Who Needs Mr Willoughby? (28 page)

Hurt welled up inside her and clouded her eyes. “But Kit, you loved me, every bit as much as I loved you. I know you did. You asked me to marry you! You still love me, I know it –”

“You’re mistaken, Miss Holland,” he bit off. His face was pale and set in hard lines. “We’re not engaged.” His eyes went to her ring finger, still bare. “In truth, we never really were.”

“How can you say that?” she cried, stricken. “I’m
not
mistaken, I’m not. And we
were
engaged! Are you saying I imagined it all? That I mistook your feelings so completely?” A tear, then another, ran down her cheek. “Oh, God…how can you do this to me? How can you be so cruel?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t wish to hurt you, Miss Holland, of course I don’t.” Pain flickered, just for a moment, in his eyes, gone as quickly as it came. “I wish you the best, but I have to end our friendship. And I must ask you, please, to –” he stopped. “To leave me alone. Goodbye.”

And without another word, he inclined his head in a curt nod, turned and brushed roughly past her, and left to rejoin his friends by the fireplace.

Chapter 41

In a daze of shock and pain, Marianne stood unmoving. The sound of laughter and conversation gradually returned, ebbing and flowing all around her. She didn’t notice. She didn’t see the glances of pity and veiled amusement cast her way. She knew only that her heart was cleaved in two and her happiness had turned to ashes.

Kit Willoughby didn’t love her. He never had.

She stared at his broad-shouldered back. He wouldn’t turn to look at her, or acknowledge her presence. He didn’t want to know her, or call her his friend any longer. All of it – the affection, the kisses, the shared secrets and embraces in the tree house – had meant nothing to him. How could she have been so blind, so mistaken about his feelings?

How?

“I wasn’t wrong,” she whispered, as the heat of humiliation flushed her face. “I know I wasn’t.”

“Come along, Marianne,” Elinor murmured, appearing and slipping her arm around her sister’s shoulder. “Let’s take you home.”

“He doesn’t love me,” she choked out as she allowed Elinor to draw her, stumbling, away. A sound between a laugh and a sob escaped her. “I was wrong about him. I was wrong about all of it.”

“Shh, don’t let’s talk about it now,” her sister soothed. “Let’s go and find Lady Violet, and she can fetch the car so we can take you back to Belgravia –”

“No.” Tears welled and swam in Marianne’s eyes as she jerked her arm free. “I don’t want to go back. I have to know why! Why is he doing this to me?” She turned, intending to plunge back into the crowd and make her way once again to Willoughby and demand answers.

Elinor, her own cheeks aflame with embarrassment at her sister’s behaviour and the unwanted attention they were receiving, caught her by the arm. “Have you no shame at all?” she hissed urgently into Marianne’s ear. “If you don’t care about embarrassing yourself, at least try not to embarrass your family.”

Marianne once again shook Elinor’s hand off and rounded on her. “That’s all you’re worried about, isn’t it?” she accused. “‘What will people say?’ ‘What will people think?’ Never mind me.” Tears swam and spilled down her face. “Never mind that my heart is breaking…”

The press of the crowd around them caused her to feel suddenly light-headed and faint. Dizziness swept over her and perspiration dampened her brow.

“Marianne,” Elinor exclaimed, alarmed. “What’s wrong? Are you all right? You’ve gone white as a sheet! Marianne –”

Marianne heard her as if from a great distance. There was a humming and ringing in her ears and she saw tiny black dots dancing before her eyes just before she crumpled in a heap to the floor.

***

“Oh! Oh, dear – is poor Miss Holland all
right
? Might I be of help?”

Elinor, cradling her collapsed sister in her arms, looked up to see Lucy Steele, all chartreuse chiffon and concern, standing anxiously above her.

“Yes, you can go and fetch Lady Violet,” she told Miss Steele. “Tell her we need to take Mari home at once.”

“Of course. I’ll see to it straight away.” She turned and hurried off.

“Give the ladies some space, please,” Colonel Brandon called out authoritatively to the knot of people that had gathered around them. “Move along. I assure you, there’s nothing here to see.”

Reluctantly, slowly, the crowd dispersed and returned to their former places in the ballroom.

Elinor gave him a wan but grateful smile. “Thank you.”

He knelt beside her. His face was creased with concern. “Has she fainted?”

