Chapter 33

33

It was not possible for Leo to absent himself from the Castle for the whole of another day while he remained a guest there. He might resolve to be far distant from the blue saloon, generally used for receiving guests, during the hours in which morning calls were generally paid, but he found he simply didn't have the stamina for another afternoon spent trudging through muddy fields and then drinking in the village inn. Tom Wainfleet was too quiet for him, and Bastian and Matthew too cheerful, too damn young and bright-eyed and happy together. Everything irritated him. He felt as though a layer or two of his skin had been removed, and quite normal things – the bone-chilling cold, loud noises such as a startled bird bursting from the undergrowth, a dropped spoon at table – affected him in a manner he found frankly pathetic.

He hadn't spoken to her, nor she to him. Not really. The commonplaces exchanged in front of others did not count. To be close to her, and yet so at odds, was a torment he was not sure he could long endure. But if he left…

To set a cap upon the day, his mother cornered him while he was mooching miserably about the Castle late in the morning and dragged him into her sitting room – she had her own pleasant suite of rooms, decorated and furnished to her taste, that were always at her disposal – for a comfortable coze: words to strike horror into any son's guilty heart.

‘What's the matter, Leo?' she asked once there, in tones that took him straight back to his boyhood. She had usually been able to soothe his petty worries then, but he knew she could not help him now. Nobody could.

There was little point in dissembling, though he had no intention of telling her everything. ‘Is it so obvious?' he said, smiling bleakly.

‘Of course it is. I'm your mother, for heaven's sake. I thought at first that you were out of humour because of the ridiculous fuss all those young ladies made over you at the assembly.' She had the gall to say this as though she'd had nothing to do with this occurrence and hadn't enjoyed every minute of it enormously. ‘But I've realised it's more than that. What is it?'

‘I have developed a… tendre for Lady Ashby. I had begun to think, to hope, that she might reciprocate my feelings in some measure.'

‘She was watching you the other evening when you were dancing, though she tried not to show it,' agreed his mother complacently. ‘I must admit it crossed my mind too.'

How had she had time to notice that when she'd been so busy matchmaking? It was a mystery he did not care to enquire too deeply into just now. ‘I began to declare myself…' He could not truthfully say that he had asked Isabella to marry him, for she had not let him get that far. ‘But she was horrified. She told me plainly what indeed I should have known already: that she is devoted to the memory of her dead husband, and never intends to marry again.'

‘I'm sorry,' said his mother soberly. ‘I could see, of course, that you were attracted to her immediately upon your arrival and hers.' Why ‘of course'? She saw the thought cross his face – apparently, he was as easy to read as Isabella was, for his mother at least, which was unwelcome news – and she said, ‘Naturally I can tell these things where you are concerned. But I had no idea it was so serious. And I suppose I thought you might consider her out of your reach, as the widow of a duke's son.'

‘When did any man ever truly consider the woman he loved out of his reach?' said Leo bleakly. ‘But, not that it matters in the least now, she isn't. Her parents are gentlefolk of a similar standing to ourselves; she merely married well. Much like your sister.'

‘I had not known. She does not talk about herself a great deal, and I felt she would not welcome questioning she might consider vulgar.'

‘I doubt that's true; she is very straightforward when one comes to know her. But she doesn't care to speak about her husband. They were not married a year before he fell at Waterloo, and was brought back to her in Brussels, mortally wounded, to die in her arms.'

‘She has told you much, for one who does not talk about her husband,' remarked Mrs Winterton shrewdly. He was hardly going to tell her why, and so said nothing. ‘She's seen terrible sights no woman of her age, or any age, should be obliged to see. I'm sure it's no wonder it should have affected her so deeply. It may take her a long time to recover from them. It's barely been eighteen months, after all.'

‘I agree with you, Mama. But I have no option but to respect her decision. It is not my place to tell her that her feelings are somehow false. I don't believe they are, in fact, though I think you may be right that she is still in a state of shock. But many widows choose not to marry again, as you did.'

‘I had a child to consider. And although I did have an offer or two – did you know that, Leo? – nothing that tempted me sufficiently to upturn my life and yours, and follow a man halfway across England. There were plenty of men, of course, who would have been quite willing to come and live in your house, at your expense, and have the running of it. But I'd never have wed one of those. Hal's father was my trustee, and wouldn't have let me marry such a man even if I'd been foolish enough to want to.'

‘You don't regret it?' He was distracted from his misery for a moment.

She smiled at him. ‘No. Not at all.'

‘So you are counselling me to wait? Perhaps to try again in a year, two years?' It seemed very far off, but he could do it.

‘I suppose I am. You should have told me, Leo. I wouldn't have encouraged poor Susannah to set her cap at you.'

‘Just as long as you don't do it again, Mama. I didn't enjoy it. Though I know you did.'

She rose, came over to him, and took his hand. He squeezed hers in return, and they sat for a little while in silence.

After a while, she said, ‘Do you mean to go home? You might find it easier, I'd have thought, not being here where her presence is a constant reminder to you.'

He sighed. ‘I've thought of it. I feel it would be less painful, it is true. But then I consider that if I leave the Castle I do not know when, or if, I will ever see her again, and I find I do not have the strength to do it.' His unspoken addition was that Isabella would in any case surely be leaving soon enough herself. It was plain that being here was now making her deeply uncomfortable.

‘You can go to see her in Yorkshire; you might make a plan to do it,' said his mother encouragingly. ‘Perhaps next spring or summer.'

‘I can. I will. But I still don't want to deprive myself of these last few days with her, difficult though they are.'

‘You do not feel you could suggest a correspondence between you? She is no debutante; she can receive letters from male acquaintances without any particular appearance of impropriety, I believe. Perhaps it might be considered a little odd, but nothing more. She is her own mistress, or should be.'

She might be, but she was also his and always would be – as far as he was concerned, at least. Clearly, she no longer felt the same. ‘I can try, but I doubt she'll agree. I would expect her to say that it would lead me to have false hope. Which it would.'

His mother agreed that this was probably true, and had no further suggestions to ameliorate his distress. He did not feel his situation to be greatly improved by their conversation; he was as unhappy as he had been, and now his mother, who loved him, shared in some part of his misery. There had been no relief in talking about it, or none that was apparent to him now. But he supposed he could console himself a little with the reflection that at least his mama's attempts to marry him off to one or other of the young ladies of Hampshire, and to Susannah Peters in particular, would now cease. That was something, but not much.

Leo would not have imagined that he could well be more unhappy than he currently was: a common belief among suffering humans, and, as he was soon to discover, a mistaken one.