Baleful Godmother Historical Romance Series Volume One

by Emily Larkin

  Letty poured a generous glass of brandy and handed it to him. “Drink this.”

  Reid obeyed, gulping a mouthful. He inhaled sharply, and coughed. “Jesus!” It took him several seconds to catch his breath. The dazed look was gone and there was faint color in his cheeks. “What the devil?”

  “It’s brandy,” Letty said.

  “I realized that.”

  “I thought it might help.” She perched beside him on the bed, curling her feet under her. “Go on, drink it all.”

  Reid hesitated, and took a sip.

  Letty sat quietly, watching him. How could a man go from terrifyingly dangerous to heartrendingly vulnerable in the space of a few minutes? It was more than the tremor in his hands and the hitch in his breathing. It was his hair, disheveled and damp with sweat. It was the hollow at the base of his throat, glimpsed through the open collar of his nightshirt. It was the bare wrists, exposed where his cuffs had ridden up.

  For some reason, that shadowy hollow, those exposed wrists, made Reid seem so defenseless that Letty’s throat tightened painfully. She swallowed twice, and cleared her throat. “Is the brandy any good?”

  “Tolerable.” The silver gaze settled on her face. “Thank you.”

  Letty almost blushed. “You’re welcome.”

  Sitting beside Reid on the bed, she could smell him, smell fresh male sweat. Inexplicably, it made her want to lean closer and inhale deeply, made her want to fill her lungs with his scent.

  She looked away. I’ve gone mad. The small vial of valerian caught her eye. One hurdle at a time.

  Letty glanced back at Reid. His eyelashes were astonishingly long, and spiky with moisture. Had he cried in his dream?

  He took another sip of brandy, rubbed his face roughly, sighed.

  Letty wasn’t sure if it was the sigh, or the damp eyelashes, or the bleak weariness on Reid’s face, but she experienced an almost overwhelming urge to lean over and hug him.

  She buried her hands in her lap and looked away.

  When Reid finished the brandy, Letty took the glass. “Would you like more? There’s a whole bottle.”

  “I should be in my cups if I had any more.”

  “Why not? If it would help you sleep.”

  “I never sleep again.”

  Letty’s eyebrows rose. This was unprecedented openness from Mr. Reid. “What else have you tried? Other than laudanum?”

  He looked away. “You should go to bed.”

  “What else have you tried?”

  Reid glanced at her. His jaw tightened. A flicker of annoyance crossed his face. “It doesn’t matter. I told you, I’ll be—”

  “Dead by the end of the year. Yes, I know.” Letty crossed to the tray. “I bought some valerian. Have you tried that?”

  Reid didn’t reply. She looked over her shoulder to find him eyeing her narrowly.

  “The apothecary said valerian’s not at all like laudanum. It’s not an opiate. It won’t put you to sleep, but it will encourage you to sleep.”

  Reid’s eyebrows flicked slightly in disbelief. He said nothing.

  Letty picked up the vial and the teaspoon and brought them to the bed. “I should warn you, it does smell rather bad.”

  Reid eyed her even more narrowly, and then sighed, not a sigh of annoyance, but of resignation. “How bad?”

  Letty uncorked the little vial and held it out.

  Reid sniffed. His head jerked back. “Jesus!”

  “Please?” Letty said. “Just once?”

  They matched gazes for several seconds. Finally, Reid looked away. “All right, I’ll try it. Once.” There was an undertone in his voice that took her a moment to recognize: wryness. He’s humoring me.

  Letty measured out the valerian.

  Reid swallowed it, and grimaced.

  “Would you like a little more brandy to wash it down? Just a mouthful?” Letty splashed a small amount into the glass and held it out to him.

  Reid swallowed the brandy, too.

  “Do you normally read now?” A glance around his bedchamber showed her six books stacked in a pile. “Which one are you reading?”

  “The second volume of The Odyssey.”

  Letty fetched the book, but she didn’t hand it to Reid; instead, she sat cross-legged on the end of his bed, and opened the volume. “From the beginning?”

