Patience and Her Virtue (AFL, Round 2)

She was devoted to another, but even Coulter had to admit, this rival was far beyond his ken.

He was to meet her in the church where they married; she was to ask him for an annulment. But her reasons were obscure. She loved him once, she avowed, but was there now another whose claim on her was even stronger?

"Go away!"

Again came the knock.

"Monty, damn you, I said go away!"

Damien, splayed in a wingback, clutched a dampened flannel to his eyes. So this was crapulence, he thought bitterly, the woeful aftereffects of his intemperance last eve. Although, who could blame him for having partaken of more than his share of his aunt's smuggled spirits, he reasoned. It's not every day one finds oneself dancing with one's wife without one's knowledge.

With a sound that for all the world sounded to Damien like the scream of a raptor, the door to the darkened study swung open. Then the booming began.

"Before you abuse poor Montague any further, I should tell you that I forced my way in. You shall find the wretched creature gagged and bound in the pantry."

The voice belonged to Geoffrey Hawes, Viscount Lampton, as did the tut-tut that followed.

"Dear me, another of England's fair sons felled by the snifter." Damien heard a body drop into the chair beside him. "If that upstart of an emperor had only braved the steppes wielding barrels of brandy rather than the barrels of guns, all of mother Russia would have fallen prostrate at his feet."

"Trenchantly observed as always, Lampton. You really must share such staggeringly brilliant insights with Lord Wellington."

"You are in a foul temper." Lampton slapped him mischievously on the knee. "I doubt I've seen you with such a sore head since you were sent down from Cambridge. Or," he smiled the words, "since the morning after your wedding."

Another rap on the door, and a palpably nervous Montague entered.

"Slipped your binds, have you, Monty? Good man!" Lampton bellowed.

He nodded hesitantly to Lampton, then addressed Damien.

"Sir, I am exceedingly sorry to disturb you, but a note has just arrived and the man -"

"Alright, Montague," Damien sighed and flapped his hand.

Montague placed an envelope of heavy cream stock on the table by Damien's elbow and hastily withdrew.

Damien regarded Lampton from under the edge of the compress.

"Read it, will you?"

The viscount stretched lazily then reached for the envelope. He slipped the note from its sheath and waved it languidly under his nose.

"Lavender. Lovely," Lampton trilled.

"Oh, no."

"Oh, yes. Who is..." Lampton scanned the missive. "Penelope? Do I know her?" he smiled, his voice dropping. "Would I like to?"

"Unless you've a penchant for felinophilia --"

Lampton raised a dark brow.

"I do love the cathouses, I will not feign to deny it."

Damien groaned and extended his hand. When Lampton failed to comply, he snapped his fingers. With a smirk, his friend relented.

Lifting a corner of the cloth, he peered at the note with one heavy-lidded eye.

He harrumphed.

"She wants to meet."

"At church, no less. Naughty girl."

"Evensong. I loathe evensong," he carped.

"St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Isn't that where you were married?" He inhaled sharply. "Wait a moment. Penelope. I say, Coulter - that's your wife!"


Just shy of five o'clock, Damien found himself among the good and the pious scaling the steps of Gibb's neoclassical masterpiece. His lethargy largely banished by the restorative powers of Fuller's best porter, he was able at last to consider what the forthcoming assignation might hold. Little in the way of stolen kisses or lingering caresses, no doubt; the lady's choice of venue had seen to that.

Still, he had to admit his curiosity was piqued. His attempts last night at questioning her had been summarily rebuffed, as she had quickly disentangled herself from his grasp at the end of their waltz and struck off in the direction of the oily Baron of Snydley.

He had considered following her, demanding she tell him all, but then came the seductive call of the bottle and the comparatively easy answers it promised.

It was just as he crossed the threshold of the church that he felt a small hand slip into the crook of his elbow. The shock of the pixie-like touch was startling in its intensity. And far from unpleasant.

