Chapter 41

Belle stood upon the deck of the packet boat that was to take her to Calais, trying to take comfort from the fact she had done the right thing for the people she cared about, instead of wallowing in deep, crushing misery. Unfortunately, the deep, crushing misery felt a lot stronger, and a lot realer, than the meagre solace afforded by righteousness. She wondered if she should keep to her cabin until the journey was underway, but she could not bear to deny herself one last look at England, since she would probably never see it again. Surely Italy would be beautiful, for it always sounded so in Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels (and the likelihood of being abducted by a sinister nobleman seemed relatively low), but her heart already ached for the greys and greens of England.

With a sigh, she rested her elbows on the taffrail and let her gaze drift unseeing over the vibrant chaos of the port, through which a gentleman appeared to be ill-advisedly trying to ride a horse. It was fitting, from a certain perspective, that she would spend the rest of her days in an Italian villa—she assumed these would be readily available to all comers once she arrived in Milan or Venice—because, as it turned out, she was not the gothic heroine she had once pretended to be.

She had been the villain all along.

The sound of a commotion came from the gangway, but even that could not stir Belle from melancholy to curiosity.

It was followed by sharp, furious footsteps upon the deck, and she turned just in time to see Rufus descending upon her, his many-caped riding coat flapping at his heels like an irritable crow.

“Arabella Tarleton,” he said, “you utter fucking ninnyhammer, I am going to fucking kill you.”

For a moment she could only stare. Certainly his presence was a grave impediment to her very well-thought-out and necessary plan. Not an occasion for wild, uncontrollable joy. “Rufus?”

“No, your other husband.”

“What are you doing here?”

He rolled his eyes. “I am bringing you home; what does it look like?”

“It looks like you’re very annoyed at me.”

“I’m not.” He seemed to crumple all over. “I’m devastated , dear heart. As is your pretty Mr. Smith.”

“Francis sent you?”

“No, I sent myself. I practically had to fight him for the privilege of retrieving you.”

Belle may have been confused and upset and generally in an emotional tangle, but she was still inescapably herself. “There was a fight?”

“Yes, we ripped off each other’s shirts and rolled about aesthetically in some mud.”

“From your tone,” she said dolefully, “I’m beginning to think you didn’t rip off each other’s shirts and roll around aesthetically in some mud.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Bellflower. But if you come home, he might well be persuadable.”

The word home echoed inside her, as though she were a vast and empty cavern. “He’s better off without me.”

“That’s not what he thinks.”

“It may not be what he thinks now . But—”

“Enough.” Closing the distance between them, he very gently put his gloved fingertips against her mouth. “Sometimes people know exactly what they want. Sometimes you should believe them when they tell you.”

“I ...” She felt the weakness of her own words, shaped as they were by trembling lips. “I just keep hurting people, Rufus. Often just by being who I am.”

“I think,” he said softly, “Mr. Smith has been far more hurt by your leaving than he is ever likely to be by your staying. But—and forgive my selfishness—enough of him for the moment. What did I do to make you feel you had to leave?”

She had been, even if she said so herself, extremely, or at least passably, brave, right until this moment. But suddenly, hopelessly, she started to cry. “N-nothing. You’re so kind to me, and you make me s-so happy, but I’ll n-never be able to forget what I’ve taken from you.”

“Belle, Bellflower, no.” His voice was low, and stricken, and urgent. “You have never taken from me. Only given. Even if on one occasion you gave me a whole trifle directly to the face.”

This made her weep even harder. “Don’t joke. Not now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“In any case”—she gave an aggressive gulp—“you have your parents. You have lovers who will treat you well. You h-haven’t murdered Valentine, so I think you’re probably still friends. You have everything you need to make you happy. To make you feel loved. To build the life you’ve always wanted. I’m not meant to be part of that.”

“Not meant to be part of it?” he repeated. Between the sea and the open sky, his eyes were the brightest green she’d ever seen them. The precious green of growing things. “I would have nothing if not for you.”

“You deserve it all. Don’t let some misplaced sense of gratitude hold you back.”

“Good God, Belle. How could you have this so wrong? Please don’t leave me.”

He sounded appallingly sincere. But Belle was fatally stubborn, often—she knew—to her own detriment. And, besides, people could be sincere, appallingly or otherwise, about all sorts of things. “You shouldn’t be staying with me out of pity. Because you know I’m lonely and scared of being alone and unlikely to find anyone else.”

