Those Autumn Nights

by Theresa Romain

  “No, no, please don’t get up. You are hurting. Florian tattled to me.”

  “Florian is a fussy old woman.”

  “Um…no, Florian is an old Frenchman who holds you in great regard and was annoyed with me for sending you off on an errand that would pain le foie.”

  “He told you that?” Bertie wasn’t sure whether he wanted to throttle or thank the butler.

  “He did, with ghoulish sternness. Ah—is he being facetious, or were you truly shot in the liver?”

  Bertie set down his sandwich. “I’m not going to talk about being shot while I eat a sandwich.”

  “Would another sort of food be more appropriate?”

  “Yes, actually. A game bird would be more appropriate.” Not that he hunted anymore. He’d seen too many shots fired to take sport in it. “Or a liver, considering my own particular experience.”

  “That suggestion is somehow both perfect and dreadful at once.”

  He’d eaten enough, and he leaned back in his chair. “Do you truly want to know what happened?”

  “Of course. It pains you, I can see, and so it is important.”

  It pained him, yes, and not only when he rested a hand against his side. “Walk out with me, then,” he said. “The foliage is turning colors, and it’s pleasant to look upon.”

  “I’ll fetch a bonnet.”

  Within a very few minutes, they were walking out of the house, leaving the patchwork stone and brick of the Friar’s House behind.

  Late-blooming flowers marched in regiment between trimmed hedges. The lawn before the ancient home was tidy, its color fading from green to a dusty brown. At his side was the finest sight of all.

  He shouldn’t compare. He knew it wasn’t fair to the other women of the world. But he had seen nothing he liked so well in many years as Eliza in a green sort of cloak that matched the brightness of her eyes. With her tan-gloved hand resting on his arm and her copper-colored gown peeking through the cloak as she strode along, she was all the colors of summer freshening into autumn.

  “How did your morning’s work go on?” he asked.

  She kicked at a fallen leaf. “Fair enough. I don’t understand the accounts my brothers kept, nor my father before them. The past two years, there have been ridiculous charges. Five hundred pounds for beef?”

  “Good Lord. Were they hosting all of court?”

  “No, I suspect they were using the household expenses to cover…other expenses. We shall have to build upon the last year I know to be honest. With the notes you and Florian’s footmen sent to the tenants, we have gathered news that will allow us to make the adjustments needed.”

  “ ‘We,’ you say. Are we both to work on this?”

  “I hope so. There is much to do before quarter day. Michaelmas isn’t so involved as Lady Day, when you had farmers moving and all the leases to renew—”

  Bertie groaned at the memory of the chaos on that March day.

  “—but there are still rents to collect, and new servants to hire, and then the Harvest Festival in Hemshawe only a week later.”

  Oh, yes. That. Georgie had been involved in festival plans for months.

  “I thought the country was supposed to be peaceful,” Bertie murmured.

  “As though a hardened soldier would know what to do with a peaceful life,” Eliza scoffed. “I think we might make something rather special of the Harvest Festival. My father suffered from an ague last year, which stripped his senses of smell and taste. He cannot judge the local wines anymore, but I’m told your friend Mr. Lochley filled the role admirably at the summer fair.”

  “Yes, I remember quite well how he spent the fair,” Bertie said drily. Peregrine Lochley, formerly of the 13th Light Dragoons along with Bertie, had acquitted himself well as the judge of the wine-tasting—then found himself a bride to boot.

  Lochley the Last, they called him, yet he had a gift for coming in ahead of Bertie.

  The wound in his side ached. He put a hand to it, pressing until the pain went silent again.

  Eliza took this in with a quick flicker of her eyes, but she said only, “Why did you choose the Friar’s House for your sister’s convalescence?”

  He hesitated, wet leaves slippery under his feet as they strode along the footpath. “Because my old school friend Lord Sturridge lives nearby—ah, well, you know him.”

  “Right. Yes. You are in each other’s pockets all the time. I cannot find the one of you without the other.”

