by Emily Larkin
* * *
Reid didn’t wake before dark. Houghton dined with her in the parlor. The covers hadn’t long been removed when the landlord, Mr. Thackeray, tapped on the door and entered, a portentous look on his face. “The parish constable to see Mr. Reid, ma’am.”
Letty exchanged a glance with Sergeant Houghton.
“Show him in here, please.”
The parish constable entered the parlor half a minute later. Letty looked the man over. Middle-aged and thickset, with a no-nonsense expression on his face. She rose and shook his hand politely, trying to gauge his temperament. “Good evening, Constable. I’m Mrs. Reid, and this is my husband’s friend, Sergeant Houghton.”
“Ma’am,” the constable said stiffly. “Sergeant.”
“I understand you wish to speak with my husband? He fell in the river and I’ve put him to bed.” Letty smiled apologetically. “He’s sedated, I’m afraid—fast asleep.”
The constable looked put out. He opened his mouth.
“Please be seated, Constable,” Letty said, resuming her seat. “I gather you’re here about that business with Colonel Cuthbertson?”
The constable hesitated, and sat. “Major Reid visited him this morning.”
“Yes, we both did. And before you ask, yes, there was an altercation, and yes, my husband did hit Colonel Cuthbertson.” She paused, trying to read the constable’s face. Should I be open, or evasive? “Colonel Cuthbertson was responsible for the deaths of four of my husband’s men in Portugal, and Icarus—my husband—wished to bring him before a military court-martial.”
The constable’s face folded into a frown. “Court-martial?”
“Yes. My husband was to have fetched Colonel Cuthbertson away this afternoon.”
The constable eyed her. “Where was Major Reid at midday today?”
“Here, with the sergeant and me. We were just sitting down to luncheon. Weren’t we, Sergeant?”
“Yes,” Houghton said. “The coachman can confirm that Major Reid returned here shortly before twelve, and the waiter will tell you that we all sat down to lunch shortly afterwards.” His voice held a note Letty hadn’t heard before. This was Houghton being a sergeant. “Not only that, the major sent me to the lock-up to tell you he’d be bringing in Cuthbertson this afternoon. When I got there, you’d just left.”
The parish constable digested these facts, turning his hat over in his hands.
“Do you think Colonel Cuthbertson has been murdered?” Letty asked, her tone a careful combination of diffidence and concern. “Did he not leave a note?”
The constable pursed his lips, clearly debating the wisdom of answering this question. “He didn’t leave a note.”
“Does it look like murder?”
The constable hesitated. “Not rightly, no. But the maid said there’d been a Major Reid to visit earlier, and there’d been violence.”
“There was,” Letty said. “But my husband didn’t shoot the colonel. He wanted to see him hang. Which fate, one must guess, the colonel wished to avoid.” She let this comment hang in the air for a moment. “If you would like to speak with my husband, I suggest you return tomorrow, but as Sergeant Houghton has said, both the coachman and the waiter will confirm that he was here at midday.”
The constable cogitated on this for several seconds, and nodded.
Letty stood, and held out her hand to him again. “It is good of you to be so thorough, Constable.”
The constable shook her hand. “It’s what the parish pays me for,” he said gruffly.
When the man had gone, Letty turned to Houghton. “What do you think?”
“Officious, but not a fool. He won’t be back.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Reid was still sleeping when Letty retired at ten o’clock. She sent Green to bed, and left the door open between her bedchamber and Reid’s, but Reid didn’t rouse in the night. He was still asleep when she rose the next morning.
“Is he all right?” Green whispered anxiously.
Reid wasn’t flushed, he wasn’t shivering, his breathing slow and steady and quiet. “I don’t think he has a fever,” Letty whispered back. “He’s just tired. Will you sit with him, please? And let me know when he wakes?”
It was past eleven when Reid finally woke. Houghton brought the news. “No, don’t go to him, ma’am—Green’s got everything in hand.”
“How is he?”
“Well enough,” Houghton said. “But he says he’ll take his breakfast in bed.”
