Adam and Eve Tamara de Lempicka
Chapter
Four
Claire took a steady
breath then placed her hand in his and said, “Your mother leaves in two months.
Do you suppose that you could have an answer for me by then?”
“You mean to
be free of me don’t you?” he said after thoughtful pause.
“There is but
a wound where my heart used to be and I long for the peace I knew before I
started to dread losing you,” she could feel the tears anew but refused to shed
even one in front of him. “I don’t want to bleed for you anymore.”
“What do I do?
How do I see us well?”
“I don’t know that
you can.”
“But this is madness,”
he protested. “For us to end here after all the laughter and confidences would
be criminal. We are friends though you deny it. You have all my secrets and I
have all your good advice. All we are missing is balance.”
“There isn’t
time my lo –”
“So help me
Claire if you address me as your Lord
once more I shan’t be responsible for what will follow.”
“I’ll concede
to Westmorland.”
“Concession
suits you my dear. Now tell me. How do we marry this contention with our
usually easy rapport?”
“If I knew the
answer to that I would have employed it ages ago,” she said with a weary smile.
“Consider me
Claire,” Henry said with urgency. “I like you and not only because I’m able to
count on your ear either. You make me smile and have my best interests at heart.
My family adores you, I adore you.”
“Here let me pour
your tea before it gets cold,” she said quickly pulling her hand from his and
averting her eyes.
“Won’t you
look at me, chérie?”
“Westmorland?”
“Yes, my
angel.”
“Will you do
something for me?”
“You need but
ask Claire and I’ll do all in my power to see that it is done.”
“At Christmas when
you brought home Miss Winchilsea and her parents,” Claire said uncomfortably,
“We all felt certain that you would have made her an offer… I realize what an
imposition it is what I’m asking.”
“You want to
know if I loved her?” he supplied.
“Yes, I
suppose I do.”
“Right from
the start she had been easy to know and I kept feeling I aught to love her but somehow I
couldn’t bring myself to,” he said candidly. “I felt like a failure but more
than that was the distance it had caused between you and me. I couldn’t bring
myself to discuss her with you and that had been the most difficult part of it
for me.”
“She knew you
know? I had been unsure but she knew and told me so.”
“How do you
mean she told you, what did she tell you?”
“She said she
hadn’t understood what was keeping you from loving her until she saw us at tea
that first afternoon she was in Devon ,” Claire
explained. “She said our natural ease and clear strain to keep proper distance
struck her as a living thing. It hadn’t occurred to me until then that you were
an active participant in what was between us.”
“It isn’t uncommon
for me to find lust in friendship, but love, well that seems to run contrary or
so it seems in my life at any rate…”
“You believe I
could hurt you?”
“You know
everything of me and I know nothing of you. Besides, your claim of loving me,”
he said simply.
“And still I’m
the one laid open and vulnerable. It’s true you tell me all but you never share
with me how you felt, it’s always ‘Claire
my fascination with Miss Lady of the Hour as died a grim death,’ but never
once did you tell me if it was sadness, joy or relief that you felt at the
loss.”
“Despair, I’m
often filled with despair at the
thought of love. Sometimes weak always destructive but ultimately and for the
most part I feel nothing but despair.”
“Because of
the Countess?”
“I suppose
some of it could have to do with the vicious nature of my relationship with
Viola,” Henry said candidly. “We were toxic together. Vindictive to the point
cruelty, Christ our friendship was over long before we realized it and it lead
to a lot of pain.”
“Do you not
miss her?”
“The
friendship we had before it went sour maybe but by the end there was but
wilderness between us and her betrayal is now more that I’m able to get pass.”
“I’m sorry for
it,” she said with kind hand on his arm and he covered it with his own.
They stayed thus,
holding hands and eyes until he said, “I’ve been nothing but proud to be your
friend and it distresses me greatly to know I’ve caused you to suffer because
of my selfishness.”
“We’ve gotten
it so very wrong. Haven’t we?” she asked with weary smile.
“Yes we have
but it’s not irrevocable.”
