Note: This takes place soon after The Scarlet Pimpernel: sometime in the fall of 1792. This has been sitting unfinished in my computer for quite some time, undergoing multiple rewrites. I've got quite a few stories in the same state, so it feels really nice to get something publishable again!
I usually get someone to do a quick skim of my writing before I post it, but everyone's very busy this week, so. . . no beta, we die like Madame Guillotine's lovers. :)
I've also posted this on AO3.
The nights were drawing in, now, as the year crept closer to its end, and there was always a fire in the little drawing-room reserved for family use. Sir Percy Blakeney sat by the fireplace, one long leg stretched out towards its warmth, and, across from him, sat Lady Blakeney, sewing.
His book could not hold his interest, and, looking into the fire, he abandoned all pretense of reading and gave himself over to his thoughts.
He had been naïve, that night on the Daydream. He and Marguerite, he thought, understood each other at last; they loved each other, and would now of course continue on as though they had never been estranged.
He had not thought, or, perhaps, fully understood, that love is a habit, and that he and Marguerite were in exactly the opposite habit. Of course, he had longed for her and yearned for her throughout their marriage, and she for him, but mixed with that was anger, even (he hated to think of it) cruelty. He had slighted and ignored her; she, belittled and mocked him, each seeking to hurt the other.
He had not realized how successful they had been, how thoroughly they had ruined their marriage, until the card party after the rescue of Suzanne's father. They could not, for the sake of the secret and all those lives that hung upon it, act upon their reconciliation in the way they wished. In their hearts they might be newlyweds, experiencing for the first time the joy that came with marriage to one of like heart and mind, but in the eyes of the world they were thoroughly tired of each other. The deception, they decided, would have to be kept up, though they would, very slowly, let the warmth they felt for each other shine through until they could act as they wished in public.
He had not realized how sharp her verbal barbs were until she mocked him in public, and he felt again the humiliation of it, the anger that the one who had vowed to love him should deliberately hurt him. She realized she had gone too far, he saw, almost as soon as she had said it, and he had forgiven her – but the sting remained, and the fear that she truly thought him as contemptible as she joked.
He had not realized how much he had hurt her until he came home the evening after the party – he had never told her of his comings and goings unless they would affect her directly – and found her crumpled in front of the fire in her room, sobbing into her handkerchief, afraid that she had angered him beyond recall.
Sir Percy looked up from the fire to Marguerite. The light sparkled on her rings and needle and thimble as the fabric flowed through her hands. She was concentrated on her work, and, once again, he felt the curious mixture of awe and satisfaction and sadness that so often came over him lately when thinking of her.
The difficult thing was that he had so little time. Fate had smiled upon him so far, but he was well aware that each trip to France might be his last. At the beginning it had not seemed so important; he had no family to mourn him, except Marguerite, and he had doubted, in those early days, that she would mind either way whether he lived or died. But now–
It was harder, now. If he were to die before he had mended this rift, while a more perfect understanding was just out of his reach, in sight but not within grasp. . .
It was difficult not to envy Andrew and Suzanne, rosy in the light of love, with no shadow of broken promises between them. He was her rescuer; she, the woman for whom he had risked his life, whose love and gratitude were his alone. Percy and Marguerite had watched them at the party, filled with regret and perhaps a little despair. They might, indeed, be able to build their marriage into something strong, but those first days had been lost forever, and in their place sat the memories of betrayal.
They had had twenty-four hours of happiness, he thought. Twenty-four hours between wedding and falling out.
It was more than some couples got, he supposed. Perhaps they were lucky.
"Percy?" Marguerite's voice brought him out of his stupor, and he looked up from her hands to meet her eyes.
"Are you well?"
"Yes, m'dear. Nought but a reverie. Forgive me."
She smiled at him. "May I ask what was the subject of this reverie?"
"The two of us, Margot."
She laid her sewing aside – it was his shirt, he saw – and leaned forward to take his hand.
"And what were you thinking about the two of us?"
It was so hard to tell her exactly what preoccupied him – sorrow and envy and guilt.
"That I wish I had been better to you."
She nodded slowly. "And I to you."
He bent to kiss her hand, and she sat back in her chair, a little solemn, and picked up her sewing again. Another time he might have tried to embrace her – but not tonight.
The tear in his shirt closed, slowly. Marguerite's needle dipped in and out of the linen, and he watched, still turning the problem over and over in his head, and wondering how they would ever manage to talk freely, without fear of indifference or hate.
They had vowed to stand by each other and to love each other, on that distant first day of their marriage, but neither had kept the spirit of their oaths, and it was no wonder they found it difficult to keep them now, and to trust each other to do so.
It could not be done in a night – it might take years – but the only possible cure was to get in the habit of loving again, to think of her, to care for her. Again he thought longingly of that other Percy and Marguerite – the couple they might have been – the couple he so wished they could be.
She wished for it too, he thought. At least there was regret and longing on both sides. If he put out his hand, she would take it.
It was not nearly enough. But perhaps, in time, it might grow to be more.
The alternate title of this work is, "How to Fix Your Marriage When Your Sole Coping Mechanism Is Ruthlessly Mocking/Ignoring Your Spouse In Public."
By the end of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Percy and Marguerite have reconciled, and, the next time we see them, they are quite happy together. However, they've spent their entire marriage (except for those first twenty-four hours) in their own little private cold war, and it can't be easy to break out of that. When we originally meet Marguerite, her only method of dealing with her frustration and grief over the state of her marriage is making fun of Percy, and his method of dealing with this is pretending he doesn't care. I realized that I hadn't seen much, if any, fic exploring this, or even just acknowledging that it takes time to change that sort of habit, so I thought I would write one.
Their relationship isn't quite as bleak as Percy thinks here, of course. He'll be somewhat surprised, when the events of The Elusive Pimpernel take place, to see how far they've come. But at the moment, he's realizing just how much damage they've done, and that it's going to take a lot of time and pain to get them to a better place.