The shopkeeper in town, she was told, took a few hours to find or transcribe the music she requested. Reeve did not know it yet, but there were two songs she had in store for him. This one posed the larger challenge for the shopkeeper. She wondered if the man had simply fabricated something for her to play.
She would ask Alice and be sure to send along some extra coin for him if that was the case.
If I had Father’s talent, she thought, I could just make up an accompaniment.
Without further delay, she sang the words confidently even if her fingers still faltered a little on the pianoforte. The song had a happy ending and, although there were several hurdles in the tale and there were different variations on the same verses, the squire was always able to marry his lady despite time, station, and distance separating them temporarily.
Reeve seemed transfixed, for his eyes never left her face once as she sang.
Even when she finished, he gazed at her for some time before talking. “Did Arthur teach you that?”
“Of course he did.”
“He must like it. I hadn’t heard it until he sang it for us. I expect on account of my comparatively sheltered upbringing,” he added with a lopsided smile.
Caroline chuckled. “It is not a lewd song,” she said. “But I don’t imagine your own music tutor would have used it for you to practice.”
“No, he did not,” said Reeve, musing. “He was a hard taskmaster. He only chose the most difficult runs and airs. I was lucky to be naturally talented.”
“Would you like to know a secret, my lord?”
“Only if you do not call me that ever again.”
Lightly, she cuffed him on the shoulder. “It is not an easy habit to break.”
“I’ll see it broken sooner or later, Lady Malliston.”
She glowed at the warmth in “Lady Malliston” and noted to herself that he never sounded as taken when he used it to refer to her tragic predecessor. “Well, I am glad you liked it, but I chose it for its simplicity. I am no musician. I pray any children we have together take after you in that regard.”
The words left her as naturally as an expelled breath, but they fell quiet and regarded each other. Until her unexpected and unconventional marriage, Caroline had not given much thought to having children of her own. She trusted that if it was meant to be, it would happen. Now, the possibility was both very welcome and acutely new to her.
“I did not just like it,” said Reeve. “I loved it. It’s a comforting story, is it not?” He smiled at her. “And a romantic one.”
“I thought so.”
“And, to be clear, I will adore any of our children no matter what their particular aptitudes turn out to be.” He stroked her thigh through her dress, the old fawn one she had arrived in. She did not have enough new clothing to constitute a whole wardrobe, yet. “I hope they all will have their mother’s bracing good sense, even if it means their opinions may be rather quickly voiced.”
She laughed with delight and asked, “Tell me, you did not think my directness wicked, did you?”
He pretended to consider her question until she scowled.
“I found it incredibly jarring, especially coming from such a delicate woman. Never wicked or wrong.”
“But endearing?”
“We did end up married.”
Caroline leaned in and kissed him, teasing his lips gently with her tongue until they parted and he groaned.
She said, with their faces close together, “And so we did. But at first, if anyone had asked me what was more likely—were you going to be my future husband, or would I suddenly sprout wings and fly away—I would have said the latter.”
He brought his ruined hand to her cheek.
“Was I so repugnant to you?”
“No, Reeve. You were formidable in the same way, oh… a mountain is, but you only ever repulsed me when you left Phoebe and Sophie open to potential danger or corruption,” she said, turning her head to kiss his palm. “I sensed or wanted to have faith that you were a better man than you appeared. And before I even thought about that, well, I now have no problem telling you that I thought about doing very wifely things with you.”
Her confession garnered a wolfish smirk. Reeve pushed his hair back and it seemed like he was recalling past scenes in their acquaintance. “I wondered if you did, although naturally I would never have asked,” he said with a measure of guilt that still did not dwarf the satisfaction in his eyes.
“Naturally,” she said primly.
Then she deliberated internally, for the second component to her wedding gift might not be something he enjoyed so happily. She took another sheaf of music from the compartment under the bench and spread it before them. This song was new to her, and she had especially selected it with a little advice from her father.
Reeve studied it, then her face.
“What is this?”
“The second part of your gift,” she said.
Nervously, she began to play with just her left hand. It was not her dominant one, but the song was pretty and simple enough that even she could manage. She took her eyes away from the music and glanced at him invitingly, lovingly.
Reeve watched her fingers until comprehension dawned in his eyes.
“You are kind, but I don’t know if this is advisable.” He shook his head slowly.
Caroline was not fully surprised. She halted her playing and said gently, “We could play together.”
“I cannot play at all, my love,” he insisted.
“You can,” she said.
“Not the way I’d like,” he confessed.
“That’s why it is a gift,” she explained. “We can make music together, you see? We can share it, and you can think on it in the darker times.” She pushed too specific of an idea of what “darker times” might mean for Reeve from her mind.
War is never without them, she thought.
“What a lovely gift!”
Phoebe chose that instant to trundle into the room, having outpaced both her sister and Duckie, who was minding the girls for Caroline. Evidently, she had lingered long enough in the doorway to understand what was going on. She carried a bundle of colorful autumn flowers and tracked in a trail of leaves, some of which were embedded in her hair. Though she presented a small mess, Caroline was secretly pleased she arrived when she did.
