One Night with the Major

by Bronwyn Scott

  ‘Is your tea warm enough? The pot was out for a while before you came down,’ Cam enquired again when it was clear she wasn’t going to start a conversation.

  Pavia set down her knife. ‘It’s not going to work, Cam.’

  ‘What’s not going to work?’ He looked up from his eggs, eyebrows arched.

  ‘Pretending last night didn’t happen.’ Pavia took a succinct bite of her toast, her gaze steady on him although it took all her strength. Her husband was hurting. She wanted to go to him, to soothe him. Had he slept at all? If he had slept, had he dreamed those terrible nightmares again? And she hadn’t been there to wake him, to make him a scented compress. That was a choice she’d made for both of them when she’d stormed upstairs last night. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but these issues had to be dealt with. ‘Avoidance isn’t resolution, Cam. If we don’t settle this, it will settle us.’

  ‘What do you think there is to settle?’ Cam’s gaze was blue steel. It would intimidate many a soldier, but she could not let it intimidate her.

  ‘My place at your side. I want to be a partner in this marriage. I want to make decisions with you. I do not want to be told about them post facto, as if my opinion is of no consequence. I want to know what is on your mind. I want to know about the war and your friend. You don’t have to hide these things from me.’ Pavia paused. ‘Acting as if last night didn’t happen is not acceptable to me. If we decide it didn’t happen, we are also deciding it didn’t matter. My mother tried such a tactic with my father. It only served to validate that her opinions were of no regard. She could voice them and my father was free to ignore them. So he did. By the time we returned to London, he was spending most of the year away building his business and his fortune on his own. My mother and I became of little consequence to him. That will not happen here, Cam. I will not be relegated to being a pretty plaything you take to bed when the mood strikes you.’

  ‘You are not that. Do not ever classify yourself as nothing more than a whore. You are the mother of my child.’ Cam’s voice was rough, gravelly with emotion.

  ‘It’s not me doing the classifying. You do it every time you choose not to involve me,’ Pavia replied evenly. ‘I have a right to be more than a doll, a right to be more than a vessel for carrying your children. I have a right to be my own person.’

  ‘I have a right, a duty, as your husband to protect you,’ Cam growled. ‘Why can’t you understand that?’

  And so the stalemate continued. The drive to Conall and Sofia’s was accomplished, not surprisingly, in taut silence.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Your son is beautiful. Congratulations, Conall. I am happy for you.’ Cam gave his friend a warm smile as they settled into big leather chairs in the bay window of the Everard estate office. Beyond them, in the garden, Pavia and Conall’s wife strolled the garden, the new baby in Sofia’s arms as the two cooed over it. The two women, one dark haired, the other blonde, made a fetching picture in their white summer dresses, the baby between them. Sofia passed the baby to Pavia and a vice of emotion tightened around Cam’s heart at the sight of his wife with the infant, a preview of what the future held for him. How many times would he look out his window and see Pavia with his child in her arms? Or hear her laughter as she played with a toddler in their gardens? The gardens should be in shape by the time his son was walking. It was hard to imagine, given the conditions of the gardens currently. Perhaps he’d help that along when they got back. He could make a bench for that patch of shade behind the house, where Pavia could sit and enjoy a cool afternoon on a hot summer day. He could almost see the image in his mind: Pavia with her needlework, the baby playing on a quilt at her feet.

  ‘My son is beautiful and something of a surprise.’ Conall’s gaze, too, was locked on the scene outdoors. ‘We weren’t sure Sofia could have children. There’d been none with her first husband,’ he added with a hint of hesitation. ‘Your wife is beautiful and something of a surprise as well, I think.’ Conall’s gaze turned from the window to Cam. ‘I thought your grandfather was set on Caroline Beaufort?’ he asked carefully.

  ‘We are to trade confidences, then?’ Cam smiled at Conall, understanding his disclosure about Sofia better now.

  ‘I want to understand what brings you here, Cam, after years of wandering.’

  ‘It’s not wandering, it’s military service,’ Cam corrected. ‘And I am here for the alpaca.’

  Conall laughed. ‘The question is why, old friend? You have a story to tell. What happened to Caroline Beaufort? Not that I’m sorry to see her go.’

