Debt of Honor

by Ann Clement

  “Percy?” Letitia’s quiet question brought him back to his present surroundings.

  “I often asked myself why it happened.” He attempted a smile, though it probably was only a grimace. “My father never recovered after my mother’s death. He became restless and began to spend more and more time away from home. He drank heavily in those days. Sometimes he was absent for weeks before returning, looking as if he had been questioned by the Inquisition. We moved to Bromsholme about a year and a half after my mother died. My aunt and uncle came from Devonshire and stayed with us to take care of him. But he didn’t want any help. He drank himself to death within months of their arrival.”

  He glanced at Letitia, suddenly mad at himself for saying things he had never told anyone, not even Sarah. Whatever possessed him? He didn’t want Letitia’s pity. He didn’t need her sympathy. And she certainly did not need to carry her father’s burden the way he carried his.

  And yet, he could not turn away from the beautiful green eyes bewitching him with warmth and compassion.

  “I’m sorry…” they said simultaneously and stopped. “I didn’t…” The same thing happened again.

  Before either of them could say anything more, a distant rumble of thunder rolled over the swaying tops of the trees. The skies in front of them were still sunny, but one could sense the darkness creeping over the grove. Percy walked away from the trees. Behind them, heavy, black clouds rode on high wind, sliced by lightning.

  “Make haste,” he said. “We don’t have much time to get home. The storm is heading this way.”

  Letitia was already packing her things.

  “I can walk very quickly,” she assured him, picking up her knapsack, but he took it from her and put it over his shoulder instead.

  “You’re riding with me,” he said, going for the horse.

  The stallion was already dancing nervously, pulling on the reins.

  “With you? Oh no, that is certainly not necessary,” she said with a hint of panic. “You can take my knapsack if you wish. I will thank you for keeping it dry. If you get to Bromsholme first, do give it to Josepha.”

  She walked away briskly while he was still tightening the girth.

  But she didn’t get far. Within a minute or two, he caught up with her, his horse prancing along the narrow road.

  “You will never reach the house before the storm if you walk.”

  Letitia continued without slowing down, focused on the road ahead, but it was evident that she was carefully avoiding the large animal to her right. Was she afraid of horses?

  “I cannot ride in this dress.” She shot him a glance over her shoulder.

  “And you cannot run in it either. I will do the riding. You will sit in front of me.”

  “No.” She stubbornly continued putting one foot in front of the other, although she had to know it was a lost cause. She couldn’t expect him to abandon her here. The darkness was growing fast, and the intermittent lightning was gaining in intensity.

  “We can reenact Nessus’s kidnapping of Deianira, if you prefer.” He raised his voice against the wind lifting swirls of dirt off the road. “Luckily for me, Hercules is nowhere in sight to come to your rescue. But it is more convenient to get in the saddle from a standing position, instead of being tossed across it in full gallop.”

  Letitia stopped and glared at him indignantly. He halted slightly in front of her.

  “You wouldn’t dare!” she almost shouted.

  “Do we have a wager, then?” he shouted back, and before she could step away, he leaned down and snaked one arm around her waist. “Put your foot on my boot and get up here,” he commanded.

  Letitia obeyed, though not without a huff of displeasure that for some reason made him feel lighthearted.

  She was slim. Lifting her did not require much effort. He almost laughed when he saw her face screwed in fear. So he pulled her up as gently as possible and deposited her on something much more comfortable than the horse’s withers. Right on his lap. Then he pulled her tightly into him.

  Letitia shifted uneasily at the realization of her present whereabouts. He could see the blush creeping up her cheeks.

  “Oh.” She seemed uncertain how to react. Then her forehead creased with exasperation. “That wasn’t fair!”

  “What?” he asked, pretending not to have heard her and doing his best not to laugh. “Put your arms around me. We do not have much time.”

  The wind proved him right as it suddenly picked up in its fury. A deafening thunder erupted somewhere close behind the grove, and the stallion stepped sideways nervously. Her arms tightened around him, as instructed, at first reluctantly, and then so fiercely he almost lost his breath.

