A Fine Gentleman

by Sarah M. Eden

  That had been tricky. “I told her I had some important business to attend to, and I asked her to trust me.”

  “Children of war do not trust easily.”

  Children of war. How heartbreakingly apt. “I know she struggles to have faith in people. She is trying, though, and she is doing better.”

  “You have been good for her and her for you.” Philip looked genuinely pleased. “I wish you all the best, Jason, both in your courtship and your search for her family.”

  “Thank you.”

  “If there is anything I can do to help, please ask.”

  Jason set down his fork. “As a matter of fact, there is.”

  o

  “This is Westerthon, Mr. Jonquil.” Philip’s coachman did not look overly impressed with the tiny hamlet.

  Jason, however, was grateful to find the place so minuscule. His search would be far simpler that way.

  “Thank you, John.”

  The coachman tipped his hat.

  “And, John, be careful during your drive to Nottinghamshire. You will be carrying three people who are very important to me.”

  John nodded. “You ’ave my solemn vow, sir.”

  “And have a safe journey back to Haddington.”

  John climbed back onto the carriage and set the horses in motion once more. Jason turned his attention to the small collection of tightly packed houses. Which was the one he was looking for?

  He stopped a man passing nearby. “I am looking for the Old Mill House.”

  He was forthwith provided with odd but detailed directions. Jason followed them with his characteristic precision and soon found himself at the door of a small building with a stationary waterwheel attached to one side. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket, checking once more that the Old Mill House was indeed his destination.

  He knocked, and a moment later, the door opened.

  His presence received a look of shock followed by a gasped, “Monsieur.”

  “Good afternoon, Jean,” Jason said.

  “You look very different.” Jean eyed him with curiosity. “You sound very different as well.”

  “Yes, well, there is a lot I suspect Mariposa did not tell you during our journey, things I did not tell you either.”

  Jean held the door and motioned him inside. “I know what it is to have secrets,” he said. “I do not begrudge that necessity in others who have survived horrors.”

  “I am very pleased to hear that”—Jason did not continue past the small entry but turned to face the Frenchman—“because Mariposa needs our help.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “So help me, Philip, if you do not stop coddling me, I will subject you to a closer acquaintance with my walking stick.”

  If Mariposa had learned anything about Sorrel over their first day of southward travel, it was that Lady Lampton bristled at nothing so much as people making a fuss over her, however justified their concerns might be. Yet there was so much vulnerability behind her protests that the only possible response was to feel ever more pained for her.

  Philip, however, was more than adept at navigating that particular quagmire. “I am actually quite fond of your walking stick, my dear,” he said, sitting beside his wife in the private parlor he had hired at the public inn where they would be breaking their journey for the night. “After all, we did first meet when you accused me of stealing it.”

  “You know perfectly well you did the accusing, and it was your walking stick you suspected me of pilfering.”

  Philip’s brows pulled downward. He tapped a single finger against his chin. “I do not remember it that way at all.”

  Sorrel’s expression lightened a bit, and some of the pain in her posture seemed to diminish. The journey had been a difficult one for her, recovering as she was from such a difficult surgery. “You likely also don’t remember that you were insufferable,” she said.

  “It’s pronounced ‘irresistible.’”

  Sorrel slowly smiled, even as she shook her head. “Actually, I suspect it is pronounced ‘impossible.’”

  Philip slipped his hand around hers. “I have heard a rumor that you are very fond of ‘impossible.’”

  “I am inordinately fond of ‘impossible.’” Sorrel tipped her head to one side, the look one of subtle but unmistakable flirtation.

  “Would the two of you prefer that I leave?” Mariposa acted as though she meant to stand.

  Philip simply laughed. “Sit, sit. We’ll behave. I will, at the very least.”

  “Do not believe him, Mariposa. He has never behaved a day in his life.”

  These two were blessedly diverting. Despite her heavy heart and the weight of uncertainty, Mariposa had felt lighter during their journey than she would have believed possible.

  Their meal was humble but filling. The parlor contained a fainting couch, one faded with age but well cared for. Sorrel was able to lie down, something for which she appeared incredibly grateful. Philip occupied an armchair near her. Mariposa opted for a spindle-backed chair near the fire, her blood still having not adjusted to the cold air of England.

  “I do not know what your plans are, Mariposa,” Sorrel said, “but I hope you realize you and your grandmother are most welcome to remain at the Park for as long as you wish.”

  What are my plans? Tension knotted her stomach. She had no plans. She, who had devised strategies and made preparations for every imaginable situation, hadn’t the slightest idea what to do next.

  “I haven’t given up the search for my family.” Searching for her family had consumed every thought these past months. Keeping her family safe had occupied every moment of her life for years. “My disappointment at not finding my mother and brother at Mrs. Douglas’s home clouded my judgment for a time. Not until last evening did I realize that she had given me a bit of valuable information. The estate my brother has inherited from our uncle would be the family seat. It is the home my father would have grown up in. My mother likely would have thought of Norfolk when thinking of my father’s home and family. That is likely where she would have gone.” Her tone of conviction died quickly, however. “I will send a letter and inquire as to whether or not they are there.”