  ‘I had different ideas.’ Those were looking like bad ideas this morning with the cloud of the quarrel hanging over him and Pavia. The bubble was definitely off the wine.

  ‘You stood up to the Old Man, finally. Good for you. It’s a love match, then?’ Conall’s audacity had no limits, it seemed. And yet, Cam found himself wanting to tell Conall everything. Conall could just look at someone and persuade them to spill their secrets.

  ‘She’s pregnant, Conall.’ Both of their gazes drifted out to the garden once more. ‘It’s a marriage of convenience.’ The words felt hollow. He’d finally recognised that during his sleepless night on the sofa. ‘Seems I was fated for one, after all. Just not one to Caroline Beaufort.’ The irony of it had struck him somewhere around three in the morning. He’d not escaped anything when he’d married Pavia, merely traded one convenience for another, only that convenience seemed rather inconvenient at the moment. No, that wasn’t fair. Pavia wasn’t inconvenient. It was the feelings his marriage roused in him, the frustrations of being wed to a stranger who wanted him to pour out his heart. That was the inconvenience.

  ‘Pregnant? I thought so. A woman has a certain look to her when she’s expecting.’ Conall paused. ‘But it’s not a love match?’

  After last night, the words were laughable. ‘My wife thinks I am an ogre.’

  ‘Oh? First fight?’ Conall chuckled. ‘Ours nearly broke us. That’s the problem with first fights. They’re intense and they’re about real issues your marriage has to deal with, but you haven’t the tools, the trust, the knowledge, to cope with them effectively.’

  Cam knit his brow. Conall’s world was perfect. He had a title, a beautiful wife, a child, the support of a loving family. The Everards had always been that. Cam had envied Conall his parents growing up. ‘But not you and Sofia.’ Conall was also extraordinarily level-headed. He couldn’t imagine his friend yelling at anyone or making irrational demands.

  ‘Oh, yes, old friend. I kept a rather large secret from Sofia and she found out. After she married me, thank goodness. She might not have gone through with it otherwise. I never meant for her to find out at all, but she did.’ He wagged an instructive finger at Cam. ‘Lesson one for today: they always find out.’

  ‘But it was different for you,’ Cam argued. ‘You and Sofia were in love.’ Love was not something he and Pavia had ever discussed. What affection existed between them had never been named. It made him doubt the early days of his optimism. Had there ever been a chance for love? For passion, certainly. Their nights, their honeymoon were proof of that. But passion was different than love.

  ‘We weren’t always in love,’ Conall confessed. ‘I think we always had “respect” but not love. I think someone’s been filling your head with tales. Frederick Tresham, maybe? He thinks everyone needs a grand romance simply because he had one.’ A brief smile flickered across Conall’s mouth before he leaned forward with a comforting hand on Cam’s leg. ‘I am sorry about Fortis. Frederick wrote to tell me you’d called on them with the news.’

  Conall rose and glanced at the clock. ‘It’s five past noon, perhaps we can a manage a drink now? I think a brandy is in order.’ He poured two glasses and returned to their chairs. Cam took the glass gratefully.

  ‘A toast.’ Conall raised his glass. ‘To weddings, to children born and unborn, to friends returned an
d those who remained behind.’

  They drank in silence, each letting the other reflect on his friendship with Fortis, Conall letting him decide how much was said. ‘I should have been able to save him. He was only feet away. I was there.’ The words tumbled out. He’d thought of those moments so often in the past ten months.

  ‘That’s a hell of a monkey to carry on your back. But you always did want to save the world. It’s in your blood, Cam. You’re a born protector.’ He paused and Cam felt the weight of his stare. ‘Is that what you and Pavia fought about? You want to protect her, but she sees it as a challenge to her freedom?’

  ‘A challenge to our marriage,’ Cam amended, surprised by his friend’s insight. ‘How did you know?’

  Conall laughed. ‘You’re not the only one with a headstrong wife.’

  Cam set aside his glass and leaned forward. ‘Pavia wants to be a partner, an equal. She wants to make decisions with me. She wants to know my thoughts, my past.’

