actions this holiday. If he is true to his word, then we shall see about the divorce.’ He paused for a moment. ‘If you still wish for it, that is.’
Here was her chance to admit that her feelings on the subject had changed. She approached the subject elliptically, as he had. ‘I understand,’ she said, ‘that the courts of England are not likely to be co-operative in the matter of a divorce. Once the bonds between two people are set they are not to be easily broken.’
‘That is probably for the best,’ he answered. ‘But there should be some regard to the happiness of the individuals involved. It would not be good to force someone to remain if they were truly unhappy.’
And she had been miserable.
That was why she had left. She had loved him dearly, and still did, but it had not been enough to make a happy marriage. If she came back to him, perhaps for a while she could pretend that his silence didn’t matter to her. She would forgo the companionship of other men so as not to arouse his jealousy, and she would learn to speak around the things that were most important to her, so as not to upset the delicate balance between them. But if it was to be just the two of them, alone until death?
‘We are not likely to have any children,’ she blurted, unable to avoid the truth a moment longer.
He tensed. ‘Are they necessary for a happy union?’
‘I assumed, when you offered for me, that they must be a primary concern to you. There is the title to consider, after all.’
‘Well, yes, of course.’ He glanced around them. ‘I just choose not to discuss it in the middle of a crowded ballroom.’
She all but forgot the promise she had made to herself to be patient with his reticence. Once she came home she might never get a second chance to say what she needed to. ‘No, Harry. You choose not to speak of it at all. You have left me to guess your opinions on the matter.’
‘We are speaking of it now, aren’t we?’ He lowered his voice, hoping that she would follow suit.
She looked from her husband to the people around them. ‘I know. It is the wrong venue, if we do not want our problems known to all of London. But at least I know that you cannot walk away in the middle, before you have heard what I mean to say.’ She took a deep breath. ‘In daylight, you treat me like a child if I wish to discuss matters of importance. But at night it is clear that you know I’m a grown woman, for you do not wish to talk at all. You visit me regularly enough. But I assume that you are hoping for a result from those visits. It must be gravely disappointing to you.’
She felt his spine stiffen. And suddenly it was as though she were dancing with a block of wood. ‘I was under the impression that you enjoyed sharing a bed with me.’
‘I never said I did not.’
He began to relax again, and his fingers tightened on her waist in a way that offered a return to intimacy should she be inclined.
She continued. ‘But, pleasurable or not, I am beginning to think that nothing will come of it.’
‘Nothing.’ He grew stiff and cold again. ‘And I suppose you think you will do better with someone else? Is this one more way that you believe Tremaine to be my superior?’
‘I did not say that.’ For she was not the one that needed an heir.
‘But neither are you denying it.’ He stopped dancing and released her. ‘Go to him, then, and see if it is better. It is obvious that I have nothing that you want. And I certainly cannot buy you children.’ Then he turned and left her alone on the floor.
Rosalind leaned against the closed door of the library and felt the breath come out of her in a great, choking sob. She had done an excellent job controlling her emotions, in regard to Tremaine. And now it was all collapsing. It had taken years to convince herself that her first response to him had been the result of alcohol and inexperience. She had been sure that if she met him again she would find him no different from a hundred other town bucks. He would be no more handsome, no quicker to take advantage of a foolish girl, than if he were a man of better character.
But in comparison to the other men of her experience he was still perfection: sharp-witted, urbane and funny. And at such moments as he chose to turn his attention upon her he was no easier to resist than he had been that first day. And when they danced…
It was not fair. It simply was not. To be in the arms of a man one barely knew and feel convinced that one was home at last, finally in the place where one belonged. To feel all the wrongness and confusion of the rest of her life vanish like a bad dream. And to know that when the music ended she would find that she had confused dreams and reality again. Nicholas Tremaine was the fantasy. Not all the rest.
If she could have a moment alone to gather her wits she would return to the ballroom as though nothing strange had happened. She would claim any redness of the eyes as brought about by cinders from the Yule Log.
‘Rosalind? Open the door, please. We need to talk.’
She glared at the wood, as though she could see through it to the man on the other side. ‘I think we have talked more than enough, Tremaine. I have nothing to say to you at the moment.’
‘I need to know that you are all right before I return to the dancing.’
‘I am fine. Thank you. You may go.’
‘Rosalind! Open this door.’ He was speaking more loudly than necessary, perhaps so that he could be heard clearly through the oak.
She rubbed at the tears on her cheeks. ‘Don’t be an ass. I am perfectly all right. Go back to the dancing, and to your…your…usual partner.’ The words came in little gasps. Even without opening the door it would be obvious to him that she was crying. She winced at having revealed herself so clearly.
‘Now, Rosalind.’ His tone had changed to coaxing. ‘What you think you saw in the hall today-it was nothing.’
‘Nothing?’ she parroted back. ‘Tell that to Harry, for he says much the same thing. But I am not blind, nor foolish, nor too young to know better. I can recognise “nothing” when I see it. “Nothing” is what we share. But you and Elise have “something”.’
‘Barely anything, really. We are old friends, just as I have told you. Exceptionally close, of course.’
‘Everyone knows about your “close” friendship, Tremaine. As apparently they always have. Nothing has changed in all these years. Everyone here can talk of nothing else.’ She tried not to think of that first foolish Christmas, when she had had no idea of the truth. And how much easier it had been to know only half the facts.
He cleared his throat. ‘It is not quite as it once was. When I first met you, Elise and I had an understanding, and I was not free. Now? Now we have a different sort of understanding. And until I can sort it out I cannot call my future my own.’
‘Your future is no concern of mine, Tremaine. Nor do I wish to speak of how it once was. Frankly, I would rather forget the whole thing. I wish it had never happened.’
There was a long pause. ‘And is that why you ran from the room after we danced? Because it reminded you of the first time we waltzed? I remember it well.’ His voice had gone soft again, quiet and full of seduction. ‘You were spying on the other dancers. I put a finger to your lips, to let you know that what we were doing was to be secret, and I pulled you out of the doorway and waltzed you around the corridor.’
She remembered the finger on her lips, and the feel of his arms. And how, when she had been confused by the steps, he had held her so close that he could lift her feet from the ground and do the dancing for both of them, until she had dissolved into giggles. And then the giggles had changed to something much warmer, almost frightening. He had set her back down on her feet rather suddenly, and put a safe space between them to continue the dance. She wrapped her arms tightly around her own shoulders, trying to focus on the disaster that had ended the evening and not on how wonderful the dancing had been. But she would always remember her first waltz as a special thing, no matter what had come later.
His voice was quieter, more urgent. ‘And I distinctly remember thinking, Ah, my dear, if only you were older…’
She dropped her arms to her sides. ‘Really? Well, I am quite old enough now. And it makes no difference. Elise still leads you about like a puppy, and you still dawdle behind, sniffing after any available female. And if any of them get too close, you have Elise and your poor broken heart as an excuse to remain unmarried. Do not think you can play that game with me, Tremaine, for I know how badly it will end.’
