One Night with the Major

by Bronwyn Scott

  Cam dressed quickly and silently in his uniform and gathered his shaving kit and essentials. It was all he needed to take with him. Everything he needed to return to duty waited for him in London. But everything he wanted was in this room. He risked a last glance at the bed where she slept, dark hair spread on a white pillow. Even after he’d dressed, the urge to undress and take her again thrummed through him with unwelcome persistence. He summoned the strength of his perseverance. It was best to be off now, while she slept. When she woke she would have what she wanted. He would be gone. She could start over and he would simply find a way to keep going.

  * * *

  Cam was gone. There was an emptiness in the room that could be felt long before she opened her eyes. She’d dreamed of hoofbeats fading in the distance. Perhaps those had been real. She had missed him! Pavia’s eyes flew open, her body shaking off the shackles of sleep in a sudden upright surge, a wave of panic and regret swept her. She’d not meant for him to leave without saying goodbye. She glanced about the room, her eyes falling on her little kit of oils. She hadn’t mixed any for him! She’d meant to do it in the morning, to have them ready for him at breakfast as a last gift and now it was too late. He should have woken her.

  But he hadn’t. Had he not wanted to say goodbye? Was he that anxious to be on the road? To be away from all of this? From her? He’d been saying goodbye all night and she had, too, with their bodies. What did it matter if they said the words now? It could hardly change anything, nor should it. She took her thoughts fiercely in hand. This was what she wanted for him because it was what he wanted for himself, what he deserved. He deserved to go search for his friend. He deserved to be set free from this honour-sprung trap of marriage now that there was no honour to preserve.

  Downstairs, she heard the arrival of Mrs Bran, the heavy thunk of a cast-iron skillet. Soon afterwards, the scent of frying bacon wafted up to her. Cam’s favourite and a reminder of all that needed to be done today. There would be people to tell, explanations to be made, starting with Mrs Bran.

  Already, Pavia started to concoct her story. She would have to let everyone know the Major had been called back to duty a few weeks earlier than expected. She would have to pretend it didn’t matter. What was two weeks when it was bound to happen anyway? She’d have to close up the house and pretend she was excited to follow him to London. It was mostly true. She was going to London, but not to follow him there. Yet the lie was necessary. Mrs Bran would never believe she was going to stay with family, not after the last scene with her father. There was a time when Pavia wouldn’t have believed it either. She dressed and went downstairs to face the future.

  * * *

  Staying busy was her saving grace throughout the week, otherwise Pavia was certain she’d have spent the days in tears. Packing up the house was akin to laying a loved one out for a funeral, preparing for a final goodbye. Everywhere she looked in the house there were reminders of Cam. In the dining room, where she attempted to eat breakfast but failed, it was the rosewood table. In the kitchen, where she told Mrs Bran of the sudden change in plans, it was the butcher block where they’d made love. In her sitting room, it was the fireplace and the stories he’d told her of snuggling there in an old chair with Aunt Lily. Even the garden was a reminder of him. There was no escaping him. His mark was indelibly etched on this home. She hoped leaving it would ease the sense of loss.

  The bedroom was the worst. She’d saved it for last, for just that reason. It was not the bed and the countless memories there, or the memory of how the room had first appeared to her that dark night of her arrival, that drew her tears, but his clothes. They smelled of him. She could remember each time he’d worn them: the shirt from the house-warming, his riding clothes. All of them held memories. And he’d left them. He would not need them where he was going. It seemed the perfect divide between their life here and his ‘real life’ in the military. He’d left them behind as assuredly as he’d left her behind. Pavia shook out a shirt and folded it. She would pack them and send them to London, to his grandfather’s. Mrs Bran would find it odd to have them left behind. And, Pavia reasoned, Cam would need them when he returned to England.

  He would return. She couldn’t think otherwise. Last night’s discussion over supper had nearly undone her. She couldn’t bear to think of him dying so far from home. If he did, that would be her fault, too. She’d sent him away, thinking to do right by him. What if she was wrong? What if she was sending him to his death instead?

  Mrs Bran poked her head into the room. ‘I think everything is done. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to stay tonight?’

  Pavia summoned a smile. ‘No, I’ll be fine and there’s no need to come in the morning. I’ll have the stable boy drive me in the gig and I’ll be gone early.’

  ‘Well, then...’ Mrs Bran humphed, emotion catching up with the older woman ‘...I won’t say goodbye, because you’ll be back when the Major’s tour is over and we’ll be pulling the covers off all the furniture soon enough.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Mrs Bran. Thank you. I’ll walk you out.’

  Downstairs was ghostly, even more so once Pavia had seen Mrs Bran off. The hutch that had held her mismatched dishes was empty. The furniture cloaked in holland covers, looking like spectres themselves. Pavia trailed a hand over the white sheets. Most unnerving, though, was the speed at which it had all been accomplished. It had only taken a week to dismantle all she and Cam had built here. It might have been accomplished more quickly, but she’d wanted to linger. Perhaps she hadn’t quite given up hope that she’d hear his horse in the drive, that he would return. But this wasn’t a fairy tale.

