“He was injured at Quatre Bras a few days prior to Waterloo,” he told her in a quiet voice absent of his normal jocularity. He downed his drink—clearly not the champagne everyone else was drinking and she fleetingly wondered where he’d gotten it. “The Chasseurs a Cheval, a French cavalry unit, attacked our 92nd from the rear. Wellington was among them at that point, but even in his defense the 42nd and 44th hesitated in firing on them immediately. They were in tall grass, making a sure target impossible to find. While they tried to square off, the French Lancers attacked and speared many of the Highlanders. In turn, most of them were bayoneted, but not before Lindsay took a blade through the knee. They tried to spare the leg, but fever took him and they had to amputate.”
“Poor man.”
“Aye, well, he was merely Lieutenant Colonel preceding that,” Mal offered drolly.
“Malcolm MacKintosh,” she scolded with a gasp and swatted his shoulder with her furled parasol. She’d forgotten how entertaining he could be.
He shrugged but his smile lingered. “He’d tell ye it was a fair bargain.”
Georgiana tsked, shaking her head. “How terrible you are. And your other friend? Coll? I’m sorry, I don’t recall his full name.”
Mal’s wicked humor faded away, as he rotated his empty glass over and over in his hands. She felt a spark of regret for asking. “Coll was killed at Corunna in ’09.”
“I’m so sorry, Mal. Truly.” She touched his arm lightly. “I know you were close.”
He nodded tersely but his sorrow was evident nonetheless.
“And where were you during all this?” She drew her hand away before she succumbed to the urge to cling. It would be safer to change the subject to a more polite topic, anyway, and they’d already covered the weather. “Did you fight on the Continent as well?”
“What makes ye think I wisnae tucked snug and warm in my noble bed? Ye ken my original plan was to sell my commission.”
“I know you did not.”
He quirked a brow at the low response. “Rabbie told ye, I suppose.”
“He did.” Twenty years ago, but she wasn’t going to tell him that now if Rabbie Lindsay had never bothered to. “I know you went off to fight in Egypt after you left…Bath.”
After you left me, she nearly said. He couldn’t know how she mourned him if she expected to make him leave.
“Aye, I fought at Abukir Bay, Mandora, and Alexandria. I was wounded a few times, though never seriously. Things were fairly peaceful for a few years until the war on the peninsula escalated.” His sigh bore the weight of the world in it. She could see how the memories still affected him years after the fact. “I fought by Coll’s side at Corunna. Survived when he died.”
“You were with him then? When he died?”
“Aye.”
“And then in France with Colonel Lindsay?” she pressed.
“Nay.” He shook his head, meeting her gaze once more. “I lost one brother to fever in ’07 and the other in a carriage accident in ’11. My mother begged me to sell my commission and come home.”
“Oh, Mal,” she cried, laying a sympathetic hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He shrugged off the sympathy. Time and consequence had certainly made a harder man of him. “My father died four years ago, with no one but me left as his heir. I became the Earl of Glenrothes when I ne’er expected or wanted to be. Nevertheless, I’ve done my best to be a good one for my clan and for the people who rely on me for a living.”
“I never knew you were nobility much less the son of an earl.” Georgiana’s mind reeled with the knowledge. “If Father had known back then maybe he might have viewed things differently.”
Mal scoffed with a flick of his wrist. “Och, he knew. Auld sod.”
She gasped in shock at the disclosure. “What? How?”
“I told him, of course.” He surprised her more, as did the animosity in his voice after so long. “Did ye no’ think I’d throw every noble ancestor I had at him to get him to change his mind? I detailed my bloodlines straight back to the Bruce himself. He dinnae care one whit as it was blunt he cared most about. He’d set his mind against me.”
“I never knew. I knew you were a gentleman, of course, but you never said more.”
“Ye never cared either, Georgie, though for kinder reasons than he. I thought it dinnae matter to ye, but it did in the end, did it no’?”
Georgiana stiffened at the accusation in his tone. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The roll of his eyes told her his meaning should have been obvious, but she glared at him until he continued insolently. “I figured there had to have been a reason why ye dinnae come wi’ me that night.”
“There was.”
“Aye. Obviously yer auld man convinced ye that I dinnae possess enough consequence for ye and ye dinnae care enough for me to overlook it.”
“That’s what you assumed?” She gaped at him, aware that her teeth were clenched and grinding as her temper stepped up a notch again. “Of all the things it might have been, that’s where you settled on the truth?”
She spun away and snapped her parasol open, eager to escape him now.
“Georgie…lass…” He grabbed her around the upper arm, attempting to pull her back.
Georgiana shook him off, whirling around with fire burning in her gaze. “Don’t you Georgie lass me, my lord,” she hissed, keeping her voice low and her parasol angled as a shield to avoid attracting attention. “You went off on that ship without even attempting to contact me. Did it not once occur to you to ask what happened?”
“Dinnae spit fire at me, lass. I sent a dozen messages around that first night and waited another entire night for ye, but ye never came to me,” he bit out, jabbing a finger in her direction. “Ye promised me and ye dinnae come.”