  He held her tightly too, not because she was in any danger of sliding off, but because it felt good. She did not protest, just leaned against his chest and half buried her face in his horrible coat. Percy smiled above her head and would have given over to the full enjoyment of the swaying motion of the horse’s canter if not for the underlying annoyance at his body’s treacherous reaction to her soft curves. He hoped fervently that her inexperience and several layers of clothing were to his advantage.

  The storm was on their heels, but he took the shortcuts, and within minutes they found themselves approaching the house. A small closed carriage was parked in front of it.

  “We have visitors,” Letitia said, sitting up straighter, now that he’d slowed the horse to a walk, though she was still keeping her arms around him.

  “It’s Ethel,” Percy said, feeling a twinge of annoyance. No doubt, Ethel meant to befriend his second wife, just as she had befriended the first one.

  “How nice of her,” Letitia opined. “I didn’t expect her today.”

  “You can count on Ethel to drop in daily,” he rejoined, trying to keep sarcasm from his tone.

  The first heavy drops fell with the grave self-assurance of a coming downpour.

  “You better let me down.” Letitia let go of his coat and stuck out her palm to assess the rainfall. “I feel like a sack of potatoes you collected somewhere along the road. I ought to go up and refresh.”

  “Hmm, a cat in a bag and a scarecrow,” he murmured. “You lost some hairpins. Your bonnet, no doubt, turned into a pot collecting rainwater in the grove. But I lost my hat too and gained a haystack instead.”

  On impulse, she reached to her head. Then she looked at him. His hair must have been tousled into a very unappealing mess.

  “Oh,” she said, and they both began to laugh.

  As soon as they reached the entrance, still chuckling, a footman ran out to take the horse to the stables, while an anxious Slater waited for them outside the door, patiently ignoring the brazen raindrops.

  “Lady Marsden has just arrived, sir, ma’am,” he said, fussing with the door once they were in. “I told her that neither you, sir, nor Lady Letitia was home. However, Lady Marsden said she would wait.”

  “Let us greet her, then.” Percy turned toward the drawing room.

  Slater shifted uncomfortably.

  “Uh, Lady Marsden is not in the drawing room. She said she would wait in the orangery.”

  “In the orangery?” For the second time this afternoon Percy and Letitia spoke in unison.

  “Did I not say the orangery would no longer be open to guests?” Percy felt the familiar irritation Ethel so easily ignited. He reached for Letitia’s hand and turned toward the other side of the house.

  “I told her ladyship…so,” Slater panted behind them. “But she would not…Lady Marsden said…sir, that you certainly wouldn’t mind, given…the nature of your friendship.”

  “I certainly do mind.” Would there ever be an end to Ethel’s invasion in his life? “No one shall enter the orangery unless Lady Letitia informs you otherwise. No matter what the nature of our friendship has been.”

  Chapter Twelve<
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  Ethel swallowed her disappointment when Slater told her Lady Letitia was not home.

  “When do you expect her back?” she asked the butler. “Has she gone visiting?”

  Slater replied that Lady Letitia went walking.

  “Ah, then she cannot be much longer.” Ethel sailed inside the house with the easy confidence of a longtime resident. “I shall wait. Is she in the gardens?”

  “No, her ladyship went in the direction of the fields and took her sketchbook with her,” Slater explained, following her down the hallway.

  “Sketching?” Ethel held back a smile. So…Percy’s little wife had a hobby. Probably dabbled in some horrid watercolors. And wasn’t it silly to walk in the fields in such heat, with a storm brewing nearby? To the contrary, it was brilliant, she decided, barely hearing Slater’s comment that apparently Lady Letitia was an artist.

  “Ah, well, I ought to congratulate her in person, then. Bring me some lemonade to the orangery,” she said, walking briskly in that direction. “Or, forget the lemonade. I will have tea with Lady Letitia when she’s back. You may go,” she added, since the stubborn old mannequin followed her. “I know where the orangery is.”