  “I am perfectly capable of reading myself,” Reid told her. The wryness was gone from his voice; in its place was a faint edge of irritation.

  “I enjoy The Odyssey.” Letty opened the book—it was Alexander Pope’s translation—smoothed her hand over the first page, and began to read.

  At the end of the third page, she risked a glance at Reid. The irritation had faded from his face. He looked almost relaxed.

  By the end of the seventh page, his eyes were heavy-lidded and drowsy. Letty lowered her voice and spoke more slowly.

  By the tenth page, Reid was asleep.

  Letty closed the book quietly and crept off the bed.

  She stood for a long moment, looking down at him. This was a Reid she’d not seen before. All the tension, the grimness, the bleakness were gone from his face. He didn’t look dangerous; he looked peaceful.

  His hands lay limply. Beautiful hands. The sort of hands a Greek sculptor would prize, large and strong and lean-fingered. They seemed very brown against the white of the sheet.

  She wanted to reach out and take one of them, wanted to lay her palm against his, slide her fingers between his. She wanted to lean down and kiss him, kiss those cheekbones, kiss that mouth.

  Liquor and sex, the old woman had said. The feather bed jig.

  I wish I truly was Mrs. Reid.

  Letty picked up her chamberstick and tiptoed from the room.

  Chapter Twelve

  November 11th, 1808

  Basingstoke, Hamptonshire

  Icarus woke to the sound of someone moving quietly in his bedchamber. He blinked his eyes open. For several disorienting seconds, he didn’t know where he was. India? Portugal? England?

  “Good morning, sir.”

  Icarus stared at the young man blankly—and then recognition came. Green. With the recognition came comprehension, and memory. Basingstoke. The Plough.

  “Good morning,” Icarus said, and pushed back the bedclothes, feeling dazed and off-balance. Where had Miss Trentham vanished to? Why were the shutters open? Was it actually daylight outside?

  He looked around the bedchamber with incredulous disbelief. I fell asleep again? “What time is it?”

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “Ten?” Icarus felt even more off-balance, even more incredulous.

  “Mrs. Reid said to let you sleep, sir.”

  Icarus stared around the bedchamber again. There was the brandy, there the vial of dark liquid, there The Odyssey.

  “I have hot water, sir. Do you prefer to shave yourself, or would you like me to do it?”

  “Uh . . . I’ll shave myself.” Icarus rubbed his face, ran his hands through his hair, shook off the incredulity.

  “Very good, sir.”

  Half an hour later, washed, shaved, and dressed, Icarus went down to the parlor. Miss Trentham was there, reading. She looked up at his entrance and studied his face. What she saw made her smile. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.” Icarus eyed her. How in God’s name had she managed to send him to sleep again?

  The landlord’s daughter bustled in, carrying two plates. Not sausages this morning, but fried ham. The scent made Icarus’s mouth water.

  Miss Trentham was some kind of witch, he decided, as they sat at the table.

  “Three eggs today, don’t you think?” Miss Trentham said, unfolding her napkin. “And two slices of ham.”

  A bossy, despotic witch.

  * * *

  After breakfast, they went their separate ways, Miss Trentham to buy Eliza a new gown, Icarus to arrange for an outrider to accompany the post-chaise into Wiltshire tomorrow. They met again for a late luncheon, when Miss
Trentham forced him to eat rather more than he wished to.

  “What I should really like to do this afternoon,” Miss Trentham said, putting her napkin neatly beside her plate, “is go riding. Do you think that’s possible?”

  “Very possible.” He examined her face. There was no sign of the blow he’d struck her two nights ago. He felt relief that the injury had been minor—and horror that he’d hit her in the first place.

  The Plough had no suitable hacks, but the commercial stables had a neat bay mare that Miss Trentham liked the look of, and several geldings that were up to his weight.

  “What do you ride, sir?” the groom asked, sizing him up. “Twelve stone?”

  Icarus swallowed the fifteen he’d been about to utter. “Thereabouts.” Twelve stone? Had he really lost that much weight?

