A Woman of True Honor (True Gentlemen Book 8)

by Grace Burrowes

  A knot in Valerian’s belly eased. Emily was being reasonable. She was allowing that his perspective had validity, as did hers. Sibling loyalty was a fine quality, most of the time.

  “We will muddle through this,” he said. “Osgood has bet against us twice, and we will prove him wrong on both counts. If and when Adam returns from the Antipodes, he will be welcome in our house.” A magnanimous compromise, but if the boot were on the other foot, and Sycamore had been sentenced to transportation, Valerian would hope for the same generosity of spirit from Emily.

  She paced along in silence until they emerged from the laburnum alley. “Have we had our first disagreement?”

  Had they? “I wish you hadn’t been pushed into this disclosure by Osgood’s meddling, but I also wish you’d told me sooner. I might have refused the magistrate’s post.”

  She gave him a wan smile. “The talk will be awkward if your neighbors learn of the connection, won’t it?”

  Our neighbors. “We’ll manage. The magistrate’s post tends to rotate among the landed men, and I’m merely taking a turn.” Besides, what were the chances that a five-year-old court case heard three hundred and fifty miles away would become common knowledge locally?

  Emily slipped her arm through his. “The whole situation haunts me, Valerian. I know my brother is innocent. I know it, but I also know Papa truly does not recall signing the bank draft. I have nightmares about the whole business.”

  He patted her hand. “I’m sorry, and particularly sorry that you’ve carried this burden alone. Let us agree that we won’t have secrets, Emily. If my brother Sycamore suffers a financial reverse, I’ll tell you. If you are feuding with the vicar, you will tell me. Nobody will drive a wedge of suspicion between us. Agreed?”

  She kissed his cheek. “Agreed. I have hated sneaking my letters into the post, hated keeping all the worry to myself when Adam doesn’t write back. The first two years were very hard, when the work he was assigned was mostly manual labor. He’s doing much better now, but I still worry.”

  “I worry for my siblings, and they aren’t serving sentences of transportation.”

  “I worry to the point of distraction, Valerian. I lose sleep over Adam’s situation, and sometimes I think I’m losing my wits as well. Just yesterday, I thought I saw him across the street from me in the village, and we know that cannot have been the case.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Dorset was beautiful in the way much of England was beautiful—verdant, peaceful, settled. Adam had missed that quality most of all. England had history for him in a way the Antipodes never could. His mother was buried on English soil, his sister bided here—not two miles away—as did his father.

  Osgood Pepper was apparently much recovered from a brush with death. Adam’s entire justification for returning to England was thus moot.

  Or was it? Caleb Booth and Tobias Granger had used Papa’s illness to tighten their orbit around him and Emily, and Adam had had five years to consider exactly who had benefited from his downfall.

  “Your horse, guv’nor,” a scrawny boy said, leading a leggy chestnut gelding across the inn yard. “Name’s Topsail. Hostler says he loves a good gallop and will clear anything up to five feet. Seems a bit sleepy to me, and you know how hostlers talk.”

  Adam eyed the horse, who eyed him back. “He looks sound enough.” Horses were at a premium in Australia, and the sleek conformation of a hunter hack had been a rarity when the empire’s agenda for most of its colonies was work, work, and more work.

  “Has good manners,” the boy said, patting the horse’s shoulder. “Makes you wonder how a fellow like this ended up in the village livery.”

  “Bad luck can happen to anyone.” Adam checked the girth and swung into the saddle, then tossed the boy a coin.

  “So can good luck, sir! Thankee!” The boy skipped off, coin clutched in a dirty paw. He’d learn soon enough that bad luck was more abundant than the other kind.

  Though at least the weather was accommodating today. Adam had gleaned directions by pretending to be interested in buying property locally. An older woman and her niece in the inn’s common room had been eager to tell him that Pepper Ridge had recently changed hands—Summerfield House, until the sale. The gent who owned it was a London type. Not long for the country, in their opinion, and his daughter was probably eager to return to Mayfair’s ballrooms and carriage parades.