“I think so, yes.” She hesitated. “She just – collapsed. The crowd must’ve proved too much for her.”

“Oh, my baby, my baby!” Mrs Holland cried, and rushed forward to kneel beside her daughter. She glanced around. “Where is Lady Violet? We need to take Marianne home at once.”

“I’ll take you,” Colonel Brandon said, and straightened. “I’ll leave word for Lady Valentine that we’re leaving.” He left, promising to return shortly.

Marianne, blinking in confusion as she regained consciousness, stared at the ring of anxious faces around her. “What…what happened?” she murmured.

“You fainted,” Elinor said. “Right in the middle of Harriet’s ballroom.”

“I…did?” She managed a small smile. “How tacky of me. Harriet won’t ever forgive me for causing a scene.”

“Never mind that,” her mother scolded. “What on earth happened to cause you to faint? You’re not given to swooning, normally.”

To spare Marianne the pain of explaining her public humiliation at Willoughby’s hands – which, thankfully, their mother hadn’t witnessed – Elinor answered her.

“I expect it’s down to Mari’s not eating anything before we left. When
was
the last time you ate?” she asked her sister.

“Noon, I think. I had a piece of Mrs Fenwick’s lemon drizzle cake and a cup of tea.”

“There, you see?” Mrs Holland declared. “What have I told you girls about eating regularly, and properly? But do you ever listen to your mother? No, of course you don’t –”

Lucy Steele rushed back with Lady Violet in her wake. “I’ve brought Lady Valentine,” she told Elinor.

“What happened?” Lady Violet breathed as she arrived and saw the two Holland sisters and their mother kneeling on the floor. “My goodness! Are you all right, Marianne?”

She nodded. “I think so. Yes.”

“Colonel Brandon’s gone to fetch his car to take us home,” Elinor told the baron’s widow.

“Yes, he told me. How did this happen?”

Elinor, relieved that like their mother, Lady Violet hadn’t witnessed the scene with Willoughby, explained that it was all down to Marianne’s not eating.

“You silly girls,” the older woman chided. “Always dieting and turning yourselves into sticks. It isn’t healthy. Men like women with a bit of jiggle, you know.” She turned away. “I’ll let Harriet and Edward know we’re leaving.”

“Can you stand, do you think?” Elinor asked her sister. She glanced at the doorway. “The colonel’s back, and he’s ready to take us to Lady Violet’s townhouse. We only need to walk across the ballroom to the front door.”

Marianne nodded. “I can manage. Let me just lean on you.”

“Of course.”

“I do hope you feel better, Miss Holland,” Lucy said. “I’m so sorry.” She paused and added in a low voice, “About
all
of it.”

Elinor ignored her as she, the colonel, and their mother helped Marianne to her feet and led her, white-faced and wan, through the ballroom, past a sea of avid, and plainly curious faces, until they reached the car.

“There.” As she settled her sister in the back seat and sat down beside her, Elinor patted her hand. “Are you comfy? Feeling a bit better?”

And although Marianne nodded and gave her hand a brief squeeze, Elinor knew from the desolation on her face that Willoughby’s actions had left her sister well and truly gutted.

***

The ride home was a blur. Marianne pressed her forehead against the car window and stared blankly out as the London streets passed by, seeing little and caring even less. Her thoughts churned with images of Willoughby.

She saw him on his horse the night she’d fallen from the tree house, she saw him galloping up to help her. She remembered the rain dripping from his nose, how it plastered his dark hair to his forehead. She remembered him carrying her in his arms to the car, as easily as if she’d weighed nothing, how he’d brought her wildflowers the very next day.

She remembered him asking her, as he knelt before her, his face full of hope and love, if she’d marry him.

She hadn’t dreamt it. She knew she hadn’t.

“…if I’ve given you reason to believe there was something between us, then I apologise. It wasn’t my intention.”

Kit Willoughby had made it clear tonight that he wanted no part of her. Not only had he acted as if his feelings for her had never existed; he’d ended their friendship as well. And she had no idea why.

What had she done to cause him to behave so coldly?

Had she dreamed their time together? Was it only in her mind that he’d kissed her, touched her, made it plain in all he did and said that he loved her?

No. She couldn’t believe it. It was real, all of it.