Letty pondered these ominous words. Breakfast in bed? Reid? But when she entered the bedchamber half an hour later, Reid didn’t look ill. He was sitting up in bed, his face shaved, his hair combed, and from the evidence of the depleted tray Green was removing, he’d eaten a good breakfast.
She studied his face. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” Reid said, and yawned. “Tired.”
“You slept twenty hours.”
“So Green tells me. I feel like I could sleep twenty more.”
“Then do! Lie down. I’ll read for a bit.”
Letty rearranged his pillows, and pulled up a stool, and opened Herodotus. Even without brandy and valerian, Reid was asleep after six pages. He woke again in the middle of the afternoon, ate soup and bread-and-butter, played one game of backgammon with Houghton, and fell asleep again. “Is he all right?” Houghton asked worriedly, over dinner.
“I think so,” Letty said. I hope so. “He’s been under immense strain the past few months. I think his body needs to rest.”
“He told me he was dying. You don’t think . . . He’s not . . .” Houghton took a deep breath. “This isn’t the end, is it?”
Letty shook his head. “I think he’s finally healing.”
“I hope you’re right, ma’am.”
So do I.
* * *
Reid woke at nine that evening, ate, played another game of backgammon, listened to four more pages of Herodotus, and slept the night through, thus setting the pattern for the next three days. Green, whose attachment to Reid bordered on worship, sat with him whenever he slept during the day; when Reid was awake, Houghton played backgammon with him and Letty read Herodotus. The days slipped by lazily. Each night, Green left out brandy and valerian and Letty opened the adjoining door, but Reid had no nightmares.
On the third day, Letty wrote a letter to her putative chaperone, Mrs. Sitwell, telling her that she’d decided to stay longer in Andover, and to not to look for her for another two weeks. Yet another lie to add to her tally—and she felt a pang of guilt—but how could she leave Reid now, when he was deciding whether he wanted to live or to die?
She posted the letter, and hoped Mrs. Sitwell wouldn’t examine the postmark.
During the daytime, while Reid slept, Letty walked out with Eliza or Houghton, rambling alongside the river, exploring the ruins of Okehampton castle, climbing up onto the moor. The more time she spent with Eliza, the more she liked the girl. Eliza was barely seventeen, but she was cheerful and stoic and possessed an unexpectedly shrewd intelligence—and now that she’d lost her overawed shyness, she showed glimpses of an impish sense of humor.
I shall be sorry to send her to the lying-in hospital, Letty thought, as she strolled on the moor one day with Eliza. She’d have to ensure the girl found a good position afterwards, somewhere safe. But safest would be with me. And then she fell to wondering whether she could employ Eliza in her own household. But that would mean confessing that she wasn’t Mrs. Reid, and would the girl wish to have a liar for a mistress?
Letty sighed, and gazed unseeingly across Dartmoor, and saw the balance scales in her mind’s eye. The weight of her lies was substantial, but the weight of the deaths was far greater. Not merely three deaths, as she’d once thought, but many, many deaths. All of Lieutenant Pereira’s deaths, all of Reid’s deaths.
She regretted the lies she had told, wished they hadn’t been necessary—and knew that she’d do the same again if she had to.
“
I think that’s Dinger Tor, ma’am.”
Letty blinked, and discovered that she was staring at a distant outcrop of rock.
“Jeremy says one of the villagers told him a giant used to live there.”
“Jeremy?”
Eliza flushed a pretty pink. “Sergeant Houghton, I should say, ma’am. He’s teaching me to play backgammon.” And then she said, anxiously: “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not.” It wasn’t Houghton’s one arm that made him safe company for Eliza; it was his integrity.
The very next day, Sergeant Houghton himself brought up the subject of Eliza’s future. “I know it’s not my place, ma’am, but what exactly do you plan for Miss Marshall?”
Letty abandoned her perusal of the ruins of the Okehampton castle bailey, and examined Houghton’s face instead. “What has she told you?”
