"Will he kiss my hand in the French style?"
The major's grey eyes lit. "I think it extremely likely. Bevis has excellent taste."
Caught in her own mild joke, Emily blushed. "You flatter."
"I never offer Spanish coin," he said gently. "I thought it time to commence our courtship."
That drew a smile. "I shall be glad to meet Lord Bevis, Major, though I trust there will be no occasion to prolong the acquaintance. Have you had word of Major Falk?"
He frowned. "He was used to write you regularly?"
"I writ him an account of the children at least once a month. He responded as soon as he received my letters. There have been delays before, but six weeks was the longest I ever had to wait. I know the American winds are even less cooperative than those in the Bay of Biscay. A sixmonth, however..." She fell silent.
He did not comment at once. When he spoke, he seemed to choose his words with care. "I sent an enquiry through Richard's regimental adjutant. You must understand that Richard is rather inclined to stumble into adventures."
Emily waited. Adventures.
"Other people lead orderly, regular lives. Richard is constantly falling into scrapes." He grimaced, as if the word were not to his taste. "He does not seek disasters. They find him out. However, I daresay he'll turn up like a bad penny as soon as the peace is signed."
"Scowling and flinging off sarcasms like squibs." Emily sighed. "No doubt you're right."
Major Conway said drily, "I perceive you have seen Richard at his best. What a fool he is."
Emily raised troubled eyes. "I have only met your friend twice. He was worried, I collect. And quite desperately tired."
"You're a perceptive woman."
"It did not take a great deal of perception to see that," Emily rejoined. "Will you tell me how things are left?"
Major Conway frowned. "Richard did not?"
"He told me not to trouble my tiny head, and that you would know what to do."
Major Conway raised his brows.
"Oh, not in so many words." Emily's pent-up exasperation burst through, surprising her. "I wonder why it is that men suppose women incapable of rational judgement. I am not a widgeon, sir. I have run my son's estate since my husband's death." She raised her chin. "And improved the receipts. I should be far more at ease if I could make plans for Amy and Tommy. As it is I am wondering whether to prepare Amy to earn her bread or to marry a duke. I had inclined to the former," she added darkly, "but if her affairs are to be dealt with by belted earls I perceive I erred in my assumption."
Major Conway went off into the whoops.
Presently his mirth tickled a grin from Emily. "It is not funny."
"No. Merely absurd." Major Conway shifted his long legs and gave way to a final suppressed chuckle. "There would be a small pension, of course. I--or Bevis--would see to that, and I daresay we could find young Thomas a place in a school for officers' sons."
"As I thought," Emily said, resigned.
"There's rather more than five hundred pounds."
Emily whistled and caught herself up guiltily. "I beg your pardon, sir."
The major regarded her with a bemused air. "Pray don't apologise, Mrs. Foster. I've never met a lady who could whistle. I beg you will marry me at once."
"I had to teach my son, Matt," Emily said absently. "To whistle, that is. Five hundred pounds." She tapped her forefinger on the chair arm. "The legacy, I daresay. What a blessing Major Falk's godmother chose to die at such an opportune moment." She looked up to find the major staring at her in blank incomprehension.
"The legacy. He made it over to the children when he brought them to me."
"There was no legacy."
It was Emily's turn to stare.
"I do not know why Richard should spin such a tale," Major Conway said slowly. "No doubt he had reasons. If his children have anything at all it is because he sweat for it."
Emily regarded him for a long moment without blinking, then shook her head. "I do not understand."
"I do." The major closed his eyes and rubbed his brow as if his head ached. "Richard has never had anything but his pay, Mrs. Foster. And a certain gift for improbable prose fictions."
"Explain."
He lowered his hand. "Richard is an author. In the past three years, since Doña Isabel's death, he has sold four novels."
"Novels?"
"Yes."
"He produced the money by scribbling books!" Emily digested the idea. "Are they good novels?"
"You are a remarkable woman."
She met his admiring grey gaze. "Don't rush your courtship. I collect the literary merit of Major Falk's works is immaterial. What is material is that he lied to me, from first to last. What other deceits has he practised on me, I wonder?"