“I never got your messages, Mal,” she snapped back. “Did you fail to consider that possibility as well?” Heads turned and she forced her features into as pleasant an expression as she could manage and gritted out, “I cannot believe you! I was seventeen years old and at my father’s mercy. What would you have me do?”
“Ye could ha’ at least had the decency to tell me—”
“Tell you what?” She faced him, her lips pursed with frustration.
“That ye wisnae coming. That ye’d changed yer mind. Bah, this is nonsense.” He threw up his hands and turned his back on her. Although his shoulders were still stiff and squared, she could tell the anger had drained from him and the hurt inflicted a score of years past was upon him once again.
Her ire faded as well. She’d known he’d be hurt, wretchedly so, by her failure to meet him that night. It was a knee-jerk reaction to be angered by his admission, but then again, she’d never dreamed he’d come to the conclusion that a lack of love for him swayed her. She’d imagined he’d think of several reasons, including guessing the truth. Never did she consider he might take it as a sign that he’d fallen from her regard. That love itself had failed them. No wonder he never wrote in the years that followed. Pain of her own haunted too many years, but renewed with regret.
“I never changed my mind.” The words were softly spoken. Almost a sigh, filled with remorse. Yearning for what might have been.
“What did ye say?” He frowned at her over his shoulder. “Of course, ye changed yer mind. Ye dinnae meet me as planned.”
“Did it ever occur to you there was an unavoidable reason why I wasn’t there? A reason, that is, besides a sudden, inexplicable aversion for your person?”
Annoyance swamped her again when she saw that he meant to offer a rebuttal. With a huff of irritation, she spun around and strode inside the building. It was quieter there, cooler, but Georgiana was so inflamed by anger she hardly felt it.
Mal followed in long strides that dissolved the distance between them. Before she could protest, he caught her by the arm and steered her into one of the lecture halls, locking the doors behind them.
“Georgie lass—”
“I had faith enough to spend two nights waiting for ye to show up,” he ground out. “What else was I to think?”
“You might have summoned an ounce of confidence in me and considered there might be a valid reason I couldn’t be there,” she told him. Tears burned behind her eyelids, but she couldn’t let them fall. Not here. Not in front of him. “Did you never once worry for my welfare, Mal? My God, all these years I’ve been racked by guilt thinking you might have assumed I abandoned you because I wasn’t strong enough to face true scandal, or because of an aversion to a soldier’s rustic life. Fear. Uncertainty. Any variation of that scenario.” She lifted her parasol, tempted to beat some sense into him with it, but let it fall to her side once more. “I wept for you, for the pain I knew I caused. But this? Thinking me so superficial that I’d shed that love so easily over your lack of wealth or social consequence? That pain is minor in comparison.”
Mal scowled as if he didn’t know what to make of her tirade. “What should I have assumed then?”
“That it wasn’t an absence of love that delayed me,” she suggested mournfully. “Or fear. I wasn’t there because I didn’t want to be, Mal, I wasn’t there because I couldn’t be. I didn’t send word because I wasn’t able to. My father saw to that.”
Chapter Nineteen
Bath, England
April 1800
“Make sure you pull out my sturdiest riding habit and a carriage dress. Or two. And I’ll need something nice to wear for the ceremony, don’t you think?”
Georgiana went back to the single valise Mal instructed her to pack for the trip north to Gretna Green and tucked her brush and mirror into one corner. They’d go on horseback at first so that they might make haste from Bath. From London on, they’d commission a post chaise to take them up the Great North Road. She needed to prepare for any eventuality while Mal was likely to only have his kilt.
The thought made her smile. She did love his kilt. Without the accouterments of his uniform, it gave him the air of a roguish Highlander of old. He’d been surprised when she’d told him how arousing the sight was. She’d have to take advantage of the long days in the carriage to show him how much.
“His grace will surely sack me when he finds out, my lady,” Jane bemoaned, as she rifled through Georgiana’s wardrobe.
“He won’t dismiss you, Jane. I promise. If he does, you send word to Lieutenant MacKintosh’s barracks and I’ll fetch you as soon as we get back. Mal says I’ll be allowed a maid.”
Jane froze with a pair of gowns in her arms. “Oh, my lady, I can’t be leaving my William. Or my mum for that matter.”
Georgiana stilled. It’d never occurred to her that Jane might not come with her. The thought moved her to tears, but she understood. She couldn’t ask Jane to leave her love behind when she refused to be parted from hers.
“Oh, Jane.” She hugged her maid around the bundle of clothing. It would be so difficult to leave without a friend by her side. She sniffed. “You’ll go to Miss Gregson then. I’ll write a note for you. I’m sure she’ll find a position for you. If you’re dismissed, that is.”
“I surely will be, my lady,” Jane assured with a few sniffles of her own. “When your father finds out I helped you, I’ll be out on the stoop for sure.”
“Then we’ll have to make sure he doesn’t.”
She fished the silk-covered box she kept Mal’s letters in out from under the bed, considering the size of the box and the space remaining in the small bag. She couldn’t take them now but would fit them in the single trunk Jane would have Jimmy deliver to the docks at Portsmouth after they left. Malta would be warm when they arrived. She’d have to leave a list for Jane to make sure she packed the lightest, simplest gowns she owned for the journey, and other necessities she’d need there.