“Everything.” He paused. “At least, I think she’s told me everything.”
Letty surveyed him. “And what’s that?”
“That she was raped,” Houghton said bluntly “And turned off, and her aunt wouldn’t take her in—and you rescued her.”
Letty nodded. Eliza had told him everything. “My plan is to send her to a lying-in hospital in Holborn, a clean, well-run place. She doesn’t wish to keep the child, so it shall go to a good foundling home. And then I’ll see to it that Eliza finds a respectable position. I should like it to be in my own household, but . . . that would mean telling her I’m Miss Trentham, not Mrs. Reid, and if she knew that I doubt she’d wish to be employed by me.”
“You think not?”
“I have deceived her, Sergeant.”
“And saved her. Your kindness to Miss Marshall must make her forgiveness certain.”
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Letty eyed the sergeant, remembering Eliza’s pink blush yesterday. “Do you like Eliza, Sergeant?”
Houghton went faintly pink himself. He looked away. “I’m not courting her, if that’s what you mean, ma’am.”
“You may, with my good wishes.”
Houghton studied the remains of the bailey for several seconds, and then met her eyes. “I’m twelve years older than her, and I have only one arm.”
“So?”
“So, I’m not a good husband for her.”
“Nonsense! It’s a man’s character that determines whether he’ll be a good husband, not the number of arms he has. And as for your age, if Eliza doesn’t care, then I don’t see why you should.”
Houghton’s lips compressed. He looked down at the grass growing where flagstones had been hundreds of years ago.
“Eliza needs a good friend,” Letty said gently. “And perhaps, in time, that good friend can become her husband.”
Houghton’s lips compressed further. He dug the heel of his boot into the turf, gouging out a clod. “I’d like to see him flogged, the man who raped her. If I had both arms, I’d do it myself.”
“Then it’s just as well you don’t have both arms!” Letty told him. “For he’s a squire’s son and you’d end up in gaol, and how would that help Eliza?”
Houghton glanced at her sharply—and then acknowledged the truth of her words with a wry grimace.
“Come.” Letty held out her hand. “Let’s climb the motte.”
Houghton dutifully offered her his right arm. They strolled up the incline of the old motte to where the ruined keep stood, its crumbling turret sticking up like a warped gray finger.
Letty gazed out towards the village, her hand tucked into the crook of Houghton’s arm. A very strong arm, thick with muscle, warm and alive. “Does your left arm pain you, Sergeant?”
Houghton didn’t answer.
Letty glanced at him. Had she offended him? No; Houghton looked pensive, not angry.
“Not so much now. The worst part is, I keep forgetting it’s gone. I go to use it, and . . . it’s not there.” He smiled crookedly at her. “I’ll get used to it. It’s already a lot better than it was. In time I’ll forget I ever had two arms.”
No, Sergeant, I don’t think you will. And neither do you.
Letty released his arm, and impulsively hugged him. “I do like you, Sergeant. Very much! And I hope you will marry Eliza!”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Icarus knew it was winter, knew that the days were growing shorter and darker and colder, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was spring and that outside everything was being reborn—buds bursting forth on bare branches, lambs prancing in the pastures. Nor could he shake the feeling of lazy convalescence. He knew he should abandon his bed and hire post-chaises and haul everyone back to London, but he simply couldn’t muster any enthusiasm, and so, every day, he let it slide. When Letty Trentham told him she’d put off her return for another two weeks, Icarus nodded his relief and stopped thinking about departure at all.
He didn’t think about Vimeiro, either. He knew it had happened, could remember every detail if he wanted to, but it seemed very distant, something that had happened to him in another life.
On the fifth day after Cuthbertson’s death, Icarus left his bed—but he only went as far as the parlor, where a merry fire burned, and where there were scones warm from the griddle, and clotted cream and sticky strawberry jam, and a pot of tea. Icarus stayed there all afternoon, talking with Houghton, talking with Letty Trentham, while rain pattered against the windowpanes.