  Miss Emily Pepper had a lady’s airs and graces, despite her origins. That last was offered grudgingly, as Emily had no doubt been given grudging credit in Mayfair for the same hard-won airs and graces.

  If Adam had the coin, the ladies opined, he could very likely lease the place. He’d endured a careful perusal after that observation, during which he’d smiled genially and thanked the women for their kind assistance.

  He had the coin, as it happened. His wealth was a result of his own hard work, the opportunities a new colony presented, and Emily’s cleverness, for he hadn’t arrived to Australia entirely penniless. Transportation could make a man rich, if it didn’t kill him.

  He turned the horse from the market green and left the village at a sedate, unremarkable walk. Topsail was content to saunter along under the blue summer sky, while Adam seethed with conflicting emotions.

  To be home was to be reminded of everything that had been taken from him, everything he’d never get back. Years with his family, his standing in the community, the right to hold his head up in any company. The greatest theft had not been the money—a sum too large to overlook—or even the years spent thousands of miles from home, but his own father’s trust.

  Adam guided Topsail down a shady bridle path, one that would keep him out of sight of the Pepper Ridge manor house. If he was lucky and vigilant, he might find a laundress or scullery maid willing to summon Emily to the garden.

  Luck had abandoned him five years ago, but he’d become expert at vigilance. He was thus heartily surprised to spy Emily parting from a tall, dark-haired gentleman right at the edge of a long bed of roses. She and the fellow embraced in the tight, unselfconscious manner of spouses or lovers, which was interesting. Emily kissed her swain on the cheek, and then he strode off around the side of the house before Adam could get a decent look at his face.

  Emily, bless her eternally, repaired to a small folly overlooking the garden.

  Adam tied Topsail’s reins to a sapling and used the folly to keep his approach from the view of anybody in the house. He stood beneath the side of the little structure, offered up the first prayer he’d composed in five years, and spoke softly.

  “Emily, don’t move. Please.”

  Being Emily, she did move, though she made the gesture about collapsing her parasol and setting it aside. “Who’s there?”

  Adam rose enough that she could see him above the edge of the folly. “It’s Adam. For the love of God and England, don’t scream.”

  She studied him and, with a composure she’d never have claimed five years ago, turned her gaze back on the garden. “What in all of perdition are you doing here now?” She laid the parasol across her lap. “You look well.”

  He looked like he’d been baked in a southern sun, which he had, and like he’d accustomed himself to unrelenting physical labor, which he also had.

  “I came home because I feared Papa would go to his reward with our differences unresolved.”

  “Papa is much better. He’s found a medication—foxglove—that routed the dropsy. He’s healthier now than he’s been in years. You took a terrible risk, Adam.”

  “As did Papa when he set the law on me. You’re looking well too, Em.” Beautiful, really. Emily was not a diamond of the first whatever the term was, but five years ago, she’d been pretty. Her regular features and thick brown hair were complemented now by self-possession and composure. Witness, she’d not screamed—yet.

  “I am well.” She fussed with her parasol and stole another glance in his direction. “Adam, you must leave. I have every confidence that if Papa lays eyes on yo
u, he’ll set the law on you once more.”

  “I didn’t take the money, Emily.” He shouldn’t have to tell her, of all people, that he was innocent.

  “I never believed you did, but anybody could have put Papa’s signature on that bank draft.”

  “Including you?” That question had to be asked. After five years of wondering and doubting, of considering the innuendos and the unspoken conclusions, Adam was owed an answer.

  Emily opened the parasol and twirled it gently over her shoulder. Bad luck to open a parasol indoors, but then, a garden folly wasn’t exactly indoors.

  “Of course I know Papa’s signature,” she said. “So do you, so did a half-dozen clerks. His penmanship is not hard to copy, but the law is the law, and you have been convicted. Two more years, Adam, just two more years, and you can come back.”