  Slater somehow managed to catch up with her and was now trotting by her side. “I beg my lady’s…pardon,” he wheezed, “but the orangery is…not available.”

  God, but Percy’s butler could be annoying. She didn’t believe in coddling servants the way Percy seemed to. However, her hopes of putting Slater in his place had just been dealt a devastating blow a little more than a week ago.

  She frowned at him. “Not available? What nonsense!”

  Slater assumed an apologetic countenance.

  “I beg your…pardon, my lady,” he repeated and took a deep breath. “These are Sir Percival’s instructions. The orangery is no longer open to guests. It is being turned into Lady Letitia’s painting studio. No one is allowed inside at present.”

  What? Panic, resentment and curiosity sent a wave of palpitations through her chest.

  Ethel stopped and graced the butler with one of her sweetest smiles.

  “Well, you have nothing to fear, then. Lady Letitia and I are very good friends.” She patted his shoulder reassuringly, causing him to step back in shock. “She would want me to see her studio. Indeed, I am now certain this is the surprise she mentioned in her note yesterday. I’ll wait for her in there.”

  Still smiling, she gave Slater a pointed look since he was between her and the orangery door. But the damn mannequin was showing an uncommon stubbornness today. He stood in the same spot, his face expressionless.

  Ethel had no intention of giving up what could be her last chance. Confident that Slater would not manhandle a lady of quality, she squeezed past him and walked inside. It gave her no small satisfaction to glimpse a shadow of anxiety crossing his face when she closed the door in his face.

  But as soon as she turned around, she gave a whimper of surprise. The scene in front of her barely resembled the orangery she had known.

  All that remained of the luscious Oriental garden were the tubs with large trees. Shades had been removed, probably for washing while the carpenter was at work. Various pieces of lumber were stacked in several places, and a strange wooden foundation appeared on the floor in one of the newly opened spaces. She peered at the jumble of circles and squares of dirt distorting the perfect pattern of floor tiles, a ghostly reminder of the vanished army of containers.

  Slater hadn’t lied. Percy was closing the door on the past. And it was not happening the way she had envisioned. The astonishment gave way to resentment, raw and burning. Sweat covered her skin, even though wide-open French doors allowed enough of a breeze to make the orangery cooler than it had ever been in such weather, despite the lack of shades under its glass roof. And yet, Ethel felt the slow trickle of water charting its way down her spine. She reached into her reticule and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the beads of moisture from her forehead before they reached her eyes.

  Then she straightened, clasped her hands behind her back and set out slowly around the room, following the meandering line of unmarked tiles, once the only path through Sarah’s forest. Her reticule swung like a pendulum, with each step bumping rhythmically off her thigh as she strolled on.

  Panic twisted her gut again when she thought of Sarah’s box. It had not fallen into Percy’s hands. Of this, Ethel was sure. If it had, he wouldn’t treat her the same way—the same polite, indifferent way—he had treated her for the past ten years, ever since his return to Bromsholme from Cambridge.

  Perhaps in his haste to erase Sarah’s presence from this house, Percy hadn’t paid attention to what he had packed and sent to her parents. But she couldn’t be sure. He had barred everyone from entering Sarah’s rooms, even her terrified maid, who wouldn’t divulge a word about her mistress’s death. And then, merely a week after that devastating day, the carpenter and the masons had obliterated the rooms altogether. For two years, she had combed through every closet and drawer at Bromsholme she could open, every nook and cranny of the orangery. And still nothing.

  The orangery’s new, eerie emptiness stood now in stark contrast to the blackening skies above the white frames forming its structure. The breeze turned into gusts of winds swooshing over the roof and sending swirls of grass and leaves through the French doors. With the next, stronger gust, a door slammed closed behind her back. Ethel jumped, startled and whirled around, swatting at a tendril of hair the wind had blown into her face.

