by Anne Gracie
He wasn’t going to let her out of his sight.
She didn’t turn a hair. “Very well, my dear, you go ahead. I’m going to visit the ruined abbey. It’s a lovely day—really, we have been blessed with the weather, but it cannot last.”
“I don’t care about the weather,” he began in exasperation.
“No, but a picnic is so much more comfortable when it’s fine. The local women tell me the water from the spring is sure to guarantee an heir.” She gave him a bland, sweet smile. “You can come with me. If we both drink it, we will surely double our chances.”
He glared at her in baffled outrage. Where was the demure and obedient little creature he’d married, so eager to please? Was this what happened when you told a woman you loved her?
Didn’t she realize he had to get away?
“No, dammit, I’m not going anywhere except back to London—today—and you’re coming with me.”
“Take this, will you?” She handed him the covered basket. “And this. It’s sunny at the moment, but it might get chilly later.” She draped a cloak over his arm.
“Lily, did you not hear me? I—”
But she’d whisked herself out the kitchen door and was gone. He followed her into the yard, where a horse stood patiently harnessed to a light gig—and stopped.
A groom stood holding the reins. Another waited to help Lily climb into the gig. They both gave him curious glances. They must know who he was. Word spread fast in a place like this. His skin prickled, but he didn’t recognize either of them. They were both very young. The knots in his stomach eased.
“Pass me the basket, will you, Edward, please?”
He passed her the basket and the cloak and stood fuming quietly while she stowed everything carefully away. “There’s no need for you to come with me after all, Bobby,” she told the youngest groom. “My husband will escort me today.” She smiled tranquilly down at him.
The grooms waited expectantly. The first one offered him the reins. The young one hesitated, then stepped forward as if maybe Ned was too old to climb into a damned gig without assistance.
Swearing silently and savagely Ned climbed into the gig, accepted the reins and drove out of the yard. The itch between his shoulder blades burned like acid.
Chapter Twenty-one
“And in the lowest deep a lower deep still threatening to devour me opens wide.”
—JOHN MILTON
They trotted briskly along, saying nothing. She must know he was furious. Right now, though, he was feeling more sick than furious. It was like going into battle—worse. He knew what he was facing in battle. The knots in his stomach tightened.
They came to a fork in the lane. “Turn left here,” she said.
He ignored her. “The ruins are to the right.”
“Yes, but I need to drop a few things off on the way.” She reached across and pulled on the reins and the horse turned left.
“What the—” He swallowed, forcing himself to calm. “Where are you dropping these things?” He knew, he damned well knew. He knew every house, every cottage on the estate, and he knew exactly where they were going.
He wanted to leap out of the gig and flee into the forest, his sanctuary of old.
But that was haunted too.
“Just Mrs. Prewett, and old Mr. Iles. I promised them both some of our home cheese from the Shields dairy. Old Mr. Iles told me how much he loves cheese with pickled onions. His daughter won’t pickle onions for him, says it’s too much trouble and she doesn’t like the smell.” She gave him a mischievous smile. “See, the pickled onions weren’t for either of us.”
He swallowed. She had no idea what she’d done.
Prewett. Could she have chosen anyone worse? And Iles. His mouth was dry, his throat constricted. The horse trotted inexorably on.
They turned a corner and he let out the breath he’d been holding as the first cottage came into view, stone, slate-roofed, smaller than he remembered. The garden was neat as a pin. Mrs. Prewett always did love her garden.
“Why are we stopping?” Lily asked. “The cottage is over there.”
Fifty yards away and he couldn’t go an inch closer. He hadn’t even realized he’d tightened the reins. His breathing came raggedly, rapid and shallow. “You go. I, I’ll go for a bit of a walk.”
“What is it, Edward? You’ve gone very pale. Are you ill?”
His every instinct screamed at him to run. But it was too late. He could only wait, frozen and hollow, a butterfly staked on a pin, as fate in the shape of Mr. and Mrs. Prewitt opened the cottage gate and with loud cries came running toward him.
