by Jo Beverley
“Is that it?”
“What?”
“Is that your evidence?”
For once, Hawk looked unsettled. “Yes.”
Van felt muscles unbunch, sinews release. “She told me. Why should she be blamed for her husband’s dishonor?”
“She obviously knew about it.”
“She found out after Celestin’s death, from his papers and accounts. And I believe her on that, Hawk.”
Hawk didn’t look relieved, but he said, “Then for your sake, I’m glad. Except that apparently she has cast you off.”
With matters so on edge between them, Van didn’t want to expose Maria any further, but it wouldn’t make sense otherwise, and he needed Hawk’s help. “The engagement is a pretense. Maria hired me to play her husband-to-be for six weeks. She said it was for protection from fortune hunters, but as I discovered, it was to return the money my father lost in that investment.”
“So it was all pretense anyway,” Hawk was saying, looking brighter. “Your six weeks must be nearly up and you’ll be able to restore Steynings. All’s well that ends well.”
“Except for the fact that I love her. I took her to Steynings yesterday and realized that the place will mean nothing to me without her by my side. I asked her to marry me, and she said no. I’m not willing to accept that answer.”
“I’d say you don’t have any choice.”
“I can fight. That at least I can do well.”
“Perdition, Van, if the woman doesn’t want you, she doesn’t want you!”
“I love her, and I think she loves me too, though she won’t admit it.”
“Will you try to throttle me if I say that we are easily misled about such things? If she loved you she would marry you.”
“She thinks the age difference matters. But more important, she thinks she’s barren.”
“Ah. She has no children. More honor to her, then. The line dies with you.”
“So it dies! What the devil difference will that make to the world? But I’ll never persuade her to marry me as long as she believes it true.” He collapsed into a chair. “Thing is, Hawk, I’m not sure it’s true. I don’t want to raise false hopes, but I want you to put your inquisitive talents to some use, for once.”
Hawk stayed standing. “You’re being damn rude for someone wanting a favor.”
The sudden chill shocked Van back into his sense. “Gad, so I am.” He looked up at his friend. “Have you ever been in love?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It can blast away common sense as well as manners. That’s why I need a cool head to look into Maurice Celestin’s intimate affairs and bastards.” He tried a smile. “For old times’ sake?”
Hawk pulled him out of the chair and into a brief hug. “For past, present, and future, you idiot. But I warn you,” he added, eyes steady, “I’ll tell you everything I find—good or bad.”
Van met his eyes. “Can you not see how wonderful she is?”
“I see a handsome woman with strength of character. She claimed to have saved your life, and it’s probably true. But that means you were vulnerable to her maturity and strength of character. Van, when she first came to London to flirt at Almack’s, we were pretending your gamekeeper was the Sheriff of Nottingham, and that Con’s father’s bull was the Minotaur.”
Van laughed. “Zeus, that poor bull! But you’re as bad as she is, Hawk. It doesn’t matter. Trust me on that—it doesn’t matter. Just find out the truth about Celestin’s bastards.”
“And if she really is barren?”
Van smiled. “Then I’ll try to win her anyway.”
Maria found she lacked the courage to go out. She had no taste for gossipy company or idle pleasures, and no courage to face questions about her missing ring and missing fiancé. She would have to one day, but not yet, especially not with him still in her house.
Every day Van took an early breakfast then left the house, returning in time for the evening meal. She joined him for that meal because it would be petty to leave him and Harriette to eat alone. And anyway, she hungered for the last few scraps of the feast—the sight of him, the sound of his voice, his expression whenever their eyes met, the ache in every muscle, every bone at the memory of their lovemaking.
When she and Harriette left the dining table he did not linger, but nor did he join them for tea in the drawing room. He retired to his room for the night, but always with a look that said as clearly as words, “If you join me again, you will be welcome.”
Every night, it was another Waterloo not to take up that invitation.
She counted the days till this torture would be over, and counted the nights as the beginning of an eternity without him.
Then the last night came, the last good night, the last look across the dining table. He’d announced that tomorrow he would to return to Steynings and begin his work there.
She rose, but lingered, one hand on the back of her chair as if glued there. The final cut. She couldn’t bear it. She must.
From courtesy, he was standing too, separated from her by the wide table and a tasteful arrangement of spring flowers. She’d had plenty of time for flower arranging.
“I hoped you would change your mind,” he said quietly. “I have been tempted to force you. Perhaps I would have failed anyway, but I managed to stop myself trying. But I have words I could say, things I could show you that might make a difference.”
Maria glanced to the side and realized that Harriette had already left. Her heart rose up, beating fast. “I don’t see how.” It was weak, but it was all she could manage. Now the absolute end was here, she couldn’t quite face it.
“Things and words might not matter,” he said. “It all comes down to love. I love you, Maria, in the deepest truest way. I am sure of that. But I don’t know whether you love me enough to take the chance.”
