Simon Bingley's Resolve, page 18
Nadia fumed inwardly, wondering if he was so full of self-importance that he actually believed she would welcome his proposal. Or could it be that Papa had not made it clear how disinclined she still was to accept him? Her father, she was fast learning, was a coward who valued Molineux’s friendship too much to risk offending him.
‘Nadia,’ he said softly. ‘Please do me the courtesy of giving me your full attention and listening to what I have to say.’
‘Oh, very well.’ She swirled to face him, her muslin skirts whipping around her ankles with an angry swish that perfectly reflected her frame of mind. ‘Say what you have come to say and let’s get it over with.’
‘So very gracious.’
‘If you require graciousness, Mr Molineux, propose to a lady who would welcome your interest. I have made it abundantly clear to you that I am not that lady, and I fail to understand why you persist. It is not gentlemanly.’ He scowled at the implied insult. ‘Why do you want to marry a woman who doesn’t even so much as like you?’
He winced and spread his hands. ‘I wish I knew. I have tried to put thoughts of you from my mind, but I can’t seem to manage it. It’s perplexing.’
‘Perhaps you should have tried a little harder.’ She fell into a chair and managed a wan smile. ‘It’s not as though I am beautiful. I’m not even particularly pretty. I certainly don’t keep my opinions to myself and will never make a biddable wife. I honestly cannot see what the attraction is.’
‘Perhaps I enjoy a challenge.’
‘Or perhaps you derive pleasure from pain. I have heard of people like you.’ Nadia lifted a shoulder. ‘I don’t like you, Mr Molineux, and I certainly don’t approve of the way in which you treat your slaves in Jamaica. I believe I told you so, quite forcibly, but it made no difference. Perhaps their pain gives you pleasure too. Either way, you will never listen to my point of view since I am a woman and naturally cannot be expected to have two sensible thoughts in succession.’
‘Be assured that I will always take your opinions into account, my dear.’
‘So you will free your slaves?’
He shook his head. ‘Alas, it is not that easy.’
‘It’s as I thought then,’ she said glumly. ‘You will listen to me only if my opinion matches your own. Let us not prolong this interview, Mr Molineux. I will marry you because I have no choice in the matter. My father owes you money and you will not release him from his debt unless you have me in your bed. So you have effectively purchased me and now I am one of your slaves.’ She lifted her chin and sent him an imperious look. ‘I hope that makes you satisfied.’
‘If I was not so desperately in love with you, I would not have resorted to such methods,’ he said, running a hand through his sparse hair. ‘I did try to win you over in Jamaica, you must grant me that much.’
‘But I did not return your interest and you refused to be gainsaid.’
‘Ouch!’ He smiled at her but the gesture seemed strained and she could sense malevolence lurking just beneath his polished exterior. He wasn’t accustomed to anyone speaking their mind and Nadia knew such impudence would not be permitted once they were wed. ‘You will come to enjoy my company when we know one another better, my dear.’ He raised her hand to his lips and slobbered over it. ‘Matters are agreed between us, then?’
She nodded reluctantly, unable to speak.
‘Very well. I shall withdraw and allow you to enjoy the rest of this week. I shall arrange for us to be married quickly by special licence. I see no profit in delay. In the meantime, I shall stay in the village inn and look for suitable estates to purchase. If I see anything that I think might suit, I shall send word so that you can look at it too before I make a decision.’ Again he attempted to smile but she snatched her hand from his grasp and turned away. ‘You see, I shall make a very considerate husband.’
She rang the bell to have him shown out and watched the door shut behind him, feeling close to despair. She knew now, or suspected, why he was so keen to have her for his wife. He was fascinated with her, but also intended to punish her. Punish her for the loss of his overseer and for daring to defy him.
Nadia returned to her room and sobbed with self-pity until her throat felt raw and she had no tears left.
*
Caroline sat beside the lake, completely alone, in the very spot where she had attempted to drown Lydia all those years ago. She wondered if being there would undermine her precarious state of mind, but the ghosts of past misdemeanours failed to materialise. She had a book in her lap but didn’t open it. Instead she watched the rippling water turning various shades of turquoise as the sun beat down on its surface.