Mr. Prewitt reached the gig first. “Master Ned, you’ve come back at last. Welcome home, lad—oh, mustn’t call you that now. Look at how tall and fine you’ve grown.”
Like an automaton, Ned climbed down from the gig and held out a stiff hand. Mr. Prewitt wrung it, saying, “Come inside the house, let me look at you. Such a fine, tall man you’ve become, the image of his grandfather, isn’t he, Martha?” He pressed his lips together. “It’s that good to see you, lad. I never thought—” His voice broke. He pulled out a large handkerchief and blew into it noisily.
Mrs. Prewitt made no attempt to hide her emotions. Her face streaming with tears, she hugged him as if he were still a boy and, accepting no excuses, propelled him into the front parlor, saying, “I didn’t bake my spiced currant biscuits this morning for nothing, my lad—his favorites, they are, Mrs. Galbraith. The minute I heard you were back, I knew you’d come to us.”
She wiped tears away with her apron. “Never a day when he wasn’t in and out of my kitchen, Mrs. Galbraith. Him and our Luke. Like twins, they were, always up to mischief.” She hurried off to the kitchen to make tea.
Ned sat stiffly. He’d hardly ever been in this room. It was for visitors, and he’d never been a visitor in this house. He and Luke . . . it was always the kitchen, and then away to the forest.
“So it’s all London for you now, is it, Ned, lad? Country living lost its appeal?”
“Edward.” Lily nudged him.
He blinked.
“Mr. Prewitt thinks you’re bored with the country now.”
“No.” His voice sounded rusty. He cleared his throat. “It’s just . . . I’ve been . . . busy.” It was the least convincing lie Lily had ever heard.
Mrs. Prewitt entered carrying the tea tray and banished the awkward silence with the pouring of tea and the offering of biscuits. Lily brought out the cheese, and Mrs. Prewitt exclaimed over it with pleasure.
Edward drank his tea and ate a biscuit. Lily and Mrs. Prewitt talked about the ingredients, Mrs. Prewitt assuming Lily would want to bake them for her husband.
He sat there like a stranger, gray-faced and stiff, as if he were the stranger here, not Lily.
The Prewitts related stories of Edward and their boy, Luke, who’d been killed in the war, recalling boyhood adventures, and laughing over the mischief the two boys had gotten up to. “Right terrors, they were,” Mr. Prewitt said proudly.
It was because Edward was here, Lily knew. They’d never mentioned their son before. But it was all for Edward, she saw; their eyes kept flickering back to him with every tale.
Edward sat like a statue, still and grave and stiff and cold.
The tea was finished, the biscuits eaten, and a short silence fell. Lily prepared to take her leave, but Mr. Prewitt reached out suddenly and placed a hand on Edward’s knee. Edward jumped as if stung.
“That letter you wrote us.”
Edward swallowed convulsively and met Mr. Prewitt’s gaze. “Yes?” he croaked.
“It was such a comfort, knowing you were with our boy when he died.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “And to know that he died bravely—a hero, you said—”
“And that he didn’t suffer,” Mrs. Prewitt added.
A quiver pas
sed across Edward’s face. His jaw tightened. He didn’t speak.
Wiping tears away with the corner of her apron, Mrs. Prewitt rose and handed her husband a carved box. “Read it, Prewitt. Mrs. Galbraith should learn the kind of man her husband is.”
Mr. Prewitt unfolded the letter. It was paper thin, worn and faded from many rereadings. As Mr. Prewitt began to read, Lily glanced at her husband. His face was stark and he stared at the floor. A nerve twitched in his jaw, almost the only evidence that he was alive.
The letter described how Luke had been killed, shot through the heart saving a fellow soldier. He died a hero. The whole regiment had mourned him, and when they buried him the buglers had played a tribute as the sun had set over his grave. And Ned had lost the best friend he ever had.
The letter was warm and deeply personal and gave comfort, even as it broke unimaginably painful news. By the time Mr. Prewitt finished, they were all damp-eyed, except for the author of the letter, Lily’s husband, who sat grave and silent, dry-eyed and stiff.