A breaking heart was proof, wasn’t it? A breaking heart clearly wasn’t visible. “What words, what things?” she whispered from a dry mouth.
“Misty words and butterfly things. It’s the love that counts. Come to me, Maria, and speak of love, and perhaps we can fight side by side. If not, there really is no point, is there? And whatever happens, I will leave tomorrow unless you ask me to stay.”
He walked from the room then, lean, lithe, beautiful. Her beautiful, beloved young demon, whom she shouldn’t want at all, but wanted more than breath itself. She stood staring at the flowers choking back a scream of, What words? What things?
She gripped the chair harder. She mustn’t weaken now. Truths were truths. Words couldn’t wipe away the years between them. No thing could make her womb fertile.
But then she turned and ran upstairs. Ignoring Harriette waiting in the drawing room she ran down the corridor and flung open the door to his room. “What words? What things?” she cried. “Why are you doing this? There is no way to change what is!”
He quickly shut the door, then stood barring it. “Why? Because I’m Demon Vandeimen, of course, and you are my last forlorn hope. Do you love me, Maria? Or does the fire only burn on my side?”
She stood looking at him, fighting, fighting . . . “I love you, Van. But don’t you see that—”
He swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed. She melted even as she cried, “No, Van. This won’t change my mind!”
All the same, she was ready, ready to be taken in a violent storm that would sweep away reality for a brief while.
But he laid her down gently and sat beside her on the bed. “This isn’t part of the battle. Let me love you, Maria, one last time. Tell me what you want tonight.”
You, now—hot, hard, and fast. But this would be the last time, so she said, “Show me the gentle love you promised once, Van. And pay no attention if I weep.”
He smiled and began to undress
her, cherishing each revelation with touch and kiss so that every inch of her body felt worshiped. The lust stirred and the fire burned, but the gentleness encircled it so she could only lie and watch as he stripped off his clothes to join her, skin to skin in the bed.
She was afraid that it wouldn’t work this way, that she’d be left softly quivering with need, that she’d disappoint, but he swept her up with tenderness, with worship, up into a slow, sweet crescendo of heaven that she’d never even known existed. . . .
She did weep, though she did not mean to, wept deeply in his arms, against the devil on his naked chest, because gentleness, she found, went deeper into the soul than hard passion, and the thought of its loss was like ripping roots from her heart.
He stroked her hair, seeming to know these were tears that should be allowed to fall. “Say again that you love me, Maria. Please.”
Impossible to deny it now. She swallowed. “I love you, Van. But it doesn’t change anything.”
He pushed her back and smiled at her, a blissful smile that made her want to weep again, but bitterly. “Don’t try to deny facts, please,” she begged. “When I married Celestin, already somewhat on the shelf, you were a scrubby schoolboy!”
He shook his head. “Let’s look at things first.”
Chapter Ten
He slid out of the bed, picked up a leather folder from the table, and came back to sit up beside her.
Puzzled and wary, she eased up by his side. “What is it?”
“My drawings.” He undid a tie and opened the portfolio. “Are you a connoisseur? I hope not.” He began to turn sheets of paper to show rough sketches of army camps and assorted buildings. Tolerable, but nothing special.
What had this to do with their age difference?
Then as he turned the sheets, she reached out to stop him. “That’s Major Hawkinville.”
It was a quick sketch of a man in shirtsleeves at a desk laden with papers, but it captured him perfectly.
“Before Waterloo. That was an organizational nightmare.” He flicked through a few more sheets. “That’s Con.”
She saw a man with strong features and short dark hair standing in classic soldier pose staring into the distance, a long cloak concealing most of his uniform. He almost looked like a statue.
“He looks tired,” she said. “After battle?”
“Before Waterloo. He didn’t want to be there. None of us did, of course, but he especially. He left the army in 1814, so he’d been away for nearly a year. He’d grown used to living in sunlight, and came back to join us in the shadows. I think he’s still in the shadows, and I haven’t tried to help.”
He moved on and showed her a series of drawings of boys and men. Some were quick sketches, others highly worked pencil portraits. All were of distinct individuals. Not a professional standard, no, but drawn by a skilled amateur who had captured his comrades-in-arms in many moods.
She stopped him so she could read the names, and found that the writing wasn’t complete names. Ger, Badajoz, she read. Don, Talavera. With a chill, she knew that he’d recorded the battles where they had died.
Then one drawing said only, Hilyard.
“He didn’t die?”
“The bloody flux in a muddy village. We didn’t even know the name. We lost more men to disease than to battle.”
She took the folder and flicked through it quickly, seeing name and location on every one. “You only drew dead men?”
“They were alive at the time.” Before she could ask, he said, “I generally gave the pictures to the sitters. These are men who died before I had a chance. I’ve wondered if the relatives would like them. They’re not very good.”
“Good enough,” she said, staring at one near the end.
Dare, Waterloo.
