The Hero Least Likely

by Darcy Burke

  After a long, tense moment in which the only sounds that could be heard were the halting sniffles of Mrs. Blackpool and the clink of Captain Steele’s glass of port against the desk, Mr. Blackpool nodded slowly. He crossed the room with the jerky gracelessness of an automaton and folded himself into the wingback chair nearest his wife.

  “Why didn’t you visit?” Mrs. Blackpool burst out sobbingly, wringing her handkerchief and casting huge, beseeching eyes at her son. “Three and a half years since last I’ve seen you, and when you finally come home, it’s to visit… the vicarage?”

  “Oh, that,” Captain Steele put in pleasantly. “’Twasn’t to visit the vicarage. He and Miss Vaughan are to wed later this month.”

  Mrs. Blackpool sucked in a shocked breath, her pallid face a mixture of hurt and despair. “You couldn’t have mentioned this?”

  Bartholomew gazed back at her stoically, his spine straight, his shoulders rigid, his tongue as silent as that of his father’s. The poor man. Daphne doubted he wished his first words after all this time to be lies. This was her fault.

  She took a deep breath and faced his parents. Before discussing a fake wedding, they needed to address the more important issue. His mother. She directed her gaze at Mrs. Blackpool. The woman needed to acknowledge that she was not the only one who had suffered a loss. Families needed to support each other.

  “Three and a half years since you’ve seen your son?” She edged closer to Bartholomew’s side and faced his mother squarely. “Why didn’t you visit him in London, when he was recuperating from having his leg blown off?”

  “And leave Edmund?” Mrs. Blackpool gasped. “Never!”

  “He’s not there,” her husband said dully, his eyes focused somewhere above his wife’s head. “’Tis an empty grave, so there’s no sense you sobbing upon it, all hours of every day.”

  “He will be there,” Mrs. Blackpool countered staunchly, “just as soon as the army returns his body. We shall have a fine ceremony. You shall return home where you belong, Bartholomew. It would ease the emptiness in my heart to have both my sons back.”

  “Even if one of our lads is in his grave?” her husband asked dryly. “You must know it cannot be the same. Edmund is dead.”

  “Then Bartholomew’s presence alone will have to fill the void.” Mrs. Blackpool’s lip trembled as she turned to her son. “Stay by my side and keep me company whilst we await your brother’s remains. Will you not do that for your mother?”

  Bartholomew’s voice was strained. “They’re not going to find a body. Even if they did, how would they know who it was or where to send him? He’s not coming home. If it makes you feel any better, I never found the rest of my leg. That doesn’t mean it’s not gone.”

  “I know he’s gone,” Mrs. Blackpool snapped. “Why do you think I haunt his gravestone? I’m trying to spend all the time with him now that I failed to do back then.”

  “And ignore the son that survived?” Daphne blurted indignantly. Dear heavens. Was the woman blind to Bartholomew’s pain?

  “He’s the one who got Edmund to join.” Mr. Blackpool’s gaze sharpened and focused directly on his son. “He promised they would both be fine.”

  Bartholomew nodded slowly, accepting the blame. “I only brought half of us home.” He lifted his false leg and let it thump to the floor. “Less than half.”

  Daphne entwined her fingers with Bartholomew’s. He stiffened, but did not pull away. It might well have been the most support he’d received since returning home.

  Mrs. Blackpool’s voice rose in pitch. “What did you do with Edmund’s things? His town house? His paintings?”

  Only the slight tightening of Bartholomew’s hand in Daphne’s betrayed his emotion. His grief-stricken mother was more concerned about the son who’d died than the one who’d lived.

  “I’ve done nothing,” he answered. “I haven’t visited Edmund’s town house.”

  Mrs. Blackpool gasped in horror. “What if his possessions have been stolen?”

  “They have not,” Bartholomew bit out crisply. “I continue to pay the rent on his town house and the salaries of his staff.”

  Daphne slanted a surprised look at him. Not only was that a shocking waste of money, it was inadvertently cruel to his mother. If there were personal effects in the town house that might bring some peace to the obviously hysterical Mrs. Blackpool, then those items were better off in Kent than in some living mausoleum. Surely he saw that.