“When we get back,” Elinor told her, interrupting her thoughts, “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

“With brandy,” Mrs Holland added from the front seat. “To help you sleep.”

Sleep
, Marianne thought in despair. She’d never sleep properly again. How could she, when her dreams of Willoughby, once so sweet and sustaining, would become nightmares?

The car slowed to a stop before Lady Violet’s townhouse in Belgravia a short time later. Colonel Brandon got out and helped hand Marianne out of the car.

Their arrival was a blur of helping hands, murmured words, and kindly meant reassurances. She went inside, leaning on Elinor’s arm, and allowed a cup of tea, heavily laced with brandy, to be pressed on her by her mother. She drank it all without protest and made her way upstairs to bed.

And although Marianne was bone-tired and longed for the oblivion of sleep, it was slow in arriving, despite the brandy. Her thoughts were too troubled and the images of Willoughby too vivid to allow sleep.

He loves me…he loves me
not
…

Those were the last words in her head as she finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter 42

The next few days did nothing to improve Marianne’s spirits. Every ring of Lady Violet’s doorbell, every thump of the post thrust through the slot in the front door quickened her pulse and sent her hurrying to the top of the stairs.

But every time her hopes were crushed. No one came to call, only a few acquaintances of Lady Violet’s (who only came, Marianne suspected, hoping to learn more about her gossip-worthy behaviour at Edward’s party), nor did Kit Willoughby text or call or send her any letters.

On the day before their return to Northumberland, Marianne drifted from room to room like a dejected wraith until even her sister Elinor lost patience with her.

“Do you have to wander around the house like – like bloody Marley’s ghost?” she snapped from her seat on the drawing room sofa. “Should I get you some chains to rattle while you moan?”

Marianne whirled on her. “I’m sorry if my unhappiness bothers you, but I think I’m entitled to a bit of moaning.”

“As much as I’m entitled to a bit of peace,” Elinor retorted. “Cry and mope if you must, but please keep to your room, and stop trying to wring sympathy from everyone in the house – including the servants!”

“I don’t do any such thing,” Marianne snapped. “They all feel sorry for me, because they – unlike
you
– have a bit of compassion.”

“I have plenty of compassion, when it’s warranted.”

“Meaning –?”

“Meaning, Kit Willoughby isn’t worth the hand-wringing and breast-beating you’re wasting on him. He treated you horribly. There’s no coming back from that, surely? Chalk it up to experience and let it go.”

“I shouldn’t expect
you
to understand.” Marianne pressed her lips together. “Why would you?”

Elinor’s fingers went still on her needlepoint. “What do you mean?”

“How can you possibly know what it’s like to have a broken heart, when you’re incapable of passion yourself? You can’t spare any sympathy for me, because you don’t have a clue what it is to really be in love.”

“How can you say that?” Elinor threw her canvas aside with trembling fingers and shot to her feet, outraged. “How dare you! Do you think
your
heart is the only one ever to be broken? That
yours
is the only relationship that’s ever gone pear-shaped? That you’re the only one who’s been gutted by a –” she stopped, and bit back a small, strangled sob. “By a man you loved with all your heart and all your soul, whose intentions you completely misjudged?”

“Elinor,” Marianne exclaimed, and reached out for her arm. “I’m sorry, truly. I didn’t mean it –”

But Elinor shook her hand away as she let out another muffled sob, and fled from the room.

Marianne was about to follow her sister upstairs to apologise when she heard the post come through the slot in the entrance hall. With a sigh, and in no particular hurry – for hadn’t the postman disappointed her every day this week? – she went into the hall and knelt down to pick up the tumble of letters and cards from the floor.

“Bills,” she muttered as she flicked through them and set each aside on the hallway table. “More bills, an invitation for Lady Violet, another bill –”

She stopped. A vellum envelope, thick with enclosures, came to her attention. It was addressed to ‘Miss Marianne Holland’ in a dark, unmistakable scrawl.

Her heart skipped and raced. “Willoughby,” she breathed, and tore it open with shaking fingers.

She scanned the brief note. The hope on her face faded.

Miss Holland,

I hope this note finds you returned to health.

Enclosed please find your letters, along with the photograph you sent me. I’m returning them to you as I have no wish to further your belief that there is, or ever has been, anything of a personal nature between us.