by Aileen Fish
“I want to believe that, but my mind is awhirl with so many thoughts. Foremost is the fear I have wasted two Seasons in London keeping my heart safe for Stephen.”
“Never say it. You truly no longer wish to marry him?”
A knock at the door interrupted them. David stuck his head inside. “Might I come in?”
“Of course,” both girls answered, and Jane dabbed again at her tears.
He went straight to the mantle and lit a candle. “There we are. Why do you girls sit in the dark?”
“I never noticed it,” said Hannah. “I was concerned for Jane.”
“Yes, well, one of the footmen pulled me from the card table and said I must attend you. What’s it to be? Pistols at dawn? A cut direct at Almack’s next spring? Who has committed the offense?”
Jane looked at Hannah, pleading for her not to speak.
“Jane?” David’s voice lost its humor. He stepped closer, studying her face. “This is serious. I supposed some young buck had slighted one of you by refusing to stand up with you for a country dance. Tell me what has happened. Jane, you know your secrets are safe with me.”
Yes, she knew. David, his older brother Knightwick, Hannah and she were like brothers and sisters. But would he side with his cousin Stephen over her? She supposed she must find out one way or another. “You must swear never to speak of this to anyone. I would die if anyone outside our families found out.”
Drawing in a deep breath, and keeping her eyes on the handkerchief she wrought in her hands, she confessed. “Stephen has been alone in your father’s library this evening, as might be expected. He has overindulged, shall we say, in your father’s liquor.”
“The man has had more to bear in the past few months than many of us could handle. I can’t say I blame him for getting bosky.”
“That’s not all,” Hannah warned.
“He offered for my hand.” Jane lifted her gaze to his to see if he understood just how painful the event had been.
David wiped his palm down his face. “I am sorry, dear Jane, I know how young ladies dream of that romantic occasion. And I know he’ll be sorry for it, too. But there’s nothing to be done tonight. Would you like me to find your parents so you may return home now?”
“Please.”
That was what she needed. To escape Stephen and this nightmare of a proposal. She could cry herself to sleep in her own bed and hopefully wake up to discover it had all been a dream.
Chapter Two
The bang of a slamming door stirred Stephen from the depths of darkness in which he slept. His head spun and pounded. His stomach roiled. He pulled a pillow over his head and held his breath in hopes of it all passing before he tossed up his accounts.
The pillow lifted and slapped down again on his face. His cousin Knightwick, Viscount Knightwick’s voice shattered the quiet. “Get up.”
Knightwick ripped back the curtains and Stephen was assaulted by the brightness. “Good God, are you trying to kill me with sunlight?”
“Don’t tempt me.” Knightwick was obviously in a foul mood this morning.
Stephen covered his eyes with his bent arm. “To what do I owe the displeasure of your wrath?”
“You don’t even remember?” Knightwick slapped the pillow over Stephen’s head again. “Why am I not surprised?”
At the moment, Stephen remembered very little of anything. The constant ringing in his left ear kept the memory of all his injuries fresh at hand, and the comfort of the bed he lay on spoke so plainly of Bridgethorpe, so he recalled arriving the day before.
Slowly, the prior day played out in his mind. The joy on his aunt’s face at the sight of him, which quickly turned to tears before she excused herself. Bridgethorpe, looking pale and shaken, had taken Stephen into the library and offered him a drink, then broke the unimaginable news.
“There was a fire at Larkspur Cottage yesterday. Your parents…I’m so sorry, Stephen. We couldn’t reach you on the road to tell you.”
Stephen stared at his uncle in disbelief as the news sank in. “Both are gone?”
Bridgethorpe nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
The rest of the day blurred. His cousins rallied around him, welcoming him and commiserating. The manor was filled with guests attending a hunting party for the week. Stephen had done his best to avoid them.
But he remembered nothing which would bring his eldest cousin storming into his bedchamber at whatever ungodly hour it was presently. “I’ve only just arrived. What can I have done?”
