Marianne POV
I hear Sir John's carriage and my stomach leaps. Please let the Colonel have come with him. Please let him want to talk to me. It falls to my feet as Sir John walks in alone.
I burst into tears. "Stubborn man", my mother comments.
"And a dear friend", Sir John corrects. "He's...stewing. And is quite pickled already."
"I don't know why he won't talk to me. The way he said he loves me...maybe he doesn't", I wail.
"Come now, Marianne", Mrs. Jennings says, "He's besotted, and we all know it. I imagine he's angry. And hurt."
"Terribly", Sir John remarks, shoving the dagger deeper, glaring at me.
"Well I think he should understand that Marianne didn't want trouble", my mother offers, trying to defend me.
"He's her husband it's his house", the traditional Sir John adds, "There is nothing that goes on there that she should not tell him." My mother falls silent.
"What did he say?", I ask desperately.
"The conversation was in confidence", he replies.
"Please...please!", I beg and his hard blue eyes turn compassionate, "Please tell me. I'm trying to save my marriage! I love him. I want to love him, and protect him, and take care of him forever. I want him, not Willoughby. But I can't get him back if I don't know what he's feeling", I burst, wiping tears off my cheeks.
I glance at my mother..."Please?" She moves to leave the room, and when Mrs. Jennings doesn't follow, she takes the older woman's arm and leads her from the room. Mrs. Jennings tsks, disappointed.
"He's jumping to conclusions", I say, "It seems as though he condemns people without a moment's hestitation."
"If you think that, you don't know Brandon", he coughs.
"I know my husband", I state, "But I admittedly have not known him long or well. If I am wrong about him, convince me. I've always felt like there was something going on I'm not privy to. Like he had an entire life no one talks about and it influences everything he says and does."
"Sharp of you", Sir John comments. "I served in his Majesty's Royal Navy for a short term during the worst fighting with the French. Not like Brandon, I had no desire to make a career of it, but it felt like the patriotic choice, damn fool that I was.
Brandon joined the Navy at that time because that's where the action was. I never understood that sort of man, but there it is. He was my commanding officer for a few months despite being half my age. His men respected the hell out of him, pardon... but there were still jokes. He was up every morning before everyone else, no one had ever seen him enter a brothel, he executed a man for rape. He never laughed or smiled and seemed to have no human frailty whatsoever. It took a while for us to become friends, and when we did, I realized I was the lucky one."
"Then you know!", I shout, "You know what drives him sometimes. Like he's persecuted by a ghost I can't see."
Sir John sighs.
"Yes", he responds, "Trafalgar, '05, we're off the coast of Spain—22 British ships to 37 French and Spanish. We lost Nelson there. On our roughest night, all the sailors got drunk. We expected to be sunk by sun-up. We'd both had too much to drink and starting asking about who we were going to leave behind back home when we became shark food. I talked all about my parents, my brothers and sister and my first wife, Jane. She died of pneumonia years later. Anyway, he told me the entire story, that there was only person he would miss, and he meant to defy Davy Jones himself to get back to her. Elizabeth de Feuillide, his cousin, whom everyone called Eliza. She had lost her family young and joined his household. They spent most of their young lives falling in love and never fell out of it. A piano aficionado, she taught him all about music."
"He talks about her with such reverence", I add.
"He loved her so...well, I don't have to explain to you how the Colonel loves", he says.
Whether he meant to shame me or not, he has. The Colonel loves with a mix of fiery passion and traditional commitment. It's almost dizzying.
"His father was a terrible man he explained to me, I am reluctant to tell such tales to a lady, but in this case, I think I must...his father, Lord Brandon, was continually taking mistresses and spending the family fortune to keep them in the lap of luxury. His wife, Lucille Batton, was a fine woman according to Brandon, who loved her three children dearly, but the mistresses and the beatings—he hit her—became too much. She fled. The children legally of course belonged to the father, and he never let her see them. She committed suicide a few years later. My friend was devastated."
"Oh my God! What a terrible man!", I shout.
"It gets worse. Can you endure it?", he asks.
"Continue, I didn't mean to interrupt you", I offer.
"His father, John, loved, if you could call any emotion he had "love", his eldest son of the same name much better than Christopher, or his sister, Teresa, who left for Avignon when Christopher was just a small child. She abandoned the Church of England, and became a nun. Christopher fears his father... I'll leave it at that. He was much younger than the other two and was not involved the drama of the other children.