  “Send a letter?” Philip sat with his hands casually steepled in front of him, watching her with an unmistakable intelligence. His foppish persona must have been incredibly thorough for anyone to ever have believed he was a dolt. “You do not mean to make the journey yourself?”

  “Mrs. Douglas indicated that the Thornton solicitor has been attempting to locate my family for a year now. Had my mother and brother arrived unannounced, the estate manager or the butler or any number of neighbors would have sent word.” Her spirits drooped at having to make the admission out loud. “Though I hope I am wrong, I do not believe they are actually there.”

  “Receiving that information by way of a messenger would be far less painful than seeing the truth of it in person.” Philip spoke as one who understood the pain of repeated loss. “And if they are not there, what do you mean to do then?”

  “I will find new information . . . somehow.” She rose and began pacing a small circuit in front of the fireplace. “I have been gathering information for years, information no one else was able to find. I am good at it. I will simply do that again.”

  She met Philip’s gaze. His was an expression of deepest empathy. “Life is not a war. You cannot navigate it the same way. For a soldier, often the most difficult battle is the one that cannot be fought.”

  Mariposa eyed him again, unsure what he meant. “I am not a soldier.”

  “Well, no, not in the truest sense of the word,” he said. “But you have spent years of your life shouldering the burden of the battles around you. You have learned that the only way to survive is to fight, and you’ve learned to be good at it. Fighting has saved you and your family. But the batt
le stretching out before you now is vastly different from any other you’ve known.”

  His words rang painfully true. Her style of “fighting”—assuming personas, telling half-truths, slipping in and out of locations, facing down the dangers of enemy soldiers and violent spies—had kept them all alive throughout the years of warfare and had kept her going during this fruitless search for her family. She had focused so exclusively on preparing to face Bélanger, and it all had ended with no confrontation, no battle, no fight for survival. There was no immediate threat and no clear direction for moving forward.

  She shook her head, pacing ever faster. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about this overly much. Still not knowing where her family was had dealt her a blow, but not having the least idea of how to proceed entirely upended her.

  “My father died when I was nineteen years old and ill-prepared to shoulder the burden of my family’s well-being.” Philip spoke to her, she assumed. “I did everything I could for my mother and brothers, protected them in any way I could, though I often fell short. When Stanley joined the army in the middle of a war, I was terrified. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing my brother, but I didn’t know what I could possibly do to prevent that. I took on the role of spy in order to help end the conflict early and bring him home safely. I changed my entire life to make that possible. I assumed a façade that embarrassed my family and undermined my own standing in Society, alienating myself from most of my one-time friends. But I was fighting a battle, you understand. I was confronting the enemy.”

  She understood that perfectly.

  “But in time, that endless fight began changing me. The mask I wore grew comfortable until the line between the person I was and the person I pretended to be became all too blurred. It was my battle weapon, and I didn’t know how to stop fighting.”

  Mariposa pressed her hand over the ache in her heart. If she had stopped fighting, she would have died. All her family would have died. What choice did she have but to fight in her own way?

  “At the end of last year, I decided it was time for me to drop my weapons. Napoleon was in exile. Stanley was home. The battle, it seemed, was over.” Philip sat forward on his chair, his elbows resting on his legs, his air entirely devoid of dandyism. “I ought to have felt relief or some sense of accomplishment. Instead, I felt lost. But putting my mask back on and playing the dandy for the world was no longer helpful. I couldn’t simply take up my weapons and charge the enemy because there wasn’t one.”

  Just as Bélanger was no longer her enemy and she was no longer living in close proximity to the battlegrounds of the Continental war. How did she defeat an enemy she could not identify?

  “My mother and brothers weren’t facing a despot and his armies,” Philip continued. “They were struggling with life and all of its cruelty and complications. They didn’t need Philip the spy; they needed Philip, their son and brother. They didn’t need me to fight their battles; they needed me to walk beside them.”

  Abuela needs me to do that as well. She had, after all, endured the death of her husband, son-in-law, and grandson, and she too was mourning the loss of her daughter and only remaining grandson. Mariposa’s grief was shared, but they had never truly mourned. There had never been time or the freedom to do so.

  “You spent the remnants of your childhood struggling to survive,” Philip said. “I suspect you never learned how to live.”

  “Did you?” she asked.

  His smile was tender as his gaze fell on his sleeping wife. “I am beginning to.”

  “How did you begin?” She was too overwhelmed and too lost to know even that.

  “Before you can learn to live the life you were meant to live, you need to discover the person you were meant to be.”

  She let out a long, tension-relieving breath. “I need to figure out who I am and what I want in life.”

  Philip nodded. “You have more to offer than your ability to fight and survive, but you need to see that. You need to know that. It won’t always be easy, but in the end, it is the only way.”