  Then again, Bartholomew was far from heartless. He must have some reason for refusing to dismantle his brother’s house.

  She lowered her voice. “Why don’t you—”

  “I can’t.” His gaze jerked away from her. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “My mother cannot stay away from his memory, and I can’t bear to face my grief or my failure. I’d rather let the town house sit empty than to organize and dispose of all the things my brother believed he’d come home to.”

  She squeezed his hand and desperately wished there were something she could do to ease his pain. There were no words to convey her horror at his plight or the depths of her sympathy. How much worse would the past months have been if she’d felt responsible for her father’s passing? If the people she most cherished, the people whose love and acceptance she most craved, blamed her for his death?

  “It’s not his fault,” she said suddenly. Her tone came out stronger than she’d intended, but she did nothing to temper it. She glared at his parents. “Edmund’s death is not Bartholomew’s fault.”

  “Of course it isn’t,” cried Mrs. Blackpool, casting a self-righteous glance toward her husband. “I told Mr. Blackpool the lads were too weak to face something like war, and when Bartholomew came home a cripple, I sent my husband straight to London to bring him right back to Kent, where he could stay safe in my home for the rest of his life.”

  Bartholomew’s grip on Daphne’s fingers was tight enough to bruise. She didn’t blame him one bit. He didn’t need his mother to keep him safe. He needed her to love him.

  “Your son is scarcely weak.”

  “He collapsed when I hugged him!” Mrs. Blackpool dissolved into tears. “Come home, Bartholomew. The house is so lonely. Stay with me. With us. We’ll employ so many servants, you’ll never have to lift a finger again. You won’t even have to get out of bed.”

  Good Lord. Daphne slid a startled glance in Bartholomew’s direction. His smile was brittle and failed to reach his eyes. His mother didn’t want him home because she missed him. She wanted him home because she believed him no longer capable of being his own man. And because she thought his presence would erase her own grief.

  Daphne’s shoulders stiffened. No wonder the man hadn’t stopped by for a quick visit. His mother would never have let him leave.

  Captain Steele drained his port. “May I move in? I quite adore fawning attention and the thought of having untold chambermaids at my disposal.”

  Bartholomew sent him a dark look and returned his focus to his parents. “How did you know I was here?”

  His father blinked as if awakening from slumber. “’Twas the note.”

  Bartholomew’s gaze sharpened. “The what?”

  “A message arrived for you by special courier. Carlisle. Once I saw the seal, I rushed outside to try and catch the earl’s man, but the carriage was already gone.” Mr. Blackpool shook his head. “That’s when young Fairfax rumbled by. He knew nothing about Carlisle, but had seen you at the vicarage. So I went to fetch your mother.”

  Mrs. Blackpool smiled tremulously. “And here we are.”

  Silence reigned.

  Bartholomew loosened his hold on Daphne’s fingers and leaned forward. “May I see the note?”

  Mr. Blackpool fished it out of his coat pocket and handed it to his son.

  Bartholomew read it in silence.

  Mrs. Blackpool aimed her trembling smile toward Daphne. “I always did like you, dear. I’m so thankful you were the one to win Bartholomew’s heart, and not some horrid London
er with a penchant for city life. Now that he’s crippled, Bartholomew can’t endure such frivolity. He’s better off at home, and of course, there is plenty of room for you, too. There will be no reason to leave. I’m assuming this gentleman inherited your father’s house?”

  “I’m no gentleman,” Captain Steele corrected, his grin roguish. “But yes. This shack is mine now. Want to buy it?”

  “Whatever for?” Mrs. Blackpool glared down her nose at him. “Bartholomew and my daughter-by-law have a home with us. It will be like having two children all over again.” She turned back toward her son, her expression determined. “You must apply for special license, so we can have the ceremony in the garden.”

  Mr. Blackpool raised an eyebrow. “Next to Edmund’s empty grave?”

  “I couldn’t if I wished to,” Bartholomew cut in. “The Archbishop favors those with a coronet, and you’ll notice I have none.”