  They followed the man’s directions, rode south to the downs, and put the horses to a canter. Icarus hadn’t known where he was when he woke this morning, but there was no mistaking where he was now—the gently undulating hills, the neat hedgerows, the plump sheep. It was utterly unlike India. Utterly unlike Portugal.

  When they dropped to a walk, Miss Trentham came up alongside him. “May I ask you a question, Mr. Reid?”

  Icarus eyed her warily. Was this about his nightmares? Because he was damned if he was going to discuss them with her.

  “As a soldier, you’ve killed men, haven’t you?”

  Icarus felt himself blink, felt himself stiffen. “In battle, yes.”

  “Did it bother you?”

  “I didn’t enjoy it, if that’s what you’re asking.” He’d vomited after his first battle. Vomited after his second one, too.

  Miss Trentham’s brow creased slightly “And yet you enjoyed soldiering?”

  “There’s a lot more to soldiering than killing people,” Icarus told her. Some of his affront leaked into his voice. What did she think he was? A murderer?

  “Have you ever tortured anyone, Mr. Reid?”

  Icarus rocked back in his saddle. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Have you—”

  “Of course I haven’t!” The gelding caught his outrage and tossed its head and skittered two steps sideways. Icarus brought the animal under control, and glowered at Miss Trentham.

  “Does it happen?”

  He opened his mouth to tell her hotly that British soldiers weren’t barbarous savages—and then closed it again. Sometimes, they were.

  Miss Trentham watched him steadily.

  “I can’t tell you that it never happens in the British Army,” Icarus said, uncomfortably. “One hears rumors from time to time. But I can tell you that I’ve never witnessed anything that could be classed as such.”

  Miss Trentham nodded. She was going to ask another question—he could see it on her face—and he knew where that question was leading: Vimeiro.

  “Let’s ride,” he said curtly, putting his heels to the gelding’s sides. The animal plunged forward.

  Icarus held to a canter for almost a mile. His hot outrage dwindled to mere anger, and then to annoyance and a reluctant acknowledgment that Miss Trentham’s questions had been valid. Any English man or woman had a right to ask them. As a soldier, he’d been answerable to his superior officers. To the king. And to the people of England.

  He slowed to a trot, and managed a polite smile. “Ready to turn back?”

  Miss Trentham met his gaze squarely. “I apologize if I offended you, Mr. Reid. It was not my intention.”

  Icarus drew his horse to a halt. “You did offend me,” he told her. “But you’re not a soldier. You don’t understand soldiering. We’re not blackguards and murderers.”

  “I didn’t think you were.”

  Icarus looked away from her, and then back again. “There are soldiers who’re little better than criminals,” he admitted. “But I assure you I wasn’t one of them.”

  “I didn’t think you were,” Miss Trentham said again.

  The last of his annoyance evaporated. Icarus gave a nod.

  They trotted leisurely back to Basingstoke and returned the horses. Icarus felt weary, but not exhausted. His legs were barely shaking.

  “Spare a penny for an old soldier?” he heard someone say distantly, as he walked across the square with Miss Trentham.

  Icarus glanced around. A beggar sat on a bench outside the Hogshead. He had a graying beard, a crutch, and only one leg.

  The townsman the beggar had petitioned—stout and self-important, with a beaver hat and a topcoat with three capes—walked past without acknowledging the man.

  Icarus halted.

  “Spare a penny for an old soldier?” the beggar said again, to a housewife bustling past, who also ignored him.

  Icarus dug in his pocket. “Won’t be a minute,” he told Miss Trentham.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Letty followed Reid across the cobblestones. The beggar looked up as they approached. He was a thin man, with leathery skin and a shaggy salt-and-pepper beard. “Spare a penny for an old soldier?”

  Reid gave him a handful of coins.

  “Lor’ bless me!” the man said, almost falling off the bench. “Thank ’ee, sir.”

  “What regiment were you in?”

  The man squinted up at him. “Twelfth Foot, sir.”

  “Twelfth Foot? You’re a long way from home. East Anglia, isn’t it?”