There was a pause. Major Conway frowned. "Is it so important? You cannot have been under any illusion that Richard is prosperous. He seemed to think there would be enough to educate the children and provide Amy's dowry."
"Ample." Emily's mouth set.
"What do you mean to do?"
Emily exploded. "Do? I shall give him a piece of my mind. That arrogant, satirical, deceitful--why do you smile?"
"Relief, ma'am, believe me. I thought I should find myself with two children on my hands."
Emily was shocked. She contrived to assure him that, far from abandoning the children, she meant to keep them by her as long as she might. She grew emotional on the subject. It was a good thing that the tea cart arrived in the midst of her high flight, or she might have betrayed her feelings. All her feelings.
14
The tea cart was a miracle of gleaming china, starched linen, and exquisite cakes and sandwiches. Aunt Fan dealt with the footman in short order. As Emily and, she suspected, the major had quite forgot her aunt's presence, they exchanged guilty glances.
"Better adopt the brats." Aunt dispensed the steaming Bohea with the competence of thirty years' practice. "Sugar, Major?"
"Er, no. Thank you."
"Ought to. Perk up your spirits. Very invigorating, sweet tea."
"I am wholly restored," Major Conway said. "Adopt, Miss Mayne?"
Aunt, having wrested a table, another chair, and the tea apparatus into place before the fire without discommoding herself in the least, had taken up her position as behind a redoubt. "Eat a sandwich, sir. Put some flesh on your bones. Not the cucumber."
Major Conway meekly consumed a slice of bread and butter. "Adopt?" he repeated, rather thickly.
Emily had heard this exchange in stunned silence. Adopt. She did not at all like the implications of the word. Perhaps Aunt Fan sensed her revulsion.
She addressed Emily directly, eyes sharp. "Your father won't balk. Attached to young Amy. Taking little thing. Only sensible course, Emma. Mother dead, father in foreign parts, no relations. Bring 'em up as your own. Doing it already."
Emily tried to order her thoughts. In the early days of her acquaintance with the children, adoption had occurred to her, though she had supposed her widowed state might cause legal complications. Now it was the last thing she wanted, for it would sever her only link with their father. She took a gulp of tea. Richard Falk's single revealing moment with his daughter presented itself before her mind's eye.
"It won't do," she blurted, relieved to have found the right argument. "Major Falk would never consent."
"I wonder how you know that," Major Conway said quietly. "Richard's attachment to his children is more than a matter of duty. He needs them." He set his cup on the table. "More than they need him, I fancy."
"Often the case with parents," Aunt Fan offered.
Emily stared at her.
"Don't be a fool, gel. Look at your father. Like a broody hen. Always has been. Should have let young James go up to London. Couldn't bear it."
Major Conway drew a sharp breath.
Emily turned. "Are you well, sir?"
"Yes, quite. A thought merely."
"What if Major Falk is indeed dead?"
Aunt asked in practical tones. "Likely to be kin to kick up a dust? What about the mother's family? Foreigners."
Emily's stomach knotted. She set her cup down.
"If Richard were dead then Mrs. Foster would be free to act as she wished." Major Conway accepted the fresh cup Aunt Fan thrust into his hands. "Doña Isabel's family--excepting el Jefe--are all dead. I don't believe he would raise objections. He gave his sister to Richard freely, and in Spain the father provides for his children."
How could he speak so coolly of the unspeakable? Emily pushed the thought of Major Falk's death aside. "Will you tell me something of the children's mother, sir? They will be asking questions."
Major Conway discovered the teacup and set it down three quarters full. "Doña Isabel... Lord, I daresay I should give you the whole story, or as much of it as I know. Then perhaps you'll comprehend what I mean by Richard's propensity for scrapes."
"Scrapes?" Emily echoed, mechanical.
The major smiled at her. "And no, the marriage was not a scrape. I chose my words clumsily. It was, so far as an observer can judge, a very good thing for both parties--though not, of course, in a worldly sense." He turned to Aunt Fan. "I daresay you recall the retreat we made on Corunna."
