Chapter 8

Eventually exhaustion proved the victor. What was left of Sir Horley’s strength gave out, and he collapsed onto the grassy verge that ran alongside the road. Throwing up, or failing to throw up, should not have felt so familiar. But he remembered fragments of moonlight. Fingers curling uselessly into dirt. Sheets that smelled of Bonny. Belle leaning over him, her hair the impossible gold of a hobgoblin’s promises as it spilled over his wrist.

Then you might as well marry me.

“Here.” In the present—assuming that, too, was actually happening—Belle was kneeling at his side, offering him a flask.

Too defeated even to question, he took it shakily from her and drank. It was just water, a little brackish, a little warm. But in his mouth it was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. He had to force himself to sip, rather than consume it in great ugly gulps.

“Did you say something?” asked Belle.

He hadn’t intended to. But apparently he was now vomiting out his thoughts as well as his innards. “‘Purge me with hyssop.’”

“I don’t think I’m into that.”

“It’s a psalm.”

“Which improves the situation how?”

Inexplicably and against all reason, his lips pulled upwards, tempted towards a smile. “‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’”

“In my experience, and I do have some because Bonny ate a bad oyster once, those who have undergone purgation of any kind are rarely whiter than snow.”

“I understand it’s meant to be more of a light sprinkling.”

“You don’t need any hyssop, Sir Horley.”

“I am well beyond its power.”

Belle seemed unimpressed, even by the standards of a woman who was not overly inclined to pressedness. “If David had been more like you, at least Bathsheba would have been able to bathe in peace.”

“Ah.” Despite feeling slightly better, Sir Horley was still not capable of gestures beyond mild twitching. But he twitched emphatically now. “The good Lord had a plan for my ilk all along. We exist that ladies may perform their ablutions undisturbed.”

“You mock,” Belle pointed out, “but given how your desirous counterparts have historically interacted with ladies performing their ablutions, I see nothing but positives for everyone in this arrangement.”

There was no reasonable answer he could give to this, although being Belle, she would likely have accepted an unreasonable one just as readily. Possibly even preferred it. So, they lingered in silence by the roadside, Sir Horley progressing from prone to partially upright with all the elan of a slug upon a windowpane, while the coachman and under-coachman stretched their legs at a discreet distance. Whatever Valentine paid them, they were probably beginning to feel it wasn’t enough.

It would have been quite a nice day to get married. It was even a fairly decent day for dry heaving into hedgerows. Not too hot, not too breezy, the sky marbled by pale wisps of cloud to break the monotony of blue. Some part of him was expecting to wake up. Find himself back in his aunt’s house. A dark room. Too many bottles. Events still waiting to play out as they were meant to.

The previous evening was still mostly moments, vivid but disconnected, raindrops caught upon a broken spider’s web. But it was easy enough to imagine what had happened. The way he might have responded, when his defences were down, to words he knew better than to believe. Wasn’t this exactly the kind of nonsense he’d wanted to avoid when he’d pushed his friends out of his life? Or was it, in some pathetic, barely acknowledged way, what he had secretly been hoping for? Someone to do something foolish, unnecessary, ridiculous for him. To prove he was worthy of it. That he mattered. Even the possibility of the thought was beyond humiliating. It made him nauseous all over again, but this time it had nothing to do with his body. Nausea of the soul. Was that something?

Oh, why could those damn Tarletons never leave anything alone? Well. Tarleton on this occasion. Just the one. Just Belle. Had her brother even spared him a thought? Probably not. Bonny was too busy being happy. And wasn’t that what Sir Horley had tried to give him? It was too late now to resent it.

“You should try a little of this too,” Belle said at last, producing another flask.

“What is it? Arsenic?” He took a whiff, and it almost set his eyes to watering. “Hair of the dog. Why, Arabella, I thought you didn’t approve of my drinking.”

“I don’t. I have no idea what you see in it—”

“I see nothing in it. That’s the appeal.”

“You know”—she slanted a sharp look at him—“I rather enjoy you like this.”

