A Loveless Marriage

Chapter 25: Mary

"We're all running from something here, Mrs Wilkes," George Rathbone said with an easy smile. "Tell me, what brings you to exile in Paris?"

The pretty American girl opposite, Miss Cornelia Goelet, rolled her eyes and gave me a brief glance of sympathy. I could not tell the truth. I was a coward who ran from love. I'd ran from pain. I'd ran from my own weakness. I'd ran from the truth of my relationship; that my whole marriage was built on lies.

"I am simply here for the fashion," I said. "Paris is the only place to buy one's clothes."

"You disappoint me," Rathbone said. "You have such an air of mystery."

There was a flirtatious edge to his voice that I chose to ignore. I knew in Paris it was as fashionable to have a lover as wear a Reboux hat, but I would not betray Fred in that way. Rathbone persisted with his teasing and I persisted with my reticence. I had not wanted to come to lunch, I had only come as Miss Goelet had begged me to come.

I'd met Cornelia on my third day back in Paris, at the hotel we were both staying. She was lavishly dressed in white furs and surrounded by half a dozen tiny dogs. Her voice was loud and her French was terrible. One of the pack, a tiny Papillon, broke free and came over sniffing my shoes.

"Oh Tippet, you naughty boy!" she'd exclaimed. "I'm so sorry."

"It's quite all right," I said.

"Oh! An Englishwoman," she said. "You look so elegant, I assumed you were French."

We started talking. Within the hour she had revealed that she had come from New York City to marry the Marquess of Moseley, that she was terrified of the grande dames of Paris, that she was spending her honeymoon in Florence and that she absolutely loved my hat. Her warmth was infectious and her friendship was a tempting distraction from my heartache. I worried for her, moving half way across the world to marry a man she hardly knew. Her marriage had been orchestrated by her mother and another American heiress, Lady Paget. She had no ambitions or hope to love her husband and I marvelled at her detachment. Agatha Chorley would have called her a dollar princess and sneered at her brashness, but I liked her cheerful honesty.

Most of the time, I eschewed the company of others. The hotel brought back too many memories of Fred, so I took an elegant apartment close by and engaged a maid. Still, I could not hide from my feelings. I wrote letters that I never sent; letters of recrimination, letters of guilt, letters of hope and desperation. I spent my days writing them and burned them with the ink still wet on the pages. I knew I had to go back to speak to Fred, and yet I was afraid.

Running was all I knew. It was all my childhood. Every time there was a whisper of suspicion, an old familiar face, my father would find somewhere new. We fled the truth as others fled the bailiffs. The shame of my mother's illness shadowed my life, it had to be kept secret or our world would crumble. That was all I knew. My mother's shame and my father's love, the twin roots of my life.

It was a miracle that I had let myself be loved by Daniel Mordaunt. A man so handsome he could have stepped out of a romantic novel. His manners, his interests, his looks were all flawless. Looking at him was like being blinded by the sun and I could not see my own imperfections when I was him. He made me happy and secure for the first time, I saw myself as he did, his love mirrored in me. Once that love was shattered, the illusion of happiness was gone.

Whilst I had loved Daniel for his perfection, I loved Fred for his flaws. I loved the pain beneath his nonchalance. The earnestness beneath his carelessness. I loved that I saw a secret side of him that was better than the one he presented to the world. That love weighed heavy on my heart.