There were a great many Waterloo ones, but this sketch had leaped out at her because she recognized the long face and merry smile. “He looks ready for a great adventure,” she said, touching the paper. “I think his mother would like this. They don’t have a recent likeness.”
“You knew him?”
“He’s a distant cousin.” She traced his smile. “He looks so happy.”
He picked up the paper and studied it. “Drove us crazy. We all knew it was going to be hell, but Dare saw it as an adventure. He was Con’s friend. Part of a bunch of Harrow men who call themselves the Company of Rogues. He was one of the enthusiastic volunteers that we scoffed at, but you couldn’t scoff at Dare. At least he knew he didn’t know.”
All the pictures disturbed her, but Dare’s in particular. He and Van were of an age. Van could so easily be dead. Was that why he was showing them to her? “Why did you want me to see these? They don’t change anything.”
“Don’t they?” He flipped through the pages and pulled another one out, one not obviously different from the others except in being a little more clumsy. A picture of a sinewy, grizzled man who looked cynical but kind.
“Sergeant Fletcher. He taught me how to survive. When you were marrying Celestin, the scrubby schoolboy was drawing his first picture of a walking corpse.”
The clock on his mantel tinkled the hour.
He gave her the picture. “Don’t think that I’m a child, Maria, not knowing what I want and need. You are my heart’s blood. Perhaps we all know when we meet that one person who is the perfect match.” He took another sheet out of the folder, the very last sheet, and gave her a picture of herself. “Not drawn from life, of course.”
It was just head and shoulders. Her hair was loose, as she never wore it, tendriling down the front of a simple gown. She looked serious, but not unhappy, and unlike any self she had seen in a mirror.
“You have a gift, but this isn’t really me.”
“It’s the Maria I see.” He began to tidy the papers. “I will leave tomorrow if you insist, but my feelings will not change.” He tied the strings and looked up. “You do not have to protect me from myself.”
She caressed his scarred cheek. “How can I not? Love does that to us.”
“I’m not your child, Maria. I’m your lover.” He kissed her then, proving it, and loved her in the wild-fire way.
She lay there afterward, sweaty and sticky, stroking the lean length of his powerful body.
I’m not your child, Maria. I’m your lover.
When you were marrying Celestin, the scrubby schoolboy was drawing his first picture of a walking corpse.
He was a man, mature enough to be fair mate for her. He was more than her lover, though. He was the man she loved as she had never thought to love. She would marry him quickly, joyfully if she could give him at least hope of a child.
Could she be his mistress? Let him marry a suitable young woman who would bear him children?
No. Never. If he married someone else she could never corrode his marriage like that, and she didn’t think he would consider it.
So . . . As he’d said, they could be happy without children of their own. The title would die, but if he didn’t mind . . .
Was she being weak or strong?
Would he—and this was the crucial question—would he come to regret it?
She turned and looked at her mate, her destiny. He was sleeping, lashes long on his cheeks, looking at ease. Perhaps he had not slept much these past nights.
She had the sudden realization that her life had flowed to make this moment possible.
When she had entered society at sixteen—shy, proud, and rather awkward—Van had truly been a scrubby schoolboy. They would never have found each other. The years since had been necessary to bridge the gap of years and experiences.
Without the army, Van might not have become her match. With his wild nature, he might have become one of the callow, irresponsible young men of the ton.
If she’d not married Celestin, she would
now be settled with some other man, not free to love. Without the pleasures and pains of that marriage, she would never have been able to deal with Van’s complexities.
Fate had shaped them and finally tossed them together for this brief trial. This was her golden moment. Her only chance. She brushed silky hair from his forehead, tussling with courage and honor in her mind . . .
His lashes rose and he smiled, confused for a moment, then warm. “Marry me, Maria.”
She was struck dumb again, but surrendered in a whisper. “If you’re sure . . .”
His eyes shut, then opened, and she saw the gloss of tears. “I’m sure. Maria!” He gathered her in for a hug that made her squeak. They broke apart, laughing.
“I feel wicked,” she protested. “Wrong.”
He grinned. “Of course you do. You are lying ravished in an unblessed bed. But marriage will fix that.”
“I’m not sure our sort of ravishment is right even with a blessing.”
“Oh it is, it is,” he murmured, nuzzling at her breasts.
She suddenly held him there, held him close, stabbed by the thought that no child would ever suckle at her breast. And that she was binding him to her barren fate. She was a greedy, wicked woman.
“Promise me you won’t regret it, Van.”
It was a whisper because he could not promise that, but he said, “I promise.”
They lay for a moment, but then he stirred, pulled apart, and sat shamelessly naked facing her. “I’ve shown you the things. I still have the words.”
She sat up, too, suddenly wary. “Words? What more is left to say?”
He looked down for a moment, then met her eyes. “I don’t want to raise false hopes. It’s still in the hands of fate. But you may not be barren.”
The pain of tears swept through her. “Van, don’t! We have to accept the truth.”
“Then accept it. Listen.” It was an officer’s command and she stilled.