  “Not always,” his mother insisted. “One or two times he’s made an exception, and if the Earl of Carlisle would put in a word for you…”

  “Oliver has his own matters to deal with.” Bartholomew folded the missive and slid it into a waistcoat pocket. “He’s getting married on the morrow, and he’d like me to bear witness.”

  “Darling, you can’t!” His mother sprang from her chair to clasp her son’s hands in hers. “You mustn’t even think such nonsense. No more London! Not in your condition. No more trips anywhere at all. I’ve already lost Edmund, and I’ll die if I lose you, too. I need you at home.”

  Bartholomew extricated his fingers from his mother’s grasp. “I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you yet again, Mother. As I mentioned, the Earl of Carlisle wishes me to be a witness at his wedding, and I’m certain you realize that I cannot refuse. I owe him my life. If he hadn’t carried me from the battlefield at risk of his own life, you would have lost both of your children the same day.”

  Daphne glanced at Bartholomew in admiration. Even the most cloying of mothers—and there could be no doubt that Mrs. Blackpool deeply loved her son and truly wished no harm to befall him—could scarcely deny such a simple request from the friend who had saved her child’s life.

  Mrs. Blackpool grasped Daphne’s hands instead. “You’ll stay with me, then. Starting this very night. You wouldn’t leave me alone, would you, with my son all the way in London? Not when you’ll be living with us from now on anyway. Besides, Bartholomew will come back sooner if you’re with me. And we can plan the wedding. The garden would have been ideal, but All Saints Church is lovely and full of history. If only your father were still alive to perform the ceremony! I haven’t met the new vicar yet because I can’t bear to leave Edmund, even on Sundays, but with the two of us together, I might—”

  “Daphne is also going to London to visit a friend.” Bartholomew cut her a speaking glance. “Didn’t you say someone was expecting you?”

  Daphne’s eyes widened at the reminder. Panic clawed at her insides. To get even halfway through her list of priorities, she’d need to spend every waking hour between now and her birthday locked in her chamber with her escritoire and an extra pot of ink. London was completely out of the question. As was moving in with Mrs. Blackpool.

  “Right you are,” her guardian put in, fixing Daphne with his crocodile smile. “Miss Vaughan said the Duke of Lambley’s cousin had sent her an invitation. One oughtn’t to offend the cousin of a duke. Of course she’ll be going to London.” He stood up from the desk. “I’ll see to it personally. I’ve decided to cancel my upcoming venture in order to ensure no unfortunate delays befall our darling lovebirds.”

  Daphne’s dream of making huge strides on her charity projects vanished. If Captain Steele intended to send her to London, there would be no stopping him. Now that he’d canceled his pirating venture, it would become even harder to stop her faux betrothal from becoming alarmingly real. She would have to go and put his mind at ease.

  She forced a smile at the Blackpools. “I’m very sorry. Miss Ross is a very good friend of mine. She’s been planning this visit for ages.”

  Mrs. Blackpool clasped her hands even tighter, her voice trembling. “Oh, I do wish you wouldn’t go. I would love to have a reminder of my son. But go, if you must. Take care of my boy. Promise me you’ll keep him safe until he returns home to Kent. And that when you do, you’ll stay with us forever.”

  ELEVEN

  Bartholomew allowed his valet to clothe him in the finest items in his wardrobe. Fitz adorned his neck with a starched white cravat of monumental proportions. Its careful white folds soared so high that Bartholomew doubted he’d even be able to see the ceremony.

  All of which was fine with Bartholomew, for he didn’t want to watch other people staring at him. Pitying him. Especially not people who loved him. Watching his mother fall apart had been worse than watching his leg explode. He could not bear to see the same dismay and pity on the faces of his closest friends. He dreaded the ceremony.

  Yet he could not ignore the Earl of Carlisle’s summons. Oliver had carried Bartholomew’s mangled body to safety. The least he could do in return was attend the man’s wedding.

  Heart thudding, Bartholomew allowed Fitz to spritz him with perfume and adjust the painstakingly mussed curls on his head one last time before heading toward the stairs.

  He thought again of his mother. Of her disappointment. His throat tightened. He missed his family and had no wish to deprive them of their living son, but he couldn’t be himself and Edmund, too. Bartholomew had enough guilt of his own without also shouldering his parents’.

