Debt of Honor

by Ann Clement

  Percy impatiently turned his horse around. Farley stopped in the middle of a sentence, eyeing him warily. Percy muttered an excuse and spurred the animal, leaving the steward and the half-collapsed barn behind. Poor Farley was probably going to hand in his resignation, but that thought was carried away by the wind hitting Percy’s face as he galloped home.

  He had to stop Lettie from leaving.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Percy reached the portico with such speed and brought his horse to a halt so suddenly that by all laws of physics, he should have been ejected from the saddle into a direct contact with the front door. Somehow he avoided such undignified dismounting and managed to reach the ground in what was generally considered a normal way of getting off a horse. He threw the reins over the top of a cone-shaped boxwood in a tub flanking one of the columns and reached the door in one stride. He had wasted too much time. By now, the sun had begun its descent toward the horizon.

  In the entrance, he almost collided with one of the footmen.

  “I thought I heard someone in the hall,” the servant explained.

  “Is Lady Letitia home?” Percy asked.

  “No, sir” was the bland reply. “Her ladyship departed earlier in the day.”

  Something slammed in Percy’s chest, though surely not the heart he did not possess.

  “When?” he almost growled.

  “About four hours ago, sir.”

  Four hours! He had wasted those hours pottering around, taking up Farley’s time for nothing, instead of stopping Lettie from leaving.

  “Did Lady Letitia say where she was going?”

  “No, sir.”

  A yawning, black hole opened under him.

  “Her ladyship took the traveling carriage and a lot of baggage,” the footman added. “It appeared she planned a longer journey.”

  Indeed, a lifelong journey without him. And it was only his fault, no one else’s.

  Percy was already running up the stairs, two at a time. Self-flagellation could wait until he had hours of solitary driving to get through.

  “Have the curricle ready without delay,” he called briskly from the landing. “Tell the groom to prepare for a longer journey.”

  He burst into Lettie’s room, his nonexistent heart clanking with a desperate hope that his servant was wrong.

  The room was, as always, neat, but so palpably empty that cold agony gripped him by the throat again. Nothing on the dressing table. The only adornment on the escritoire, beside the candlestick and the inkstand, was a flacon from which protruded the pink head of a hydrangea he had pilfered from the gardens this very morning.

  Percy frantically opened the drawers of the commode. Empty. So was the armoire in the dressing room.

  Remorse and despair assailed him again. How could he expose Lettie to all the dangers of traveling alone when she was with child? His child, for God’s sake. He felt so dizzy he grabbed the bedpost for support.

  But standing in the middle of Lettie’s empty bedchamber was not going to help. Turning on his heel, Percy swallowed against a powerful constriction in his throat and strode into his room.

  Pergot was laying out dinner clothes on the bed.

  “Traveling clothes,” Percy ground out.

  Pergot turned his head unhurriedly and raised his eyebrows in question. Was he deaf?

  “Traveling clothes instead of these, Pergot, if you please,” Percy repeated louder and with impatience, then cleared his throat and added in a gentler tone, “and a traveling trunk for a few days’ journey. Be quick about it.”

  Pergot muttered the acknowledgment and applied himself to the fulfillment of his new orders without one blink of an eye, though with an agonizing disregard for urgency. The valet moved today like a dignified snail.

  Percy opened his mouth to say he’d find the clothes himself, but, just then, Pergot shut the door to the dressing room behind him, robbing Percy of this option.

  Unable to abide idle waiting, Percy strode out into the corridor and toward the stairs. He might check the orangery. Had she taken all her things? What about Endymion?

  Percy ran down the stairs, nearly bumping, at the bottom of the staircase, into Slater, who had just emerged from the back corridor.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” the butler said with some anxiety. “There is something I believe I ought to bring to your attention before you leave.”

  “Cannot this wait?” Percy asked. Slater could very well manage on his own. He had done so after Sarah’s death whenever Ethel darted through the house insisting she’d sort Sarah’s belongings. But Percy had had no intention of revealing to Ethel the real reason behind Sarah’s death and Burdett’s sudden departure. The less anyone knew about it, the better. In those harrowing days, Slater had proven a formidable first line of defense.

  But now the butler shook his head. “If I may offer my opinion, sir, it may be better if you examine the box.” He walked to the commode next to Sir Giles’s portrait and pulled open the top drawer. “I believe it belonged to the first Lady Hanbury.”

  Percy felt sudden pressure in his chest. He had checked the entire house, determined to hunt down even the smallest trinket that might remind him of Sarah, then packed all her personal items, destined for return to her parents. How could he have missed anything, he thought, watching Slater take out of the drawer a tole box the size of an average octavo volume.

  “How do you know this was Lady Hanbury’s?” he asked.

  “I recall, sir, that Lady Hanbury used to take it with her to the orangery all the time. Mrs. Vernon’s sons found it behind Sir Giles’s portrait the last time she was here, before your departure for London, while playing at a treasure hunt. Mrs. Vernon made them return it to Lady Letitia before they claimed the treasure, and her ladyship put it in the top drawer of the commode.”

  Sarah’s box behind Sir Giles’s portrait?

