Someone to Honor

by Mary Balogh

  “Hmm,” he said.

  “Stay,” she told him. She laughed softly. “If you wish.”

  “Oh, I wish,” he said. “Mrs. Bennington.”

  She closed her eyes and swallowed and felt the bedcovers come up over them. She nestled her head against his shoulder when he lay down again. And he reached for her hand and laced their fingers together.

  Tonight . . .

  It had not disappointed.

  Mrs. Bennington.

  Sixteen

  Harry was home in time the following morning to sit down for an early breakfast with them. Their leaving together this morning felt a bit like abandonment, and they both told him so in their own way. But he would have none of it.

  “Abby,” he said when she teared up after being told that the carriage was already before the doors, being loaded with their bags, “you stayed here because you wanted to be at home, not because I needed you. I have loved having you. I always will love it. But you must rid yourself of the notion that I might fade away without your being here. I am sorry if that sounds a bit brutal.”

  Then he turned to his friend. “As for you, Gil, to be honest with you I do not know if I actually would have come to Hinsford and stayed if you had not said you would come with me. I suppose I would have gone to London and hated it. I did need you during that journey even though I also had Avery and Alexander. And I needed you for a few weeks afterward—I know that. But no longer. I would have been happy to have you here indefinitely as a friend, but I do not need you. I still sometimes feel as weak as a kitten, but a large kitten growing larger every day, not the runt of the litter. I have everything I need here—people to cater to my every need, things with which to occupy myself, friends, neighbors.”

  There were more tears out on the terrace half an hour or so later. Abby clung to Harry, both laughing and crying.

  “Goose,” he said. “Go and be happy, Ab, and I will stay and be happy. No, really. I do not envy you going to London. And facing everything that is awaiting you there. I’ll think about you from the peace of my own home. Let me know what happens.”

  “I will,” she promised. “Take care of yourself, Harry. At least I know you are safe. Oh, I cannot tell you how happy I am to know that.”

  “Goose,” he said again as she turned away and Gil handed her into the carriage.

  “I am a bit of a careless fellow,” Harry said, “but my family is precious to me, Gil.”

  “I will look after her,” Gil promised, keeping his voice low. “I am not using her just as a means of getting my daughter back.” He hoped he was telling the truth.

  “I have had a couple of sleepless nights, I am telling you,” Harry said, “remembering that I was the one who suggested it.”

  “Then you may sleep well tonight,” Gil said. “I am very glad you did suggest it. I shall return the carriage tomorrow. And your groom.” The groom was going to ride his horse during the journey. Gil would purchase a carriage of his own and more horses in London.

  A few minutes later Gil was handing a large handkerchief to Abby to replace the ridiculously small thing with which she was dabbing at her eyes as the carriage moved from her childhood home.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice tearful as she spread it over her face. “He is right. I am a goose.”

  Beauty woofed from the seat opposite.

  Just a very few weeks ago she had chosen to stay at Hinsford so that she could enjoy its quiet familiarity. Now already she was leaving behind both those things. She had married Gil, someone she scarcely knew, and was heading into a vast uncertainty. All she knew about their immediate future was that it was bound to be unpleasant. She had her family to face, for one thing. And then all the nasty business with his lawyer and his former in-laws. She blew her nose, tucked his handkerchief away in a pocket of her cloak, and turned a smiling, rather red-blotched face toward him.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I hate goodbyes.”

  He thought perhaps it was more than the goodbye she was hating. He guessed that reality was hitting her this morning. As it was him. He took her hand in his and held it on the seat between them. Conversation, he thought. Conversation.

  Beauty was offering no help. She had laid her chin on her paws and closed her eyes.

  “Rose Cottage,” he told her, “seems to have come honestly by half its name at least. It is a house of mellow yellowish stone with big windows and a great deal of natural light within. There are twelve bedchambers upstairs and . . . but I have not counted the number of rooms downstairs. I would have to think about it. They are large and spacious, though. It is not really a cottage of course. Far from it. The garden is not really big enough to be called a park, but it is large, and it is filled with flower beds, unlike Hinsford’s, as well as lawns and trees. There is no lake. But there is a rose arbor on one side of the house, or, rather, a rose garden, all arches and trellises and secluded seating areas. I wish I could describe the colors and the smells, but I lived there only during the winter months and very early spring. I saw snowdrops and primroses in the grass to the east of the house and a few daffodils. I employ gardeners known for their skill with flowers. I imagine it is all very beautiful now and will be for several more months.”

  He had set out to distract her and seemed to have succeeded. Her face was turned toward him and she was still smiling, but no longer just bravely. There was warmth in the expression.

  “It sounds lovely,” she said.

  “It is,” he assured her. “It is on the outer edge of a village with farmland behind it. Not as big as the farm at Hinsford, but it is busy and prosperous. I have a good manager.”

  “I look forward to going there,” she said.

  “Some people look forward to going to heaven after they die,” he said. “For years after I purchased it, Rose Cottage was the earthly heaven to which I aspired.”

  “It was your dream,” she said. “But you have actually lived there for only a few winter months?”