  “Come down ’ere to be with me sister.”

  “She lives in Hamptonshire?”

  “Used to. Dead a few years back.”

  “Were you at Mallavelly?”

  “That I were.”

  Reid looked at Letty, a question in his eyes. She nodded; the beggar was telling the truth.

  Reid glanced at the beggar, and at the bench, and then back at her. She read that question, too, and answered it by stepping closer to the bench and sitting down.

  Reid sat next to the beggar. “I was at Mallavelly.”

  Letty half-listened while the two men talked, exchanging military reminiscences. You don’t understand soldiering, Reid had told her. We’re not blackguards and murderers.

  And then he’d admitted that some soldiers were.

  Letty plucked the fingertips of her gloves thoughtfully. What had happened to Reid in Portugal?

  She knew what she suspected had happened to him.

  Letty glanced at Reid, seeing the way his clothes hung on his gaunt frame, seeing the hollows of his cheeks. He and the old beggar were now talking about Seringapatam, during which battle the soldier had injured his foot. “Nothin’ more’n a scratch. But the gangrin came in. Fair stinkin’ it were.”

  Reid grimaced. “I know the smell.”

  “Had to take off half me leg. Took three men to hold me down,” the old soldier said proudly.

  After a few minutes, Reid turned the conversation back to England. The beggar talked of his sister’s death. “Fever, she ’ad.”

  “Fever? I had the fever in Portugal. Almost cocked my toes up.”

  The beggar nodded sagely. “You don’t look none too spry, sir, if you don’t mind me sayin’.”

  Reid shrugged agreement and asked further questions. The beggar described his slow slide into destitution.

  “What about the workhouse?” Reid suggested in a neutral tone.

  “Workhouse?” The old soldier spat expressively. “Don’t never want to end up there. I’d rather die in a ditch!”

  Reid turned the conversation again, told a story about a man he knew who’d unexpectedly come into five hundred pounds—and run through it all in less than a year. Letty listened intently; Reid was lying.

  “What a looby,” the beggar said with disgust.

  Reid shrugged. “Who wouldn’t do the same?”

  “I wouldn’t,” the old soldier said indignantly. “I’d go ’ome to Sudbury and buy meself a cottage and live there quiet-like. Five hunner quid! I could live the rest of me life on that—and ’ave some to spare!”

  Reid glanced at her, his eyebrows lifted in query. Letty nodd
ed; everything the beggar had said was the truth.

  “Well, soldier, you’re going to have the opportunity to do just that.” Reid pulled out his pocketbook, extracted five banknotes, and held them out to the man.

  The beggar’s mouth fell open. He was missing several teeth.

  Reid closed the man’s fingers around the bills, and stood. “Good-bye. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

  Letty stood, too, and watched the old soldier’s face. His mouth worked, but no words came out. He groped for his crutch, and tried to stand.

  “No, don’t get up,” Reid said, reaching down to grip the beggar’s hand. “Put that money away, man. Else someone will take it.”

  The old soldier fumbled the bills into an inside pocket of his threadbare coat. “Sir,” he said, tears standing out in his eyes. “Sir . . .” He swallowed audibly. “Sir, how can I ever thank you?”

  Reid smiled down at him. “By buying that cottage.” He touched a finger to his brow, almost a salute, and turned away.

  Letty matched her stride to his. On the far side of the square, she glanced back. The old soldier was still sitting on the bench, scrawny and grimy and dumbfounded. She looked at Reid. “Do you do that often?”

  “I’ve done it a few times.” Reid walked several paces, and halted abruptly. “That man risked his life for England—gave his leg, for Christ’s sake!—and now he’s reduced to begging?” He was fierce, impassioned, glaring at from her beneath lowered brows.

  Letty met that silver glare steadily.

  The animation drained from Reid’s face, leaving him haggard once more. He turned away and began walking again. “I beg your pardon. It’s a sore point with me.”

  Letty said nothing. She matched her stride to his again.

  Reid glanced at her. “I made my money soldiering—prize money. It seems only right that I share it with those who were less fortunate than I was.”