  Suddenly, recollection hit Percy like a furious blow to the gut, taking him back to the moment when Anthony Burdett had left Sarah’s room after he discovered them together. Burdett murmured some empty consolation to Sarah, and without a single glance back, hurried down the stairs. A moment later, Percy followed him. The hall was the place where he saw Burdett for the last time, kneeling on the floor by Sir Giles’s picture, hastily stuffing some papers into his coat pocket.

  “What do you wish me to do with the box, sir?” Slater interrupted his thoughts. “Lady Marsden nearly fainted at its sight, so it may be safer to remove it from the hall, in case she determines to go on opening all the drawers, as she used to. Shall I give it to you now, sir, or later?”

  “Let me have it now,” Percy decided, taking the box from the butler. “Thank you, Slater.”

  Slater bowed and retreated through the servants’ door.

  Percy turned the box over in his hands. Yes, now he remembered having seen it once or twice when he had gone to the orangery, Sarah sitting in her favorite chair, writing in a little notebook, sheets of paper strewn on that overdecorated table from Bombay.

  He traced the gilt decoration with his fingers, unsure what to do. Did he really want to know what she kept inside? What would it change?

  But curiosity prevailed. Percy fumbled with the lid until, with some effort, it snapped open.

  On top was a little notebook. No doubt the same one he had seen her use.

  He took it out and placed it on the commode. The box contained more things: a small watercolor wrapped in an almost-translucent tissue paper, a locket and a cotton sachet containing a handful of letters.

  He considered this collection of memories, at first uncertain what to do with them. Sarah clearly did not mean to share them with him. It seemed she had given the box to Burdett, who must have been the one to put it behind the frame, having taken only what was of value to him. Given what Percy had found out about Burdett afterward, such supposition was
certainly plausible.

  Under different circumstances, Percy would have packed everything back inside the box. But he did not owe Sarah anything. He had never kept secrets from her. In hindsight, he had realized after her death how secretive she could be. He had a strange feeling that the box in his hands was more than a girl’s pretty scrapbook filled with dried flowers and awkward drawings.

  He took everything out of the tin and put all the objects on the commode, next to the notebook.

  The locket drew his attention. Its pretty tortoiseshell case with a silver rim had silver initials inlaid in the center: ST. Those were the initials for Sarah Thornhill, before she became Lady Hanbury.

  Absentmindedly, he rubbed the smooth surface with his thumb and turned the locket over.

  And the nightmare swallowed him again with all its brutal force. The other side of the case had another set of initials in silver, no less familiar to him: AB.

  Percy’s nonexistent heart thudded with sudden realization of what this meant. With shaky fingers, he unlatched the little clasp that held the locket closed.

  It fell open in his hand. Inside were two portraits, Sarah’s and Burdett’s. Between them, in a smaller glass compartment made to fit the inside of the locket, was braided hair. He recognized Sarah’s black strand and Burdett’s dark blond.

  In that instant, his already shattered life came crashing down on his shoulders, and Percy sagged under the weight.

  The pretty trinket stood witness to what could not be denied. Sarah and Burdett’s affair two years ago had not been merely the result of favoring circumstances, as he had always believed it to be. Sarah and Burdett’s affair had been a reunion. They had known each other before Percy married her.

  The locket burned his hand, spread heat through his veins like wildfire until it enveloped all of him, dimmed his vision and excluded from his mind everything beyond the two faces that seemed to mock everything he had ever held dear. He hurled it away. It hit the stone floor, and the delicate case crashed to pieces, dislodging the initialed tortoiseshell from its silver rim and freeing the glass case that rolled awkwardly until it stopped a few feet away against the edge of the carpet.

  Why had Sarah married him?

  Had she really fallen in love with him that spring eight years ago? Or had it been just a sudden infatuation that she regretted as soon as they married? Had she married him to spite Burdett because they had quarreled?

  Love could be blind indeed. He had loved Sarah so much that he saw only what he craved—her love for him. He believed in it, perhaps in defiance of the evidence that, had he been less blinded by his own feelings, would have stared him in the face with more effect.

  With an absentminded glance at the pieces of the locket strewn on the floor, Percy swept everything back into the box and walked with it to one of the chairs half-hidden under the staircase. He sat in it heavily.

  The journal was the first thing he took out again. The ribbon holding the soft vellum cover together yielded to a single yank, and pages covered with dense, small writing fanned out in invitation.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Percy ruffled through the pages. They were filled with Sarah’s small, even handwriting.

  Her secret diary.

  The date at the top of the first page was “18 September 1795”. It meant nothing to him, but he soon discovered that it had meant a great deal to Sarah. It was the day Burdett kissed her for the first time. He was right, then. They had been lovers long before he entered their lives.

  The ardent professions of Sarah’s feelings for Percy’s university acquaintance—and occasional reproaches when he failed to creep into her bed at night—were not what Percy wanted to read about.

  But he wanted to know what she thought of him.

  Had he ever made an appearance in Sarah’s thoughts, or had she shut him out completely? He turned the pages, almost impatiently, looking for a date that would have great meaning for him—Monday, 2 May 1796.