  That, then, would be her next campaign—making the acquaintance of the person she was meant to be.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jason stood in a vast field, awed by the seemingly endless countryside. He had long since shed his coat—a lifetime in England had ill-prepared him for the humid heat of Spain in the early summer.

  He pulled his gaze away from the landscape long enough to glance at his traveling companion. Jean had proven invaluable. The man knew the area and the language. Jason knew neither.

  “Looking around,” Jean said, “one struggles to believe that a mere four years ago, not far distant, thousands lay dead and dying.”

  Jason tried to shut out the image Jean had painted. Mariposa had lived here, then, or very nearby. She would have seen those thousands, would likely have heard their cries.

  “Badajoz,” Jean continued, “sits a little farther still.” He shook his head, his eyes heavy with sadness. “The suffering there, I understand, was unspeakable on all sides of this war. An entire trail of loss and heartbreak winds its way through these countries.” He sighed, and Jason heard years of sorrow in the sound. “War exacts such a heavy toll.”

  Jason had come to understand that over the past weeks. The realization made him worry ever more for Stanley. What price was he paying?

  Jean thumped him on the back, a gesture he had utilized many times since their departure from England a week earlier whenever he noticed Jason’s spirits flagging. “We are but a mile or so from Albuera,” he said. “Prado Verde we know to be nearby.”

  Jason nodded. Prado Verde was Mariposa’s childhood home. The odds were highly stacked against the possibility of discovering clues there about Mariposa’s mother and brother, but Jason could think of nowhere else to look. As Philip had said of Sorrel, Jason could not bear to see the pain in Mariposa’s eyes any longer. He’d sworn to himself that he would do everything in his power to find her family.

  “Our wisest course of action would be to find someone local of whom we might ask directions.” Jean’s reasoning was sound, though Jason did not feel entirely confident in the outcome of his approach.

  “After all that has happened,” Jason said, “do you think the locals will be very forthcoming with two strangers, one of whom does not even speak their language?”

  Jean wiped at a trickle of sweat on his forehead. “To that list of shortcomings, you must add my ‘unbearable accent,’ as your Mariposa described it.”

  Jason chuckled at the memory. “So we may be doomed from the start?”

  “No endeavor motivated by love is ever entirely doomed.”

  They’d had far too many hours together onboard Philip’s yacht and in rickety hired carriages for personal conversational topics to have been entirely avoided. Jason had learned of Jean’s late wife and the stillborn child she’d died delivering. In turn, Jason had confessed his inability to entirely overcome the loss of his father. He hadn’t needed to admit to his feelings for Mariposa. Jean had ascertained as much during their ride on the mail coach.

  They walked in companionable silence. Jean whacked at the tall grass with a stick he’d found along the way. Jason took in the vast expanse of open country and tried to picture Mariposa there as a child.

  “She was like a butterfly, light and soaring,” Abuela had said.

  Jason had seen hints of that in Mariposa. He wanted her to feel that way always. She ought to live a life in which she felt safe enough to no longer hide behind masks and half-truths. He wanted her to be free again.

  A full quarter hour passed without a house or barn in sight. Just when Jason began to wonder how far from civilization they truly were, a bend in the road revealed a farmhouse not too far distant.

  “I will make our inquiries,” Jean said.

  Jason accompanied him to the front step, but when a tired and susp
icious-looking woman opened the door, he left the entirety of the conversation to Jean. His French-influenced Spanish did little to lessen her wariness.

  Convince her, Jean. We need to find Prado Verde.

  A few more exchanges conducted entirely in Spanish led to a reluctant gesture up the road. Jean copied it and asked her something. She answered, then quickly closed the door.

  “I understood not a word of that,” Jason said.

  “Your Mariposa will wish to hear Spanish from time to time. I will be happy to teach you a word or two.”

  “I will accept that offer. First, though, did our guarded señora offer any useful information?”

  Jean nodded as he stepped away from the humble dwelling. “She says that we must continue on this road until we reach a very large tree. At that tree will be a wide path leading through a meadow. At the end of that path will be a tall stone wall. Behind the wall is Prado Verde.”

  Jason was impressed. “That is a great deal of useful information.”

  “It seems my suggestion to ask of the locals was a good one.” Jean gave him a look of feigned haughtiness—one with which Jason had become incredibly familiar. The older Frenchman had shown himself to be an enjoyable companion. He had a bouyant and optimistic view of life and the world despite his tragic history, and his was a sense of humor that never failed to lighten any situation.

  “We were going in the right direction after all.” Jason felt some relief at that. Despite having planned the journey as much as possible, this last stage of it was both the most crucial and most complicated. The Spanish countryside had not recovered from the war. Accommodations were nearly unheard of, and many once-proud houses no longer stood, their resident families long since fled.

  But Jean had known how to reach Albuera, and they knew Prado Verde sat near enough to that city to have headquartered a portion of the British army.

  They passed a barn a few minutes later, and the directions they had received were confirmed.