took in the crowd and realized that she would probably have looked at anyone like that who could get her away from such a group.

“They are striking a waltz, Sabrina,” he observed with a smile.

“Yes, they are, Andrew. And if you do not ask me for this dance, I will never speak to you again,” Sabrina said, sotto voce.

“May I have this waltz, Sabrina?" Andrew asked with mock formality.

“Why, I would be delighted, Andrew.”

“I am very surprised at your unladylike boldness,” Andrew said with a twinkle in his eye as they moved out onto the floor,

“Had you not asked me, Andrew, I would have just grabbed you and led you out myself.
That
would have distracted them from Clare for a while.”

“I thought it would be good to show my face tonight to see if I could deflect a little attention,” Andrew said, expertly guiding Sabrina past an older couple with slight pressure on her waist. His hand felt warm and strong, and she was sorry when his touch became lighter again.

“I see my brother is dancing with Lucy Kirkman.”

“Yes, well, I was mildly insulting to her, and she was looking for any port in a storm,” smiled Sabrina. “Oh, dear, I shouldn’t have suggested that your brother ...”

“Is a rather stiff, formal fellow, full of his own consequence? Lucy is so outrageously frank that it will be good for him.” Andrew was silent for a while, and Sabrina, who had been studiously focusing on his cravat, lifted her eyes to him for a moment and then lowered them quickly.

“Do you think Lucy will manage to hook Giles after all, Sabrina? I remember her as quite an angler those summers I would visit Whitton.”

“I might have said yes just a week ago,” Sabrina replied. “But now ...”

“Now that Clare is free, do you mean?”

“But is she free, Andrew?” asked Sabrina as the music stopped and they began to walk off the floor. “Free to love, I mean. I suppose she is free to marry. She can hardly be expected to go into deep mourning for a husband who tried to kill her.”

“I never knew Lady Rainsborough very well, Lady Sabrina. And I never did think she was what Giles needed. But I have come to admire her very much. She has more courage and spirit than I ever gave her credit for. But she has also gone through an ordeal that would leave the strongest person in shock. I doubt she will feel ready to love or marry for a while.”

* * * *

Giles was announced just as Andrew and Sabrina joined a small group of friends. Andrew said: “I’ll bring him over to you, Sabrina. He’ll never find us in this crush.” Sabrina gave him a grateful smile.

When Andrew returned with her brother in tow, Sabrina could tell that Giles was in no mood for socializing. And when Lucy Kirkman joined their group, Sabrina almost felt sorry for her. Giles was everything that was polite, but the slight current of energy that had flowed between them was no longer alive. Giles asked Lucy for the next cotillion, which was also a supper dance, but Sabrina knew, with her twin’s sixth sense, that things had changed.

* * * *

Giles himself was only half-present. He had spent the last few days in a state of frustration. After a year or so of convincing himself that his feelings for Clare had died back down to pure friendship, he had been taken by surprise. He desperately wanted to be by Clare’s side, and it was agony to keep himself away.

But he had known Andrew was right: any move on his part would have put her in jeopardy. As he had listened to her testimony, he had been torn between fury and love. Had she not killed Justin Rainsborough, he would have done it himself, cheerfully and without regret. Clare deserved to be cherished and loved, and instead she had been brutalized. She looked so small and helpless sitting there revealing the horror that was her marriage. She needed his care, and he was determined to give it to her as soon as the nightmare of the inquest had passed.

* * * *

It was almost two weeks before Clare accepted an invitation. To her surprise, there had been no lack of them; indeed, she believed there might have been more than she usually received.

She chose the Duchess of Ross’s ball in hopes that she would be lost in the crush. The thought of arriving alone terrified her, however. Giles had made his promised visit, but it had been a short one, and she had been terribly uncomfortable with him. All she could think of was Justin’s accusation and her own false admission of guilt. She feared their friendship was hopelessly contaminated, and although she knew that Giles and Sabrina would happily have included her in their party, she couldn’t ask them. She sent a short note to Andrew More asking him to call on her and very timidly asked if he would be willing to escort her to the Ross’s ball.

“I did promise you a waltz, Andrew,” she said, trying to make the atmosphere lighter.

“I would be delighted to support you in this, Clare,” said Andrew. So when Lady Rainsborough was announced, Andrew More, Esquire was right beside her.

It seemed to Clare that the sea of faces below her turned to the door at the same time, their eyes eager and curious. For a moment she was afraid that the faces and voices had blended into a real sea, one which threatened to engulf her should she step down into it. But Andrew placed his arm under her hand and led her down, and the sea parted before them as though he were Moses.

Giles, who was hurrying over, did not miss the grateful look Clare gave his old friend and was seized by an awful jealousy. Damn it,
he
should have been the one Clare was leaning on. Yet what could be more natural than that after her ordeal, a woman would depend upon such an able defender.

Giles helped them push through the crowd and reach the corner of the room where Sabrina was waiting with Clare’s parents. It felt to Clare that she walked a very long distance, though it was, in truth, not a particularly large ballroom. Her father’s smile and mother’s embrace welcomed her, and Sabrina squeezed her hand.

“Good for you, daughter,” said the marquess.

“This is almost worse than the inquest,” whispered Clare.

“Tonight will feel very hard, I am sure, Clare,” said Giles reassuringly. “But the curiosity will die down soon enough. May I get you a glass of champagne?”

“I don’t think I dare drink anything stronger than lemonade,” said Clare in a stronger voice.

“Then I will bring you a glass,” said Giles.

A few friends of Clare’s parents came over and greeted Clare politely. Of course, no mention was made of her late husband then or at any time during the evening. “It is as if Justin never existed,” remarked Clare to Andrew when he came to claim his waltz.