  Her irony was clear, and Bertie hastened to explain, “Sturridge is a landowner with a wife and baby. He doesn’t have time to be running over for visits at every moment.”

  “Right,” she said again. “Are you certain you didn’t choose the Friar’s House because it was my father’s?”

  “I’m not certain of that at all. In fact, that was a decided point in its favor.”

  He wondered if she would be angry, but she replied at once, “I’m glad you did. It was time for things to change.” Her tone held the same fierce satisfaction he had felt when taking possession of the house. “I hope you came down very hard on him.”

  “I did. He made such grave and pitiful faces at me as he spoke of the honor of the Greenleafs, but I was as unmovable as stone.” Except for the clause about not altering the house, but Bertie had turned even that to his advantage.

  “Those faces. I know exactly the ones you mean.” She tipped her head back, letting the sun creep beneath the brim of her bonnet. “He must have known we planned to elope all those years ago. The night before you and I were to leave for Gretna Green, he gave me the most heart-tugging talk imaginable about family honor.”

  “It must have been wonderful indeed, to convince you to lay aside your future.”

  “That, and he locked me in my room.”

  Bertie stopped walking. “What? He—what?”

  She had taken a step beyond him, breaking her hold on his arm, and she had to turn on the path to face him. “He locked me in my room.”

  She said it so mildly that he still thought he misunderstood. “Then you never meant to jilt me?”

  A breeze snapped at them, and with the excuse of its chill, he folded his arms. Eliza looked away into the surrounding trees. “I wish I could say I had not, but I wrote that note of my own volition. I doubted my own judgment, because I had never relied on it before. When the alternative was a sort of captivity—I suppose I took the coward’s way out. I was twenty, and I was a fool.”

  It was difficult to catch his breath at the moment. The breeze seemed to carry away all the air in the world. “You think so?”

  “Well. Not entirely. I was—oh, Bertie, this is embarrassing.”

  “Good. You owe me a little embarrassment.”

  She caught his eye. “I was a fool in some things, but not in my choice of you. There. I said it. Now, let it drop. It was all long ago.”

  Her cheeks were as pink as spring flowers, and suddenly there was air enough for him to float above the ground. “You think so?” he said again. “I am not sure whether time has altered as much as we believe.”

  “I am not sure of anything,” she muttered. “Shall we return to the house?”

  Gladly, he closed the distance between them with a stride. He didn’t hold out a proper arm on which she might rest her fingertips, though. Instead, he caught up her hand and held it in his own.

  Even through gloves, the touch was sweet and intimate. The pressure shot through him from head to toe, nestling into a coil of anticipation.

  The footpath took a curve over a gentle rise in the land, and autumn again surrounded them in rich life. Evergreens grew solid and strong, their greens and rust browns blending with the brightness of poison-pink yew berries and the silvery limbs of low-growing hazel. Beech trees spread their branches, carpeting the ground below with fallen bronze leaves. Barely visible through the growth was a small stream banked by willows that trailed gold into the water.

  There was a fortune to be had here, to behold.

  An
d Eliza was on his arm, and last night he had kissed her.

  It seemed impossible that this was the same world in which wars happened, in which cavalry horses were killed beneath their riders and the earth turned to mud and blood. Impossible that one’s life should be spared, or taken, by a fraction of a second’s chance—or by the kindness of an enemy stranger who turned out to be a stubble-faced, bowlegged angel in rough farmer’s garb.

  “You asked me to tell you about being shot,” he said. “You know the events. But what you don’t know, and what I often forget, is that the physician called to treat me told me how lucky I was.”

  Lucky that Florian had given him lodging. Lucky that the ball had punched through his ribs but missed his lungs, his other organs. It went straight for the liver as though drawn, lodging there. Le foie est fort, the physician had told him. The liver would recover, if Bertie himself could regain his strength. His fragile health should not be risked further through attempts to extract the bullet.

  He had been lucky, too, that the medical man wished to heal rather than take revenge on a wounded enemy. Such consideration had turned Bertie’s heart.