  “The governor takes a dim view of those who violate their parole, Emily. England is no longer at war with France, and the United States presents many opportunities for a man with my skills. I was hoping you’d come away with me, even if Papa refuses to put aside my differences with him.”

  The parasol abruptly halted. “I love you, Adam, and I have longed for your safe return, but not like this. I refuse to go anywhere with you.”

  She had always been stubborn, but then, with Osgood Pepper for a father, stubbornness was a must.

  “I can have us on a ship by tomorrow morning, Emily. Leave a note telling Papa you’ve eloped with some squire’s son. He’ll believe it, and we’ll be well away before Papa knows any different.”

  “I break the law if I leave with you. I’m probably breaking the law by failing to raise the hue and cry at the sight of you. I beg you, Adam, please leave as quietly as you can and don’t come back.”

  For all that she spoke calmly, her grip on the parasol was tight, and her cheeks had gone pale. She was preparing to bolt, and Adam hadn’t had so much as a hug from her, hadn’t held her hand, hadn’t seen her smile. The temptation to join her in the folly, to shout, to damn the consequences tore at him.

  “I am innocent, Emily. Do you know how hard it was to jeopardize what I’ve achieved over the past five years to try to reconcile with our father?” Of all people, she should be able to calculate that toll.

  She snapped the parasol closed. “Do you know how hard it has been pretending Papa’s treatment of you is a mere bygone? How I’ve longed to tell him that his failing health was exactly what he deserved for betraying his own son? Osgood Pepper can spare tens of thousands of pounds without flinching, but he couldn’t set aside his damned scruples for the sake of a paltry bank draft. I have wished his businesses would fail, Adam, and worse than that, but when it was clear that he was dying, I couldn’t let that happen. He had to live long enough to welcome you home. And now…”

  She rose, and Adam nearly leaped over the railing to grab her by the wrist.

  “I must be going,” she said. “I wish you the best, but please don’t come back. As it is, if you even tell me where you end up, I am bound by law to disclose your whereabouts.”

  Her response was understandable—also all wrong. “Emily, you’d betray me too? Does this have to do with that fellow taking such a fond leave of you five minutes ago?”

  Her posture would have done a grenadier proud. “I am to be married, Adam. Valerian Dorning is all I’ve ever longed for in a husband. He’s honorable, kind, considerate, and willing to work hard for his coin. Papa does not approve of him, but will accommodate appearances for his own purposes.”

  “Do you love this Dorning fellow?”

  “Passionately, and you are right: I am choosing to be Valerian’s wife rather than become the sister you’d make into a fugitive.”

  Well, damn Valerian Dorning, then. “I promised myself I would make things right with Papa, Emily. Now you tell me he’s thriving, and you intend to remain here in Dorset, some squire’s wife, while I drift about the world without even letters from you. I can’t do that.”

  She bowed her head. “Because you are innocent.”

  Her admission was something, not quite a vindication, but an olive branch of some sort.

  “You must believe me, Adam. I long for your safety and wellbeing, and you shall ever be dear to me, but I cannot see you again.”

  “Because of the squire’s son.”

  “Because my intended is the new magistrate and an exceedingly honorable man. He will arrest you on sight rather than betray an oath of office. I love you, and I will pray for you until my dying day. Farewell, and may God go with you.”

  Valerian was not in the mood to gallop back to his cottage, which was by no flight of the imagination a lovers’ retreat. Ye gods and little fishes, what had possessed him to characterize it thus? Four rooms plus a kitchen and scullery, a terrace, and a muddy garden suited mostly to foraging chickens was no place to bring a new bride.

  Clovis steered himself not onto the lane, but rather, onto the bridle path, choosing the shorter route back to Dorning Hall.

  “And back to your grassy paddock and your mates,” Valerian murmured.

  He’d forgotten to give Emily the copy of his manuscript that he’d tucked into his saddlebags. But then, Emily hadn’t been in a very manuscript-reading mood, had she? She had been upset with her father, fretting over a long-lost felonious brother, unhappy with Briggs…

  Not an auspicious beginning to a marital union. “And how on earth am I to explain this to Casriel?”