Afterward there was a long silence. Then he stood abruptly. “I have to go.” He stalked from the cottage, leaving Lily to say the good-byes.
“Don’t fret, my dear,” Mrs. Prewitt said comfortably. “Took it hard, he did. Always has. Expects more of himself than is humanly possible.”
Lily nodded. She was starting to see that. “Thank you.”
The Prewitts showed her out. Edward was sitting like a ghost in the gig. “You have a good man there, missus.”
“I know.”
Mrs. Prewitt pressed a wrapped bundle of Edward’s favorite biscuits into her hands. “Take good care of him.”
Lily gave her a misty smile. “I will.”
* * *
• • •
“Iles next, is it?” he said after a few moments. His voice was shaking.
Lily had a thousand questions, but she could see that her husband was in no state to answer them. He was hanging on by a thread.
Mr. Iles came hurrying out of his cottage before the gig had even stopped. His face worked wordlessly as he wrung Edward’s hand and drew him inside. His daughter had clearly been primed; the kettle was already singing on the hob and slices of fruitcake and some little tarts set out on the table.
“Never thought I’d see you again, my boy,” the old man said in a strangled voice. “Waited and waited for you to come home, I did . . . Your granfer too, I’ll be bound.” His eyes devoured Edward. “Silly to say you’ve growed—course you have—but it’s our Seth I’m thinkin’ of now. He’d be just under your height, I reckon, but a bit broader in the shoulders—well, we Ileses have always had strong backs. Woodchoppers, we are, Mrs. Galbraith,” he added to Lily. “Always have been, always will be.”
He gazed again at Edward, his eyes blurry with unshed tears. “He was a fine boy, wasn’t he, our Seth?”
“The finest,” Edward croaked. Tea arrived and he buried his nose in the cup.
Lily took charge of the conversation, encouraging Mr. Iles to talk about his son, all the mischief he and young Ned and the Prewitt lad and the rest had wrought on the people of the estate. “Proper young divils they were, and your lad the leader.” The old man chuckled.
Lily felt rather than saw Edward wince.
“Never minded nobody. Ah, but they were fine lads all the same. I miss him, you know, more than you’d think.”
Edward swallowed.
“That letter of yourn,” Mr. Iles continued. “Grand letter, it was. I get ’un to read it to me whenever I feel a bit low.” He jerked his head at his daughter, who sat at the edge of the room saying nothing. “Can’t read, me,” he explained to Lily. “Never went to school.”
She nodded.
“Read ’em a bit, Sukey,” Mr. Iles said, and his daughter went to the mantelpiece and took down a battered piece of paper.
Edward made a strangled sound in his throat. Lily slipped her hand into his. He clung to it tightly, but his face didn’t move.
Sukey read the letter. Mr. Iles moved his lips silently as she read; he knew Edward’s letter by heart. Lily held on to her husband’s hand, and tried not to cry as she heard how Seth had been killed, defending a widow and three little girls from a vicious pack of deserters. They’d buried him near their cottage. The little girls planted flowers on his grave.
When it was finished, Mr. Iles wiped his eyes. “Brings me a deal of comfort, that, knowing he died saving that woman and her girls. I wonder, sometimes, about the flowers those little girls planted over him. Do you remember what they—”
“Poppies,” Edward said. “Poppies. Red poppies.”
“Ah, that’s grand, then. Seth always did like a bit of color. Sukey, what say we plant a few poppies out the front there? For our Seth.”
“Whatever you say, Dad.”
Lily gave Mr. Iles the cheese and pickled onions, with the compliments of Shields, and they took their leave. They turned the gig around and were heading to the abbey—Lily was glad now she’d put a bottle of wine in the picnic basket—when Edward groaned.
A couple was standing at the divide in the road, obviously waiting. Edward pulled the horse to a halt and got down. “Mr. and Mrs. Bryant.” He shook hands with Mr. Bryant and suffered himself to be hugged by Mrs. Bryant. His face was ash pale, grim but resigned.