  “You wondered how I could forgive the French for shooting me,” he said to Eliza. “In truth, I wonder if one could live among people who saved one’s life and not love them.”

  “Now I am ashamed,” Eliza said. “For I have done nothing worthwhile to make someone love me.”

  “Have you not?” He rubbed lightly at her fingers with his. “I thought that was why you were here.”

  Silence lay about them like a warm cloak, the only sound the subtle shift of their footfalls over the path. The Friar’s House turned back into view before them, worn old stone mingling with smooth-cut new brick and stucco. All turreted and rounded, with part of the roof tiled and part shingled in slate. Chimney pots poking up wherever they liked, and some windows tall and arched and some tiny and round, and ivy growing sturdy over it all.

  This was a house determined to remain steadfast no matter what time and chance threw its way. It was the sort of house that might come, so easily, to feel like a home.

  “I have been told that there are secret passages in this house,” Bertie said. “Is that true?”

  Eliza looked pleased. “It is indeed. Would you like to see one?”

  “Yes, very much.”

  Once they had returned to the house and doffed their hats, Eliza led Bertie to a corridor off the entry hall. The narrow da lion feet—there. Do you see a seam in the paneling behind it? I cannot recall where the catch is, but if you press along the height of it…”

  Bertie did so as she spoke. When his hands pressed a spot at eye level, the wood gave with a tidy click. A section as tall as a doorway, but half the width, swung forward no more than an inch. Bertie worked his fingers into the gap and drew the hidden panel open.

  The space behind was even tighter: scarcely wider than a man’s shoulders, and low enough to force him to duck his head when he stepped inside. Here were the bones of the house on view, a worn and pitted edge to the native stone. The air was chill and still and humid, as though it held the memory not only of yesterday’s rain, but of all the centuries of rain that had come before.

  Eliza laughed. “Look, a lantern still hangs on that hook. My brothers and I must have left it there years ago.”

  Bertie took it down, found a stub of candle within, and patted his pockets until he found his tinderbox. “Care to go exploring?”

  He struck a light, lit the candle, and pulled Eliza into the narrow space after him.

  Surrounded by the stone of the secret passage, she began to speak very quickly. “You should have played with my brothers and me when we were younger. We scared the life out of guests and spied on their flirtations every time my parents hosted a house party. Back when my mother was alive. And when there were funds enough to host a party. And when others were more known for scandal than were the Greenleafs.”

  “Scandalous Eliza Greenleaf. Do you wish to reminisce?” The panel stood open still, letting in a spill of filtered light. Bertie hung the lantern back on its hook, relishing the confined space, the need to press against one another. Eliza’s hand found the small of his back. Steadying him? Drawing him closer?

  “I wish to…” she breathed. “No. I don’t want to think about the past. Let us do something else. Whatever you choose.”

  In this secret corner, there was no space to stand except in her embrace. He could not stand upright, and so his head bent to hers. “I choose a kiss,” he whispered in her ear. “If you will have it. A kiss, to begin.”

  “Only to begin?” Her other arm joined the first, encircling him. His hips drew forward, jutting into hers, and he sucked in a sharp, hot breath.

  “Everything starts with a kiss—whatever it might become afterward. You told me so yourself.”

  The stub of ancient candle threw a flickering shadow over her features. “Then kiss me,” she said, and tipped back her head.

  A former soldier and cavalry officer knew an order when he heard one, and this one was a pleasure to obey. His mouth covered hers, tasting softness and heat. Twining his hands about her waist, he caught fistfuls of the green cloak and drew her closer, harder, against him. Breathing in the warm scent of her skin.

  Was this only a kiss? It drew forth his whole body, entrancing and enchanting him. The taste and scent, the sweet little sound she made as she rose onto her tiptoes to kiss him more firmly. Her lips parted, opening to his. Tongues touched tip to tip, their mouths swiftly a part of each other. Then another sortie to the lips, the cheeks, to whatever could be reached. He pressed more kisses along the line of her cheekbone, the hollow beneath her ear. He took her earlobe into his mouth, sucking gently until she gasped, then shuddered as she returned the favor.

