On crossing the threshold of his rude dwelling he barely supressed the urge to scream kicking the door behind him closed with such force it groaned in protest. How the fuck he'd got through the evening without disgracing himself he'd had no idea. The only thing he could put it down to was his love for the woman who'd sat opposite him for what must have been one of the longest and most painful evenings of his life. Sir Malcolm had insisted that he stay for dinner in celebration of his return to health and also his success in finally tracking down the whereabouts of a person in which Sir Malcolm was highly interested in. The food had been delicious, the wine a perfect complement to it and Sir Malcolm and the doctor had been on fine form the alcohol relaxing both their personalities and their tongues. A year past he would have revelled in the companionship, the company, the camaraderie but the evening had been tortuous.
Vanessa had looked exquisite dressed in a gown of deep wine red, tiny roses of the same colour nestled in her midnight hair that gleamed against the ivory of her skin in the subtle light of the dining room and later the drawing room. She'd been the perfect hostess, charming, smiling at the conversation and occasionally making comment. But her eyes had been constantly drawn to his as his had to hers and in them he saw not only the love for him so thinly veiled but also the very mirror of his own suffering. Constantly he had to tear his eyes away from hers so he didn't at best get lost in them or at worst stride over to her, take her in his arms and kiss the pain away, her husband and the fragile friendship they'd built be damned.
The jealousy that he'd seen the seed of in the young doctor the day he'd finally woken, had seemed to shrivel away in the further weeks he spend recuperating at Grandage Place. Victor had watched them from afar but still closely, but since Vanessa's confession of her feelings they had played the most careful of games. Although there had been small windows of opportunity for them to be alone they had taken no advantage of them always maintaining a level of decorum that was beyond suspicion. The joy he felt at the knowledge of her forgiveness and the love that shone from her eyes like a beacon when they were alone together was wracked with the kind of suffering he'd longed for in those months before. But now it was unbearable. To know that she loved him, wanted him and yet was still unassailable filled him with the kind of pain he previously could only imagine.
What was worse though was the respect and friendship for her husband that he could grudgingly not help feeling the longer he stayed in the house. His compassion, his skill, his care of Sir Malcolm and the obvious adoration he felt for Vanessa was all but tangible in everything he did and said. Previous to this, apart from the afternoon they'd spent in the cellar, him teaching Victor to shoot, their time together had been brief and at first often unwelcome, but his recuperation had forced them together. At first an uneasy companionship had grown up between them but quickly had slipped into friendship. Stories had been shared of past pleasures and pains, recommendations of poetry to read, discussion of events from the daily news had all built a new but deepening relationship. Sometimes Vanessa would join them and he could see her conflict a mirror now of his own. Although he knew that her love and need for him was paramount to her existence like the very air she breathed he saw her abiding love for the man she called husband and now he was able to understand and respect it. Ethan was her very soul and life's blood but Victor held a place in her heart.
And although it took him away from her presence, as soon as he was able, although disapproved by all at Grandage Place, he moved back to his rooms. Every time they were alone it became harder for him, especially as he gained his health not to pull her into his arms and meld his mouth to hers. He knew that she would not reject him, that she wanted physical evidence of his love as much as he did, but to put her into that position of betrayal was unacceptable. That first night, still in pain from his barely healed wound which was exacerbated by the lack of her presence he felt a depth of torture as yet unknown to him. The knowledge that she was so far away, that she would not be able to enter his room to bid him good night her soft, deep voice both a salve and scourge to his emotional agony her love burning in her eyes almost undid him. He spent the night staring into the darkness reliving every word, every look, every touch that had ever passed between them. But most of all he tried to recapture the feeling of her mouth on his. Once in rain soaked passion in the cottage on the moor and most recently in abject pain on a grey morning only weeks before at the acceptance of their fate. When finally he did sleep it was filled with dreams, flashes of her body wrapped around his in ecstasy only to be torn away again and again until he felt he would run mad.