  “I took Caroline there in 1814, after Toulouse,” he said. “Katy was born there. I took her to see the roses. But of course they were not nearly in bloom and she was but a tiny baby anyway. And then, before they did bloom, I was called away for what culminated in the Battle of Waterloo. I made the biggest mistake of my life in going, one for which I am even now being punished.”

  Their clasped hands were on her lap, he realized suddenly. She must have moved them there. She was holding his hand with both her own.

  “What was mistaken about it?” she asked.

  “I ought to have resigned my commission and stayed,” he said. “I was married. I had a child. I thought my main responsibility was to my regiment and the cause of right, whatever that means. I was wrong. My main responsibility was to my family. Caroline did not want to be left. She hated it at Rose Cottage and she hated . . . motherhood. Katy was helpless to make any sort of decision. I made the wrong choice and I lost her as a result. Perhaps permanently.”

  “Would you have saved your marriage by staying?” she asked.

  He thought about it. But he had done that many times before and knew the answer. “No, I do not think my marriage could have been a happy one,” he said. “But I would have had my daughter.”

  “How did your wife die?” she asked.

  Conversations were damnable things, he thought. They involved baring one’s soul and exposing all one’s guilt and all one’s pain. Or perhaps it was just marriage that was the damnable thing.

  “She fell,” he said curtly. For a few moments he did not want to say anything more, but he could hardly leave it there. “She was somewhere in Cornwall and descending a steep cliff path she had been warned was dangerous. That very warning would have impelled her to do it, of course. She was like that. She fell. The people who were with her could not save her. They had heeded the warning.” Actually, the official report he had read had mentioned j
ust one person, a man. Probably a lover. But what did it matter now?

  “I am sorry,” she said softly.

  “The devil of it is,” he said, “that I am not.”

  And she sat back in the seat, still cradling his hand in her lap, and turned her head toward the window on her side.

  “I hated her,” he said. “I did not wish her harm, and I did not do her harm, but I have been unable to grieve her death.”

  She drew breath as though to say something but did not do so.

  “You have married a hard man, Abby,” he said.

  “I do not believe so,” she said softly. “I hate her too. She never intended to return, did she? She had abandoned both her child and you. And she lied about you to save face with her mother.”

  They traveled a long way in silence, his hand in both of hers. He wondered if he would ever forgive himself for leaving his family when he had known Caroline to be desperately unhappy and when he had had a child who needed her father at home with her. And he wondered if he would ever forgive Caroline for loving no one but herself and craving adventure, the rougher the better, and for lying about him as an excuse for dumping their child upon her mother before she ran away in pursuit of her own pleasure. The only thing he could forgive her for was dying.

  Bitterness and hatred were like an ulcer bleeding into the innards. Especially, perhaps, when there was self-hatred too. He had never used violence upon Caroline, not even when she had begged for it during sex. But he had abandoned both her and their baby for the greater glory of war, and so he was equally to blame for the troubles he now faced. Oh, he could argue, as he sometimes did, that he had left his wife and child well provided for, even if he had died in battle, but it was not an argument that convinced him.

  “Abby,” he said, “I will do better. Even if, God help me, I never get Katy back, I will do better.”

  She turned her face back toward him. “I did not know,” she said, “that you blamed yourself.”

  “I will do better by you,” he told her, “and our children. Some lessons are bitter ones, but I have learned mine.”

  “We will get her back, Gil,” she said. “She has a father and a mother and a home to go to. And though you blame yourself for abandoning her, the world will not see it that way. You obeyed when you were called back to duty because this country and the whole of Europe were at a moment of peril. Almost no one would blame you for going except you.”

  “You are too kind,” he said.

  She took him by surprise then. She raised his hand with both of hers, kissed the back of it, and held it briefly against her cheek.

  “We will get her back,” she said again.

  “Abby,” he said a few moments later, “I am sorry I hurt you.”

  “Last night?” She looked startled, and she blushed.

  “I am sorry,” he said.

  “I am not.” She lowered her head so that he could not see her face fully. “I am twenty-four years old. Perhaps you do not understand what it is like to be a woman who does not marry young. She cannot indulge in casual amours, as I believe most men do. I have wanted . . . what happened last night for a long time. Pain and all. I am glad it has happened at last.” She drew breath, hesitated, and then continued. “And I am glad it was with you.”

  There had been no one since Caroline—until last night. He had been tempted a few times, but the days of his lusty youth were behind him and rutting with a whore or even with a willing camp follower had lost its appeal.

  “You must not drag around that guilt with you on top of everything else,” she said, turning a blushing, laughing face his way and swaying against his shoulder. “I am very glad it happened.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and turned his head to kiss her. Her hands tightened about his, and he prolonged the kiss.

  She was sweet—sweet to look upon, sweet tasting, sweet to bed. Only he guarded his emotions. The turmoil of his first marriage had drained them and bewildered him and sent him scurrying deep inside himself, where he had spent most of his life. He did not want to get too emotionally attached to Abigail, and he hoped she would not get too attached to him. Let them have a rational marriage, with respect and loyalty and decent lovemaking and some affection. And children.

  Let them not—oh, please, let them not fall in love.