“Heard you were home but weren’t sure how long you were stayin’,” Mr. Bryant said. “The missus here said you’d be sure to call on the Prewitts and she were right, as usual.” He glanced fondly at his wife, who hadn’t spoken except to greet Edward.
She didn’t say much, but she couldn’t stop touching Edward, his arms, his shoulders, and once or twice his cheek, stroking him like a cat.
Like a long-lost son.
Lily waited in the gig, watching and listening. The conversation went much as the two previous, only this time it was about a boy called Peter. Another quick, honorable death, another tragic story, another memory to treasure.
Eventually, to Ned’s relief, Mr. and Mrs. Bryant took their leave. “Now, don’t be a stranger, lad. It does our hearts good to see you home again, so tall and hale, and with such a bonny sweet bride.”
Thank God he’d had Lily with him today; he’d never have coped otherwise.
Though it was her fault he was here in the first place.
And it was a moot point whether he’d coped or not.
He settled himself in the gig and took up the reins. In a last farewell, Mr. Bryant reached up and laid a warm hand on Ned’s arm. “Thanks again for taking such good care of our Peter—”
It was more than he could stand. “I didn’t take care of him! I got him killed! I got them all killed.” The words burst from him.
There was a short, shocked silence. The horse moved restlessly. Mr. Bryant’s honest country face crinkled in distress. “Nay, lad, don’t take on like that. You weren’t responsible. T’was war that got our Peter killed—war that killed all those lads. You were just one of the lucky ones.”
Lucky? Bitterness flooded him.
He said heavily, “It was my idea to join up, my fault they all came with me.” He was their leader—he always had been, ever since he was Robin and they his merry men. His dead men.
They’d followed him to the grand adventure and they’d all been killed.
Bryant snorted. “If you think that, you’ve forgotten what it was like. You—all of you lads—were mad for adventure, mad for the army. I was the same at that age. Most lads can’t wait to get a potshot at the enemy. They never think it might be them who gets shot.”
“But if I hadn’t taken them with me—”
“Whisht, lad, if not with you, some recruiting sergeant would have snapped them up—the country was thick with them back then. Mad to go, was our Peter, and no blame to anyone else.”
His brown eyes were kind and compassionate, and he tapped Ned
firmly on the knee. “You mind what I say now. You took care of our lads the best you could, and when the worst happened—” He broke off and cleared his throat. “To know you were with Peter when he died, and that it was quick and clean . . .”
Every word was a lash. “He was a good friend,” Ned managed.
“Aye, and you were a good friend to him, to him and the other lads of the estate. I’m proud of my lad, and I’m proud of you—of all of them. Friends you were, from the time you could run, and friends you remained unto death.”
Ned fought to keep his face from crumpling. Breathe, he told himself. Don’t fall apart.
“Merrick Hird told us what you did for him and all the other lads.”
Ned stiffened. “Merrick Hird? But he’s dead.”
Bryant chuckled. “Don’t tell Merrick that. He’ll be sore put out to hear it. Came home with one leg less, but he’s alive and kicking still.”
“Oh, God.” He wanted to throw up. The last he’d seen of Merrick he was lying on the ground, on a makeshift stretcher in a welter of blood, nursing a bloody stump and swearing a blue streak. He knew then Merrick was done for. Men died like flies after the surgeon’s knives.
“You go and see Merrick,” Bryant recommended. “He’ll be right glad to see you. He’s living in the factor’s cottage now.”
“The factor’s cottage?” he repeated incredulously. Wild Merrick Hird in the factor’s cottage?
“Aye, a grand jest, ain’t it? He’s been your grandad’s factor for, oh, years now. Always was a clever lad, Merrick. Took losing a leg to make him slow down and start using his brain. Got a wife and kiddies and all. And a fine peg leg. You go along and see him.” He patted Ned’s knee again. “And don’t you fret no more, you hear me, boy?”
Unable to say a word, Ned flicked the reins and they drove on. He drove until they reached the abbey, Lily silent beside him, still holding tight to his arm.
The abbey was set in a cool green clearing, a remnant of ancient, mossy stones that had witnessed miracles and violence over the ages and now was simply offering peace.
