Read Online The Room Beyond by Stephanie Elmas - Free Book Online

couldn’t stop them coming in, he’s still got his
key.’
    Lucinda felt her fingers form into a tight grip around the banister.
    ‘Thank you. Perhaps you should go out, do a little shopping.’
    ‘Yes ma’am.’
     
    The two of them were perched unnaturally close together on a large
chair.
    ‘Get out of my house, immediately!’
    ‘Lucinda Lucinda, just calm down my cherub.’
    He rose up, gesturing with outstretched hands in that way he always
did, as if trying to coax her into submission.
    ‘ My cherub ? Is it really appropriate to jest at this present
moment? Get out and take that slut with you. I never want to see either of your
faces again. Do you hear me?’
    Betsey shot past her, sprinting out into the hallway, Alfonso in her
wake, but she clutched at their heels like a tidal wave. Betsey was wearing a
lime green ensemble. She gave the outfit a deprecating glare and the girl let
out a small scream.
    ‘Betsey my dear, I think you had better go and sit in the carriage.’
    ‘Sit in it? She’d be better suited to pulling the blasted thing,’
Lucinda exclaimed.
    Betsey burst into tears and the door slammed shut behind her. Alfonso
gulped, letting the silence settle. There were dark shadows under his eyes. He
looked weary.
    ‘Can we... talk, like adults?’ he asked.
    He touched the side of her arm with his hand but she flinched back
and his face screwed itself up into a wince. He looked so pathetic that she
almost felt sorry for him. There was a stain on his waistcoat, a brownish mark
like tea just next to the top button. Something must surely be wrong with her
proud, vain husband.
    ‘Darling, what can I do to make things better?’
    She pretended to think for a moment. ‘You could die. That would be a
start.’
    ‘Come now, you don’t really mean that do you?’
    ‘My dear dear man, if I were to read of your death in a newspaper
tomorrow, I would dance barefoot down this road and throw a riotous party to
celebrate.’
    A cloud swept across his face, acknowledging his forty-six years.
    ‘She’s not doing you any good, is she?’
    He didn’t answer.
    ‘Is it not quite what you imagined it to be? Is that young, flighty
little thing too much for you, or perhaps not enough? Have you found that she
is, in fact, a little bored by her rich gentleman, or has she realized that
you’re not quite as rich as she thought?’
    He peered at his feet. But when she walked away to the drawing room
he followed her submissively.
    ‘Does she know that the business barely pays for itself and that
your wife has always propped you up with her fading bits of inheritance?’
    ‘Please stop.’
    ‘Oh, I apologize! I must have touched a nerve. Why did you come
here?’
    ‘Merely to pick up a few odds and ends and, to see you.’
    ‘And did you have to bring the whore?’
    ‘Betsey is not a whore. I had hoped that by putting the two of you
in the same room, well, it might just make things a little easier.’
    ‘Easier for whom? For your guilty conscience? Goodness, how
marvellous, Lucinda and the little dancer girl are such good friends! They had
afternoon tea together today and ...’
    ‘Stop it, please! Easier, if you must know, to see the true error of
my ways.’
    Alfonso pulled a handkerchief from out of his pocket and mopped his
brow.
    ‘I miss this house. I’m so... tired.’
    He dragged his feet over to the window.
    ‘There’s a young woman waiting out there in that carriage for me and
quite frankly, however hard I try, I cannot even picture her face. All I see is
you, Lucinda. I forced the two of you together and she lasted no more than a
few seconds. You’re a magnificent woman and I have been an awful fool.’
    ‘Running out of money?’
    ‘Don’t, please don’t...’
    He raised his hand as if to ward off the attack and she paused. How
wretched and alone he looked over there by the window, with his stained old
waistcoat and the beginnings of a stoop. She joined him and he drew her even
closer by the