She had returned to the drawing room the previous evening, following her ill-advised conversation with Tobias Porter, to a reception that she hadn’t anticipated. Jane had smiled at her and invited her to sit beside her while Lizzy poured coffee and handed Caroline’s cup to her personally. Still reeling from her reckless encounter with Porter, Caroline hadn’t known how to respond at first. She had been made to feel unwelcome since her arrival but now, as though by common consent, everyone in the room was suddenly going out of their way to include her in their conversations.
When the card tables were placed, she found herself in the same set as Darcy. He seemed more relaxed and smiled at her several times, even going so far as to ask her if she still played cards in London. Charles had reverted to his old, affable self and a lot of the tension her arrival had created appeared to have eased.
That very morning she had happened upon Lydia when she was alone. Expecting her to turn her back and leave the room, she was surprised when the now Mrs Shannon engaged Caroline in conversation about a recent visit to Italy she had undertaken. It was most peculiar. Why the sudden turnabout? She had tried to kill Lydia—admittedly when the balance of her mind was overset—but still. Even the passage of twenty-five years would be insufficient for Caroline to forgive if the shoe had been on the other foot.
Caroline had declined an invitation to accompany the other ladies on an excursion that morning since she urgently needed to think matters through. She had not eaten one of her biscuits so far, and had now gone a full day without resorting to one; the longest time ever. Her mind was clear as a consequence and she didn’t ache all over or feel anxious, as she had when she first forced herself to do without her crutch.
She wondered now what madness had made her confront Porter. She wondered too why she had lived for revenge all these years and what she hoped to achieve by it. Now that she was back at Pemberley and amongst family who seemed ready to accept her for the person she had become, rather than the vengeful female of yesteryear, she felt an enveloping sense of peace that had evaded her for decades.
She could quite see that her behaviour had been rash and that she was fortunate to have been given a second chance to make amends. Being able to think without the fog of cannabis brought a clarity that had persistently eluded her. Albert would come and whisk her away again, she knew, as soon as Charles’s express reached him. But, in the meantime, if Porter told Darcy what she had said to him, her brief reprieve would come to an immediate end.
‘Idiot!’ she muttered aloud.
‘Mrs Rochdale, are we disturbing you?’ She glanced up nervously, not having heard anyone approaching. Her nephew Simon and Spencer Darcy stood in front of her, both in shirtsleeves and hatless, looking so much like Charles and Darcy in their younger days that she gasped. ‘Do we find you here all alone? You did not go with the other ladies?’
‘No, I preferred to sit and contemplate.’
‘And we are intruding upon your solitary reverie,’ Spence said.
‘Not at all. I have grown accustomed to being alone over the years, but it doesn’t follow that the company of two handsome young men is unwelcome.’
She patted the bench and they obediently took up positions on either side of her.
‘Mrs Rochdale,’ Spence said, clearing his throat. ‘We are glad to have found you alone. There is something we need to talk to you about. Something that is rather delicate.’
‘We have dithered about telling you, but we have decided that you deserve to know,’ Simon added.
‘I see.’ She felt intrigued and a little wary. ‘Well, here you find me, so please satisfy my curiosity.’
‘Please don’t be offended, but we are aware of the nature of your conversation with Tobias Porter yesterday.’ Her spirits slumped and she thought longingly of the stash of biscuits hidden in her room. The two young men were here to upbraid her, and she deserved nothing less. She opened her mouth to speak, to attempt to explain, but Spence silenced her with a wave. ‘Our fathers have told us what happened all those years ago to drive a wedge between you.’
‘Oh, I—’
‘You have not been well, Mrs Rochdale,’ Simon said gently. ‘That has been made very clear to us. You were temporarily deprived of your wits and acted out of character, but we believe that you are better now.’
‘Yes, I am completely recovered,’ she said in a dignified manner. ‘What is this all about, Simon? Do you mean to embarrass me in an effort to drive me away?’