The conversation wandered in many directions, and finally drifted to his planned charity for invalided soldiers. “I’ve been making notes,” Houghton said. “I’ll fetch them. Won’t be a moment, sir!”
Icarus looked at the tea tray, where the last scone lay amid a litter of crumbs, and contemplated eating it.
“Icarus?”
He glanced at Letty Trentham. She was wearing the lavender gown today, and her eyes were lavender, too.
“If you don’t mind my asking . . . how do you feel?”
Icarus gave up contemplation of the scone and considered this question. I feel well. But that didn’t quite capture it. He thought for a minute, and finally understood what it was that he felt. “I feel alive.”
Letty hadn’t looked anxious, but he realized now that she had been. He saw her shoulders relax slightly. She smiled, and her changeable eyes seemed to sparkle, as if they filled with tears, and then she blinked and the illusion was gone; no tears, just a smile. She didn’t say anything, just nodded, and when Houghton returned a moment later with a sheaf of notes in his hand, she picked up her book and read, while he and the sergeant fell into discussion of the intricacies of setting up a bakery.
That evening, rather than backgammon, Letty Trentham proposed a game of Commerce. “They have the cards and counters here, you know. Sergeant, would you like to play?”
Houghton hesitated. “I shouldn’t be fast enough. I can’t hold cards and play them.”
“I may have a solution to that,” Letty said, and she produced a small wooden bookstand, with a sloping back and a lip that Houghton could set his cards on. “Shall we try?”
They played Commerce. The first hand was sedate, but by the third hand they were all three of them as rowdy as children. When Houghton narrowly beat Letty Trentham in the final round, Icarus looked at them both—Houghton chuckling and Letty shaking her head ruefully—and he laughed with the sheer pleasure of the moment.
It felt good to laugh. Good to have friends. Good to be alive again.
That evening, after Green had gone and Icarus was climbing into bed, someone knocked softly on the door between his bedchamber and the next. He hesitated. I really shouldn’t. “Come in.”
The door opened. Letty Trentham stood there in her nightgown.
They stared at each other for a long moment. Letty Trentham had been Tish while they played Commerce, relaxed and laughing. She wasn’t Tish now; she looked shy and almost diffident, as if expecting a rebuff. “May I read to you tonight?”
She was asking more than that, and they both knew it.
Icarus hesitated. I really shouldn’t. B
ut longing overcame good sense. “Yes.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Letty Trentham did read to him, sitting cross-legged on the bed, but only four pages. She closed the book and glanced at him, with the same shy diffidence she’d shown in the doorway.
They held each other’s gaze for a long moment, and then Icarus reached out and drew her close enough to kiss. Her lips were warm and soft and perfect.
Icarus gave a deep sigh of pleasure, and drew her even closer. He’d missed this: kissing Letty Trentham.
Later, he kissed his way up her inner thighs and brought her to a shuddering climax, and after that, Letty returned the favor. It seemed hypocritical to refuse consent when she’d done it before.
They fell asleep in the warm, cozy, rumpled bed, holding each another. For the sixth night in a row, Icarus had no nightmares, and for the sixth morning in a row, he woke feeling alive.
* * *
That afternoon, when he and Houghton were debating the merits of London over Exeter as the site of the inaugural bakery, Letty Trentham and Green and Eliza returned from a walk on the moor.
“Look what we found, sir,” Green said, depositing a bundle wrapped in one of Miss Trentham’s shawls on the hearthrug.
The bundle moved.
Green peeled open the shawl. Inside was a puppy. It had huge dark eyes and a muddy black-and-tan coat. Icarus could see every one of its ribs.
“I thought you might like him,” Letty Trentham said hesitantly. “He has three black paws, like the dog you had when you were a boy.”
Ulysses had been black and white, and had looked nothing like this pup, but Icarus was aware of three pairs of eyes beseeching him. He got up from his chair, and crouched beside the puppy, holding out his hand for it to sniff.
“He’s going to be big,” Houghton said, crouching alongside him. “Look at the size of his paws.”