The door crashed open again, rebounding off the small table beside it. The noise jarred Stephen’s nerves as he tried to focus his good eye in the general area of the door. “Ah, David. How nice of you to join us.”
David Lumley, the second of the eight children born to the earl and his wife, ignored him and spoke to his brother. “Has he explained himself?”
Knightwick shook his head. “He was apparently too drunk to know what he did last night.”
With both hands making a poor attempt at holding his head still, since the room refused to quit spinning, Stephen begged, “If you must continue to yell in my bedchamber, perhaps you could advise me what crime I am guilty of?”
David kicked the nearest bedpost, jarring the frame and sending Stephen’s stomach whirling. David yelled out, “I never would believe it of you. Proposing when you are too drunk to even remember doing so. There’s no excuse.”
Oh, Lord. That answered part of Stephen’s question. He asked the new one now bothering him. “To whom did I propose?”
The brothers shouted in unison. “Miss Marwick!”
Stephen sat up too quickly, then hung over the side of the bed and reached for the chamber pot. Unable to find the pot before the retching began, he was relieved that nothing remained in his stomach to toss up. When the spasms stopped, he rolled onto his back, pulling the sheet over the scars on his side.
“You have nothing to say for yourself?” Knightwick asked.
“What can I say?” Running the fingers of both hands through his hair, he sat up again and searched for his eye patch on the bedside table. Only when it was in place did he rise and face his cousins, looking around for something to wear over his small clothes. “Before you both beat me to a bloody pulp…there are words to be said, apologies to be made, but not to either of you. I must speak to Jane.”
“Miss Marwick has returned home.”
Stephen didn’t miss the inflection in David’s words. At not quite twenty-five, Stephen was too old to use the familiar name of his childhood friend. But for the six years he’d been away with his regiment, Stephen had thought of her as Jane. My Jane. If what his cousins said was so, if he truly had asked her to marry him while in his cups—hell, he’d been far beyond his cups, swimming in the dregs of the barrel—she might never be his. “I shall ride to Darley Hall at once and speak to her.”
As Stephen searched through the clothing he’d brought with him, which was now neatly cleaned and pressed, his cousins sat on the edge of the bed. Knightwick spoke first. “But how will you explain yourself?” The anger had faded from his voice and he sounded like the concerned older brother he’d always been.
David also had calmed. “Yes, how will you dig your way out of this one?”
Shrugging on his shirt, Stephen said, “I haven’t the slightest inkling. Stating I’m an arse is a bit too obvious.”
David sniggered. “Quite so.”
“There must be something to be done. Some penance I can pay.”
“She waited for you, you know.” Knightwick’s words were gentle, not the berating Stephen deserved.
“I didn’t know. Well, Hannah hinted in her letters that Jane—Miss Marwick—had little interest in the suitors she’d met in London.” Dear Hannah had been his only source of communication with Miss Marwick while Stephen had been away. He couldn’t write to her directly, as they weren’t betrothed. She was only fourteen when he enlisted, so he hadn’t even suggested at a future together. Even once she w
as of an age to marry, he’d put off speaking to her father. He thought it most cruel when soldiers left their wives and children behind to worry about them, although he realized many men and women felt differently.
And there was no way he’d have her follow him from camp to camp. That was no life for the daughter of a baronet. Looking back, he realized that at eighteen he’d had no real understanding of what life in the cavalry was about. Nor what it did to the loved ones left behind.
He only knew it was what he’d been called to do.
Stephen wrestled with his cravat, trying hard not to look at his face in the mirror. The wine-colored scars on his left cheek stood out harshly against the paleness of his skin and the black eye patch. He desperately needed to shave the shadow of whiskers on his jaw. His fingers faltered once again and he gave up on the cravat in frustration. He let the long, white scarf dangle down the front of his plain ecru waistcoat. “Perhaps this is for the best. She can now forget me and consider one of the many offers I’m certain she has received. Or she can return to London next Season with open eyes.”
