Verity cried until they were well out of Houglen, and rolling fast down the country highways to Blackpool. At first, she cried deep, shuddering sobs of embarrassment and shame. Very soon they dissolved into silent, fast-flowing tears of self-pity, a feeling intensified by the sight of her husband calmly reading a book in the opposite seat. From there, she began to get angry, at her husband, at her grandmother, at her father, at the general world, and finally herself. She wiped her cheeks dry with furious, angry jerks of her wrist, and loud sniffs and swallows, only to get angrier on discovering more tears inexplicably falling. But at last they were exhausted, and with it her emotions – all of them, except a strange, painful relief, vibrating through her body and soul. Never again. Never again.
She lay back against the coach seat, her fingers trembling where they touched the cold glass of the coach window. She did not recognize the countryside. They had left the valley.
She gave a full body shudder, and let out a banshee sigh that fluttered the pages of her husband's book, and caused him to look up in alarm.
"Are you hysterical?"
"No." She swallowed. Her throat ached. "Not anymore. I'm all cried out."
The tears were beginning to dry on her face, leaving her cheeks swollen and sensitive to every brush of air against them. She patted at them tentatively with her sleeve. Her husband shifted in the seat across from her. He folded his book, with a finger in it to mark his place.
"You - You don't need to be afraid," he said awkwardly.
"I know," said Verity.
They lapsed into silence. She listened numbly to the repetitive rumble of the wheels against the road. It soothed her, and she felt her heart slow in her chest, her breathing coming deeper and easier. She should speak to him, yes, she should make conversation. He seemed to expect it of her, for his book remained folded on his lap. But she spoke only with herself. She discussed. She theorized. She argued. What was the proper topic of conversation, in the circumstances? What could she say? It was a deep philosophical debate and was slow in coming to a conclusion. The very moment she arrived at it, Mr Armiger opened his book again.
"That's the problem," Verity said, hastily, before he could begin to read. His lip quirked, in what she did not think was a smile, and he put the book down again. This time, he did not keep his thumb to mark his place.
"What is?"
"That I know I don't need to be afraid. I'm going to have to explain it or you'll think me weak and stupid, because I cried so much. But I've been afraid all my life. I was afraid of hunger. I was afraid of money, of not having it, and needing it. I was afraid people, already thinking badly of me, would begin to think worse. I was afraid of my father... not of what he might do to me, but what he might do to himself. And now..." She shrugged. "Well it's all happened, hasn't it? All my fears have come to pass, and even some things I had been too blind to fear."
Her voice rose, rang shrilly in the confined space of the coach, and she controlled it by force, swallowing her anger. She said, very quietly, very bitterly,
"So you see, I don't have anything left to be afraid of. The worst has happened, and now I am quite safe in the knowledge it will never happen again."
He considered her, the way she had seen him consider a chess board or a hand of cards, as a puzzle to be solved.
"That's the problem?"
"Oh yes." She broke out in a laugh that surprised herself. "Because, you see, I'm still afraid. I'm terrified. It's in my bones. It's in deep. How do you learn happiness? I know I'm happy, or as close to it as I can be, but I can't feel it. It's like an amputated limb. Oh god, I'm – I'm babbling. Please don't think me stupid. I tried – I tried to explain myself to explain why I'm not stupid and now I sound worse!"
He smiled, and it broke out into a laugh. "Perhaps, you shouldn't have tried. I would have accepted an enigma."
She laughed helplessly, and shook her head. "I'm not stupid."
"I know." The smile was still on his face, even as he said, "But I'm afraid I can't much teach you happiness either. I don't know it myself. I did once, and then I lost it... I don't think I will ever find it again. It's gone. So there. You know what's in my bones, and I know what's in yours. We're a matching pair of deficient human souls. We're perfect for each other."
Some of the old irony had returned to his tone. Verity had not heard him speak like that since the night she had first met him. All through their courtship period at her grandmother's house, he had treated her with a distant, and well-mannered politeness. Now, here was a difference: a gentle, mocking irony. But was it a step closer to him, or a step further away?