And tonight in the aftermath of another evening where his friend would sleep by her side the pain was as cutting. In despair he reached for his cure and curse in the form of the bottle of cheap whiskey that sat on the small table where she'd once sat blue lipped and shivering, her soaking clothing moulded to her body attempting to unpin her hair. In desperation he couldn't even wait to find a glass bringing the bottle directly to his mouth loving and hating in equal measure the burn of the rough liquor even more pronounced by the fine liquors he'd consumed earlier that evening. The part of him that wanted to punish, flagellate himself screamed into his brain that this was all he deserved. Alone, with his blatant want of another man's wife, a coward drowning his sorrow and lust down the neck of a bottle. That by filling his body with such polluted filth it proved that he had no right to foul something as pure and binding as the vows made between a man and his wife; his friend and his wife. This thought rang so true that the next swig of the harsh liquid caused him to choke and in a fit of rage he flung the bottle against the far wall watching in with a mixture of horror and satisfaction as it exploded against the wall the whiskey staining the dirty wall covering further and filling the room with its noxious fumes.
He knew he was behaving irrationally the smashing of the bottle which would have given him some peace in drunken oblivion but he could do nothing else. His mind was racing and it took every ounce of strength not just to return to Grandage Place, confront Victor with the truth and demand that Vanessa came with him. But although the idea of it seemed the very answer to his pain he knew that it was nothing more than a fantasy. He could not make her choose, not that he didn't think he would evolve the victor but what it would do to her. Sir Malcolm had warned him months back of her loyalty and he could not test that even if it broke his, and ultimately her heart.
He had considered disappearing again. Walking away from the torture that her marriage caused but despite the undeniable pain it caused him every moment he was in her presence and unable to claim her the thought of being away from her any more than he had to be was an agony he knew he now was not strong enough to bare. That mixed with the pain of seeing her came with fleeting moments of pleasure. Only the previous day he'd arrived at the house and had entered though the kitchen since he was aware Bennet had been given an afternoon off and past familiarity had given him knowledge of where the back door key was hidden. He'd silently entered the drawing room hoping to help himself to a fortifying glass of Sir Malcolm's whiskey only to be confronted by the sight of Vanessa laying asleep on the sofa. She looked so utterly at peace and yet in that relaxed pose one arm flung over her head the other laying on her breast a small book clutched in her hand. His heart leapt as he recognised it as one of his. One that he'd thoughtlessly left when he'd walked out of this very house over a year before thinking never to see it or her again. The fact that she'd found it, kept it and read it in private; something of his, caused a glow to run though him. She looked like a goddess and he found himself drawn to her, a supplicant in worshipful adoration. Without thinking he knelt down at her side aching to touch her, to run his fingers over her skin to lay his mouth against hers and wake her with kisses. He could almost feel the shape of her mouth against his. Her sweet breath whispering against his lips, her thin arms full of the strength of passion winding round his neck. But sanity stopped him and the fear of branding her with the sin of adultery. But then suddenly he found himself staring into the endless blue of her eyes although he did not remember them opening. The smile that spread across that mouth he'd moments before longed to kiss almost broke his heart as at first it was one of pure and unutterable joy at the sight of him and then that shadowed, haunted look that came into her eyes as the whole agonising realisation crashed over her again and although her mouth was still curved, it was now a mockery of the emotion that he'd seen.
The fact that he'd wanted this pain was a sick joke. When he was in ignorance of her feelings yes he'd suffered and had wanted to more but the knowledge of her true feelings and what she now suffered was beyond anything he could have haver imagined or hoped to feel in his twisted sickness. Words spoken by his Mother came to haunt him. Beware what you wish for - and not for the first time in his life he berated himself for his lack of care of that gentle woman's wisdom. If only she were here she at least would offer some understanding if nothing else to his plight but she, as he had longed to, lay in the cold clay of his former home.
It was the brutal hopelessness of the situation that crashed through him, a wave of pain that was as unending and enduring as the sea itself. He had the means to stop it, to end it. His guns, as always sat loaded within his reach. How easy it would be to embrace the peace they offered. A final, terminal solution to all the pain. How many times had he picked them up, almost lovingly caressed their offer of oblivion but always something stopped him. That one tiny seed that prevented his cowardly exit: hope. Even now he still hoped that there was a way, that this whole seething mess would right itself, that there could be a happy ending. That maybe tomorrow an answer would present itself.
For a moment he closed this eyes to find her form again in the darkness to find the one and only thing that held him to this life. When he opened them again onto the shabby rooms he knew he'd gain no natural sleep but lacked the energy to leave them to find the liquid aid he needed. With purpose he laid and lit the fire in the grate, cleared the glass away moping the worst of the whiskey up and closed the curtains against the night. He eased himself into the shabby armchair in front of the fire to wait out the night with his memories and his pain for company.
Then almost imperceptibly there came a knock at the door.