  ‘Then let her,’ Conall broke in. ‘The marriages our parents had, even the good ones, are a thing of the past. The world is changing and the relationships between men and women will change with it.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Cam said defensively. ‘I’ve always been a proponent for change, you know that.’ It was one of the things that had brought the four of them together—he and Conall, Fortis and Sutton, these modern beliefs in equality between the sexes, the races, beliefs that weren’t always championed in their exalted circles. Men like Cam’s grandfather were eager to hold on to the old order.

  ‘Then what is it?’ Conall prodded.

  ‘If she knew who she’d really married she might not care for her husband,’ Cam confessed. ‘There are things that happened after Balaclava, things I don’t want to talk about today.’

  ‘Good. I’m not the one you should tell, at least not first,’ Conall encouraged. ‘Tell her. Her response may surprise you. She is your wife. She deserves to know her husband in all his glory, weaknesses and strengths together.’

  ‘Easier said than done,’ Cam argued. Conall was right, but Conall didn’t have to confess he’d nearly killed himself out of grief.

  Conall laughed. ‘If it was easy, Cam, everyone would do it.’ He smiled. ‘What are your plans? Are you going to go back when your leave is over?’

  ‘That depends on you. Do you want a partner of sorts in your alpaca syndicate?’ Cam held his breath. He hadn’t realised how much hinged on this decision until now; his military career, his ability to support a family through gentlemanly pursuits like quiet investments with viscounts. ‘I can’t be a full partner, don’t have the blunt for it,’ Cam confessed awkwardly. The tables were turned now. He used to be the one with full pockets back in their early days on the town. ‘Perhaps an eighth of a share?’

  ‘With your connections to the military? I’d be crazy not to take you on. We’ll have contracts for blankets in no time.’ Conall nodded out the window. ‘But don’t you think we should discuss it with them first?’

  Cam laughed for the first time since he’d come home late and ruined Pavia’s dinner. Outside, the women were still chatting and playing with the baby. ‘What do you suppose they’re talking about?’

  Conall clapped him on the shoulder. ‘That’s easy—they’re talking about us.’

  Cam grimaced. ‘And the fight?’ Conall was enjoying his discomfort too much.

  ‘Most definitely your fight. This is your Waterloo, man.’

  Cam grumbled. ‘As long as I am not Napoleon.’

  * * *

  ‘Don’t look, but the men are watching us.’ Sofia slid a knowing smile Pavia’s way. ‘Your husband is quite enchanted with the sight of you and the baby.’

  ‘Just the baby, I think.’ Pavia smiled down at the little bundle in her arms with its perfect, tiny features. Would her own child look as perfect? She would hold her child all day. She’d get nothing else done but look at it. ‘My husband’s not enchanted with me at the moment. I challenged his authority.’

  ‘I thought so. You hardly looked at one another when you arrived.’ Sofia put a consoling hand on her arm. ‘The sooner you find your way through it, the sooner you can get back to loving each other. Not that you ever stop loving, not even when you fight. I think that’s what makes the fighting hurt so much.’

  ‘We’re not in love,’ Pavia interrupted with the horrible words. ‘We never were. We were never supposed to meet, let alone marry. But we did and now I fear he will resent me long before he has an opportunity to love me.’ She used to think they had a chance at love.

  Sofia took the baby from her and smiled with maternal confidence. ‘Whatever struggles you have now will seem meaningless once he holds his child. Perhaps even sooner. Has the baby kicked yet?’

  ‘No.’ Instinctively Pavia put her hand over her stomach. ‘But I’m only three months along. A woman in the village said first babies often don’t kick until the fifth month.’

  ‘Cam will be over the moon once that happens.’ Her voice dropped confidentially. ‘But once that child kicks, it changes a man. Conall couldn’t keep his hands off my belly.’ She laughed, her eyes soft with love. ‘I had to swat them away at one point.’ She was quiet for a moment, lost in recent memory. ‘The baby will bring you closer together. Cam could never resent the mother of his child. You will see.’

  ‘And what of his wife? Shall I be nothing more than a mother for his children?’ Pavia wished she shared the other woman’s confidence. Perhaps she simply wanted too much, hoped for too much from a man she’d essentially cornered into marriage.

