The Marriage Act (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Reason and truth will prevail at last.

—Samuel Johnson

“Sophia,” Caro’s father said, an unaccustomed note of sternness in his voice, “I think you’ve done enough mischief for one night, don’t you?”

Sophia looked shocked to the core that Caro had actually confessed everything. She’d obviously thought to present herself as a shining champion of the truth, and instead she looked petty and spiteful. “I only wanted you to know she’s been fibbing to you.”

“Yes, and you’ve had your say. Now go to your room. You and I will discuss this with your father in the morning.”

Sophia made a petulant face, but she did as she was told, sweeping out of the library like a deposed queen.

Caro had been watching miserably, afraid to speak. Now her father turned his attention to her. “Come here, child.”

She drew closer and sat beside him.

“Tell me what this is about.”

“I’m so sorry.” She bowed her head. “I’ve made a hash of everything. Right from the start, I did something inexcusable to John, something selfish and shocking, and hurt him very badly. I didn’t realize how badly until just recently—I thought he was simply cold by nature, when instead he’d trusted me and I’d betrayed that trust.” Her eyes stung with unshed tears. “It wasn’t quite the worst thing I could have done, but only because he stopped me in time. The truth is, I accepted his proposal for the most foolish possible reason, and I didn’t have the wisdom or the courage to tell you—to tell
him
—before we went through with the wedding.” She blinked back tears. “All this time, I’ve only been pretending we were happy together, when John couldn’t bear the sight of me.”

Her father set a warm hand on her shoulder. “Caro, my love, do you really think I didn’t know that you and John have been living apart?”

She looked up. “What?”

“Five years with no visits and no children, letters missing John’s frank, only the vaguest references to the people and places you encountered abroad? A tone in your letters that veered from dejected in one paragraph to stridently cheerful in the next? You have many gifts, but being a good liar is not one of them. Besides, you should know that bishops have eyes and ears in every parish in the kingdom—and a few on foreign soil too, for that matter.”

She blinked at him. “You knew?”

“I never learned precisely what happened to cause such a falling-out between you, but I knew that you and John were estranged. Didn’t it seem suspicious to you that my health should have taken such a dramatic turn for the worse almost the moment John returned to England, and that none of your brothers made the journey to see me? Didn’t you think it odd that I should’ve traveled to Leicestershire to begin with, if my constitution was so weak? I wished to give you and John a compelling reason to spend time in each other’s company. If you couldn’t work out your differences, I would’ve accepted it and gone on loving you both, but I had faith that if the two of you would only talk, you’d quickly discover the good in each other.”

Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Then...does that mean you’re not dying?”

He smiled. “We’re all dying, my child, and I have no fear of going to a blessed and uninterrupted communion with the Almighty. But I don’t expect to die today or next year or anytime soon.”

She blinked at him. “Does Uncle Geoffrey know?”

“Yes, he knows, and so does your aunt, though we thought it better to leave Sophia out of our little conspiracy. You mustn’t blame them for keeping my secret. I told them I had an excellent reason for the subterfuge, even if I was careful not to go into the particulars.”

Caro listened, dumbfounded. “Papa, I don’t know what to say. I’m glad—so glad!—to learn you’re well, but at the same time, I’m shocked that you would put me through so much worry
.
”

“I’m heartily sorry for that, and I had a long talk with the Lord about the vanity of presuming I knew what was best for you, as well as the wickedness of deceiving you and telling myself it was for your own good. It really was most high-handed of me, and even worse of me to ask your aunt and uncle to cooperate in my deception. But I have perfect faith that God understands and forgives me, and I can only hope you will, as well.”

She was too happy to stay upset with him, and besides, she could hardly climb up on her moral high horse when she’d been telling him lie after lie for more than five years. “Have you forgiven me?”

“Forgiven you for what? I’ve never felt anything but love for you, together with a sadness that you didn’t have enough faith in yourself and in me to realize that—if I may borrow a line from St. Paul—neither ‘things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth nor any other creature’ could possibly come between us.”