She shyly drew her gaze back to the window, fearing the former. After a long moment of silence, she heard the rustle of paper: he had taken up his book again, and was trying to find his place.
It wasn't until the sky was very dark that they rolled into Blackpool, streets glowing golden where the light spilled out from doorways and windows. Verity had never before been so far away from home, and at an ordinary time, might have found it fascinating to see the tall, leering houses and bustling streets. But after the long journey, and the emotional battering of the day, she had no energy left to be fascinated by anything or anyone. The sailors making their way from pub doors and the women who trotted on their arms only made her feel a vague disgust at humanity.
They were staying at a hotel near the wharfs. Armiger's coachman deposited them in the yard, and hoisted the bags to the pavement for them. Two large trunks had been sent ahead to the ship already, and only their overnight cases were coming with them now. Verity was still in her wedding dress and slippers. She picked her skirts up to avoid dirtying them in the mud, and Armiger took the bags after flipping a coin to his coachman.
"Take a few days' holiday, if you like," he said easily. "I won't need you until we're back, and Martins said he can handle the stables by himself for a while."
"Thank you, Sir." The coachman bowed to them both. "All the best on your honeymoon."
They went inside the inn. Verity's stomach tingled. Their honeymoon.
After a talk with the innkeeper, a boy appeared to take their bags, and they were taken to a quiet, solitary dining room away from the main hall of the hotel, choked with guests this time of night, and loud with chatter. It might have been intimate, with the softly closed curtains and dimly lit candles, and the table set just for two, but their conversation was not. Armiger seemed tired too. He remarked dully that the wine was not very good, before he'd even drunk it. But perhaps men just knew those things. And Verity made the attempt to comment on the olive wall paper, and he agreed it was rather nice, which it wasn't really.
They did not finish their lavish meal, which had been prepared in advance by the hotel. They left the carcass of the quails, and most of the salad, and the sweets and lamb almost untouched. Armiger drank only a few sips of wine. Nervously, Verity gulped down a glass, only for it to settle uneasily in her stomach, as she was not used to drinking.
And then they went to their room.
Verity stopped still as she entered it, and Armiger ran into her.
"Is there something wrong?" the manageress asked anxiously. She was already nervous about their unfinished meal downstairs, despite Armiger's protestations that it was all lovely.
"No – no I just... didn't think it would be so big."
The room was rather large. There were two big beds against the wall, with ample room to walk around them too, and then a low table with two arm chairs by it in a corner, and a wash basin and closet in another corner.
Armiger seemed to understand her hesitation.
"I'll leave you to see to your toilette, Verity. I'm going to run back downstairs and look at that little library in the dining hall."
He was making excuses for her, to be alone. Or giving her time to prepare, perhaps. When the door was shut, Verity paced the room for a moment. He hadn't said anything about it. Did he expect her to give herself to him that night? It was true, he had kissed her several times since their engagement, but they had been lustless and polite, a far cry from how he had treated her the first night he had met her, and more frequently landed on the hand or the cheek than the lips.
And if he did... would she accede?
Thinking on it, she carefully got herself out of the contraption of her wedding dress, and folded it away in her bag. Then, too, she stripped her undergarments, piece by piece, and folded them away, feeling wobbly and unrestrained without them. She got into the new nightgown her grandmother had had made for her, all soft gauzy cotton, and into the white dressing gown to go over it, and keep her warm, for the fire in the grate was low. She had washed her face and was working on the braids in her hair when Armiger came back.
She looked up at him. He was carrying a book, but he set it down on the low table when he came in, and she didn't think he ever intended to read it.
He lowered himself into one of the armchairs, and took off his shoes, and undid his tie and cufflinks, and the top buttons of his shirt. The last of those actions made her uneasy. She returned her attentions to her hair.
"You were surprised when you saw we shared a room," he said matter-of-factly, breaking the silence.