He blinked, recoiling slightly. “Thank you, that’s terribly insulting.”

“Nooo,” she wailed, wringing her hands. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Oh? Then what’s the non-insulting way of telling someone you only believe they’re with you on account of their standards being lower than the entire rest of the world?”

She felt like she was slowly dissolving into mulch. Worthless human mulch. “Rufus ...”

“As you’ve witnessed, Belle, I have little pride. But even I think better of myself than that. Fuck, you taught me to.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, from the subterranean pit where her soul had fled. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“Well”—he huffed out a breath—“that makes two of us.”

In a futile effort to force herself to coherence, she sniffed so violently that a passing sailor looked genuinely shocked. “You know I can’t have ... I don’t want ... the thing that everyone else does. But you do and you can have it. Or you could if it ... if it wasn’t for me.”

“You aren’t stopping me from having anything. Nor I you. Something else you taught me, by the way.”

“What about your dream, though?”

He gazed at her in stark incomprehension. “Which dream?”

“The Bonny dream.”

“Belle, I don’t want to talk about your brother right now. I think I’m long past that fancy, as is right and proper, for he is a married man and so am I.”

“Not ...” She wiped her face on her sleeve. “Not literally Bonny. But everything Bonny represents. The one true love that is solely yours, and all-consuming, and lasts forever.”

“What?” His hands flew out in a wild gesture. “Where are you getting this from?”

Now it was her turn to gaze in confusion. “It’s what you told me,” she said in what was definitely a calm, measured voice, whacking him on the shoulder for good measure.

“When?”

“About ninety million trillion times on the way to Gretna Green. You said marriage would steal your last hope of the kind of love you were looking for. I know we Tarletons have our ways, but I really ... I really do”—her voice cracked—“I really do pay attention, Rufus, and I really do try. Back then, I thought you would come to see things as I did. Now I know how wrong of me it was to force that upon you. Also,” she added, in an even smaller voice, “you told Gil I was a pain in the arse.”

“You are a pain in the arse,” he pointed out. “It doesn’t make me adore you one jot less.”

“You don’t adore me. You tolerate me. You ... you—”

“Don’t you dare,” he said, with such ferocity that it stopped her in her tracks, “tell me how I feel. And if you do, in fact, pay attention as you claim, then do me the honour of listening to me now.”

She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard him so impassioned. He had occasionally been earnest, of course, and sometimes unbearably unhappy, but mostly—even with his priest—he maintained a certain sardonic distance. This was new and somewhat disconcerting. On a different occasion, it might even have been gratifying. Nervously, she nodded.

“Then heed me when I say,” he went on, with the same unusual fervour, “that I am not the same man who began that journey to Gretna Green with you. I am not the same man in many regards, but I like to think I have changed in one significant particular.”

“Which is what?”

“Well ...” He broke off, apparently struggling to articulate himself, either because of the intensity of the emotions involved or the complexity of what he was trying to communicate. “The fact of the matter is, there’s something you need to understand about who I used to be, something mortifyingly and profoundly true, and while I wish it was otherwise, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to find a way to accept it and live with it.”

He was regarding her with such naked, pleading sincerity, and his words seemed to carry such deep significance for him, that Belle felt a little overwhelmed. Nevertheless she tipped her chin up valiantly. “Oh, Rufus, what is it?”

“This.” He took a deep breath. “I was a fucking prickwit.”

“P-pardon.”

“I was a fucking prickwit. I didn’t know what I was talking about. I didn’t know what I wanted. I know now.” Dropping to one knee upon the deck, he laid claim to her rather soggy hand. “It’s you, by the way. I want you.”

This was, without the shadow of a doubt, the nicest thing that anyone had ever said to Belle. That anyone had ever done for her. So much so, she half wondered if she was dreaming it. “Really?”

And it was testament to how deeply Rufus meant what he was saying that he didn’t answer sarcastically. “Yes, really.”

“But”—the words erupted out of her along with a fresh flood of tears—“what if ... what if I might wish to have children?”

He barely reacted. “Then we’ll have children?”

“How?”

“The usual way, I should imagine.”

“Can you?” she asked.

“You are veering perilously close to insulting again, dear heart. I believe my virility is up to the task.”

She squirmed. “No, I mean. With me.”

“Admittedly, it’s not something I’d find gratifying in the usual way,” he said. “And I can’t believe you’re interrogating me about this on a public sailing ship. But I can think of few experiences I would cherish more than creating a life with you. Or many lives. As many as you decide you can handle.”

