"A shell got him in the end, yet even as he lay so badly injured he didn’t want to be taken from the field. He couldn’t bear to see his men going into battle, dying without him there. The other side of the Grim Reaper was completely compassionate toward his men. Blake told me no other officer spent so much time in the hospital with his wounded men, writing to their families personally and so on. His brother dying changed him a great deal—he blames himself for causing the young chap to emulate him and enlist.
Arabella shook her head. "I don’t mean to gossip. I just thought, well, you’ve seen him having one of his funny spells by now. So there’s no point in trying to deny it. I have no doubt you will do very well as his secretary. But you need to be prepared for the fact that he won’t be like other employers."
"Never having had one before, I have no expectations to be either fulfilled or disappointed."
"So who or what are you running from?" Arabella asked with a direct look which told Bryony she was a friend, and there was no point in even trying to lie.
"A dreadful set of in-laws. I’m a widow. My son Darren inherited. They want a comfortable lifestyle, to squander everything. My brother-in-law tried to, well—" She blushed.
"Are you all right?" Arabella gasped in alarm.
"Yes, it was months ago. I’ve managed to avoid molestation for the most part. But I’m afraid if Derek finds me he’ll take over the children, never let me see them unless I give him all he asks. I couldn’t bear it."
"Then you shan’t. You’re among friends now." Arabella ventured to pat her on the shoulder, and then indicated they should go downstairs.
"Thank you for telling me about Michael. But you won’t—"
"I won’t mention it. I do think you might ask my husband about Michael’s medical condition while you’re here, though. It’s supposed to be private, but if you’re going to be living with him in the same house, it is possible you might be able to do him some good."
"Me?" she asked, surprised that she could be deemed of use to anyone.
"Encourage him to go back to the Baths, for example. Try some new treatments. Blake is sure he could walk again if he tried. Michael feels being crippled is his penance. For killing so many, and for surviving when so many others died. He would rather have a living death than a whole life. We’ve been trying to get him to see people, well, um, women, if you take my meaning. He just wheels into his room and shuts the door."
"Women?" Bryony asked stiffly, wondering why the word filled her with such dread.
"Blake’s cousins, Ellen and Georgina Jerome. Georgina is a bit flighty, just getting over an ended engagement, but not a bad sort. Ellen has been through something similar, and is too traumatised to ever make anyone a good wife at this stage. She's not made of such stern stuff as her sister, though she is the elder of the two. They are both very immature, in point of fact. But many men like them young and giddy."
"Not Michael, though?" Bryony asked, hoping she did not sound too interest.
Arabella paused in the donning of her chemise to shake her head. "No, apparently not. He took one look at them and rolled away. I would have thought Georgina’s decolletage would have been more than enough enticement, myself, but—"
Bryony shook her head. "Really, I’m better off not knowing any of this."
Arabella grinned. "No, quite. I’m told I’m really too outspoken at times. It comes from working with the sick, and male doctors. I ought to try to sugar-coat things a bit better, and not gossip. Sorry, it’s one of the problems with living in such a tiny district. Any novelty gets magnified out of all proportion. Bath will be much better for you to hide in, if you take my meaning."
"I do indeed. Thank you. I’ll try to keep out of sight until we leave."
"I shall tell the servants you are a cousin of Michael’s just down from London."
"Thank you. You’ve been most kind."
"Bryony! Bryony!" Michael shouted.
The two women exchanged looks, and Bryony blushed. "I’d better go see what he needs."
Michael was awake and worried. "Are you all right?" he demanded. "I thought I heard noises. You talking."
"Blake and Arabella are home."
He lapsed back onto the pillows. "Oh good. The boys?"
"Yes, fine. Blake is with them now."
"Any servants home?
"No. But I’ll help you if you need--"
"Blake can do it," he said curtly.
"He’s busy. I’m here. I’ll help." She handed him the chamberpot and withdrew before he could get angry or look away from her.
In fact all his attention was rivetted upon her, for she was breathtaking, manna to his starved senses. Her voice, her eyes, her own natural perfume, her gorgeous lips. Her blue-black hair gleamed now that it was dry. It billowed down her back freely well past her hips. He longed to bury his face in its satin fall.
She caught him looking at it when she entered a short time later with some tea and biscuits. She self-consciously pulled it back and looped it around itself to pull it away from her face.
"I’ll get up now."
"That’s all right. Just rest and have your tea."
He nodded and sipped.
"Tell me about your friend Alexander."
His brows rose.
"You and Arabella both mentioned him," she clarified.