When Eliza turned 16, his father insisted on marrying her to his son, John. Brandon insists it was for meanness because he hated his second son with every fiber of his being. Christopher begged, pleaded, cajoled, manipulated and finally threatened to run away with Eliza, anything to make her his bride. His father forced the wedding, and Brandon's brother harmed her on the wedding night. Christopher's room was next door and he listened to the screams of the woman he loved. He burst into tears telling the story at that point...
He says he tried to get Eliza to leave with him, but when she refused, he left for the military, first stationed in the East Indies, and eventually in France. His father died during his turn in the East Indies, making his brother John the head of the family and master of Delaford. Turned out Christopher was a born solider. I truly believe he is the only honorable man in his family. And I believe he never meant to look back, or to return to Dorsetshire."
"This is astonishing! What made him come back?", I ask.
"Well, we survived the night obviously. I left the service as quickly as possible and he returned to the East Indies. He heard of their divorce. A great scandal on the family, but he returned to find her and marry her. You know much of the rest. He found her in a poor house, dying of disease and infection from living on the street. She was denied even a farthing in the divorce. She had gone so far as to...that is... she sold..."
"Herself to try to survive", I finish. "I know this talk is forbidden between us, but I need the truth."
"Y...yes", Middleton spits, "The woman he loved died in his arms that day—his brother entirely at fault for her death. I'm sure you've noticed, maybe even laughed at, his exaggerated deference and manners. But in his mind, his father and brother killed two innocent women, the women he loved most in the world. I think he fears the same evil is in his blood."
"That's insane!", I shout.
"To us, not to him. That's why he reacted the way he did when you fought, and he struck the wall. He's disappointed in himself, and terrified he came too close to the edge."
I sigh. My God, this is all my fault.
"Eliza had a three-year-old daughter from one liaison or another, whom Brandon made his ward on the spot. Within months, his brother died of syphilis. When Christopher inherited, Delaford's finances were a disaster. His brother had mortgaged it for gambling credit, and had blown through most of the fortune. It took nearly a decade to set everything to rights, but he owes no one anything at this point. He sold his minor title, family heirlooms, and a bit of the land for pay off the debts.
When Beth became too old for it be seemly to continue to live in the house of a bachelor, he purchased a small home for her, and sent Mrs. Edwards, her governess with her. He visited a couple of times a week. That was of course before she was seduced, impregnated, and abandoned by the man you prefer to your husband."
My head snaps up. "I do NOT prefer him to my husband, Sir John. I told Willoughby to leave me alone every time I saw him! He did not listen!"
"And why", Sir John starts angrily, taking me by surprise, "Why young lady, did you not tell your husband that another man was pursuing you? Why did you let him come again, and again, and again, and not say a word? Why did you promise to tell Brandon and fail to? Why did you let Willoughby kiss you? He thinks you've done far more than kiss."
"You may hate me, Sir John, but I'm no longer lying about this to anyone, including myself. I still have feelings for Willoughby. I loved the man more than life for months. Feelings do not shut on and off. The truth is, I did not want my husband to kill him. And Christopher is getting older. I... didn't want to take the risk with him. That doesn't mean I love Willoughby or want him back. I never want to see him again in my life!"
"I don't hate you, dear girl. But you endangered your husband to save a man who used you and assaulted a young girl!", he shouts at me.
"I dare say Sir John, you have feelings left for your first wife..."
He turns the color of the white cloth on the table.
"I also daresay if Eliza returned, the Colonel would have quite a decision on his hands."
"It's far different! They're both dead, and were innocent. Why would you make such a comparison...", he yells.
"I mean no offense, Sir John. But the man I loved is still alive, and kept putting himself right in front of me. We did nothing but kiss, though I am deeply ashamed of that. Willoughby tempted me with a kiss, but you must believe he never tempted me with the idea of running away with him. I know who he is. I'm proud to be Mrs. Brandon. I have a handsome, capable, enormously loving husband, and after hearing your tale, I love him even more."
"Marianne, he dueled the man once already...with cutlasses...over Beth. I believe the entire reason he didn't kill Willoughby then was because you would never forgive him if he did, and he loved you so much already. Don't ask him to stay his hand again..."
I cannot promise that.
"Can you help me get him back? Does he hate me?", I ask.
"Oh Marianne", he waves me away, "He loves you, and forgave you instantaneously, though he is not aware of it."
"I want to go home, Sir John", I insist.
"I'll speak with him in a few days after he's calmed down. For now...sometimes a man needs to be alone."
I nod. In the meantime, I intend to find out what Willoughby meant when he bragged with such confidence about winning any future duels with my husband. Men are too proud to ask questions, so I will have to do some digging myself, and pray he can forgive me for seeing Willoughby again.