style="font-size:15px;"> ‘I lied to protect us all, Lord.’ He thought of his sister and her ill-guided actions and how she had been bundled back to Edinburgh where her husband’s family held a seat.
He thought of his parents and his ancestors and the goodness that had always imbued the Dromorne name since time immemorial. He thought of Florencia and her silver hair and eyes that were exactly those of Cristo Wellingham and for the first time in his life he swore in a house of God because he knew that Eleanor Bracewell-Lowen had never truly been his.
A wife in name only. A woman he had never touched. Her illness had precluded it at first and in the later years his infirmity had robbed him of any feeling in that region of his being.
But he could change. They could change, and, if God could give him the chance of a second destiny, then who would know what might follow? He smiled, making the sign of the cross above his heart in respect to a wiser deity who had given him direction. Tonight he would show Eleanor that he had forgiven her lies by coming to her room and allowing her the opportunity of sexual expression that a twenty-three-year-old must crave.
It was, after all, the very least that he could do.
Eleanor went to bed early and left the curtains wide, wide open, so that the moon shone on the bed and lightened her room with silver. The colour of Cristo Wellingham’s hair. She stroked the beam on her sheets with her little finger so that the shadow did not blot out the light and whispered his name against the silence.
Martin had arrived home late and she had smelt strong liquor on his breath, but even that had not been the most unusual thing that had happened this evening. When she had spoken her goodnight he had beckoned her down to him and taken her face in his hands, looking at her in a way she had not seen him do before. Almost sensual! Distaste surfaced, followed by a bolt of fear. Did he think she would want that from him now? Did he imagine the knowledge of her transgressions allowed him a right he had not as before taken?
She sat up, lighting the candle and watching the wick take to flicker yellow into all the shadowy corners. Outside she heard her husband’s chair whirring by just as it did every evening.
But tonight it stopped.
Her breath froze in her throat as the handle began to turn and the door was pushed inwards. Slowly, as if he should not wish to wake her should she be asleep. She cursed the flame at her side, but it was too late to blow it out; when his face came around the portal she made herself smile.
‘Martin?’ She hoped there was just enough question in it to be short of rudeness.
‘Eleanor. I am glad you are still awake.’
The door closed behind him and her heartbeat quickened.
‘You wish to talk?’ she said and drew the blanket up.
He stopped next to her and reached across for one hand, taking it into his own in the way of a husband who did not suppose anything other than acquiescence.
‘I spent a number of hours at St Paul’s Cathedral today, my dear, asking the Lord for a way forwards from all of this.’
‘I see.’ His thumb nudged the material on her sleeve aside so that her neck was exposed and before she could stop him his hand dug into the silk in her bodice, her left breast fitting into coldness. Only shocking.
‘I think the lack of any physical contact between us should be at an end, my love.’
‘You do?’ She tried to pull away, but his grip tightened.
‘We are husband and wife, although consummation for me is somewhat of a problem, there are things that I am still able to manage that could bring you pleasure.’
He rolled the material back and let go of her breast, exposing the ample flesh to his glance and to the light before he bent down. Suckling, like a child, the bald spot in the back of his head easily visible.
Her husband. His right. Her duty. She sat as still as she could whilst moonlight faded into cloud. When he had finished she tried to smile at him, glancing down again as he repositioned the fabric in her nightgown and placed the sheet back.
‘It is a beginning, Lainie, and a good one. I shall worship your body as a shrine and hope with all that I am able that my ministrations bring you some portion of pleasure and some allotment of ease.’
Nodding, she watched as he departed, the door shutting behind him and the quiet settling yet again.
A shrine. A duty. Pleasure? Ease? One hand went to her mouth to stop the aching sobs she knew would come, whilst the other gathered the fabric on her breast and wiped the wetness dry.
Nowhere to go and no one to help her. Shocked, she turned into the down of her pillow and cried until sleep overtook her, and in her dreams there was a different man whose lips wove all the magic that her husband’s had failed to do.
Martin met her in the blue parlour the next morning with a particular smile and a wink. Today he looked healthier than he had in a long while, and another layer of guilt was added to those already present. Florencia sat between them, chatting about a puppy she had seen in the park and about a drawing she had completed of him on her return home.
‘He was black and white, Mama, with long ears. When he walked he wobbled and Miss Walsh bade me not to laugh too loud. When will Aunty Diana be back, Mama? I want to tell her about him.’
‘She has much to do in Scotland, Florencia. I doubt that she will be back for a while.’ Martin’s voice held a note of censure she hoped her daughter would not notice.
‘But Margaret and Sophie are missing out on the balls. Some of their dresses are still in the cupboards.’
‘We will send them on, Florencia.’ Eleanor placed her daughter’s napkin so that the crumbs of the cake a maid had brought in did not stain her skirt. She did not even bother to unravel her own because she felt no hunger whatsoever.
Ten hours before she would retire again for the evening. Ten hours before the next ‘pleasure and ease’ might begin yet again. The clock ticked on at an alarming speed and the spots of age on the back of her husband’s hands were plainly visible in the light. The vision of slender fingers wreathed in gold replaced it.
The pile of cards on the sideboard suddenly offered a sanctuary.
‘The Benetts have asked us to a dinner party this evening, and were most hopeful that we should be able to come.’
Martin took a sip of tea. ‘If you should like to go …’
‘I should.’ The words sounded desperate even to her ears.
‘Then perhaps we could manage it for a little while.’
Florencia clapped her hands and looked up, her eyes as wide as saucers. ‘What shall you wear, Mama?’
‘You might like to help me choose, my darling,’ Her daughter’s returned smile made the day bearable again.
‘It