"Eighteen eight and nine," Aunt Fan said tersely. "Sir John Moore killed. Should never have happened." Whether she meant the retreat or Moore's death at the battle that was fought to cover the embarkation was unclear. Matt had been teething, Emily recalled, and Edward was still alive.
"I was with the Light Bobs," the major said. "Rifles. Richard, of course, stayed with the Fifty-second through the war, so we saw rather more of each other then than later."
"Rear guard," Aunt interposed.
He smiled. "Paget would wish you to mention the cavalry."
"Uxbridge."
"His lordship's conduct of the rear guard was held to be brilliant, though we didn't feel brilliant. We had made our way past Astorga, and we'd kept the French at bay, though the other regiments left a damned shambles in our path. Sorry."
"Justified," said Aunt Fan. "No supplies."
Major Conway grinned. "I should leave you to tell it, ma'am. My memory is befogged at some points."
Aunt Fan nodded graciously. "Bound to be. Go on."
"There we were, stretched out blocking the correo in a storm of sleet. We'd fought off and on all day, none of us had eaten--in fact there was nothing to eat, and we'd been on short commons for some days before that. It was cold and miserable."
Emily shivered.
"We'd holed up in the shell of a half destroyed barn," the major was saying. "At least it was shelter. Someone had unearthed a little wine. We contrived a fire and settled in for the night. Into this charming scene rode Richard. He said we were to pull back another half mile. You may imagine the huzzas with which he was greeted. We weren't in a reasonable frame of mind. Neither was he. We gave him a swallow of the wine and sent him on his way. He'd four more outposts to reach."
He looked up at the ladies and smiled. "On the edge of your seats, I see. Perhaps I should take up writing narrative."
"Do go on," Emily snapped.
"Very well. You may wonder why an officer of the line was doing staff duty, but the truth is no one else was to hand with a living, breathing horse on which to trundle through the sleet. It goes without saying Richard was in no better case than the rest of us, all grime and beard and sarcasm. I didn't think he could make it. He didn't."
"Captured?" Aunt Fan asked.
"No. He gained the last outpost and came back with the platoon part of the way. Then they lost him. He was supposed to be guiding them, so they went back a few yards. His horse had fallen dead. Richard had cracked his skull on a rock in the fall and didn't seem to want to wake up."
Emily made a noise.
He looked at her briefly. "To their credit they carried Richard as far as they could, which was to our ruined barn, I fancy. We'd left it by then. He was still unconscious, and doesn't recall any of it to this day. They laid him in shelter, but his chances of surviving and not being taken by the French were remote. He was posted missing. Everyone assumed he was dead."
Aunt Fan sniffed.
The major drew a long breath. "When I heard, I kept imagining him lying in a snowbank with the wolves at him." He shook his head frowning. "We were no longer very close, Richard and I. There were men I was closer to who were lost in the retreat, but I kept thinking about Richard. I daresay it was because we were schooled together. We've known each other a long time."
Aunt sniffed again, loudly, and poured him another cup of tea.
He didn't touch it. "You may imagine my relief when Richard joined us after Talavera, looking fit as a fiddle with his Spanish wife riding pillion behind him on a captured French horse." He smiled at their reaction. "Richard's colonel was taken aback--to see him again, and to find he was wed. Spanish marriages were not yet allowed, but Richard presented him with a fait accompli. Doña Isabel's brother was a guerrillero chief of some stature and ferocity. It was not thought prudent to cross el Jefe. And young Amy was, er, on the way."
"My word," Emily said faintly. "What was Mrs. Falk like?"
"Small. Richard is not above the middle height and she came to his shoulder. Black hair, olive complexion, snapping black eyes with lashes about a yard long. I daresay she was more striking than pretty. She was capable of being haughty when she chose to, and she had a temper like a rocket, soaring off in every direction at once. She was ferociously jealous."
Emily tried to repress a surge of jealousy. She cleared her throat. "Did you like Mrs. Falk?"
"Oh, we all tumbled in love with her at once." Major Conway smiled reminiscently, oblivious to Emily's feelings. "She could have trod on red jackets all the way to Lisbon, but she never had eyes for anyone but Richard. They had wonderful arguments."
