lured me from my Norfolk home. She still saw that in him, she'd said.
I could only see a man who'd let his achievements puff him up until he raged at minor disappointments. Brandon had wanted everything: the perfect wife, the perfect family, the perfect career, perfect devotion from me, the man he had created. He'd almost achieved all this until his pride destroyed it.
'I cannot help baiting him,' I said, hiding my uneasiness behind a sardonic tone. 'Brandon needs reminding that he ruined me. He can wait as long as he likes for me to fall on my knees and beg his forgiveness. I enjoy showing him that I've had done being his toady.'
'Damn you, Gabriel, do you think I enjoy it? Watching you at each other's throats, hurling abuse at one another? I left the room the other night, but I would have had to flee to the next county to avoid hearing you. The servants too were most embarrassed.'
'I know you get caught in our crossfire,' I said, chagrined. 'I am sorry. You know I never mean to hurt you.'
'But it does hurt me, and neither you nor my husband let that stop you. How many times will you apologize to me, how many times will I forgive you for friendship's sake? I am running out of forgiveness.'
I looked at her in sudden apprehension. 'You are the dearest friend I have in the world, Louisa. I try to keep my temper around your husband, but he is so damned provoking. I could chew through a spoon trying to hold in my anger when he begins pontificating. You must know by now that reconciliation is impossible.'
'Well you ought to chew through the spoon, then. And I know you will not reconcile. Both of you refuse to unbend. My meetings with you enrage my husband, as you know they do. I believe you encourage visits between myself and you simply to annoy him. And so these visits must stop.'
The floor seemed to tilt like the deck of a ship. 'Louisa, when I meet with you, it has nothing to do with your husband.'
'You might think so, but in the back of your mind, you know you are rubbing salt in the wound. And you delight in it.' She sighed. 'I too, am not guiltless. I have kept up our friendship, meeting you and telling him of it, almost daring him to say there is anything untoward. But defiance grows wearying after a time. I want it to end.'
My world tilted still more. 'What are you saying? That we must sacrifice our friendship to soothe Aloysius Brandon's temper?'
'I am saying that this farce has gone on long enough. If you and my husband will not reconcile, then I will not take your side against him. He is my husband. I live with him day after day, and I do not want to be at war with him. I am too old for this. I am forty-three, Gabriel, rather long in the tooth for storms. I want peace.'
'You will never find peace with Brandon,' I said darkly. I knew I was behaving foolishly, but a great gap of fear had opened at my feet.
'You are wrong. When he is not reminded of you or confronted by you, we are a most tranquil couple.'
Louisa was wrong again, I thought desperately. Her so-called tranquility was not harmony; it was simply the avoidance of painful subjects.
She lifted her chin, as though daring me to contradict her. 'I deserve that peace. I want it. And so I want you to stay away.'
I felt sick. I wanted to reach out and hold onto something. 'You are abandoning me?'
Louisa looked at me a long time, her eyes sad, but tired. 'Yes,' she said quietly.
I tried to still my panic. Louisa had no obligation to me, I told myself. We had been thrown together during our years in the regiment, she a commander's wife, me the cocksure officer who had risen on my own bravado. In times of fear, triumph, grief, and joy, I had always known that Louisa would be there. She was the firm ground in the quagmire of my life. Even when she'd not physically been present, the mere thought of her had been enough to bolster my spirits. I had gotten myself out of many a tight spot on a battlefield by swearing that I would make it back so I could tell Louisa the tale.
Now, in London, with our lives so dramatically changed, I needed her more than ever. I was lost here, but I was never lost with her.
Louisa fingered her cloak. 'You and Aloysius have forced me to choose, and I have chosen. I came here to tell you.'
My panic threatened to overwhelm me. 'Damn it, Louisa, seeing you, our friendship, that is what makes me live from day to day.'
Her eyes blazed anew, ingots in the cold room. 'Do not dare blackmail me with guilt, Gabriel. And do not dare fall into melancholia to sway me back to you. Next time I will not come running.'
It cost her to say those words. I saw that. But she had forced herself to say them. She was tired of me and my temper and my melancholia. She had finished with me.
And I could not bear it. 'Louisa, for God's sake. I'll lick his boots if you want me to. I'll attend Sunday dinner and raise a dozen toasts to him. I will do what you want.'
Louisa regarded me sadly, the heat gone. 'It is too late. Let it be done with.'
'Give me a chance to put things right, or at least make them better for you.'
'No,' she said. 'This entire rift was my doing from the beginning. Mine. So I am putting it right. You and Aloysius will have to live with it.' I must have looked as anguished as I felt, because Louisa's expression softened. 'I do not mean that I will cut you forever. We may speak when we meet. But nothing deeper than that. I cannot pretend any longer.'
She turned away.
'What do you mean?' I said. My throat ached. 'What do you mean you cannot pretend? Cannot pretend that you care for me? Tell me plainly.'
Louisa was at the door, hand on the door handle. 'Any words I tell you, you will twist. I will not let you.'
She opened the door. The voices of Mrs. Beltan's customers came to us, riding on a scent of warm yeast and baking bread.
I could not call after her. I could not beg her to stay. I could only stand there, my hands curling and uncurling, while the woman I cared for most in the world walked out of my life.
Chapter Twelve
I lost track of the time I sat in Mrs. Beltan's parlor after Louisa had gone. I'd sunk down onto the pillow- strewn couch where she'd sat, unable to move, unable to think. Time seemed to forget about me, and I forgot about it.
I could not believe I had been such a fool about a woman I cared for-again. I had loved my wife, Carlotta, loved her to distraction. And yet, I'd been impatient with her, brushed her aside with brusque words or snapped rebukes. All the while I'd think that, later, I would make it up to her, that I loved Carlotta so much I could explain and ask for forgiveness. She would understand, I was certain.
I could not see that all that time I had hurt Carlotta, hurt her deeply. And then, when later came, she'd been gone.
I'd been furious with myself when I'd discovered that Carlotta had eloped with her lover, knowing I only had myself to blame. I'd sworn that if ever I had another chance at happiness, I would be the kindest, most patient man a woman could ever know. I had learned my lesson, I'd thought, a hard and painful one.
And what had I done? Louisa had stood beside me through every one of my troubles-when Carlotta left me, when Brandon got us nearly thrown out of the Army, and now in London when our lives were so different. I owed Louisa my very life.
And, so, to repay her, I'd hurt her. I'd let my feud with Brandon blind me to the fact that I'd abused my friendship with Louisa and profoundly distressed her.
I sat still, angry with myself, and also angry with Louisa. Why had she not told me I'd upset her before this? Why had she not told me so that I might stop, might make amends before it was too late?
The answer, of course, was that she had told me. Since our return to London, Louisa had tried time and again to make me reconcile with Colonel Brandon, to put the past behind us. And time and again, I had refused.
I was a blind, bloody fool, and in that little parlor, warm from the baking ovens of Mrs. Beltan's shop, I faced
