Free The Marquis of Westmarch by Frances Vernon

know your duty, why consult me, as well as your precious Juxon? And if you consider Maid Rosalba’s betrothal no impediment, the scandal as nothing, your mother’s discomfiture as something desirable, why do you not, not go first to Lady Berinthia —”
    “To Berinthia ?”
    “Confide in her that you have formed a lasting attachment, the world is beginning to look askance at marriages of convenience, after all, and I daresay she is a good enough girl at heart for all her Island-Palace ways! Besides, you would owe so much to her, atleast, you’d spare her some degree of mortification, and females seem to like nothing so well as earnest confidences from men, so I’ve heard. Then make your arrangements, marry your Rosalba if you must. Why do you not? What is it? Do you indeed love Maid Rosalba as you say?”
    “A thousand reasons. You are very much annoyed, Wychwood, ain’t you? I’m sorry for it.” He hesitated. “Indeed, I have not told you the whole truth yet.”
    “Oh. Well — do not, unless you wish to,” said Auriol gently. He touched Meriel’s sleeve for a moment, withdrew his hand, looked away to the far end of the little beach.
    The Marquis began to cry, quietly and with set features. “Oh, damn Juxon!”
    “Is Juxon — forcing you for some reason of his own to make this atrocious match? Westmarch!” He saw the tears. Meriel swung round. “ What ?”
    “I beg your pardon. But I don’t understand you.” He clenched one fist.
    “No one can force me to do anything, anything at all sir, d’you hear?” Meriel thumped the rock, self-consciously.
    “No. Though the Marchioness can put intolerable pressure upon you, I collect,” said Auriol. Don’t cry, don’t cry, he wanted to say.
    “Pray how can you suppose Juxon is forcing me to marry Rosalba — as though such a thing were in his power — when I have told you precisely the opposite?” said Meriel more calmly. “He was against the match, do you not remember?”
    “Westmarch, I don’t know, I ought never to have phrased it in just that way. But I have often wondered — especially now, you say you dislike him, yet you confide in him about an intimate matter — whether he perhaps has some hold over you. Forgive me if I am wrong, but as your friend —”
    “Yes,” said Meriel softly, “he has, but then — well, I have some hold over him, sir. Indeed, the same hold.”
    “I see,” murmured Auriol.
    Meriel turned to him. “No, you do not. Try to guess. Try to guess what it could be !”
    “How should I guess ?” cried Auriol. “Is it some crime you’ve committed together? A crime of — what is this?”
    Quiet.
    “I love you and I want you, that is all I truly wished to say to you, ever, but did not dare,” said Meriel. He was breathing hard, his breath smelt of brandy from his hip flask. “To hell with Juxon and the whole rabble. It’s you.” So it’s done now, thought Meriel, how strange. “I do love you.”
    Auriol’s mouth trembled. For weeks he had dreaded the possibility that he could be physically drawn towards a member of his own sex. Clearly that was what Meriel meant. Not even after the chance meeting with Maid Rosalba had he put the question crudely to himself: are you, are you, drawn to Meriel Longmaster. He had once wished sincerely that Meriel had a twin sister, but had thought that no doubt she would be as insipid as other women.
    “Westmarch,” he whispered.
    “Do you love me, in some fashion?” demanded Meriel, “Do you, do you sir?” He scrambled up and stood before him, feet sinking deep into the sand. “Say that you do.”
    “Yes, yes I love you, but I am no sodomite, Westmarch. Good God!” For a single moment he had perceived the boy as a ravishing girl.
    The Marquis gripped his shoulders and loomed over him, and Auriol felt faint with unnatural desire. “God bless you,” Meriel said, and smiled.
    “Yes, I love you, but never in that way, God, no,” Auriol whispered, staring up into the