‘Quite the contrary.’ It was Spence who answered her. ‘In fact, we need your help.’
‘My help? Good heavens. In what respect?’
‘Forgive the indelicacy, Mrs Rochdale,’ Spence replied, ‘but we are aware that your husband has made you dependent upon cannabis and it is to your credit that you have managed to wean yourself off that addiction.’
‘You are your mother’s son through and through,’ she said bitterly. ‘Mean and vindictive.’
‘We have not introduced this subject in order to make you uncomfortable, madam,’ Spence said politely. ‘Would you like us to leave you, or do you want to hear what it is that we have to say?’
Caroline took a moment to consider, embarrassment waging full-scale warfare with curiosity deep within her core. She sensed no real malevolence about them and curiosity won the day. ‘I am perfectly willing to hear you out,’ she replied stiffly.
‘Very well then, but be warned, the conversation will be personal and distressing.’
‘Ha!’ She looked away from Spence. ‘I am on intimate terms with distressing.’
‘And with being misunderstood,’ Simon suggested.
‘Yes, that too.’ She smiled at Simon and much of the rigidity left her shoulders.
‘Your husband was not your husband when he took responsibility for your treatment after you had been sent back to London,’ Spence said briskly. ‘You subsequently married him and he continued to treat you, gradually ensuring that your dependency upon cannabis grew.’
Caroline swivelled her head and fixed Spence with a hard look. ‘You have no idea what you are talking about,’ she retorted.
‘No, at least not from first-hand experience,’ Simon replied, ‘but we speak the truth and you have sufficient intelligence to realise that. We are also aware that you have fought the dependency without your husband’s knowledge, which must have taken courage and strength of will. I can assure you that we admire your tenacity.’
Caroline folded her hands in her lap. ‘I assume there is a point to this conversation, other than to make me feel inadequate.’
Spence glanced at Simon, who nodded. ‘Excuse me, but we wanted to be assured that you were in a state to listen. It seems that you are. I apologise, there’s no easy way to tell you this—but then again perhaps you already know, or suspect.’ Spence paused but when Caroline made no attempt to break the ensuing silence and remained relatively calm, he continued. ‘Your husband has been experimenting with the use of cannabis on patients with disturbed minds, and he used you as a subject to conduct those experiments on without your knowledge.’
‘My husband is a caring physician. Without him, I’m sure I would have been committed to an asylum, perhaps with just cause, given…’ She flapped a hand. ‘However, I am well aware of the fact, mainly because he seldom wastes an opportunity to remind me that he saved me from a terrible fate,’ she said, a bitter edge to her voice.
‘I’m so sorry, madam,’ Simon said softly. ‘Whatever you did, you didn’t deserve to live under such threats all these years.’
‘Why did you wean yourself off the drug?’ Spence asked. ‘It cannot have been easy.’
‘It made me delusional.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘I started imagining that I was hearing voices telling me to do things. But I also seemed to have built up a resistance, and gradually it no longer made me quite so suggestable. Something made me hide the fact from Albert. As you suggest, perhaps I suspected that he didn’t want me to regain my wits. During that period I realised Albert was putting the idea of the voices into my head while I was…well, in a susceptible and mellow frame of mind brought on by what he described as my medication.’ She gave a disdainful snort. ‘He kept telling me that I was insane and only his remedies stood between me and the asylum.’
‘That must have been terrifying!’ Simon cried, looking appalled.
‘I was no longer quite as susceptible as he appeared to think, but clear thinking also had its disadvantages. It made me grow suspicious. Why was it so important to him that I should remain detached from reality? Anyway, I felt he would have no use for me if he knew I had regained my senses and worried about what he might do to rid himself of me.’
Caroline wondered at her need to confide in these two young men, to say nothing of admitting to the half-formed possibilities that had long been lingering at the back of her mind. Simon was her relative, but even so, she barely knew him and the change in the attitude towards her here at Pemberley might have been a deliberate ploy to catch her with her guard down. Even so, the sympathy in their expressions couldn’t be feigned and it was a relief to talk about problems, bottled up for so long, to gentlemen who would, she hoped, respect her confidence.