Knightwick shook his head, his lips drawing into a grimace of distaste. “This is what fighting under Wellesley has taught you? Turn tail and run at the first battle? I believe you might be right. She deserves better.”
David jumped to his feet. “Go easy on him, Knightwick. We have no idea what he experienced on the Continent. Not all scars are visible. Besides, the man just lost his parents. He deserves better than your judgment.”
Returning to his feeble attempt at tying his cravat, Stephen clenched his jaw. “I don’t want your pity, or anyone else’s.”
David looked more wounded than chagrined. “Forgive me for having a heart. It was kindly meant. I can’t imagine how I would feel having lost Mother and Father together. And I have brothers and sisters to ease the loss.”
Now Knightwick jumped to his defense. “And Stephen has all of us.”
“I realize that, but it’s not—”
“Enough.” Stephen decided cravat would suffice, sloppy as it was. He turned on his cousins while tugging on his coat of superfine wool. “Yes, I have you all, and I know I am not alone. But I’m sure you’ll understand that I need to be alone with my thoughts before I go see Miss Marwick.”
“Of course.” David walked to the door.
“Wait,” Stephen called.
The brothers paused.
“I came for Sir Bedivere. I thought to have one of your father’s lads return the hack I rode here, and I would ride Bedivere home.”
“You can’t,” David said.
“He’s not here,” Knightwick added.
Stephen tried to comprehend. “My horse is gone? Oh, you have been racing him, have you, while I was off in battle?”
“Of course not.” Knightwick waved an arm as if shedding light on an obvious answer. “I can’t enter a horse I don’t own. But we didn’t need to race him. Those few race meetings you entered before you left were enough to make his name. We used him a few times in our stud and others began asking to have him cover their mares.”
“You used him in the stud. Without even writing me to tell me so?”
Knightwick crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t recall that dramatic scene you created before climbing into your father’s carriage, on your way to battle? ‘Take good care of him, Knightwick. If I don’t return, he is yours.’”
“Yes, well, I was a bit distracted at the time. Still, you could have asked if I wanted him used so.”
“By the time a letter would have arrived with your response, the mares in question would have been out of season.” Knightwick shook his head, an incredulous expression on his face. “We’ve saved the stud fees for you. At the time, we thought you might wish to start a stud farm of your own when you returned.”
Stephen let his head hang, suddenly reminded of what lay ahead. “I imagine the funds you’ve collected won’t cover all the repairs the house will require, but I am grateful for your thoughtful planning.”
David opened the door, and Knightwick turned to leave. “Shall I have Cook send up some coffee, or breakfast?”
Stephen shook his head. “I will go below and see if anything remains in the dining room. No need to trouble Cook on my account.”
“Very well. Will you let me know when you return from Darley Hall?”
“I plan to continue from there to Larkspur Cottage. I need to see what is left of my home.”
“We can accompany you, if you wish,” Knightwick said softly.
“Thank you, no. I will return to Bridgethorpe as soon as I am able and inform you of the state of the house. The sooner I find out what I have ahead of me, the sooner I can begin to put it behind me.”
Before Stephen had even decided if his stomach would tolerate food, a gentle knock came on the door of his bedchamber. When he opened it, he was surprised to see Hannah standing there. “May I speak with you?” she asked.
“Of course.” He motioned for her to enter and led the way to the two small chairs in the far corner. He stood in front of the one to the left, so the undamaged side of his face was to his cousin, and waited for her to sit before doing so himself. “I must warn you, your brothers have already taken me to task.”
“I knew they would.” Hannah shook her head, a gentle expression softening her normally laughing eyes. “I am not here to chastise. I’m certain you are doing enough of that, yourself.”