"Yes. I'm still not used to things." She wrestled with a particularly stubborn hair pin, that wouldn't seem to want to come out.
"I won't make love to you until you're ready. You needn't worry about that."
The hairpin came out, taking two black strands of hair with it, and causing her to open her mouth in a silent Oh of pain. So he did intend. He intended to make love to her, within the bounds of a marriage that had nothing to do with love. What a strange intention.
"I'm ready." She searched her hair for more pins. It was half untangled around her neck, and half done up. The process had taken an hour to complete. It wasn't surprising it would take nearly as long to uncomplete. "Or I will be once I get my hair down."
"Are you?"
He came to stand in front of her, and she looked up. His lips were moving in and out, as though he was speaking silently to himself. A hand reached out from a gaping sleeve, and drew gently across her brow, and down her cheek to her lips. If he had been looking for a reaction, of lust or of fear, he didn't find it. She stared woodenly up at him.
"I know... what happened to you... what Harlan... tried... it can't be easy, and I don't want to rush you, or frighten you."
She'd almost forgotten the moment that had brought them here, until now. But even the memory seemed distant and untouchable. Harlan was gone – so quietly and quickly she suspected money had changed hands — and Armiger was definitely not like Harlan. She already once said no to him, and he had accepted it. She was not scared, after that, to say yes.
"I'm not frightened. I thought perhaps you intended to house me as a sister or a nun, the marriage little but pretext for that action, but if you are prepared to take me as a wife, then I'm ready."
He dropped to sit on the other bed, facing her. Their knees almost touched.
"I've always admired you," he admitted, in a low, shy voice. "I do want you."
She wanted to say something clever or bold, but nothing came to her. She just shyly smiled back and nodded. "You should get— prepare for bed. I have my hair to unpin."
She avoided watching him while he did so, too shy to see something so intimate. When she was done unpinning and unbraiding her hair, he had changed into pyjamas and a black dressing gown, but was washing his face at the stand. She brushed the scattered hairs and pins off her bed and deposited it on the low table, still not looking at him. He was brushing his hair now.
She lay down on her bed, on her side, and waited for him. There came the sound of the brush set down on the stand, the creaking of the night bag, as he put something in it, his footsteps across the room...
"Verity?"
She opened her eyes dimly, not knowing when she had shut them, and raised herself on an elbow. He was standing by her bed. She sat up.
"Then...it's time?"
"Hmm," he grunted. He kept his gaze steady on hers, frowning. After a moment, he seemed to come to a decision. "No. It's not."
He turned, pulled back the sheets of the other bed, and beat at the pillows.
"But I thought you wanted—"
"Oh, I do want you. Don't think I don't." He twisted his head and grinned at her, an expression that lit up his face with a satyric mischief that made him look years younger, made him look his age. "But it's not some chore to get over and done with like that, not when you're half-asleep, not any time."
"Oh."
He moved again, and she thought he was, at the very least, going to kiss her, but he didn't, not even on the cheek. Instead he passed her, and went to douse the lamps on the walls.
"Besides," he said, as the room dimmed, flame by flame, "I'm tired too. We have all the time in the world for this – but tonight, we should sleep."
The room was murky now, but by the gentle glow of the fire, she could still see his shape as he moved towards the other bed. Then he was nothing but a lump, and the sound of the mattress creaking and feathers shifting, as he tried to make himself comfortable.
After a moment, Verity did the same, and though she expected her mind to race ahead and keep her from sleep, it was only the novelty of another human's regular breathing that distracted her from sleep, and that only for a few minutes before she was dead to the world.
Hi guys!!! So sorry about the delay in updates! Holidays, and then work. This is a busy time of year. I'll be back to schedule with another update tomorrow.
Man, this chapter is long and went through so much editing. Mostly, rewriting and trying to get the emotions a bit more realistic. A few paragraphs are entirely new tonight, so please forgive if a typo slipped through here or there.