He arched a dubious brow, wary of where this might be going. “Like what exactly?”

“So cynical and self-destructive. It’s very gothic.”

“It’s not gothic,” he snapped, riled, despite his best intentions, by her insouciance. “It’s who I am.” And then, recalling a time when he had been insouciant, too, and they had been insouciant together, he scraped up the dregs of a smile. “Fine, I’m absurd. But I’m also a rather unpleasant person who has lived a rather unpleasant life and been not wholly undeservedly unhappy for a great deal of it.”

“Of that sentence, the only part of it I believe is that you’ve been unhappy.”

“How very lovely of you, then, to make sport of it.”

“Well, I’m rather unpleasant too,” Belle said, unruffled. “Besides, would you have accepted solace?”

“Probably not,” he conceded.

She nudged her shoulder lightly against his. It was the sort of thing she might have done back when they’d been friends, but it felt different now they weren’t. Or rather, now she knew too many truths about him. It made him shiver with the same strange longing as her fingers against his brow and upon his neck. Except he hardly knew what it was he longed for. Certainly nothing he had ever sought before. Or expected to receive.

Distracted, half-dismayed, he swigged from Belle’s second offering. For strong liquor it went down far too easily. He could likely have downed the whole flask. Part of him wanted to. Quite a lot of him wanted to. But he wasn’t sure he could allow himself to in front of Belle, and so he handed it back.

“Keeping an eye on me?” he drawled. “It’s like we’re married already.”

She shrugged. “Not really. I was just thinking how very good you are at consuming alcohol. I can hardly make it through half a glass of whisky without spluttering.”

“Practice, my dear.”

The slightest of pauses. Then, “I think ...” She sounded oddly hesitant for Belle. “I think I read somewhere that it can help. To take a little alcohol, I mean. If you have been used to taking a lot.”

“Is this your way of telling me to moderate my intake?”

She drew her knees up beneath her dress and hugged them. “I’d rather not be wed to someone who is drinking himself to death. But I’d also rather not be wed to someone I am obliged to command or who expects to command me.”

And there it was. Point non plus.

“Miss Tarleton,” he said, as gently as he could. “You must see we cannot marry.”

Somewhat predictably, as was the way of a Tarleton crossed, she pouted. “We’ve already had this conversation.”

“When I was drunk.”

“If it’s any consolation, you were still difficult to persuade.”

“And that didn’t give you pause?”

“Sir Horley, you’ve met me.”

He blinked, not sure whether he was exasperated or secretly—in some foolish, unbroken corner of his heart—charmed. “Good point, well made.”

“Besides, we can’t go back. Your aunt made it clear she would not forgive you, and, frankly, I don’t believe you should forgive her either.”

“What do I have to forgive her for?”

“Oh.” Belle’s voice cracked with some emotion that bewildered him. “Many, many things. But setting the dogs on you last night might be a start?”

“Wait. What?”

“She set the—”

“No, no, I heard. I’m simply surprised I’m surprised.”

“She was also extremely rude.”

“That I’m even less surprised about.”

“And you destroyed her topiary.”

That drew a half laugh from him, though it was bitter enough to sting his own tongue. “Ah yes. I always take a stand against the things that really matter.”

“I’m afraid it was the lack of standing that did for the topiary.”

This time, his laugh was softer and sounded faintly startled, even to his own ears. Yet another reason to bring an end to this. “Forgiveness has never been on the cards as far as Aunt Ruth is concerned. But I believe with time and patience we can probably work our way back to a relationship where she doesn’t want me torn apart by dogs.”

“Mm,” said Belle. “Aspirational indeed.”

“And Miss Carswile is sure to forgive me. She’s too grotesquely Christian not to. The wedding can be rescheduled. Which, in turn, will please my aunt. Or at least make her less inclined to murder me in cold blood.”

Belle hugged her knees tighter. “It is not right of you to marry Miss Carswile. Let’s not pretend otherwise.”