That sounded familiar. "Go on," Emily said, glum. Clearly the marriage was made in Heaven.
"Such arguments. Crescendoes of insults in the most lisping Castillian." Major Conway laughed. "Doña Isabel was from the region of Old Castile near Aranda del Duero. It was a treat to hear them go at it. Richard speaks fluent Spanish. He'd have had to, after a sixmonth with el Jefe's little band of cutthroats."
"Heavens."
"They had found Richard wandering in a daze, half frozen. Doña Isabel nursed him back to health. That sounds romantical and perhaps it was, but it cannot have been an easy time. The guerrilleros were pressed by the French, and the region was devastated from two armies having fought over it. The band came south when Wellington moved on Oporto. Richard reported in but he stayed with the irregulars as liaison until the Fifty-second rejoined the army."
"Doña Isabel was with the guerrilleros the whole time?"
"Her family and village had been destroyed by the French. She had no one to turn to but el Jefe, and indeed she was lucky to enjoy a brother's protection."
"I see." Emily wondered whether she would have had Doña Isabel's courage.
Major Conway misread her hesitation. "If you're asking yourself whether she was a lady, ma'am, I think the answer is yes. Her father was alcalde--a sort of J.P. Hidalgos, I fancy, but not wealthy. She could read and write in Spanish."
"But not in English, I take it."
He looked surprised. "She couldn't even speak English, Mrs. Foster. No need to. Richard spoke Spanish with her. We all admired Doña Isabel," he added, rather stiffly, as if disapproval were written on Emily's face. "She had great courage, and she was devoted to Richard and her children."
"I'm sure she was. A heroine." The model for Doña Inez? Gloom swept over Emily. How could she hope to rival such a splendid ghost?
"Follow the camp?" Aunt asked.
"Not until after Amy was born. After Busaco. When Masséna finally withdrew things were easier, and that became possible. Before that Richard found quarters for her near Lisbon. I think she preferred the camp." Major Conway looked at his hands. "They did not have a great deal of time. Tommy was born ear
ly in eighteen twelve and Isabel died in April."
"But Major Falk didn't bring the children to me until the autumn of that year," Emily protested. "Tommy was nearly nine months old. Creeping."
"Richard would not have left his company in other hands during a campaign, and I collect he hadn't heard from Hitchins either. Hitchins is his publisher."
That brought Emily crashing back into the present. She cast her eyes heavenward. "Publisher!"
"Fairy godmother?" Major Conway offered tentatively.
Emily fell into the whoops. "Oh dear, I ought not to laugh. Your friend, sir, is a blackguard."
"A lunatic," the major agreed. "And a Grub Street hack. But not, I think, a bad father."
"Letters most particular," Aunt said. "Good grasp of detail. Bought Amy a pony."
"The pony belongs to Amy and Matt," Emily corrected. "In that respect, sir, your friend has been most considerate. He always includes Matt in his gifts, and that has averted considerable strife. Matt is not used to playing second fiddle."
Major Conway's mind was elsewhere. "I wonder if you have considered the difficulties attendant upon keeping Richard's children. Surely mine is not the only offer of marriage you have received, ma'am. Are not three children, two of them a stranger's, an encumbrance?"
"To my many suitors? I've found Amy and Tommy exceedingly convenient, sir. They saved me from two solicitors and the Master of Hounds. The master was most importunate."
He laughed at that. "How if you form an attachment, ma'am?"
Emily's blood froze. Does he know? Ah, he means an attachment to someone other than Richard Falk. "I daresay it's possible."
"You speak as if the likelihood were remote. Are you averse to marriage?"
Emily forced a smile. "My taste is overnice. The solicitors had damp hands and the master is inclined to roar." She added, for he looked troubled, "Do not be anxious in my behalf, Major Conway. I should not give my affections to a man who disliked children. It is one of my criteria for suitability."
To her relief, he did not pursue the matter further. "Shall the two of you take dinner with me tomorrow in the hotel? I'll engage Bevis to come."
"Of course. Aunt?"
Aunt Fan nodded decisively.
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