Forty-One

Shattered Dreams

Philip arrived very late and completely disheveled, his clothes splattered with refuse from the streets, his wig and cravat discarded. He had a look of wild desperation in his eyes that was at once unfamiliar and unsettling.

He had woken Sukey from her bed, reminding her of his other times of crises when he’d arrived on her doorstep soaked to the skin with a tavern wench in tow, and years after that when he had come to her in the middle of the night disconsolate and the worse for drink. Both times, he’d only had to confess his need for her and she’d capitulated.

This night was no different. His look of wretched desolation spoke to her heart louder than if he’d shouted. With a hopeless groan, he pulled her into a crushing embrace, kissing her hard, jarring her teeth, and bruising her lips. They didn’t exchange any more words, nor did they undress. Overcome with frantic need, they fumbled only as necessary to join.

His lovemaking was almost painful in its fervency, but sensing his deep distress Sukey endeavored to meet him body and soul. They came together with a furious urgency she’d never known from him, culminating in swift and intense completion in which they both cried out and then collapsed, exhausted and replete, into each other’s arms.

***

It was hours past morning when Philip finally stirred to the sensation of warm lips brushing his brow. When he opened his eyes, Sukey regarded him with an expression that was at once tender and tranquil.

“You must be famished, my love,” she said. “Would you prefer tea or shall I ring for chocolate?”

“Nothing, thank you.” He sat up abruptly in bed and scrubbed his face to discharge the somnolence from his brain. He studied her silently, with a peculiar, almost wistful expression. “Sukey,” he began tentatively, as if feeling his way, “there’s a matter standing between us of which I must speak.”

Her pulse quickened. “If it’s about the divorce, I know these matters take time. I’ve waited this long…”

“It’s not precisely that.” He guiltily averted his gaze.

“If you fret over the expense, I have a small investment,” she offered. “And if need be, I would gladly sell my jewels.” She regarded him expectantly, but something in his manner disturbed her.

“Sukey,” he groaned her name. “My loving, giving Sukey.” He pulled her beneath him and showered her face with heated kisses. She responded in kind, grinding against his body, but rather than capitulating to the invitation he captured her arms and pulled them over her head. “Must you make it so hard for me? We must talk now, before I lose my resolve to speak of it at all.”

An alarm sounded in her head, transforming her anticipation to trepidation. “What is it? Whatever bedevils you—tell me, Philip!”

“You already know of the lost wager, but that is not the half of my foul turn of fortune. Yesterday I met with a man to whom I am greatly indebted. Knowing I have no means by which to pay him, he proposed a solution that would put an end to my ramshackle existence.” His voice took on a passionate urgency. “I could be completely absolved, Sukey, and able to begin again. I could finally live without this crushing weight incessantly hovering over me.”

The grip of his hands tightened on her wrists. Her eyes grew wider as he brought the full force of his will to bear. “Do you understand me, Sukey?” It was not a question. It was a demand.

“You’re hurting me, Philip,” she whispered. “And no, I do not understand. What are you trying to say?”

“That I have indeed petitioned for divorce, and that lack of money will never again be a hindrance to me… that I am betrothed to marry an heiress.”

She stared at him for a beat, dumbfounded. When she gained her voice, it was raspy with disbelief. “I can’t possibly have heard you properly.”

“My dearest love. You must understand, this changes absolutely nothing between us.”

“You think to marry another and believe it changes nothing?” She gasped and jerked her arms from his grasp. “How can you even say it!” She raised her hands to his chest and shoved with all her might, freeing herself from under him.

“How is anything different?” he demanded.

Her voice quivered with fury. “How? I’ll bloody well tell you how! Charlotte never wanted you and never slept in your bed! Do you mean to tell me you would marry again and fail to consummate? Are you going to tell your new bride that you will take her money but will not sire an heir upon her?”

“It is not the same thing, damn it! Yes, I would need to consummate the union but that is all! We do not even have to maintain the same household.”

“You think for one moment her dear Papa, who holds your purse strings, would countenance your living with your mistress? You errant cad!” She pitched herself across the bed. Flailing at him with fists and feet, she pummeled and kicked until she forced him bodily to the floor with an unceremonious thud.

“Sukey, please try to be reasonable,” he pleaded.

“Be reasonable, you say? You may go to the devil with your reason, Philip Drake, if you think to wed and father children with another woman!” Her voice was a choked sob. “I have stood by you more faithfully than the best of wives these six years. I broke every vow I’d ever made to myself to never enter into such an arrangement as this, and you treat me with such contempt?”

“Be fair!”

“Fair? In a six-month I’ll be nothing more than your cast-off whore!”

“Never! How can you think such a thing?”

“How can you deny it? But if I am now to be officially relegated to such a position, I’d far lief it be for the favors of a prince than to be bound to a deceitful, impoverished imposter to an earldom.”

Snatching up his discarded clothing and throwing it at him piece by piece, she cried, “Get out! Out of my bed! Out of my home! Out of my life!”

He flinched as her poisonous words worked their venom. “You would court Frederick’s favor to spite me?” he asked, incredulous.

“Would it pain you if I did, Philip?” Fire blazed from her eyes.

“More than you can ever know.” His voice was pitched low, his expression grave.

“If it would grieve you half as much as you’ve wounded me, so be it.” Shaking with rage, she grasped the mantel for support.

“Do you think this is what I want?” he shouted. “You’ve got to know this isn’t how I intended it to be. Thrice—thrice!—I have asked to you marry me, Sukey, and thrice you refused. Now, when I find myself in a pit of ruin and despair, you suddenly take it into you head to change your mind?

“Sometimes, my love, we just can’t have what we want and must settle for what we need; and at present, I need money! Lots of money!”

She looked up at him, her chest heaving from the exertions of their exchange. They stared at one another in stony silence. She was first to look away, blinking back her welling tears. “I thought you needed me.” She looked desolate.

“Sukey.” He spoke her name as a plea, and for the briefest instant he thought she would falter. He was mistaken.

Grabbing a candlestick from the mantel, she punctuated the request with an impromptu projectile toward his head. “Now for the last time, get out!”

Philip dodged behind the door, agonized beyond description by the botch he had made of it all.