‘I didn’t know what to do or whom to speak to about my fears.’ Having started talking, Caroline seemed unable to stop. ‘I knew Charles wouldn’t listen. He had absolved himself of all responsibility for me and believed whatever Albert told him about my state of health.’
‘So you decided to help yourself?’ Spence suggested.
‘Yes, I suppose I did.’ Caroline lifted one shoulder. ‘I knew if Albert realised that I wasn’t taking the drug, he would deliberately upset me until I felt compelled to resume. The slightest little thing can set me back, or so he always made me believe. It suited him to have me behaving irrationally, so I played along, biding my time.’
‘Why did you come here?’ Spence asked.
She shrugged. ‘I felt I needed to be back at the scene of my fall from grace. I didn’t come with the intention of gaining revenge on your mother, let me assure you at least of that much.’ She sent Spence an earnest look. ‘But once I was here, away from my familiar routine, I started feeling out of control once again.’ She shook her head. ‘It was stupid. I realised that as soon as I approached Tobias Porter—and I only did so because he reminded me so much of Wickham. It was as though I was no longer responsible for my own actions, which made me doubt my sanity.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘I shouldn’t have come. No one wants me here.’
‘You’re wrong about that,’ Simon said softly. ‘I for one am glad to have made your acquaintance. What happened in the past is behind you now, yet it seems to have stayed with you all these years. Perhaps coming here will help to put things in perspective.’
‘I believe you are right.’ Caroline sat a little straighter and smiled at her nephew. ‘It isn’t healthy to harbour grudges, but now that I’m away from Albert and thinking for myself, I can see that he actively encouraged me to do so. He told me at every opportunity that I had been ill-used, abandoned by my family and had every right to feel put upon.’
‘He wanted you to feel that you were the one who’d been wronged?’ Simon scowled. ‘I don’t understand. Why?’
‘Because he wanted to control her,’ Spence replied. ‘To make her completely dependent upon him.’
‘Very possibly. Albert certainly likes to be the one in charge.’ Caroline smiled at Spence. ‘And now that I am here at Pemberley and away from him, I can see that quite clearly. Everyone here has treated me with far more generosity than I deserve.’
‘Everyone you tried to harm all those years ago has gone on to live a full and happy life,’ Simon said. ‘I suspect the same cannot be said for you, but coming here will hopefully afford you the peace of mind you haven’t known for years. Perhaps not ever.’
Caroline covered Simon’s hand with her own. ‘I rather think that it might,’ she said softly, feeling a lightness of heart she hadn’t known for years, if ever, as she turned her face up to the gentle breeze.
‘Do you have any idea what your husband’s plans are for the future?’ Spence asked after a short break in the conversation that gave Caroline an opportunity to regain a modicum of control over her emotions.
‘Ha! Whatever they are, I will have no place in them. I was always a means to an end. He wanted my fortune in order to further his research. I knew it at the time, but I was so keen to be married and treated like a normal person instead of a burden to my family that I accepted his proposal.’
‘Not to put too fine a point on it,’ Spence said. ‘We happen to know that he and his mistress—’
‘Spence!’ Simon warned.
‘It’s quite all right, Simon. I am well aware of my husband’s penchant for females of a certain type.’
‘And you don’t mind?’
‘Not in the least,’ she replied absently. ‘Do go on, Spence. I am curious to know what he has got himself involved in.’
‘Well, if you’re sure. They are smuggling large quantities of cannabis into the country in order for your husband to further his research, but mostly to sell it on and earn a handsome profit. That will enhance his career and enable him to keep his mistress in style.’
‘Ah, so he has finally found one whose affections he returns.’ Caroline felt indifferent about Spence’s revelation, and a little relieved. ‘Goodness alone knows, there have been enough women in his past—but of course I am not supposed to know about them. Who is she?’