“Do you think so, Phoebe?” asked Caroline. “I thought so, as well.”
Phoebe went up to her father’s side of the bench and nodded as seriously as a magistrate. “You miss playing, Papa,” she said, clearly and with pronounced volume. “This is a new way to play. It doesn’t mean it is worse than how you played before.”
Unable to counter that, for it was sensible, Reeve said, “When did you become so wise, little one?”
Phoebe shrugged and stuck a small pink rose into his lapel.
Sophie caught up to her shortly, puffing as she joined Phoebe’s side. “Duckie told me to tell you that there are biscuits in the kitchen.” She looked at Reeve, then Caroline, curiously. “Why are both of you on the bench?”
“Miss Caroline, I mean, Caroline, is trying to get Papa to play,” said Phoebe.
“How can he play with his hand?”
“Well, Sophie, I thought that we could play a song together,” Caroline said.
Rather shamelessly, Caroline was using her new daughters in the same way Reeve had once used them to coax her into staying on at The Thornlands.
Sophie saw at once that Reeve was the problem. She grabbed his injured hand and clung to it. “Papa, do play! It would make you happy. I just know it.”
Reeve looked from one small eager face to the other. He worried his bottom lip.
I don’t know if he’s more embarrassed or eager, thought Caroline. He missed playing so very much that his inclination toward pride might be losing against his desire to make music, again.
“You could be right, Sophie,” said Reeve. With resignation, he glanced at Caroline, who tried not to look too
openly pleased at his capitulation. “Very well, Wife. I see that there are no lyrics to this song. Only notes.” He positioned his right hand so that his fingers grazed the keys. “That is just as well, for I am dreadfully out of practice and both singing and playing would be beyond me. Do proceed.”
Her heart feeling bright, she began to play.
When he joined in, the manor itself seemed to mirror their smiles. They were both tenuous at first, but soon Reeve gained more verve and his playing grew in intensity. Had he not been so attuned to keeping her pace, he would have shown her up entirely. She could see what sort of musician he had been before Salamanca, and had a far better understanding and a much deeper sympathy for his loss when he realized he could not play as he was accustomed to doing his whole life.
But together, thought Caroline, we can make a whole.
Epilogue
The days while Reeve was away were long. Nights, though, were longer and more excruciating. Caroline was convinced that time had conspired against her to occupy more of itself and drive her mad.
She could no longer deny that she missed her husband so sorely that each time she actually thought about how much she missed him, she could not breathe.
Each day since he had left was a battle. Her own battle. She endeavored to be brave and soothing especially for Sophie and Phoebe, but her abilities were growing taxed.
She supervised the servants, taught her daughters, and conversed with Duckie and Edgar whenever she could. In this manner, her days were filled with activities that drove longing to the recesses of her mind, but she felt the house was haunted by Reeve’s absence. He was everywhere, yet nowhere.
She once heard Sophie sagely caution Phoebe not to mention Papa in Caroline’s hearing. This made her feel almost painfully guilty, because she then knew that she was not keeping up the brave façade.
The nights were unbearable. She slept in his bed, first because it smelled of him, then simply because it was his. It was the only place where she allowed herself to cry and if anyone overheard her, they did not mention it. Sometimes, she would frequent his library, that sanctum he so loved, and doze off on one of the sofas or armchairs. It was merely a half-sleep and she was caught between wakefulness and slumber. Her dreams were torturous because they were always carnal, always of him, and he always evaporated when she opened her eyes.
Recently, she had also taken to sleeping, if she could even fall into slumber, with her hands curved protectively over her stomach. It was not something she did quite consciously. She would simply realize, at some point, that she had folded her hands across her belly. No one knew of her condition. She had only discovered she was with child a week past, and although she didn’t know when Reeve would return, she wanted him to be the first to know about it.
She hid her ghastly morning nausea and the inevitable fatigue with a soldier’s fortitude. Pregnancy could have gone either way for her, she surmised, and of course her mother could not advise her. With the help of an apothecary in town, she learned what teas she could brew to ease some of her symptoms and this helped her maintain the illusion that nothing had changed.
Then the news of victory at Leipzig circulated like wildfire across the whole of England.
There were also reports of the many lives lost. It had been a fearsome, bloody battle with very heavy casualties on both sides.
The Thornlands anxiously awaited news of their duke. Caroline tried with all her might to keep the girls engaged and distracted, but her own nerves made it all the more difficult.
In turn, Duckie did all she could to alleviate some of Caroline’s anxieties, but she, like everyone else in the household, knew that only Lord Malliston’s safe return would remedy Caroline’s pitiable state.
Relief came one dark night.
All was silent and everyone had gone to bed except for Caroline. Sleep was entirely beyond her that evening, so she was roaming the halls like a voiceless banshee or tragic specter as tears trailed down her cheeks.
You are being ridiculous, she thought. But for some reason known only to her and her unborn child, she would cry at the drop of a hat in a way she never had before.
She thought she imagined the sound of the carriage.