  Clovis’s ears pricked up as another horseman came into view down the bridle path. Valerian did not recognize the fellow, a good-sized specimen who sat his chestnut gelding easily.

  “Greetings,” Valerian called. “Pretty day for a hack.”

  “That, it is. I hope I’m not intruding on your land.”

  A stranger to the neighborhood, then. “Not at all. This bridle path is old enough to qualify as a common right-of-way. Have you family in the area?”

  “Business connections.” He turned his horse alongside Clovis. “And family, of a sort. Yourself?”

  “Dorset born and bred, though most of my family has left the area.” Valerian did not want to make small talk with a stranger, but ignoring the man would be rude. Besides, Valerian had the rest of the day, week, and possibly his life to brood over Osgood Pepper’s schemes and Emily’s moods.

  “I’ve never lived in the shires,” the man said. “I thought English country life would be quiet. The birds alone create an endless racket.”

  “In spring and summer, they do tend to sing. You’ve traveled some distance from the Dales or coalfields of the north.” Traveled a great deal, very likely.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Your complexion is not that of somebody biding in Northumberland, and your diction gives away your origins.”

  Valerian’s companion laughed, though the sound conveyed little mirth. “Your powers of observation are keen. If I were inclined to set up a household in this vicinity, am I likely to find any properties for sale?”

  “What sort of property?”

  “A modest, comfortable manor. Someplace a woman could call her own, with enough tenancies that she need not worry for her old age. A solid edifice, well maintained, and nicely situated.”

  He described Abbotsford, which Valerian was not about to part with. “Are you in contemplation of holy matrimony perhaps?”

  Another bark of laughter. “For a man like me? Perish the thought. If my business dealings can be concluded amicably, then that family I mentioned will require some attention.”

  Family, of a sort, whatever that meant. Perhaps he was somebody’s by-blow, or a lady in the neighborhood was raising his illegitimate child.

  “The only property in the area to recently change hands is Pepper Ridge,” Valerian said, “but that’s a sizable estate with many tenancies and much in need of refurbishment. If you’re willing to rent, your options might increase.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not after a farm for hire. The property is not for me, but for a r
elative, as a dower household, more or less. I am hopeful that I can redress an old misunderstanding while I’m in the area, but the party from whom I parted on bad terms is a stubborn old gent and set in his ways.”

  Much like Osgood Pepper. “You have my sympathies. I find with men of that ilk a campaign of charm, persistence, and relentless common sense can advance my cause.”

  “Alas, I left my charm somewhere off the coast of India.”

  Whoever this fellow was, he was not happy. This unresolved business weighed on him, just as Emily’s unsettled mood weighed on Valerian.

  “I take the next turning,” Valerian said. “I’ll wish you best of luck with your business ventures.”

  The fellow touched a finger to his hat brim. “And good day to you too, sir.”

  “Might I have a name?” Valerian asked. “If I hear of any properties for sale, I’d like to pass the information along.” Then too, Valerian was about to step into the magistrate’s shoes. Any stranger in the area was of interest to him, even one passing through on personal business.

  “A name.” He patted his horse. “Ad—Addison Topsail. I’m at the posting inn in the village and will be for another day or two.”

  “Pleased to meet you and good day, Mr. Topsail. Best of luck.” Valerian cantered away, the little encounter adding to his store of uneasiness. According to Hawthorne’s most recent gossip, Squire Rutledge had lost his prime morning hunter in a card game to Devin White, whose father owned the livery. In a display of stupidity such as only young men are capable of, White had sold that very high-quality gelding, a glossy chestnut, to his father for use in the family livery business.

  A prime hunter ought never to fall so low, and that horse’s name was Topsail.

  Who was this Addison person, what was his business in the neighborhood, and why had he been idling along the bridle path not two hundred yards from Emily’s back garden?