He gave her a long look and finally shrugged. "Merchant, old college friend, French emigre, excellent at languages, wounded in the war, blind and crippled. He had to learn how to walk and talk again, and even had to re-discover his own identity. His wife Sarah helped him. She’s the sister of the vicar of Brimley and Eltham, Jonathan Deveril. He, Thomas Eltham, who is the Duke of Ellesmere, and Clifford Stone were the founding members of the Rakehells at Eton, a group of Radicals quite a few of us began to follow, tried to emulate.
"Not all of us were rakes in the truest sense. I think only myself and Philip Marshall can be accused of that failing. And my youngest brother Randall and his close friend Matthew Dane got quite lusty as they grew up, by all accounts, though I’ve not seen them for years. But the Rakehells uprooted everything and everyone. I would do the same again in a minute and make no apology for it."
He sounded so fierce Bryony raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. "I would never expect you to apologise to me."
"I’m sorry. Not you, my family. I didn’t mean to snap."
"I understand this has been hard for you, Michael. For me too. Once my father was dead, my mother blamed me. She said that I was spoiled. That I had made my own bed, that sort of thing."
He took her hand and squeezed lightly. "I’ve discovered that my friends have meant more to me on the whole than my own family ever did apart from my youngest brother Randall. We were like twins once despite the considerable gap in our ages.
"The Rakehells are good men. I have no doubt you will meet them all in the fullness of time, for by some odd twist of fate we’ve all ended up settling very close to one another. Blake, for example, is in line to inherit Jerome Manor as a distant male cousin. He’s never lived anywhere but in London and Spain before.
"Jonathan was a rather flamboyant chap until he found God, was ordained, and became vicar in the area. It was Thomas’ gift of a living. Then Alexander met Sarah and married her and settled here too. So did Philip Marshall, just back from Australia after ten years away. So you see, we’ve all been charmed by the region and stayed."
"I can see why you would wish to stay. It’s lovely."
"Yes, lovely." he said, looking at her warmly.
She had no doubt he was recalling the little incident in the kitchen. How was she ever supposed to help him into the chair? She could barely even think about touching him in the nervous state she was in.
She told herself to stop being silly. Michael needed her help and she had no one to blame but herself for her foolishness and impetuosity. He was supposed to be her master now, for pity’s sake. Not her lover.
No, never that, she thought with a m
ixture of relief and sorrow as she looked at his lush lips, which now twisted into a half-smile.
"Do you suppose we can go join the others now? I rather fancy seeing how the boys are, and I’m sure Blake will have formed an opinion by now."
"Yes, of course. How do you want me to help?"
"Legs out first. Once I’m perched on the edge we can manoeuvre me."
She tugged heaved and twisted. At last, with a few panting sighs, they rested, her at the foot of the bed, and he safely in his chair.
"I need to eat more, build up my strength."
"No need, there are servants—"
"But I want to help, and we should all be trained."
She began to push the chair but he said gruffly, "I can manage, thank you."
"Oh, I'm sorry, you’re right."
He glowered at her and pushed his wheels hard with a lurch, leaving her to trail along behind, watching the muscles in his powerful shoulders ripple like those of a Greek gods.
Stop that, she scolded herself. You're going to work for him, not warm his bed.
But all the same, the ache deep inside her belly for his arms around her once more, for her to sit in the hard heated warmth of his embrace, was almost more than she could bear.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Bryony and Michael got to the study, Blake praised his friend for the excellent job he’d done with tending to the children in the throes of their crisis.
"Good thinking," he said at the end of Michael’s summary of what they had done for them both. "I couldn’t have really done much better myself. They were in a badly weakened condition. Another pair of lives saved, Michael." He offered him his hand to shake.
Michael scowled and said he was going back to his room in such an arctic tone that Bryony did not dare offer to go with him.
Arabella shrugged her shoulders apologetically, gathered her garments, and went off to have her bath, leaving Blake and Bryony alone.
They spoke of the boys for a time, but when Bryony was sure that they had covered everything, she asked, "And what of Mr. Avenel? Do you think he’ll ever be able to walk again, lead a normal life? He’s offered me a job you see, and I really would like to help him after all he’s done for my sons."
He gave her a long look and then motioned for her to sit on the sofa. She did so, settling herself into one corner with the blanket over her lap.
Blake paced back and forth for a time. At length he shrugged. "It’s hard to know for sure. It’s a miracle he’s even still alive. If they hadn’t brought him in so quickly, if I hadn’t been there when they did... Though not as quickly as he should have been, mind you. He didn’t want to leave his men. He saw them being slaughtered like cattle. The Flowers of Toulouse."
He shook his head. "They certainly scattered like petals in the wind. It was a bad business. During the war, some men weren’t brought in for days. He ordered his men not to take him from the field.
