Just today and tomorrow.
She went to fetch her cloak and gloves. She pulled on a bonnet even though it was likely to ruin her hairdo.
They strolled out across the lawn in the direction of the cliffs, not touching, not talking. The sky was clear and bright with moonlight and starlight. The sound of music and voices and laughter spilled from the house even though the ballroom was at the back. The sounds merely accentuated the quietness of the outdoors and the silence between them.
“You have become marble again,” he said. “Smiling marble.”
“I am grateful for all you had the courage to do,” she told him. “Not just for me but for everyone here and in the neighborhood. And I am happy for you that so many of your family and friends and neighbors have come to celebrate with you tonight. It has been a lovely ball. It will be remembered for a long time.”
He said that word again—quite distinctly and unapologetically. He came to an abrupt halt, and Imogen stopped a couple of paces ahead of him.
“I do not want your gratitude, Imogen,” he said. “I want your love.”
“I am fond of you,” she said.
He spoke that word yet again.
“You see,” he said, “I have been spoiled all my life. I have always been given just what I want. I become petulant when I do not get it. It is time I changed, is it not? And I will change. But why should I change on this? Help me. Look me in the eye and tell me you do not love me. But tell the truth. Only the truth. Tell me, Imogen, and I will go away and never return. You have my solemn promise on it.”
She drew a slow breath and sighed it out. “I cannot marry you, Percy,” she said.
“That is not what I asked you,” he told her. “Tell me you do not love me.”
“Love has nothing to do with it,” she said.
“Should that not be everything?” he asked her. “Love has everything to do with it.”
She said nothing.
“Tell me,” he said softly. “Help me to understand. There is a gap, a huge yawning hole in the story you told me. It is a hole filled with horror and part of me does not want to know. But I must know if I am to understand. I will not be able to live with this unless I understand. Tell me.”
And so she did.
But as she drew breath to speak, she lost control of her voice, and she yelled the words at him.
“I killed him!” she shouted at him. And then she stood panting for a minute before she could go on. “Do you understand now? I killed my husband. I took a gun and I shot him between the eyes. It was quite deliberate. My father taught me to shoot despite the disapproval of my mother. He taught my brother and me, and soon I could shoot better than either of them. And when I used to come here, I would shoot with Dicky—always at a target, of course, never at anything living. And more often than not, I could outshoot him.” She paused for a great, heaving breath. “I shot him. I killed him.”
She was panting for breath. Her body pulsed with pins and needles from her head to her feet.
He was motionless and staring at her.
“Now ask me to marry you,” she said. “Ask me to tell you that I love you. Do you understand now? I do not deserve to live, Percy. I am breathing and existing as a penance. It is my punishment, to go on year after year, knowing what I did. I expected to die with him, but it did not happen. So I have to be made to suffer, and I have accepted that.” She paused a moment to calm her breathing. “I did a terrible thing almost two weeks ago. I decided to give myself a holiday for what I expected to be a brief sensual fling. I had no intention of involving your feelings and hurting you. That I did both is fitting for me. I deserve that extra burden of guilt and misery. But for you? Go away from here, Percy, and find someone worthy of your love. And then come back if you will, for this is your home now. I will go from here. You will never see me again.”
He was still standing like a statue, his head slightly bent forward, hat low over his brow, hiding his face from her eyes.
“I killed Dicky,” she said, her voice dull now. “I killed my husband, my dearest friend in the world.”
And she walked away, back in the direction of the house.
“Imogen—” he called after her, his voice desolate, full of pain.
But she did not stop.
24
Percy was convinced that going back to the ballroom—smiling, mingling, talking, dancing—was the hardest thing he had done in his life. And it was not made easier when his mother and then Lady Lavinia and Miss Wenzel and several other people asked what had happened to Imogen and he had to tell them that she was tired and had gone to bed. He was not sure if any of them believed him. Probably not. Doubtless not, in fact.
“Oh, Percival!” was all his mother said, but her facial expression spoke volumes of reproach. And she only ever called him by his full name when she was exasperated with him.
Getting up the next morning to be cheerful and hospitable all over again with his family and friends and the few neighbors from more distant parts who had stayed for the night was further torture, especially after a largely sleepless night. He had stood outside Imogen’s room for perhaps fifteen minutes at some wee hour of the morning, his hand an inch from the knob of the door, which may or may not have been locked. He had returned to his own room without putting the matter to the test.
She did not come down for breakfast. He wondered if she would come down at all. Perhaps she was watching from her window, waiting for him to leave the house before putting in an appearance herself. He obliged her after he had seen all the overnight guests on their way. He went riding with Sidney and Arnold and a group of cousins. And no, he told Beth when she asked, he had not seen Cousin Imogen today. She was probably tired after last night.