***
In the spirit
of this new hope, the two in a grand effort spent the weeks that followed
attempting to bridge the gap between love, lust and lack of communication. By
the second afternoon, Claire had decided to give up Lord Addison. She sent him
a note begging him to call on her at his earliest convenience so she could tell
him in person.
It would take
Lord Addison ten days to call. By then Henry was certain he and Claire were
well on their way to each other so he was quite surprised when he arrived at
his mother’s one bright afternoon to find Claire in company with the sensible,
reliable Addison .
She didn’t tell
Henry of her intent to break with Lord Addison because he had asked for time to
come to terms with his feelings for her and she felt certain this added
knowledge would force his hand. She loved him and could no longer pretend
otherwise nor could she marry elsewhere but neither did she want to pressure
him into loving her.
Claire was explaining
this to a most sympathetic Lord Addison when Henry turned up, his blue eyes as calm
as the deadly sea. Lord Addison was just then holding her hand in reassuring understanding
in order to wish her well when Henry entered the little salon and extended his
hand in greeting to Addison .
“Addison .”
“Here, Westmorland
how’ve you been?” Addison said with a kind
smile.
“I’m without
complaint,” Henry said easily, murder pulled over his genial smile, “And you my
lord. You are well?”
“I’m better
for the company,” Addison said with a nod to a
still seated Claire and Henry gave her a curt bow of acknowledgement. “You will
join us for lemonade Westmorland?”
“Time doesn’t
allow it I’m afraid,” Henry said his eyes holding Claire’s with something like
righteous anger, “I have an audience with my mother and must not tarry. I only
came this way for I felt certain that she was in attendance but now I see she
is not, I beg your leave.”
He was gone
the instant Addison conceded and without so
much as a backward glance for Claire. It never even occurred to her that he was
jealous until Addison said, “Now my dear you
must go now and see that he doesn’t have the wrong impression of what it was that
he arrived to.”
“He will not,”
Claire said miserably.
“You love him
very much?”
“I do,” she
said with sad apologetic eyes.
“And he loves
you,” Lord Addison said as if it were obvious.
“He could one
day if I’m very patient I think.”
“Nonsense,” Addison said dismissively, “If he loved you anymore he
would have murdered me where I sat holding your hand.”
“You really
believe it so?” she prompted with open elation.
“I’m certain
of it,” he said with a confident smile, “Now come see me out and go make him
understand your indifference for me.”
“I shan’t forget
this you know.”
“I do.”
She saw Lord
Addison out then went in search of Henry. He was not with his mother nor had
any of the servants seen him. It was as though he vanished, the instant he left
her in the salon with Lord Addison. She worried that Addison
was right about him having the wrong impression.
By the time,
his mother and Lord Marcel left for Madam Guerin’s for afternoon tea, she had
decided to send him a note. She went to her private sitting room and sat at her
writing desk with quill in front of blank paper for a quarter of an hour before
giving up.
She simply
could not find any words that properly conveyed her feelings without it having
sound presumptive of his feeling so she kicked off her slipper and grabbed the copy
of Jane Austin’s Persuasion he had
given to her for Christmas from the desk.
Claire fully
intended to spend the afternoon lying across her bed reading but nearly expired
from heart failure when she entered her bedchamber to find Henry sitting on the
bench at the foot of her bed.
He had left
her and Addison in the salon for his mother’s private salon and was struck at
the sight of her door when it came in view, as he entered the corridor of the
family quarters. He was inside her rooms before he fully realized it, there
among her belongings.
He passed the
writing desk with the half dozen Austen novels he had given her for Christmas
and birthdays. Stopping briefly to hold and smell the soft, too large shawl her
mother had knitted for her that she always wrapped herself in on brisk evenings
when they were at home in Devon. Her little this and thats, here and there and
then he was in her bedroom.
He could not
think why it should feel like such an intimate thing when she wasn’t there and
after all the women’s bedrooms he had been in without thought. He sat there on
the little bench at foot of her bed a million miles away not even hearing her
when she entered her sitting room just outside the bedchamber.
He only looked
up once she entered the bedroom with a startled little, “Good God!”
My love
Simone