"Why, Damien. I'll wager the last time you saw the interior of a church was on our wedding day. The black sheep may yet return to the fold."

He look down at the bright, upturned face of his wife. He could feel her warmth radiate against the full length of his arm, his thigh. By Jove, his mother would surely thrash him for having such impure thoughts in the house of God. And she would be thoroughly justified, he conceded.

They proceeded towards the center aisle, arm in arm, the mirror image of their path three years previous. As on that day, she wore a gown of white, her hair arranged in pert ringlets about her face.

To his surprise, she chose a pew at the back. And she sat close to him, excruciatingly so. Indeed, were she to move a mere inch in his direction, he was sure to end up plumb in his lap. And under the circumstances, that would simply not do.

It was not until the service began that she spoke. And when she did, it was with a subtle incline of the head and a breath that caressed his cheek like the brush of pillowed lips.

"I will be brief so that we may enjoy the service and endeavor not to beat about the bush," she whispered. "We've both of us wasted enough of our lives on this sham of a marriage. I've come to ask you for an annulment, something you've no doubt already surmised. You are, I dare say, a rapscallion of the highest order, but you have never been a fool."

He glanced at her.

"You wound me, lady. I had come to hold "scalawag" as a term of endearment, but rapscallion? You go too far...But you are correct. I had surmised as much. And while it is not something I necessarily object to on principle, I do confess to a burning curiosity to know why you come to me now with this request. Something to do with the charming Snydley is it?"

Just as on the previous eve, he felt her body go rigid.

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"Masquerading as a countess to draw him out? Hoping he is too far gone to care when you reveal your true - married - identity?"

"You are astonishingly prescient, my lord, but I fear the motives you attribute to me are false. I wish to draw him out, yes, but I do not nor will I ever wish to marry the worthless cad. It is my aim, rather, to expose him as the worst sort of scoundrel: one who preys on the weak and naïve and then abandons them to fortune's whim -"

At the last her voice and color had risen perceptibly.

A chorus of "Shh!" flared against a lilting hymn.

"I take it, given the nature of your scheme, that you are not among those he has ruined. So tell me, on whose behalf have you become so...exercised?"

Patience heaved a great sigh.

"Sully, my lady's maid. Mother was to travel to London last season, but Mills had fallen ill and could not accompany her. As I spent all my time in the country in the company of little to no society," she shot him a pointed look, "I suggested she take Sully. While here in Town she...came under the influence of Snydley. He told her he loved her and that they would be married, despite the difference in their means. Of course, he had no intention of making good on his vow. She returned to me with child, her spirit broken..."

Damien nodded knowingly.

"So you will -"

"Get close to him, gather proof of his crimes..."

"Certainly, but I have yet to see how my agreeing to an annulment will aid in such an endeavor."

"It is so that I may devote myself to helping women like Sully, to set up a home for them and to look after them until such time as they can find their way back into society. And to do so wholly and properly, I'm convinced I must be...unfettered by other bonds."

"There's something more you're not telling me, Pene-, Patience. There's clearly someone else whose bride you seek to become. It is worthless to deny it."

"There is...someone. Only as I am an Anglican, what I want simply cannot be."

"Why? Is he Catholic? Is he - tell me he's not French."

"Oh, if only I were a Catholic!"

"I say, steady on!"

"Shh!" the worshipers protested.

She turned to look him.

"You see, Damien, I had every hope for our marriage, right up to our wedding night. I had even convinced myself I was in love with you. But then I found the letter from Lady Archibald in your coat pocket and I knew you would never be true. That day I gave up hope of ever loving or trusting a man again. Indeed, there has been but one place I have found succor, one...being to whom I have entrusted my heart and my fate. It is true. I wish to become a bride - I wish to become a bride...of Christ."

"Christ?!" Damien exclaimed, the word echoing throughout the nave.

And with one voice, the congregation turned:

"SHHH!"