“Oh, Papa,” she said, between laughter and tears.

“I tried dropping hints to that effect in my letters, and providing you with any number of openings in case you should wish to confess the truth, but you weren’t ready. I even considered visiting you at Halewick, unannounced and uninvited, but you seemed so determined to keep the state of your marriage private, I feared it would only upset you—and, not knowing the details of your falling-out with John, I had to consider the possibility there was some compelling reason for the subterfuge.” He tilted her chin up to study her face. “So you wish now to reconcile with him in earnest?”

She nodded and broke into a watery smile. “I love him, more than I ever expected I could.”

“Then why the tears?”

“Because...Oh, because while I was pretending for you, I was pretending to myself too. I told myself he’d forgiven me, and even come to care for me again. But now that honesty seems to be the order of the day, I have to face facts. He’ll always be angry with me, and his regard was only part of the acting I’d asked him to do for your sake.”

“Only part of the acting?” her father said. “
Cara mia
, what can you be thinking? Don’t you know that young man is half-mad for you? Why, the day he came to ask me for your hand, I’d never seen any fellow so head over heels. I’ve known him for years, since back when my old schoolfellow William Goddard was headmaster at Winchester and John was only a boy there, and he’s never been the sort to take marriage lightly.”

Caro’s heart took a hopeful and unexpected bound. “Are you sure, Papa?”

“Do you imagine I would have given him my blessing to propose to you if I weren’t?”

“But that was a long time ago. Before I—before I ruined everything. He received a letter from the Foreign Office today offering him a new post, and he never asked whether I’d like to go with him. How can I be sure he still feels the same way?”

“I suppose you could do something truly revolutionary,” her father said with a fond smile. “You could ask him.”

She laughed and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Papa. Oh, I do hope you’re right.”

It took Caro some time to find her husband. He wasn’t in their bedroom, his dressing room, or the morning room. She even checked the cloakroom, though she felt silly for imagining he would return to the scene of their tryst.

She found him in the drawing room, standing in front of the hearth, warming his hands at the fire. “John?”

He turned toward her, a sad, almost haunted expression on his face.

“I don’t know how much of all that you heard, but I told my father everything—well, nearly everything.” Suddenly she couldn’t think what to do with her hands. She clasped them together in front of her, though she sensed it made her look more nervous than earnest. “I told him about Vienna, and the five years I spent inventing falsehoods. He didn’t take it nearly as badly as I feared he would. In fact, it turns out his health isn’t failing after all.”

John’s lips curved in a melancholy ghost of a smile. “I did wonder. He seemed stronger every day, and that isn’t the usual way with dropsy and a weak heart.”

“I also told him that I love you.”

Her husband’s face went blank with surprise.

* * *

She loved him? Well, that had come out of nowhere. The last thing he’d heard her tell her father was that they’d only been pretending they were happy together. “You don’t have to say that—”

“Yes I do, because it’s true.” She took a step closer, an eager look in her eyes. “I’ve grown up a lot in the five years since our wedding, and a good deal of that growing up has taken place in the past week. You said today that you thought I enjoyed lying because it gave me a thrill, because I could be bad but look good, but that was never why I did it. I did it because I didn’t want people to think ill of me, and it was easier to lie than to take responsibility for my mistakes. Unfortunately, escaping the responsibility meant escaping the lessons I should have learned too—for instance, that once I’d made a hash of our marriage, I should have tried harder to fix it.”

It was a pretty apology, but it had nothing to do with love. “I made my own share of mistakes. I couldn’t see how very young you were, or how much I’d asked of you, proposing marriage when you barely knew me. I could only see my own infatuation and my rather conceited notion that I was so ambitious and so deserving, of course you must want to marry me.”

She smiled. “But you
were
ambitious and deserving—and handsome and smart and funny and kind too. I was just too young and too blind to realize it at the time.”

“But you realize it now?” he said, unable to hide his skepticism.

