Lady Marchwell was unutterably dismayed. “Please don’t go like this, Juliet! Stay, I beg of you, for I’m sure this rift can be mended.”
Charles took several steps after his distraught wife. “Don’t reject me, my darling! Let me prove that you are the one I love, the one I’ve always loved.”
“Monstrous liar!” cried an indignant dowager whose Cinderella costume fitted her ample figure a little too well.
Juliet paused to glance coldly back at him. “You’ve always loved me? Charles, I will never again believe you ever loved me at all.”
She began to run up the staircase, hardly aware of those gathered at the top, and certainly not aware of Jack. The magpie was still on the garlanded rail, and had been jealously guarding the locket from any light fingers, not that anyone had dared to chance a peck from his powerful beak. Now, however, the bird’s attention wavered from the locket to the wedding ring, which shone so enticingly on the floor of the hall. He was torn between the two prizes, but his mind was made up when Charles stepped to retrieve the ring. With a fusillade of jealous squawks, the magpie abandoned the locket and flew down to whisk the ring from Charles’s outstretched fingers. This time the magpie made certain of his ill-gotten gain by disappearing with it into the adjacent grand parlor.
In that moment Charles could willingly have strangled the unprincipled bird. All he wanted was to return the ring to Juliet’s finger, as if that would miraculously put his marriage in order again, but when he dashed into the grand parlor, set upon strangling the wretched magpie if necessary, Jack had disappeared.
Lady Marchwell knew she must play the firm hostess, so she smiled up at the hovering guests. “Come now, ladies, gentlemen, and children too, of course. I believe this part of the entertainment is at an end. Pray come down so the ball may commence.” With that she looked into the ballroom and nodded at the small orchestra she had engaged for the occasion. The jaunty but rather inappropriate notes of the “Our Love Will Never End” reel immediately began to sound.
Lady Marchwell frowned at such a choice, but had to make the best of it. She smiled and nodded graciously at the guests as they passed, and took Puss in Boots by the arm as said young lady showed every sign of subjecting Charles to some remarkably feline scratches. “Not now, Hermione, there’s a dear cat,” Lady Marchwell murmured, steering the furious young lady into the grand parlor, and giving her into the care of a rather frail and elderly Ali Baba.
When all the guests had gone into the grand parlor, Lady Marchwell drew Charles to one side. “Perhaps it would be better if you do as Juliet wishes,” she said with a long, sad breath
“And leave? But if I do that—”
“Right now she is not open to reason. Oh, Charles, why did you do it? I really thought that your marriage was stronger than this.”
He ran his hand agitatedly through his hair. “Pathetic as it sounds, I was jealous of my friends’ freedom to do as they pleased.”
“If that is your reason then you are far more immature and feckless than I ever dreamed.”
“I don’t love Sally, nor does she love me, although she is determined to keep me simply for the kudos of having a titled protector. She has been threatening to tell Juliet if I try to end things.”
Lady Marchwell raised a scornful eyebrow. “Oh, poor you.”
He colored at the sarcasm, and returned to her. “I suppose I deserve that.”
“Yes, you do, sir. I suppose your next whine will be that the liaison never meant anything and so you ought to be granted absolution.”
His flush intensified. “Well, it didn’t mean anything, it was something I started then could not stop.”
“How very unfortunate for you.”
“I know I have sunk in your estimation, but—”
“But nothing, sir, for you have sunk almost without trace,” Lady Marchwell said tartly. “How dare you say this year-long liaison has meant nothing! That response has been the bleat of faithless males throughout the ages. Why is it that men regard as irrelevant a physical act their wives deem an expression of love? A woman does not give herself lightly, but it seems the men think nothing of it. Why then should your wife think you’ve ever meant any of the kisses you shared with her? Reason tells her you didn’t.”
“But I did! Damn it all, Lady M, I adore Juliet!”
“Oh? Yet you have acquired a mistress. But I was forgetting, she means nothing to you, does she? It is a veritable torture for you to lie in her arms, and anyway, it’s all of no import.” Lady Marchwell pursed her lips and eyed him. “Tell me, Charles, if the shoe were on the other foot now, and it was Juliet saying all the things you are saying, would you accept that it meant nothing and take her back into your arms?”