  The day he had met Sarah for the first time.

  And there it was, almost a quarter through the little volume.

  My dearest, dearest love, she wrote, addressing her thoughts, as always, to Burdett. The hour is late, but you haven’t come. I am sick with worry and love and miss you so badly that I shall not sleep at all tonight. My bed is empty without you.

  You are not here, so I will try to pass the time and console myself in my misery by writing. Your Cambridge friend cannot compare with you in any way, but he may be the best we are offered to take advantage of under the circumstances. It was very fortunate you brought him to Lady Bunbury’s this afternoon. I dare venture he liked me very much, so I shall do whatever I can to make him go down on bended knee as soon as possible. You may have to help me here with some little stratagem. Needless to say, no matter how much I abhor the idea of marrying someone other than you, it must be done with the greatest celerity for the sakes of us all. I miss you with all my heart, my dearest love.

  By the time he finished reading, Percy’s hands shook so badly, he nearly dropped the journal to the floor.

  For the past two years, he had firmly adhered to the belief that his own inability to give Sarah a child had been the cause of her attachment to Burdett. Five minutes ago, he discovered that Sarah and Burdett’s affair predated his marriage. And now Sarah had delivered one more blow. Even meeting her had not been accidental. It had all been a scheme from the start. Because somehow he was the best they could “take advantage of under the circumstances”.

  They had certainly done that.

  Percy thought of the girl he had seen that May afternoon eight years ago: bright, intelligent and—yes, he grimaced—seemingly so innocent, a beauty with dark eyes and black hair.

  And an even blacker heart.

  But what circumstances had she meant?

  He turned the page.

  My dearest life, Sarah wrote two days later. I forgive you, as you asked, for not coming last night again, though I wish you had shaken off those friends of yours who insisted on a card game and kept you away from me.

  I am glad Sir P confided in you his admiration for me. Are you sure he is really so completely smitten? I dare hope all will be well, then. I pray you come to the park this afternoon, my love. I am engaged to drive with him, but I cannot bear your absence any longer.

  And four days later, on that memorable Saturday afternoon when he had asked her to marry him and she had told him he had made her the happiest woman in all of England:

  Your stratagem, my dearest love, worked so well that Sir P not only addressed himself to me but also to my father. Tomorrow is Sunday, and the first bans will be read. Another three weeks before we are safe! Papa was quite taken with Sir P’s ardent feelings. Mama cried with joy and instantly rushed into preparations. Sir P left town today and returned to Norfolk for a week. Thus I am free to be with you again. I need you, my love, more than ever, before that dreaded day I will have married and left you for God knows how long.

  Your friend Lady Marsden is such a dear. I rejoice in this new friendship. What a lucky coincidence that her father’s estates border directly those of my future husband. She assured me yesterday that she would undertake with pleasure the task of passing our correspondence. We shall be able to continue communicating despite the distance between us and without raising any suspicion whatsoever. This makes the sacrifice of marrying Sir P easier. I shall feel somewhat consoled in the misery of losing your company for an indefinite time once I am in Norfolk. You have all the love my heart is capable of, my dearest and only love.

  Ah, damn you, Sarah, damn you.

  And you too, Ethel.

  For all those years, he had been like a blind man. He had no idea of the web of deceit surrounding him. He had walked into the trap like a puppet, with Burdett, Sarah and Ethel pulling the strings.

  Percy impatiently skimmed over a number of pages
. He’d had quite enough of Sarah’s unending professions of love for Burdett. But he still needed to know what circumstances had made her throw herself into his arms with all the joyous anticipation of a martyr approaching a torture rack.

  He skimmed over a few pages full of more declarations of her feelings and reproaches for Burdett’s gambling proclivities that had kept him away at night. Then he found notes dated two days after their wedding.

  Bromsholme, Sunday, 5 June 1796

  My dearest and only love, how terribly I miss you already! To think that it will be months, if not years, before I can see you breaks my heart. If not the certainty of your love for me and the assurance of a safe future for our child I would…

  The words on the paper suddenly blurred, except that one. Percy blinked and reread the sentence carefully.

  The assurance of a safe future for our child.

  He had never fainted in his life, but it was a good thing he was sitting now. Limp with shock and disoriented by dark blotches swirling around him, he heard Sarah’s laughter pounding relentlessly in his head.

  Sarah had been with Burdett’s child when Percy married her.

  But then another thought struck him even harder.

  Sarah never had a baby. She was never pregnant.

  And so, there were two possibilities… No, only one. He would have known. She couldn’t have hidden a pregnancy from him. So that meant that…

  Feverishly, his hands shaking, he returned to the notebook.

  …I would have expired from longing after you already! You must be very careful once you are out of the country. You must come as soon as you can to see us after the child is born. His future is now my biggest concern. For the sakes of both of you, I have been an obedient bride these two nights and followed your advice on the wedding night, as you may guess, very successfully. He does not suspect a thing. I do not need to tell you what a misery it was to lie with him instead of you. I must suffer him every night now, even though my heart breaks when I think of you and the sweetest time we spent together. Write to me, my love, as much as you can. Your letters shall be the very air I breathe.