As Mal’s wife. Living with him. Then waiting for him when he went off to war. Of all the things he thought would be difficult for her, it hadn’t once occurred to him that waiting for news about whether he lived or died in battle would be the hardest. She’d lost only one person in her life, her mother, who died when Georgiana was only nine years old. She’d cried, mourned, and missed her mother desperately. A woman who’d birthed her, presumably loved her, yet like the duke, had taken precious little time raising and nurturing Georgiana through childhood. Yet, she had mourned.
If something were to happen to Mal, a man she adored so thoroughly, Georgiana didn’t know how she would go on when just the vague possibility left her in tears.
Bluebell bounced on the bed next to her small valise, tunneling beneath the pile of chemises she was folding. “Silly girl.” She scooped up the dog and scolded her with a frown. “No, none of that now.”
Hugging the furry canine to her chest, Georgiana twirled back to Jane. “I had expected you’d bring Bluebell with you when you came, Jane. Oh, I cannot go without both of you.”
“I’ll make sure Jimmy fetches her for you along with your trunk, my lady, though I know she’s more important to you than the clothes.” Jane wiped at her eyes with the hem of her apron. “I hope they’ll let her on the ship. They may not.”
“She’s small enough for me to sneak on board,” Georgiana said confidently. “I’ll have to have some company if you’re not with me. I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“Understand what?”
Georgiana and Jane both jumped at the booming male voice. Holding Bluebell to her breast, she gaped flabbergasted at her father standing in her doorway and surveying the chaos around her.
His hard gaze shifted to Jane, who cowered under the ducal glare. When he jerked his chin, she fled with an apologetic wince for Georgiana.
“What is all this?”
“Bernie invited me to spend a few nights with her,” she stammered, trying to develop a reasonable excuse to justify the mess of her room. “She wanted to console me since Lieutenant MacKintosh has been deployed.”
“Has he now?”
She nodded vigorously. “Yes, he left this morning.”
“You’re heartbroken, I suppose?” There was no sympathy in his voice.
“Terribly. I told you I love him.” She cocked her chin defiantly at his dismissive tone. “I told him the same and promised to wait for him until his return. I shall prove to you, Father, that our love is true and that he is worthy of your approval.”
“He shall never have it.”
The irrevocability of his statement saddened her. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “I know, Father. You’ve made your position abundantly clear.”
She would leave England without his approval, blessing, or knowledge. Knowing he might never forgive her troubled her, but Mal was her future whether he appreciated that fact or not.
“I want what is best for you, Georgiana. You do understand that, don’t you?”
Glumly, she inclined her head.
Wharton stepped into the room. To her knowledge, he’d never come into her chamber since she’d relocated there from the nursery. He looked about, taking it all in at a glance. His scrutiny lingered on the valise and small pile of clothes next to it. Thankfully, Jane had laid out only two gowns so far.
“He’s left town, you know. Your Scotsman.”
“He has n—” She bit back the rest, ashamed that she’d taken the bait so easily. “Yes, Father, I told you minutes ago he’d deployed already. To the Mediterranean. To fight against the French emperor Napoleon.” She clamped her lips shut to halt the spasmodic detail lest she say too much.
“You should refrain from lying, Georgiana. You’re not good at it.”
>
“I’m no—”
“I’m no fool, Georgiana, regardless of what you think.” He neared the bed, running a fingertip along the lid of the silken box. “I had the lieutenant thoroughly investigated from the moment he stepped foot through my door.”
A gasp took her breath away but before she could speak or protest, he added, “As I have for any man who’s shown an inkling of interest in you. As I will continue to do in the future. I know every move he’s made. Every move he’s about to make. He’s not gone yet. He won’t be for several days. Trust me, I’ve been counting them down. Tell me, did he somehow convince you to go with him? Is that why you’re packing? To live out of wedlock with him? To live in sin like a common trollop only to be tossed aside like so much rubbish when he’s done with you?”
“I would never,” she protested with unmistakable honesty. “I’ve told you, Father. He loves me. As I love him.”
His hand slashed through the air creating a breeze between them. “Bah, you’re a fool if you believe such tripe. He’s nothing. He has no fortune. Nothing to offer you.”
“Nothing but his love and that is enough for me.”
“Well, it won’t be enough for him. You are my only child, Georgiana. My sole heir. Oh, the title and entailment will go off to my nephew, however my fortune will all be yours one day. Do you think he doesn’t know that?”
Georgiana held Bluebell tight, taking what comfort she could from the warm little body. Her father’s allegation cut her to the quick. Not just the harsh disparagement against Mal but against her judgment as well.
“I’m not as gullible as you think, Father. I’ve been out only a few months and already I’ve met fortune hunters aplenty. I can see through their lies and am intelligent enough to discern fact from fiction. Flattery from true affection. You should give me some credit on the matter. I am your daughter, after all.”
For a moment, something akin to pride lit his eyes, but was quickly chased away by a dark glower. “You think you know him so well? I’ve offered him a king’s ransom to leave you and he took it.”
Once Again, My Laird Page 14