  ‘Pavia, you can’t bend a man like Cam Lithgow to your will overnight.’ Sofia gave a coy smile. ‘Maybe that’s what you’re really upset about. You want him to pour himself out for you, mind and soul. You want to know him instantly. These things take time. Marriages are built piece by piece over years and experiences until one day you look back and see a glorious patchwork quilt that has been your life together.’ Sofia gave a soft laugh. ‘Conall’s mother told me that.’

  ‘You are lucky to have her.’ Pavia swallowed around the lump in her throat. She was missing her mother sorely these days. She needed someone to confide in. ‘We are very much alone. The day we left London, we were so defiant, marching out of my father’s house with nothing but a trunk I’d packed and our pride. I worry every day that Cam will regret that decision.’

  ‘Do you regret it?’

  ‘No, except for what I’ve cost him. He gave up so much more than I did.’ She feared now, that despite whatever protestations he’d made to the contrary, that imbalance would hang between them for ever.

  ‘Perhaps you’d be surprised to know your husband worries about the same things, that maybe he doesn’t see it in that light, that he’s the one who has cost you. You need to tell him you have no regrets.’ Sofia rose. ‘The men are staring again. I think they’ve concluded their business.’ She gave Pavia an encouraging look. ‘We’d invite you to stay for tea, but it looks to me as if your husband is eager to get home.’

  Cam was eager to get home. Sofia’s prediction proved true. They left shortly after the men emerged from the office. But silence pervaded the drive back, neither of them sure how to begin. ‘I’m sorry we quarrelled, Cam,’ Pavia began tentatively. She’d started the fight, she had to mend this. ‘I never meant to hurt you, but I am not sorry for what I said.’

  Cam nodded. ‘Agreed. So, where does that leave us?’ Already, she could feel the tension ebbing and the part of her that had been in knots since last night began to unwind.

  ‘Two people trying to get to know one another?’ Pavia ventured.

  Cam didn’t look at her, but he smiled, just the faintest crook of his mouth. ‘Do you want to know something about me?’

  ‘Anything you want to tell me,’ Pavia answered. They were nearly home. She could see the outline of the manse in the distance.


  ‘I like to put the phrase “in bed” at the end of my sentences to make them more interesting.’

  He was teasing her. Pavia laughed. ‘Such as “two people getting to know one another in bed”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Pavia was laughing hard now and it felt good. ‘I see the merits of your game.’

  ‘In bed,’ Cam added, pulling into the drive. He helped her down from the gig, his hands lingering at her waist, his eyes smoky dark. ‘I need to put the horse away, so why don’t you go upstairs and wait for me.’

  ‘In bed?’ she whispered.

  ‘Most definitely in bed. I’ll just be a moment.’

  ‘Not in bed, I hope?’ she asked in mock horror.

  ‘Oh, no, my dear. I intend to take my time there.’

  * * *

  He would, too. Pavia knew that unequivocally. She let a delicious rill of anticipation run through her as she undressed. Bed was their safe place, the one place where they could find each other, find themselves, together. This bed, this time, would be more important than ever. Tonight, they would find their way back to a place, if not of happiness, of security, where their relationship wasn’t threatened by doubts and secrets. But first, she had a surprise or two for Cam. There were things that needed to be sorted out. In bed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Pavia was waiting for him. Cam took the steps one at a time, curbing his impatience. This would not be a rowdy, hasty coupling. This needed to be a seduction, a persuasion of the body from which persuasion of the mind might follow: to forgive, to remember the possibility of how it could be between them.

  That’s up to you, his conscience prompted. Giving yourself to her is more than the giving of your body and your worldly goods.

  Cam opened the bedroom door and nearly forgot his strategy. The air was filled with the sophisticated scent of basil and rosemary. Pavia lay curled on the bed, wearing only her hair, the long skeins of it draped over her breasts, her nipples playing peek-a-boo between heavy, silken strands, candlelight wandering over her skin creating shadows, valleys, secrets, seductions. She rolled on to the pillows and spread her legs in provocative invitation. Cam liked boldness, liked to see her experimenting with her passion and his, and it worked.