If she had sounded condemnatory, he would have been able to defend himself. Unfortunately, she just sounded sad. And that made sadness—sadness and even a touch of guilt—prickle at him in return. “She knows what I am.”

“Knowing something is not the same as understanding it.”

There. This, exactly this, was what he had needed to avoid. It was complicated enough to go through with something against your personal inclinations without also having to defend your right to do so. “For someone who feels as you do about romance, you seem to have extraordinarily romantic ideas about marriage.”

“I’m aware it’s a matter of duty for you.”

“Duty,” he agreed, “and a mild disinclination to starve on the street.”

“But if that’s truly all you care about: wealth, security, a place in society, atoning for some wrong you erroneously believe you did your aunt—”

“I fucked her husband. There is no erroneously about it.”

Belle cast herself back into the wildflowers—not the ones her companion had vomited over—her forearm pressed to her brow. “I am a simple woman, Sir Horley. I can only argue with you upon one subject at a time.”

“You cannot argue me into marriage,” he retorted.

“I only wish,” she retorted back, incorrigibly, “to understand why you will accept this compromise of your personal happiness with Miss Carswile but not with me when it might not be so much of a compromise?”

“For fuck’s sake”—the words escaped him in a moment of frustration—“because I like you.”

He wished he had not spoken. But he had also achieved the impossible: rendered a Tarleton speechless. Belle’s mouth opened and closed several times. “That was very much not the impression you gave last night.”

So he’d hurt her, then? Probably in some nebulous attempt to do right by her. As he was trying to do now. Except it felt execrable. A novel new flavour of thinking little of himself. “Of course I like you. Who could not?”

“Oh.” She gave a pretty little laugh he knew was practiced. As hollow as all his careless ways. “Lots of people—haven’t you noticed?”

“Well, they’re wrong.”

“I’m not sure they are. I’m quite annoying.”

“Belle, don’t you see?” Unable to bear these glimpses of her pain, he let out a slow, surrendering breath. He might as well be honest about one thing. “You’re everything I pretended to be when I claimed I was your friend.”

“Which is what exactly?”

“Brave. Kind. Generous. Fun to be around.”

“I’m mean, Sir Horley. Everyone knows I’m mean.”

He gave her a reluctant smile. “Mean is fun.”

“And we did have fun.” Her tone turned ruthlessly coaxing.

“I was happier than I’ve ever been in my life. And I was still profoundly miserable.” More honesty, though probably less comforting to her than his previous admission. He finished the water in a couple of deep swallows and pushed himself to his feet. “You cannot help me, Belle.”

She squinted up at him, the sun threading glitter through the strands of her hair, spread wide across the grassy verge. “You could try helping yourself. Just a suggestion.”

“I won’t marry you. I can’t do that to you.”

“But you will to Miss Carswile?”

“She won’t care. She’s a sanctimonious pill.”

Belle’s eyes flashed ice. “She’s not a pill. She ... she’s misguided. Which you’ve done nothing to remedy.”

“Come.” It was difficult to take decisive action upon legs that felt like daisy stalks. But he wobble-strode over to the carriage as best he could. “We’re going back to my aunt’s.”

“No,” Belle cried. “Wait.”

What followed was a jumble. Disordered impressions—the rapid pitter-patter of boots upon the road, the stirred air of someone else’s motion, a hand closing around his elbow—partially submerged beneath the rush of instinct. It was only when he heard Belle’s startled yip that he realised he had her pinned against the side of the carriage, his forearm pressed to her throat.

“My God.” He pulled away quickly. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She only glared at him, far angrier than she was afraid. “Don’t be sorry. Stop being nonsense.”

“This isn’t nonsense.”

“It is nonsense. You can’t marry a woman because you don’t care if you hurt her.”

“I can only marry a woman I don’t care if I hurt.”

“No.” She shook her head rapidly. “No. You are not that man.”

“You have no idea what kind of man I am,” he reminded her.

Her finger caught him hard in the chest. It was the most brutal poke he had ever experienced. “Wrong. You have no idea what kind of man you are.”

