I sketch her as she is in the photograph, young, beautiful, and, above all, content.
The picture was taken before she’d fallen in love with the man who did not have enough spine to defy his family and marry her. Nor did he subsequently prove to have sufficient principles to leave her alone. She saw him from time to time at parties and soirées, an unhappily married man who still loved her and whose wife wanted nothing more than that he should take a lover so that she would have the freedom to do the same thing.
At what point my beloved decided to throw all caution to the wind I do not know. But I can say with some confidence that her affair did not make her happy, any more than our lovemaking has made me happy. Yes, there are moments of thrill and elation that are enormously addictive, but the rest of the time is spent hurtling oneself at the wall that is reality.
Her reality was that he could not share her life, no matter how much they both wanted it. And my reality, though I am still reluctant to accept it, is that she might never love me, no matter how well I fuck her.
If all I do is fuck her.
From my open window I suddenly hear her voice—she is thanking someone. When I reach the window, it is to see her ride away on a bay gelding, her person leaning forward in the saddle, her pace swift and hard.
I finish my sketch, mark it with the date, and go up to her room. Before I reach her nightstand, I notice that there is a burned piece of paper in the otherwise clean-swept grate.
My previous sketch.
It is another moment before I gather enough courage to leave this new sketch on her nightstand, with a silent prayer that she will understand it to be a gesture not of further antagonism, but of goodwill and esteem.
FOR DINNER I ASK FOR our places to be set across the width of the table, rather than at either end. My bride, in a closely fitted, shoulder-baring gown of hunter green velvet, raises an eyebrow at the arrangement but makes no comments.
“Can you blame me for wanting to be closer to you?” I ask as we take our seats.
In the dining room we have no privacy—my butler is present, as well as two footmen, all busy with the service of the first course, a clear consommé with julienned vegetables. My bride murmurs a thank-you as a bowl is set down before her. “Well, whom should I blame if not you?”
Her tone is light and appropriate. She, too, understands that we have an image to uphold, if not one of actual happiness, then at least of harmony.
“May I compliment you on your toilette, Lady Larkspear. You look ravishing.”
Her hair, done up simply, exposes her fine, delicate ears. Her throat is a column of pure elegance. The tiniest pools of shadows gather in the hollows of her clavicles. And it is only with some difficulty that I stop my eyes from traveling lower.
I do not know whether she notices the direction of my gaze. Her reply is a dry, “Thank you, my lord. And that is a well-cut dinner jacket you sport.”
“Please, my dear, you will cause my heart to pitter-patter,” I answer, as my heart pitter-patters. I swear, it is the most naive and useless heart known to man. Hers was not even a compliment, but a neutral statement made to sound like one so that the servants would not hear anything amiss.
All the same…
At my reply, she flicks a gaze toward the butler and his underlings. They stand still as statues, their faces bland. But the younger footman’s lips quiver, as if he is trying to hold back a smile.
“I remember the last time I saw you in this dress,” I went on. “The dinner at Lady Francis’s house. May of last year, wasn’t it?”
For a moment, surprise crowds her eyes. “You have a good memory.”
“I never forget anything when it comes to you, my dear.”
I regret the words even as I say them. How do I know my second sketch of the day hasn’t joined the first one in her grate, a similar heap of ashes? How do I protect myself if I go on like this?
She does not say anything. I am not sure whether that makes things better or worse.
“How is preparation for the magazine coming?” I ask.
The spoon she is raising to her lips pauses in midair. “You mean the magazine you normally refer to as my folly?”
“You should not believe all the stupid things I say.”
I’ve always thought the magazine, aimed at the increasing population of young working women, a brilliant idea. And who better than she, already a successful publisher of books, which include volumes on educational and employment opportunities for women, to tackle such a magazine?
“It must be a character defect in me,” she says coolly. “When people persist in saying stupid things, I believe wholeheartedly that it is indeed what they mean to say.”
Now it is I who glance toward the staff. They are listening raptly, even my butler, who I could have sworn had never before given a single thought to my private life.