“We shall hire people to help us handle the lives.”

“Very sensible, Mrs. Tarleton.”

“But also spend a lot of time with the lives ourselves. Nobody shall ever feel unwanted in our world.”

To her surprise, Rufus seemed to be blinking back tears of his own. “Our world, Belle? God, I love the sound of that.” He cleared his throat. “Though I should say, if the thought of me ... if you would prefer someone else, I would be perfectly comfortable with that.”

“You would raise someone else’s child with me?”

He shrugged. “I’m not my aunt. Any child I raise will be my child, as I am my father’s.”

“Was that ever in doubt?”

“My aunt thought otherwise. It may be true. It may not. It does not matter. And it will not matter to me.”

“I think I would still like it to be you,” she said, feeling somehow bold and abashed at the same time.

“Then it shall be. Just”—seeming to forget all over again where they were, he wrapped his arms around his waist and pressed his brow against her hip—“don’t ever do this to me again. You nearly broke my damn heart, and I’m not at all used to having one.”

“I’m sorry.” She truly meant the apology. But no sooner had she spoken than the happiness billowing inside her stirred her to mischief. “Though, you know, you’re saying such wonderful things to me. That might tempt me to run away often.”

“For fuck’s sake, Belle”—his laughter was muffled but undeniable—“I can say this to you at home. Every day if you want. Every hour.”

“Wouldn’t that get tedious?”

“Not if it pleased you. Don’t you understand, you ridiculous creature? I’d do anything for you. Anything. ”

“You shouldn’t,” she tried. And then, “I don’t—”

“Belle.” He silenced her with nothing more than her name, sweet and perfect on his lips. “Whatever you think you need to say, on this occasion you don’t. What you have done for me is immeasurable. I wish to do immeasurable things for you in return.”

“But I haven’t—”

“You saw me like no-one else has ever seen me. Fought for me like no-one else has ever fought for me. Cared for me like no-one else has ever cared for me. You’ve given me a life. You’ve given me a home. You’ve given me ... a pig, apparently.”

She tried to hold on to lightness. “No, how dare you; she’s my pig.”

“Fine. You keep your pig.” When he smiled up at her, she saw his tears were flowing freely now. “You’ve given me hope. In myself, and in the world. You’ve taught me how to share that hope with others. You’ve made me happy beyond anything I could have imagined possible. You are my best friend and my most cherished companion. I have never had a dull day with you in it, and I don’t think I ever will. I would choose you, Mrs. Tarleton, I would choose us, I would choose the life we are making together, over the phantasms I once called love.”

“You don’t have to choose. With me, you’ll never have to choose.”

He rose shakily but kept her hand. “I know that. When you fled, it was the only time you’ve ever tried to make me.”

“I didn’t realise,” she admitted mournfully, “that was what I was doing.”

“Then all the more reason to stay ...” He paused, interrupting himself with an odd, self-conscious laugh. “To stay until you’re bored.”

She met his eyes, silly, flighty Arabella Tarleton steady for once. “I will never be bored with you, Rufus.”

“Then stay forever.”

Drawing her into his arms, he pulled her against his body, enfolding her completely, and held on so tightly that it squeezed every drop of fear from her. Banished every moment she had felt lacking or insufficient or broken or monstrous. She was just a person, like any other, flawed and messy and doing her best, as right for Rufus as he was for her.

It didn’t even matter that, just at present, he smelled considerably of horse.

“I believe in this,” he whispered. “I believe in you. This is the fairy tale. This is the happy ever—”

A horn blast broke the moment ignominiously.

“What the hell was that?” asked Rufus.

“Oh.” Distracted, Belle had started rootling in her reticule for a handkerchief. “It’s the boat departing for Calais.”

He gave her arm a little shake. “Belle, we can’t be on a boat to Calais. We have to go home. People are waiting for us.”

“I mean, we can ask the captain to stop, but I doubt he will.”

Something wicked flashed in Rufus’s eyes. “Then we shall have to disembark.”

“What? No—you can’t—don’t you dare—”

“Together, Mrs. Tarleton?” he asked.

She sighed, as though this was not secretly one of the best, most beautiful, and most exciting things that had ever happened to her. “If you insist, Mr. Tarleton.”

Sweeping her into his arms, he leapt unhesitatingly over the gunwale. And, laughing, they plunged into the chill waters of the Channel.