For a moment they just stared at each other, both breathing heavily, Sir Horley trembling slightly. The confrontation had shaken him with its unexpectedness. And he had shaken himself with his own actions. It had been a kind of animal panic, a relic of battlefields past, drawn to the surface by all the other ways he felt trapped, helpless, and under attack. But it still horrified him, that spectre of violence, lurking in his skin.

“I am a gentleman,” he said softly. “I ‘toil not, neither do I spin.’ To live I must wed. And when I do ...”

He only realised he had stopped speaking when Belle prompted him with an equally soft “What?”

He hardly knew how to continue. There was honesty. And then there were truths like these. The terrible nakedness of them. “I’m not fit for what Bonny and Valentine have. God knows, I would sell my soul for it, if my soul was worth a clipped copper. I don’t know if I ever truly let myself seek it or if I always recognised it would be futile. But I do know that when I marry, I give up even the hope of it.”

“You are fit for whatever you need,” Belle told him, with that unbearable, impossible, Tarletonian ferocity. “And I would stand in the way of no love you wanted to share.”

“I’m sure.” He raised his hand, intending to brush her cheek as he might once have done, then dropped it again, fearing she might flinch from him. “But it wouldn’t be the same. It would always feel like a compromise. A poor simulacrum of what I truly wanted.”

“And so,” she asked, “you seek misery?”

He shrugged. “Better that than letting someone I care for take my last dream of happiness. That would be too much even for me to lose.”

Silence fell between them and lingered for long, heavy moments. Belle’s gaze was distant, her teeth digging abstractedly into her lower lip. “For the record,” she said at last, “I agree with none of this. Absolutely none of this. Do you understand?”

A pained kind of fondness rolled through him. “I understand you agree with absolutely none of this.”

“But it’s your life and your decision.”

“You mean”—he could not keep the shock from his voice—“you’ll take me back?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was sincerely not attempting to abduct you.” Pushing past him, as though he was not stronger and taller than she was, and had never thrown her against her carriage, she waved a readiness to depart to the coachman, then pulled open the door and climbed aboard. At his hesitation, she made an impatient gesture. “Are you coming?”

Was this the first time in history a Tarleton had ever changed their mind about anything? He should have been triumphant. Or relieved. Relieved would have done. But he felt almost nothing. “Yes,” he said quickly. “Yes.”

As she reached down a hand to help him, he caught again the dance of the sun in her hair—mellow light that spun the evening through her curls, turning the gold tawny.

The evening? Oh no.

“Belle?”

“Sir Horley?”

“How long have we been travelling?”

She peered over his shoulder at the sky. “Some of the night, and nearly all of the day. Why?”

“Did anyone see us?”

“Travelling?”

“Travelling. Departing. At any point.”

“Well, your aunt made rather a scene at the inn.”

“Fuck.” Whatever little strength remained fled Sir Horley’s limbs, and he crumpled into a sitting position in the carriage doorway. “Fuck.”

Belle regarded him with growing concern. “Whatever is the matter now?”

“Your reputation.”

“I don’t care a fig about that.”

“You should. This will be a scandal, assuming it isn’t one already.”

“So?”

“So,” he snapped, “you’ll never be able to do anything in society again.”

“Possibly not. But to be honest, I was intending to go home anyway. I ... I don’t think London has anything to offer me.”

He ran his hands through his hair, then pulled at it hard, hoping the sting of pain would ... help somehow? Provide him with some miraculous solution to his current quandary. Instead, he started to laugh and then found himself unable to stop.

“You’re being very strange,” Belle said.

“I’ve ruined you.” Sir Horley’s voice wavered with too much mirth and not enough breath. “I’ve never so much as touched a woman in a sexual way, and I’ve ruined one. I’ve not even lifted a skirt or bared a breast. How has this happened?”

Belle huffed out an aggrieved sigh. “You haven’t ruined me.”

But now Sir Horley’s laughter had become something else, and tears were spilling over his fingers as he tried to cover his eyes. “Belle, my sweet Bellflower, don’t you see? I’ve ruined us both.”