He nodded, but returned his gaze to the small fire burning in the fireplace nearby. He was in no mood to discuss the situation with her any more than he had with her brothers. He was still somewhat numb from the news of the previous day, and wrung out from the combination of traveling more quickly than he ought to have and drowning his thoughts with liquor.
From the corner of his vision he saw Hannah draw her shoulders back as if bracing herself for what she was about to say.
“Jane is quite hopelessly in love with you.”
Surprised, Stephen turned to read her expression, certain he must have misunderstood. “Beg pardon?”
“Well, she was, you know. Quite beyond smitten. Her mother tried to dissuade her attentions when you didn’t come home last year. They held several small house parties over the summer, but even before news came of your injuries, Jane would have none of the matchmaking attempts.”
Chewing on the inside of his right cheek, he acknowledged silently he expected nothing less. They had an understanding, even if it had been unspoken. “That is just like her, not to listen to wiser counsel.”
Hannah’s head tipped to one side as she frowned. “You no longer have an attachment for her?”
“I cannot think about marriage right now. Aside from mourning, I have no home, no life to offer to share with my wife. I can’t ask Jane to continue to wait. I never truly asked her to wait, although I always hoped she would. But there are so many things to do before I can speak of marriage.”
Hannah snorted rudely. “You should have considered that before speaking to her last night.”
He fought to keep from smiling. Oddly, her derisive noise comforted him. It was good to be amongst family. “I don’t recall my thoughts getting past ‘my life is over’, last night. And that was long before Jane came into the library.”
“As you say, there are other matters to attend. Are you traveling to Larkspur Cottage today?”
“Yes, I only stopped here to collect Sir Bedivere.”
“He’s not here.”
“Yes, so I discovered. It appears the old boy has been covering mares—forgive me, Hannah. I forget sometimes you are a lady.”
She snorted again and lifted her pert little chin. “I beg your pardon. When did I not act like a lady?”
Memories of the girl she’d been flashed through his mind and he laughed. “You were eleven years old when I left. You continually escaped Nanny Griswold and followed us into the stables. I must say, your mother must be very relieved when she looks upon you now.”
Her cheeks darkened
most becomingly and her eyelids lowered. Knightwick and David would be fighting off rakehells and rapscallions in another year when Hannah went to London. Or would she be presented at court in the spring? He was grateful not to have to accompany her to London, or he’d be scrutinizing her beaux as thoroughly as her brothers and father.
Thinking of Bridgethorpe, Stephen asked, “Has your father improved in spirits? Or, had he, before the loss of his brother? You wrote to me about Zephyr’s disappearance, but said nothing of it in the past year.”
She lowered her head, and her hands fidgeted with the folds of her skirt. “My father is not the man he used to be.”
He expected her to continue, but she didn’t. “I am sorry to hear that.” Perhaps Knightwick would have more to say about the loss of their prize stud horse. Once Stephen was settled, he’d enquire.
Hannah suddenly brightened into her normal self, making him wonder how much of her daily cheerfulness was skillfully practiced. “But you are home and we are glad of it. We must plan what you need to do. You’ll need a place to stay while you repair your home.”
“You are assuming there is enough still standing to repair.”
She offered him a look that showed maturity beyond her seventeen years. “No, I am assuming you will do whatever is necessary to make Larkspur Cottage what it once was.” She spoke as if it was the family seat, an ancestral hall passed from father to son.
“Father bought Larkspur when he married. It’s not like Bridgethorpe Manor, where generations of Lumleys have resided.”
“No, but it has been someone’s home since it was built. It’s the home you were born in. The one where your children will be born.”
“Children,” he said softly, his gaze dropping to the carpet as his mind wandered to dreams past.
“Of course. I’m told they come naturally after the wedding vows.”
He caught her coy smile. Yes, her brothers were in for a devil of a Season. Something in her light air kept him from sinking into himself again at the thought of providing for a family, with his injuries. But he should put aside such worries until after he spoke to his father’s solicitor later in the week.