  Every time he tried to move an arm, to shift aside some of her clothing, he smacked into the stone bounding them. And so they did nothing but kiss, like sweethearts unsure of one another’s bodies. Like lovers learning each other’s hearts.

  “Que l’enfer?”

  The French curse, accompanied by a footstep in the corridor, brought them back to the present.

  “We left the panel standing open.” Dreamy-eyed, Eliza raised a hand to lips darkened from kissing. “The servants will be shocked.”

  “The servants are French,” Bertie reminded her. “Nothing shocks the French.” After a final, firm kiss, he blew out the candle and stepped back through the panel into the corridor.

  “Bonjour.” He greeted a startled-looking footman. The man recovered swiftly, sketching him a proper bow. When Eliza emerged a second later, patting at her hair and tugging at her cloak, the footman’s expression softened into a knowing smile.

  “Au revoir, monsieur, mademoiselle.” Without another word, he turned and strode in the other direction, leaving them alone at the end of the dim corridor.

  Bertie pressed the panel closed, then shifted the lion-footed table before the secret door.

  Eliza laughed, breathless and merry. “We must do this again tomorrow.”

  “We must,” Bertie agreed. “All of it.”

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  “Eliza, please walk with me into Tunbridge Wells,” Georgie begged the following morning. “I cannot go alone, and Mrs. Clotworthy has been rheumatic all week. If you come along, she’ll be able to rest.”

  Privately, Eliza thought Mrs. Clotworthy would manage to rest no matter that lady’s obligations. The chaperone had drawn her knitting over her lap, then fallen into a doze before the cheerful little fire in the morning room’s grate.

  Poking her needle inaccurately into her embroidery, Georgie dropped it into her workbasket and dragged her chair nearer to Eliza’s. “Please say you will. I haven’t been out of the house for at least two days.”

  Eliza picked at the silk fringe she was meant to be knotting. “I doubt I would make a good chaperone.”

  “That is precisely what I’m hoping.” Georgie gave a little bounce on
the seat of her chair.

  Eliza couldn’t help but smile, though she resisted agreement. When her father had been forced to retrench and lease the Friar’s House, he had taken lodging in Tunbridge Wells. While Eliza had remained in London, she was certain of avoiding him. She couldn’t be so sure her luck would hold if she promenaded through the small spa city.

  “I should check the accounts again, to prepare for Michaelmas.” She took up two bits of silk and, squinting, wrapped them around each other. Were they the right length? The previous strands had fit together just as they ought, but these would not obey.

  “Surely there will be time enough this afternoon. Eliza, please—I must go somewhere today or I’ll tear out my hair.”

  The knot fell apart in a spill of red and gold. Damnation. “Georgie, you could go anywhere. After—what, nearly nine months in Hemshawe? You must have made many friends.”

  “I did. Have.” Georgie picked up the end of the fringe, holding the shining silk up to the pale light from the window. “The people of Hemshawe are very kind. I befriended Belinda Leonard and Lady Sturridge almost at once. Since Belinda wed Adam Sturridge and went to Scotland—”

  “Not quite Scotland, surely?”

  “—I…well, I have missed her friendship.” With a rueful smile, Georgie tugged at a knotted tassel. “Belinda and I were single ladies together. Francesca—Lady Sturridge—is married, with a young son. She must always owe herself to someone else first.”

  “Even single ladies must do that sometimes.” Eliza’s long spinsterhood—no, her independent womanhood—were proof of that. What good did it do, such owing? Could it ever be a pleasure instead of a burden?

  Surely it could, for the right person. If not, everyone would be lonely.

  In her fumbling fingers, the silks slid apart again. How she had created the tidy knotted row Georgie now held, she could not recall.

  With a sigh, Eliza dropped the loose silks back into her workbasket. “All right, all right. My fingers seem cursed to clumsiness this morning. Maybe a walk will bring them back under my control before I try to hold a pen.”