“Society will go on the way it has begun: ignoring the brutal husband in death as well as in life. I suspect that more than a few families have the same sort of skeletons rattling in their closets, Clare. To speak of your ordeal would strike too close to home for some.”

The waltz with Andrew was very comfortable. He had been the first to hear the truth of her marriage. He had received it, but had not judged her. He was very good at taking the lead, this Andrew More, while at the same time not overlooking his partner, she thought, as they danced.

Her waltz with Giles later in the evening was not so comfortable. She accepted his invitation, although she was reluctant, for how could she refuse an old friend. But she was convinced that all eyes were on them, wondering if she had really lied about their relationship. She was sure that at least some of those present had decided that Lord Justin Rainsborough had been correct in his suspicions. She had saved Giles from scandal and probable fatal injury in a duel, but she suspected that a ripple of gossip would always follow them. So how could she smile naturally or respond to the affectionate squeeze he gave her hand when he led her off the floor? It was better for him that she not encourage a return to their old easy camaraderie.

Giles was very aware of Clare’s attempt to keep him at a distance. His call earlier in the week had been unsatisfactory. And she had been “indisposed” the second time he had called. And she held herself stiffly in his arms as though they had only been introduced that evening.

All the feeling for her that he had thought was dead was alive again, even stronger than before. When he had danced with Lucy Kirkman earlier in the evening, he had looked down at her as though she were a stranger, not a woman whom he had seriously considered marrying. She was very attractive, Lucy, with her dark hair and sparkling dark eyes. He had wanted her once and no doubt would have enjoyed her companionship through life. But that was nothing compared to what he felt for Clare.

* * * *

Surely the shock of her husband’s death (Giles
could
not really imagine Clare killing Justin. She had defended herself. He had died.) would wear off soon, given the fact that the marriage had been a mistake. He and Clare had years of friendship behind them. Once it was clear that Lucy meant nothing to him, he would convince Clare that the best thing for her to do was to marry him. And soon.

* * * *

Clare was shaking with fatigue and nerves when she returned home that night. Martha sat her down in front of her bedroom fire with a cup of warm milk and honey.

“Are you all right, my lady?”

Clare’s teeth had begun to chatter, so she could only nod.

“No one was insulting you, was they?” asked Martha fiercely. Clare looked at her abigail’s hands, which had unconsciously clenched into fists, and smiled. The warm milk, the fire, and the wool shawl Martha had laced over her shoulders were beginning to warm her.

“I am sure some things were being said behind my back, Martha,” she replied as her shivering subsided. “But for the most part, it was not as bad as I had feared.”

“That nice Mr. More stayed by you, I hope?”

“Yes, Andrew was very kind.”

“And Lord Whitton?” Martha asked, with studied casualness.

“Giles was, as usual, my good friend.”

Her mistress’s face had been clear when speaking of Andrew More, but a slight frown had creased it when she mentioned Lord Whitton. Martha, who believed her mistress needed and deserved a good man to love and take care of her, was pleased. Andrew More was very charming, there was no doubt about that. But he was not the man for Lady Rainsborough, Martha was convinced. Tension was a good sign, she decided. Lady Rainsborough was not indifferent to Lord Whitton, that was obvious. She hoped his lordship was smart enough not to let any grass grow under his feet.

She took the empty cup from her mistress’s hands and said, “Come, my lady, let me get you to bed.”

Clare let herself be guided and fell immediately into a deep sleep.

* * * *

“She sleeps like the dead,” whispered Clare, the waking dreamer, looking down at the woman on the bed. The woman looked just like her. The woman
was
her, it seemed. And next to her lay the woman’s husband. His hands were folded gently over his chest, but blood was seeping between his fingers, as though someone had dropped crimson rose petals on his white hands. His eyes were closed, thank God, but blood was also seeping out of a hole in his left temple. How can she sleep in the same bed with him, wondered Clare. A voice behind her in the dream, the voice of the coroner, said: “She made her bed. Now she must lie in it. But it would be a shame for such a young and beautiful woman to lie alone. So her husband will be there with her.”

It seemed a fitting punishment to Clare the dreamer.

The other Clare would lie sleeping next to her murdered husband. Her sleep would be “like the dead’s” forever.

When Clare awoke, she remembered the dream clearly. Indeed, when she opened her eyes, it was with the expectation of seeing Justin’s body next to hers. For, in a way, she had been awake in the dream. She had seen something real, and when she awoke, she could only wonder at the everyday distinction people made between waking and sleeping. Who was to know what was a dream and what was reality? And no matter that the coroner’s jury had given a verdict of self-defense. She was a woman who had killed her husband, and she suspected he would forever haunt her bed.

* * * *

For the next few weeks, Clare attended a carefully chosen combination of routs, musicales, and dinner dances. Her entrances were marked less and less, and by the end of the second week, the ton was too distracted by Lady Huntly’s interesting condition to pay too much attention to Clare. Cuckolding a husband was not, of course, as exciting as killing one, but when said husband had been in the service of his country for the past year, and said wife was obviously increasing ... well, speculation as to who the father was was running wild.

Andrew continued to go out more than usual and to stay close by Lady Rainsborough’s side for much of an evening. Giles Whitton was equally attentive, however, and wagers were beginning to be laid as to whether Lady Rainsborough would find a new husband this Season, and
who
would be the lucky man. “Although lucky may not be the right word,” said one gossip with a mocking smile. “After all, the lady is deadly with a pistol.”

Had he been offered a wager, Giles himself was not sure on whom he would have placed his money. Clare was, it is true, more relaxed in his company, but there was almost a palpable barrier between them. A barrier that did not seem to exist between Clare and Andrew More.