"As soon as he passed out from loss of blood they brought him straight to me. Perhaps I should have let him die. But I never had a brother, or sister. Michael is the nearest thing I’ve ever had."
"I understand," she said with a warm smile.
"Not that I don’t love all the Rakehells the same way. Several of them were comrades in arms for at least part of the war. But Michael and I were best friends in the same way Thomas is Philip’s, or Thomas, Jonathan and Clifford are a true family, though Clifford has his own brother, Henry as well."
"You all sound like a remarkable group of men."
"And Michael was the best of us at war, though it was the last career anyone would have ever believed for him. He was certainly destined for greater things, the pride of the family, though he also had four brothers."
Bryony's brows knit. "Four? He only mentioned the one."
Blake paused in his pacing and nodded. "The next to last lad went to war with him and was killed. It changed him completely. It terrified him that his brothers all idolised him, wanted to be like him in every way, so he shunned them in the end, even though it was so painful for him."
"I see."
Blake sat down opposite her on a small footstool. "He and his youngest brother Randall were like two peas in a pod except for their politics. Randall was very dreamy and artistic, sensitive as they say, very much in love with an unsuitable girl by all accounts. But otherwise they were remarkably similar in every respect, and best of friends until Michael felt he was tainted, a bad influence upon him due to their brother's death. Once Michael cut himself off from them, he and I were family. And have been ever since."
"Cut himself off?"
"Well, his father cut him off first for his Radical politics, and for signing up for the war in the first place. As I said, Michael was destined for much greater things.
"I'll let him tell you in his own time his true identity, but trust me when I say that he isn't hiding from the world because he has done anything shameful, but because he thinks he would be a burden to his family now that he's a cripple."
"In any event, I’m telling you all this in confidence so that you know something about why Michael is the way he is. Alone and bitter, angry, and in a lot of pain, though he takes nothing for it. I don’t know how he lives with the agony."
Bryony was stunned. "I thought he was paralysed. He told me he can’t feel—
Blake nodded. "Even though he is paralysed, there was a lot of damage to the back where he still has sensation. The truth is I don’t know if he will ever get well. I think he needs to have some sort of motivation to do so. He refuses to see his family, and most of the Rakehells. Arabella and I have been trying to encourage him as best we can, but he’s convinced his life is over.
"In fact, he’s been getting so morose these past couple of days we came back early from the Jeromes’ house party just to make sure he was all right. Just as well we did, for the sake of the young lads. Now we find the servants left him alone as well, so goodness knows what he would have been like on his own.
"At least he's had you here. You seem to have been some comfort to him. I can see he’s let you help him in and out of the chair and, er, well, done other things?"
She blushed and nodded. "Yes, he has, though he didn’t really have a choice, did he, with no servants being around, as you say. He does have an awful lot of pride."
"It goes with his old life, but it's hard to take in his new, if I do say so myself. He can be stubborn to a fault in that regard, but as his friend, I have to respect his wishes, and allow him to live his life as he sees fit."
"But if he has some feeling in his, er, manly parts, does that not mean—"
Blake stared at her in shock. He had known his friend to be a ladies’ man, but this had to be a record even for him.
Bryony caught his look and shook her head vehemently. "No, you misunderstand. I merely meant, well, he, um— Oh dear, this sounds awful. What must you think of me? The fact is the boys got milk all over him and he had to change his clothes and well, became aroused," she said with a blush.
The mixture of lies and truth was the most convincing explanation she could think of which would not cast her in the worst possible light.
"I see. You’re no longer married?" he asked quietly.
"No. I’m a widow. Over a year now."
"Then you have nothing to be ashamed of. Even if you did, um—"
"But we didn’t. I didn’t anyway, or at least not on purpose," she protested.
"I see. So he did it, or he couldn’t help himself in some way?"
"No, I fell into his lap, and he, um—" She blushed again.
"I’ll give you a few words for it if you like. Scientific or otherwise."
"No, that’s all right. After being married to my husband for six years I’m sure I could teach you a few," she said with a wry expression.
"I see. Like that, was he?" Blake said, his brows knitting.
She nodded and sighed. "Insatiable. A rake of the first order."
He reached out to pat the hand that r
ested on her lap. "I’m sorry. Michael was fond of women, but not nearly as bad as he claims. For six years he was married to his regiment. He scarcely even wanted to take leave for family funerals, and never took sick leave. But he’s determined to think himself the worst possible sinner."
Blake shifted around to sit down with her on the sofa. "Look, I know you have troubles with the boys, but I would be grateful if you would, well—"
"What one earth are you suggesting?" Bryony said in surprise, though she had been thinking precisely the same thoughts herself.
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