Lady in Rags

Chapter Twenty-Five: That Fragile, Twisted Heart

It was a proper kiss, but it was not the kiss she had wanted. It was sweet and kind and intolerably chaste. Without haste, Neil released her, and pushed her back gently to look down at her with an expression full of pitying fondness. Her pride flared in her breast. Jane hated to be pitied.

"A farewell gift, I think," he said softly. "Your carriage has come."

"Don't think you gave that to me," she warned. "I stole it. I earned it."

The softness in Neil's eyes faded slightly.

"Either way, I believe it must be farewell."

"Must it?"

"It would be best." He drew away from her. Behind him, the open front door revealed her carriage pulling up. "If you are in love with me, our continued friendship will only cause you pain. If you are not in love with me, then you are playing games with me, and I cannot be friends with a woman who treats me as a plaything. So perhaps you should not tell me which it is. Perhaps we should not risk conversation at all. It can only confirm unhappiness for one of us. Mrs Walthrope, I do not wish to know for whom."

This was not as she had expected. She had expected to awake within him some of the passion she knew dwelt there – whether anger or lust, she had not known. His quiet disappointment and faint pity hurt her far worse than he could have known or intended. His dispassionate summary of her motives pinned her down in an unflattering light. She did not like that he saw her as pathetically lost in a one-sided love, or cruelly involved in a twisted and sluttish game of hearts. She did not like that she did not know herself which was true.

She set her jaw and abandoned her usual flirtatious manner for bluntness – a weapon she rarely effected. "Neil. I stayed away from you while you were married to her, but you're not any more. You're free, if you wish to be. And I'm free to make an attempt to win you. This is my attempt. My genuine attempt."

But he was shaking his head, and heading for the door, not looking at her. He stood with his back against it, one arm held out to direct her through. "I'm not free to be won. I'm not."

"You're unmarried." Jane looked him up and down contemptuously. "Unless you're in love. Are you in love? With her?"

"Jane. You should have left without a word. No more words, now, please. Please, take your leave and go."

But Jane could not go. For Jane, love was war, and she a proud warrior. She had always demanded of men one of two results: defeat, or conquer. Retreat was not a move in her repertoire. Nor was she accustomed to a man refusing to battle with her. She was weaponless against his retreat into dignity and coldness.

"Are you in love with her?" she demanded, once more. "Don't you at least owe me that?"

"Please, Jane. Just go."

He did not love her. He did not love the girl he had married. She was as sure of that as she had been of anything in her life. He did not love Verity, and still Jane had lost him to her. The revelation hurt her to the quick, to the core of the heart she kept so well guarded by smiling and coquetry and charm; to the heart that had never trusted any man, nor kindness, not certainly any woman since the day she had first felt what it was to be betrayed. And in the face of a man who embodied faith, not love, that fragile, twisted heart broke.

"She's a drunkard's daughter! She's a whore-branded drunkard's daughter!" Jane's voice, always melodious, now broke from her throat like tearing silk. "You are marrying her for honour! Honour! Not love! And she – she is... nobody. Nothing."

Neil turned white. Slowly, he shut the door on the waiting carriage, and came back into the hall.

"She is the most honourable woman I know. Again, and again, I have heard her maligned for her father – we cannot help our fathers. And yet her own actions – her fortitude, her strength, her principles – no one cares about them. All because she is a drunkard's daughter. Yes. A drunkard, and a liar, and a thief. A drunkard who lied to force an annulment upon us for his own material gain! How can I not marry her come January, Jane? You say I am free – I am not. I married her in good faith, and she me. Legally, our ties have been broken. Morally, I cannot abandon her."