  She was gazing into his eyes from a few inches away. “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” He released his hand from hers and turned his head toward the window on his side. “We are coming to a posting inn. There are people. I do not want to embarrass you.”

  But instead of looking mortified or embarrassed and moving smartly away to sit decorously at his side, he discovered when he turned back toward her that she smiled slowly at him, giving him the full effect of those blue eyes.

  “Will we stop to eat?” she asked. “I would love a cup of tea if nothing else.”

  Beauty sat up, her tongue flopping, and looked hopefully in the direction of the window.

  * * *

  • • •

  When they arrived in London, they stopped first at the Pulteney Hotel, at which Gil had reserved a suite of rooms a few days ago when he was in London. Abigail had voiced a token protest, since Marcel’s town house was large and he and her mother would surely expect them to stay there. Privately, though, she was glad. She did not know quite what reaction to expect to their news.

  It was late afternoon when they finally arrived at the house and were admitted by Marcel’s butler, who took Abigail’s appearance upon the doorstep quite in his stride.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Westcott,” he said. “You will find the family in the drawing room. Whom shall I announce?” He looked with polite inquiry at Gil.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Bennington,” she said. “But there is no need to announce us.”

  “Very well, miss,” he said, turning to lead the way upstairs and open the drawing room doors for them.

  The family was there, the butler had said. Of whom did that consist apart from her mother and Marcel and probably Estelle? But at least there was someone at home. She had feared there might not be and they would have to do this all again this evening or even tomorrow.

  Inside the drawing room, Abigail took in the scene in one glance. Yes, they were there, the three of them. So was Bertrand, who kept bachelor rooms of his own but was often here. And so were Cousin Althea Westcott, Alexander’s mother, and her daughter, Cousin Elizabeth, with Colin, Lord Hodges, her husband. Two-year-old George was on Colin’s lap. The bundle in Elizabeth’s arms was presumably Eve, the new baby.

  The next moment the men were on their feet and her mother was hurrying toward her, both hands outstretched, her face lighting up with delight.

  “Abby!” she exclaimed. “But what a wonderful surprise. You did not breathe a word about coming up to town. Is Harry with you?” As she took Abigail’s hands in a strong clasp, she looked eagerly beyond her only to see that it was not Harry standing in the doorway. Her hold on Abigail’s hands loosened. “Lieutenant Colonel Bennington. You have come too? Then Harry must be with you. Where—”

  “Mama,” Abigail said as Marcel smiled at her and squeezed her shoulder in welcome before offering his hand to Gil. “Harry is at Hinsford. We came alone.”

  “Alone?” her mother said, her smiles turning to alarm. “Is it Harry? Is there something wrong with—”

  “Harry is perfectly fine, Mama,” Abigail assured her, cutting her off as she released her hands and stepped to one side of the doorway so that she was not standing directly in front of Gil. “We would not have left him if he had been indisposed. We have come here to tell you we are married. Gil and I. Yesterday. At the village church. Harry gave me away. The Reverend and Mrs. Jenkins came to breakfast afterward.”

  Oh dear. She had not meant to make the announcement so bluntly and in such disjointed fashion, her voice breath
less, before they were even properly in the room. She had visualized . . . Oh, but it was too late now.

  “What?” Her mother’s face had turned pale, and one hand crept to her throat. She had almost whispered the word

  “What?” Estelle’s voice was closer to a squeal. “Abby? You are married? To Lieutenant Colonel Bennington? Without telling anyone? You absolute wretch, you!” She came hurtling across the room to catch Abigail up in a hug before blushing and holding out a hand to Gil.

  “But why?” Abigail’s mother asked, looking from her daughter to Gil and back. “What—”

  “I think, my love,” Marcel said, patting her arm, “we had better invite Abigail and her new husband to come and be seated while Bertrand sends down for some wine. Maybe champagne, Bertrand? I am sure they fully intend to explain why they have dashed so madly into marriage. We will hope for a story of high romance. In the meanwhile, Althea, Elizabeth, and Colin, allow me to present Lieutenant Colonel Bennington, the friend who brought Harry home from Paris and stayed with him. Mrs. Westcott, Bennington, and Lord and Lady Hodges. Elizabeth and Alexander are Cousin Althea’s children, and Colin is Wren’s brother. This is a complicated family. I would have thought twice about marrying into it if I had been sufficiently warned.”

  Cousin Althea smiled and nodded. Colin stepped forward to shake Gil by the hand. George, up on Colin’s arm, stretched out his hand too, and Gil took it entirely within his own.

  “You are probably wishing us at Jericho, Abigail,” Elizabeth said, her eyes twinkling, “and you too, Lieutenant Colonel. But here we are to welcome you to the family and to hear your story firsthand. Forgive me for not getting to my feet. If this little one’s sleep is disturbed, she becomes very cross.”

  Abigail bent over her to peer at the slumbering baby—she had round, fat cheeks—before sitting down on a love seat and making room for Gil beside her. He did not sit down, however. He went to stand behind her. And the room fell silent while everyone’s attention turned to the two of them. Her mother, Abigail saw, was still standing close to the door, her face pale. Abigail drew breath to speak, but it was Gil who spoke first.