  Or his friends. His breath grew shallow. London suddenly seemed terrifying. What if his friends blamed him for the death of his brother? What if they, too, expected him to be more, not less? To somehow take the place of both twins?

  He rubbed his face. After he put down the whisky and picked up his spirits, he had been too busy strengthening what was left of his body to correspond with his friends. He should have paid more attention. The world had gone on without him.

  Oliver. Married.

  Bartholomew had seen the infamous compromise alluded to in the scandal sheets, but he hadn’t expected to be invited to the wedding. Much less to have duplicate invitations show up at every address he’d ever frequented. He no longer wondered why his parents had received the note, but rather why he’d been invited in the first place.

  The first—and last—time Oliver had dropped by Bartholomew’s sickbed, Bartholomew had thanked the earl bitterly for saving his life and then ordered him to quit the premises and never return. Bartholomew hadn’t wanted anyone’s eyes on him or his infirmity. And yet, here he was. Making his first public appearance.

  Well, semi-public. Weddings were traditionally small, but Oliver was taking it a step further for all their sakes. Modest church, no bystanders, invitation only. He was aware that Bartholomew had no wish to be seen by the general population. The risk of curious eyes was even more critical for Sarah Fairfax.

  Who would have been his sister-in-law. If Bartholomew hadn’t failed to bring Edmund back alive.

  Bartholomew’s throat convulsed as he shrugged into his greatcoat. Was he really going to present himself to her after being unable to return her intended to her arms? Sarah was not only facing a future without Edmund, but a lifetime of being shunned by her ex-peers, as soon as they discovered she’d birthed a bastard child.

  It was Bartholomew’s fault. And there was no way to stop it. The only way to avoid that fate would be to marry as soon as possible. But who would wed a pregnant bride?

  He squeezed the back of his neck. What would Edmund want him to do? Surely not marry his bride. To rescue Sarah from ruin would be to consign her to an even greater hell: a lifetime wed to the crippled failure who’d let her true love die.

  If Bartholomew’s mother had any inkling of her impending grandchild, she would approve the match in a heartbeat. To hell with anyone’s wishes—Daphne’s, Bartholomew’s, or Sarah herself. One hint that Sarah was increasing, and Bartholom
ew’s mother would happily hide her and the child away in Kent for the rest of their natural lives.

  Would that be a better or worse fate for Sarah and the baby?

  He turned toward the door.

  Crabtree was there waiting.

  Bartholomew straightened his shoulders. “Landau?”

  “Ready for you, sir. With a warming brick inside.”

  Bartholomew nodded and reached for the door.

  “Wait!” Fitz careened around the corner bearing an armful of sundry accessories. “You cannot go to a wedding in those ancient gloves, sir. What can you be thinking?”

  He snatched Bartholomew’s trusty linen gloves from his fingers and replaced them with a more starched, less comfortable version of the same.

  Bartholomew smiled dryly. “Thank you, Fitz. You have saved me from certain embarrassment. Do I now meet your high standards?”

  Fitz eyed him critically, the edges of his thin lips turning down with displeasure. “Something is missing. Something important.” His eyes lit up as he clasped his hands together in delight. “Of course. A walking stick!”

  Ah, yes. Bartholomew’s wry humor faded. No matter how one dresses a cripple, he remains a cripple. No amount of starch in his gloves would change that. “I don’t think—”

  “But you must! Oh, it’s not because of…” Fitz flicked pale fingers in the direction of his master’s vexing prosthesis and fixed him with beseeching eyes. “It’s a vital accessory, sir. You must take it. A natty walking stick is the crown jewel to a princely appearance.”

  He dashed from the room and returned in a trice, this time bearing a freshly buffed walking stick. Beaming, Fitz presented it with both hands. ’Twas the walking stick with the claw handle and the hidden sword.

  Bartholomew’s stomach twisted. He used to love that walking stick.

  Now? He hated it. Hated that he needed it, rather than carried it for show. Hated that everyone knew he needed it. That without it, he risked going down like a rock, just like he’d done in front of his parents and Daphne. And Captain Steele. And a footman.