Pregnancy, she had discovered in even her short experience, was havoc on her senses. Her sense of smell seemed heightened to a preternatural degree, she was always hungry but could hardly eat for feeling ill, and even her hearing had apparently improved.
But she also sometimes heard things that were not there. Perhaps that was not the unborn babe, but the distress that she herself was in.
She stilled, waiting, squinting out of one of the large windows on the ground floor.
She heard it again. It was not her imagination. Eyes wide and with a hand clasped against her mouth, Caroline carefully ran to Edgar’s room in the dark and roused him from his deep slumber. She didn’t care how unseemly or addled she might seem entering his room in her slippers, nightdress, and pelisse.
“Lord Malliston is coming, Edgar,” she insisted.
I refuse to believe it is anyone else or a bearer of horrible news.
Caroline could tell that Edgar was trying to assess if she was having a turn or had gone mad like the former Lady Malliston. Still, the consummate butler, he went into action.
He woke Alice, Duckie, a stable boy, and the duke’s valet, and told them to keep watch at the massive front door. Yawning, he stood with them.
Scarcely a minute after they had gathered, they, too, heard the unmistakable sounds of wheels.
Caroline wanted to shout, “You see?” Ultimately, however, she restrained herself.
It was not long before the unmarked carriage, pulled by unfamiliar dun horses, came into full view. It was barely illuminated by their candles, but the night was clear and the full moon cast some light on the scene.
Although Edgar and the others protested, Caroline rushed to the carriage just as it came to a halt. She had to see who it contained and could not stand to wait a moment longer. Dreadful visions of the worst flashed before her mind’s eye, but she tried not to heed them.
Then Reeve flew from the compartment without waiting for the driver or a footman to help him.
Behind her, she heard Edgar say, “Good Lord, Alice, do go and wake the girls.” She did not bother to look at him or nod. Phoebe and Sophie would never forgive anybody if they did not wake them the very instant that Papa returned. Alice must have shuffled off immediately to do so, for there was the sound of quick footsteps in the dirt, then of the massive front door opening.
Reeve was haggard and his dark hair had grown longer and more unkempt, but he was sound. Mutely, Caroline just stared at him, finding that, for all her restless energy, she was rooted to the spot.
He flashed her a brilliant smile, then gathered her to him.
“I am never parting from you,” said Caroline, her words muffled against his chest. “If you are ever summoned to battle, again, I shall stow away in whatever conveyance you’re taking and dress as a man to stay by your side.”
She felt, rather than heard, his joyful laughter. “I cannot make out a word you are saying, dear heart.”
Caroline pulled away from him enough to look into his face. “What do you mean?”
Still smiling, Reeve tapped his ear for emphasis. “My apologies, but you’ll have to speak up for this old man.”
“Oh. Oh! Of course,” said Caroline. How can I have forgotten? “I said, I am never parting from you, and if you are ever summoned to battle again, you shall have to monitor your conveyances for a stowaway.”
“Was there something else about you dressing as a man? Or was that just wishful thinking? I believe you’d look quite fetching in trousers,” he said roguishly, perhaps to quell the tears that streamed down her face.
She laughed and pushed him a little against his collarbone. “Reeve.”
As the stable boy was conferring with the carriage driver and the carriage rumbled past the two of them, Reeve grew more somber.
“I thought of you every day while I was gone,” he said. “Always.”
“Was it awful?”
Caroline was naturally too curious for her own good. As soon as she asked, she wished she had not, both for his peace of mind and her own comfort. Of course it had been awful. She knew that for Reeve, the supposed glamor of being a favorite of the Duke of Wellington had worn off as soon as shrapnel stole his fingers and the bulk of his hearing.
“Not as awful as Salamanca for me. Not in the way that you imagine,” said Reeve after a breath. He stroked her hair. “But you had everything to do with that, Caroline. You were my North Star in the long, dark night of war. And my longing for you was unbearable at times.”
Surreptitiously, she watched for any telling winces as she stroked his back.
Has he been injured? It would be typical of him to pretend he has not, even if he has.
“I missed you,” she said. “I fear I was not so bright in your absence as you imagined me to be.”
“I might be concerned if you had been happier,” said Reeve, brushing away some of her tears with the pad of his thumb. “But it is done, and I am here with no fewer fingers and no less hearing than before.”
“Don’t be glib,” she admonished him. But she gave a little chuckle all the same.
“I am not. I’m merely counting my blessings.”
“We spoke about you each day,” she said. “The girls and I.” She smiled fondly through her tears. “Suddenly, many more of our history lessons had to do with military tacticians. It helped them, you know. Trying to understand what your life was like. They are far more inquisitive than you’ve given them credit for. I think we have two new bluestockings on our hands.”
Sophie had developed an avid interest in the ancient worlds of Rome, Egypt, and Greece, while Phoebe was endlessly fascinated by, of all figures, the infamous Cardinal Richelieu. Putting their father’s career in context with what had come before appeared to allay their more pressing fears. Not everyone died in battle.
It did not stop them from missing him. Continuing, she said as much. “They wished for your return just as much as I did.”
Duke of Havoc Page 17