  Suddenly, the floor under her feet caved in. She yelped, flailing her arms and taking an involuntary step back. Her thighs bumped into something unpleasantly hard, and her derriere landed on the wide terracotta edge of the nearest tree tub. Ethel grabbed the edge for support and gaped. Her heart hammered when she realized what had happened.

  A corner of a tile, dislodged by her weight, dipped in when she stepped on it. The opposite corner went up, revealing a sliver of darkness beneath.

  Ethel leaned forward, her heart racing.

  Thoughts, mad and hopeful, rushed through her head. She lowered herself carefully to her knees and tossed away the reticule that now hung like a dead weight from her wrist.

  A loose tile here in the orangery could mean only one thing. She laughed softly, let go of the tub and reached forward and down for the upended corner of the tile. In the growing darkness, her hands clad in white-lace gloves almost lighted her way. She’d found Sarah’s secret hiding place. At last!

  The tile was large and heavy. Its harsh, jagged edges ripped the lace as soon as she began pulling, and scored her fingers with stinging cuts. She bit her lip to stifle a curse and, ignoring the pain, pulled with all her might. The tile moved a notch.

  Feeling triumphant, Ethel tried again, bracing herself with her feet, but the weight of the tile pulled her forward. This time, she hit the floor with her elbows. The impact brought tears to her eyes. Scrambling back awkwardly, she finally managed to push the tile aside enough to free her throbbing fingers, one hand at a time.

  Barely aware of the tattered gloves and the cuts staining them crimson, Ethel examined the opening. It was now large enough to squeeze her hand inside. She took a deep breath. Her heart pounded with anticipation. Then she carefully pushed her hand inside the cavity and probed around.

  Her swelling fingers brushed over a few rough pieces of rubble buried in grainy sand.

  She dismissed the first pang of disappointment.

  Her fingertips were getting numb, but she ignored their growing clumsiness and reached deeper inside, combing the gritty matter at the bottom of the hole with desperate persistence.

  Nothing.

  A lightning bolt cut through the encroaching darkness, and the first fat drops of rain applauded it loudly on the roof.

  Just then, the door leading into the house flew open without any warning. Ethel raised her head, startled. Pe
rcy and Letitia stood in it, holding hands, the old mannequin behind them.

  Percy was not surprised by Ethel’s nonchalant disregard of his instructions to Slater. Yet her behavior annoyed him more than usual. This time it affected Letitia’s privacy as well.

  Ever since he had introduced Ethel to Sarah, Ethel somehow assumed she could do as she pleased in his home. It worsened after Marsden had died four years ago and she returned to Pythe Park. Her constant presence made him feel as if she had moved to Bromsholme instead.

  After Sarah’s death, her intrusion into his domestic arrangements became unbearable. Ethel took upon herself the task of running his household, probably out of a misguided idea that it would console him somehow. Despite his polite refusals, she was everywhere. It took a quarrel to keep her out of Sarah’s apartment.

  Yet Ethel never gave up. She sulked and retreated for a few days. Then she always came back, giving instructions to his housekeeper, butler and gardener until he finally was forced to tell her that all of them were perfectly capable of following his wishes and of using their own brains without her interference.

  Now he was married again. What he had tolerated out of the respect he had for her father he could not allow for Letitia’s sake. Ethel had no business invading his house and treating it like her own.

  But even with the experience of years of enduring her presence, he was not prepared for the sight in front of him. Ethel was down on her hands and knees by one of the tree tubs, her chin almost touching the ground and her face screwed in concentration. She looked up, startled by their entrance, and reminded him at that moment of a dog ready to protect its bone—which, in this case, seemed to be an oddly arranged floor tile. Perhaps she had had too much sun earlier in the day.

  His irritation grew exponentially.

  “Ethel,” he said in a clipped tone, “I believe Slater informed you the orangery is no longer a place to be visited in this house. Why did you not wait in the drawing room?”

  Her furrowed brow smoothed into a wide-eyed innocence, and she lifted one arm toward him. He felt almost as if he were watching a play on a stage that happened to be the floor of his orangery.