Chapter 14

14

Certain circumstances of a private nature meant that Lady Ashby was able to make no progress with her list for several days. Their next casual meeting naturally took place in front of others, and Leo grew anxious when she smiled on him but made no effort to arrange a further rendezvous. He began to wonder if something was amiss until she contrived to whisper that she was suffering from a feminine indisposition. He was conscious that his face cleared in comprehension and relief – she had not tired of him, she was not regretting all that had passed between them so far, she meant to continue – and he pressed her hand with what he hoped was a very speaking look of sympathy.

He was both sorry and not sorry that their intimacy proceeded no further for a while. Sorry because he was speculating on what might come next; he thought that there were a couple of things that were obvious – but he might be wrong – and he was tormenting his nights with dreaming of them. Dreaming of her. He was in an almost constant state of sexual arousal and was, he knew, responding almost at random to remarks addressed to him. She was a drug to him, and he craved her like any addict.

But he wasn't at all sure that sexual release would cure him. It hadn't yet. He'd spilt himself between her lovely breasts and he was still obsessed; he didn't imagine that coming inside her, greatly though he desired it, was any likelier to set him free. God knows he didn't want it to. He was a prisoner who dreaded the day of his release and hoped it would be long delayed. He knew with painful clarity that all this must end one day, and he was more than content to wait and postpone the dreadful hour a little. His body might not be so patient, but his heart was. He didn't want her to cross the last item from her list, whether that was fifteen or fifty or five hundred, and send him on his way. So a pause was welcome. He was, in this as in everything else, her servant.

He was also, he was brought to realise a day or so later, painfully obvious in his affections. Leo did not know if Cassandra had noticed and told Hal, or if Hal – newly attuned to the tender emotions as he was – had observed his sad state, but in any case, one afternoon when they were alone together in Lord Irlam's library his cousin said abruptly, ‘Not been quite yourself these past weeks, Leo, wouldn't you say?'

He looked up from his wine glass, startled, and saw that Hal was regarding him with affection, and a little concern. He thought for a moment of denying everything, saying he had no idea what Hal was babbling on about, but it would be futile – Irlam wasn't stupid – and unfair to one who was the closest to a brother he had, or would ever have. ‘No,' he said, and took an incautiously deep swig of Madeira that made his eyes water. ‘No, I don't suppose I have.'

‘Care to tell me about it? There's no need to reveal to me with a fanfare of trumpets the object of your attentions, old boy – I'm not a complete imbecile.'

‘I never thought you were. Yes. I do love her, Hal.'

‘Of course you do. No reason you shouldn't. I don't think she's indifferent to you, either. You seem to get along famously, the two of you. So why do you hesitate to declare yourself, and why are you so down in the mouth?'

‘She doesn't want to marry again. Is determined not to.'

Hal made a rude noise and said, ‘Nonsense. The way she looks at you… I'm sure she's been hurt, had a terrible time of it, poor girl, to be widowed so young. But I'm sure all you need is a little time and patience. Has she explicitly refused you?'

‘I haven't asked her. I don't intend to – it's the last thing she wants from me, and it would ruin everything. It's far more complicated than you can know, Hal.'

‘It always is,' said Lord Irlam with weary resignation, as if he spent half his life hearing that something or other was more complicated than he could possibly suspect. ‘Always. It's this family – touched in the upper works, the whole lot of us, I'm beginning to think. Wouldn't have said you were one of those with his attics to let, of course, before this, but very little surprises me now. I'm used to dealing with Georgie's affairs, remember. Nothing you've embroiled yourself in could possibly be more tangled than the unholy mess she and Northriding made for themselves a couple of months back, and yet look at them now, smelling of April and May, enough to make a fellow queasy.'

Leo laughed hollowly. ‘You're wrong, you know. I don't know the ins and outs of Georgie's troubles, and Lord knows I don't want to, but I don't see how this can be solved. It's quite hopeless.'

‘I don't know about that, but I can see it's causing you pain. I'd like to help, if I can. I can listen, anyway. It might relieve your feelings, you never know.'

Captain Winterton looked at his cousin's open face and knew that if he were to tell anybody at all of his predicament it must be Hal. This was a man who'd shouldered more than his fair share of life's responsibilities, though he was not yet thirty, and he was utterly trustworthy and unlikely to judge. Setting aside Georgie's doings over the last year or so, Hal's brother Bastian and his aunt Louisa, though they were necessarily discreet about it, both lived what most people would consider highly irregular, even sinful lives, with companions of their own sex, and he thought no less of them for it, and loved them both as much as he had ever done. It was probably true that nothing could shock or surprise him. He was sorely tempted, and almost sure he could trust Hal to be discreet – but it was not his secret alone, and so he couldn't take the risk.

He said, ‘I appreciate the offer, Hal, don't think I'm not sensible of your kindness. But I can't go into detail – forgive me. It's enough to know that I love her, and there's no future in it. She may, as you say, not be entirely indifferent to me. But it's of no consequence since her mind is quite made up that she will never marry again. Can we speak of something else?'

Hal, his face troubled, had no option but to agree, and the painful subject was abandoned.