At his tone, her smile vanished, and the bright, eager look faded from her eyes. “Oh, my...I must have sunk myself completely beneath reproach, if you don’t believe me even when I’m telling the truth.” She drew a deep breath, and her chin came up. “I’m done with lying now, John. My father knows everything.
You
know everything. And I don’t want to lie ever again.”

She said it with what sounded like real conviction, but could he trust her? As much as he loved Caro, he didn’t think he could spend the rest of his life with any woman who was prepared to sacrifice integrity for the sake of convenience. And he wanted a future with her so badly, he could be in serious danger of blinding himself to the likelihood this was just another pretense. “That’s easily said, but—”

“No, it isn’t easily said,” she broke in with a hollow laugh. “You of all people should know how stubborn and how craven I can be. I should’ve been more forthcoming with you about Sophia, especially after that talk we had about keeping secrets, but I was too afraid of what you might do.” She shook her head. “And now the worst has happened, and the truth is out—but the curious thing is, owning up to my mistakes isn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined. In fact, I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I’ve finally realized it’s better to face the consequences of my actions and move ahead with a clear conscience than to live every day guilty, preoccupied and terrified I’m about to be exposed.” Her gaze locked with his. “And then there’s what lying has done to our marriage. I hate seeing doubt and mistrust in your eyes when you look at me. Lies and evasions have already cost us five good years, and I refuse to give them one more minute.”

The hope that had died down to nothing but ashes inside him flickered faintly back to life. If she really felt even the smallest fondness for him—if there was any chance at all for their marriage—well, he was almost afraid to consider the possibility.

“My opinion hasn’t always mattered so much to you,” he said hesitantly.

“That’s just it—it always
did
matter, more than I knew, only you disapproved of me and I was sure that would never change. But now...” She stopped in midsentence and regarded him solemnly. “Those things you said to my father—about how you weren’t pretending, and you love me. Did you mean them?”

“Let me see if I have this right.” He broke into a faint, reluctant smile. “
You
are questioning
my
honesty.”

She laughed. “Don’t tease me, John. Not now.”

To his surprise, her eyes were shimmering with unshed tears. Had she been telling the truth, then, when she’d claimed she loved him?

“Did I mean them...?” He took Sophia’s letter out of his coat pocket. “I’d like to show you something, Caro. This is your cousin’s letter to me. Since you were generous enough not to read it, I won’t embarrass her by going into the particulars, but suffice it to say it paints me in a very flattering light.” Transferring the letter to his left hand, he took out his pocketbook and went through the banknotes until he came to a folded sheet of paper. “And this,” he said, holding up the tattered square, “is your note to me, informing me on our wedding night that you’d run away.”

Her face fell. “Don’t tell me you kept it—”

“I kept it.” He unfolded the note and showed her. “It says, among other things, that you’re in love with Lieutenant Howe, that you only accepted me to make him jealous, and that you would willingly bear any disgrace in return for a divorce.”

She wore an anguished expression. “I’m so sorry, John. If I still need to say it, I don’t feel that way now.”

“Observe.” John turned to the fire, a letter in either hand. “Your cousin’s letter pays me nothing but compliments, the kind of acceptance and admiration I’ve spent most of my life wishing to hear. Yours is an insult. There’s only one of them I can burn without a second thought.”

He tossed Sophia’s letter on the fire.

* * *

Caro watched as the flames licked at the paper and her cousin’s letter blackened and curled. She was relieved to see the evidence of Sophia’s folly destroyed, but at a loss to understand why John hadn’t burned her own note as soon as he received it. “Why would you want to keep that dreadful message from our wedding night? It’s one of my greatest regrets.”

“Because you wrote it, Caro. Insulting or not, it was all I had of you when I was in Vienna, my only remembrance of the one night we’d spent together before I left. For that reason alone, I could never part with it.”

He’d kept it all this time—through dragging her back from the inn after she’d run away, through leaving England, through years of separation and three days of constant bickering on the road? Not just kept it, but treasured it.