Lament for a lost lover

“Did you think I could stay away? There was much business, but I was determined to be with you.” He blew out the candle he was carrying. “We shall not need it,” he said.

I struggled up, but he was beside me, pinning me down.

“There is so much to say.”

“We shall have the rest of our lives in which to say it, Arabella. I have been thinking of you all through the day. At last. At last ... My heart’s desire ...” I heard myself laugh. “To hear you talk so ... it is unlike you. Sentimental ...”

“I can be sentimental, romantic ... foolish ... with one woman in the world. You are that woman, Arabella. At last you know it.”

“You should not be here,” I said.

“There is no other place where I should be.”

I suppose everyone wonders at himself or herself at some time. I wondered them. Afterwards I could tell myself that I was so unhappy, so wretched that I had to stop myself thinking. I had to be shocked into forgetfulness.

In any case that night, without the aid of spirits or love potions, I was submissive ... no, not that ... responsive ... and I knew that in the morning I should despise myself for giving way so blatantly to the sensuous demands of my nature. When I awoke I was alone in my bed, and as before with the coming of daylight, I was surprised at my behaviour on the previous night. It seemed that I had two natures-one daytime and one my nighttime other self. Carleton filled my thoughts so that I even forgot to brood on Edwin’s deceit. What was the outcome to be? There seemed an inevitable solution. Marriage.

Marriage with Carleton, who clearly wanted it so that as Edwin’s stepfather he could have a stronger control over the Eversleigh estates. I had been married once for convenience. Should I do so again? Oh, but with Edwin ... I thought of those delightful interludes which had seemed to me the expression of pure romantic love. I shivered. I would never again allow myself to be so used.

When I went to breakfast Carleton was already there.

He smiled at me. “Good morning, dear Arabella.” One of the servants was hovering and he went on with a lift of his eyebrows: “I trust you slept well?”

“Thank you, yes,” I replied.

“The rain has stopped at last,” he added. “Let us take a turn in the garden after breakfast, shall we?”

“I should like that,” I replied.

When we were a little way from the house he said: “The question now, Arabella, is not will you but when will you marry me?”

“I am not sure about marrying.”

“What! You do not want to remain my mistress, surely?” I was angry with him just as I used to be. He had the power to make me so. In place of the passionate lover who could be sentimental and romantic just for me, here was the cynic, the Court wit, the man I always wanted to do battle with. “Let us forget what has happened.”

“Forget the most wonderful nights of my life! Oh, come, Arabella, that is asking too much.”

“You are mocking me as you ever do.”

“No, I am serious. When my uncle returns I shall tell him the good news. He will be delighted. I know he has long decided that a marriage between us would be an ideal solution for Eversleigh.”

“I am tired of being a pawn in this Eversleigh game.”

“Not a pawn, my darling. I told you once before, you are a queen.”

“A piece then ... to be moved about this way and that. I am not at all sure that I want to marry you.”

“Arabella, you shock me. Remembering what I shall never, never forget ...”

“You tricked me. You shocked me ... and then you gave me something to drink. What was it?”

He laughed at me and lifted his eyebrows again.

“My secret, “he said.

I turned away. “I am undecided,” I retorted.

“At least there is some hope.”

“After what happened ...”

“And it will happen again.”

“I don’t want it to.”

“Oh, Arabella, still deceiving yourself! There was no magic in a glass last night and yet, and yet ...”

“Oh, you ... you ...!”

He took my hand and kissed it. “Tonight when they return we shall tell them?”

“No,” I said.

“You are surely not thinking of my rival Geoffrey now, are you?”

I was not, but I could not resist the impulse to let him think I might be. “Because,” he said, “there would be trouble. Don’t think that what has happened between us is an isolated incident. When we are alone together it will happen again. We’re drawn together like the moon and the sun ...”

“You are the sun in this partnership, I presume?”

“What does it matter which is which? It’s the drawing power of which I speak. Our being lovers is inevitable. It was from the first. I knew it. I wanted you. I wondered I didn’t take you down to the arbour and show you how your husband died. Taken in adultery.”

“Stop it!”

“I’m sorry. You arouse the worst in me ... and the best, because you are the most maddening woman on earth ... and yet I adore you.”