  Pavia looked about the house. She’d been right. This house held no trace of the Lithgows having been here. They were already vanishing. Cam was gone, the house was closed. Tomorrow, the gig and horses would be taken to the livery for care and keeping after she was dropped off in Taunton for the train. The barn would be empty; the house would be deserted. By tomorrow, the Lithgows of Little Trull would vanish completely.

  * * *

  Pavia Honeysett was home. Within moments of raising the wood-carved jaguar-head knocker on the town house, she was surrounded by servants; one to take her bag, one to see to her trunks down at Paddington Station, one to pull her a bath, another to set out tea, one to tell her father.

  ‘Ah, Pavia! You’re back.’ Her father held out his arms in an expansive, welcoming gesture as if she were returned from a holiday. There was no trace of the acrimony that had marked their previous visit. ‘Your mother is out shopping, but she will be thrilled. Shall I send a messenger for her?’

  ‘No.’ Pavia’s smile was polite but cool. ‘You and I have business to discuss first.’

  ‘This way, then, darling girl, we can do it over tea out the back.’ It was her father’s rendition of the prodigal’s return. Tea was laid out in a splendour of cakes and biscuits amid her mother’s fine china on a table overlooking the expansive Honeysett town garden with its well-manicured grasses, red roses and pristine, weed-free paths. Her garden in Little Trull paled by comparison, yet part of her cried out there’d was no other place she’d rather be than on her little bench in that garden.

  ‘Is our second cup of tea too early for business?’ her father asked congenially, reaching for another cake.

  ‘No, not at all.’ She was surprised he’d waited that long. Perhaps he’d learned not to rush her, or perhaps he guessed this would not be an easy discussion. ‘As you may have deduced, I have lost the baby. It happened shortly after your visit, in fact. Now, I want to discuss India. I would like to take you up on your offer to spend a few years away. I’d like to leave as soon as possible.’

  ‘Leave? You just got here.’ Her father gave a friendly laugh, but it didn’t ring true. None of this rang true: the amiable greeting, the tea in the garden instead of meeting in his office. He leaned forward, conspiratorially. ‘Now that there is no baby to worry about, wh
y leave at all? Why not stay and enjoy society?’

  ‘I like it there,’ Pavia argued.

  ‘It’s hot.’

  ‘My uncle’s palaces are in the hills and full of cool breezes.’ And waterfalls, like the one outside the village in Little Trull. She couldn’t afford to think about that now or she would lose her courage.

  ‘It’s dangerous. Tigers, cobras, all nature of stinging deadly bugs.’ None as lethal as the man sitting across from her.

  ‘You offered me a deal. I want to go.’ Pavia returned the conversation to its original import, but she had a dreadful sense of foreboding about this. Had the offer been real or merely a trap to lure her back to town? Away from Cam? Not that the last mattered at this point.

  ‘Lithgow has left you, hasn’t he?’ Her father’s eyes were sharp now. ‘Aylsbury must have got to him, after all, not that there was any doubt. It was only a matter of when.’

  ‘He has been recalled to duty, that is all.’ Pavia stiffened. ‘I will not have him maligned in my presence. He is a good man who has been sorely used.’

  ‘And yet you want to leave him?’ her father prodded.

  ‘It’s what is best for him. Without the child, the marriage was a mistake.’ But she misunderstood what her father had meant by ‘leave’. What she had meant to imply temporarily, her father meant as permanent.

  ‘I’m glad to hear you say that, Daughter.’ He winked. ‘I know someone else who will be glad to hear you’re back in town. The Marquis has been missing you.’ He waved a hand. ‘We told him you were rusticating in the country for a while. He was very disappointed to hear that you’d left.’

  Pavia pulled her hand away, appalled at the suggestion. ‘You courted the Marquis on my behalf? I was married, Father, and pregnant, at least then.’ More than that, he’d made plans for her. He wasn’t going to wait for three years before trying again at a title.

  ‘The marriage is nothing. I thought I explained myself in Little Trull. Aylsbury and I will have it annulled immediately.’ He patted her hand. ‘Everything will be fine in a few days and you’ll be free to marry the Marquis. With a special licence, we can do it before the Season ends.’ He offered a benevolent, patronising smile as panic welled within her. This was the source of his good mood. He’d already bartered her off, hedged his bets as it were.

  Pavia thought quickly. She rose and set down her napkin. ‘Cam and I do not wish to have the marriage annulled.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Her father’s dark gaze was impenetrable as he struck a match on the sole of his shoe and lit a cigar. Did he believe her? ‘Perhaps I should ask the Major himself. I hear Lithgow is in town, preparing for the Crimea. Word at the clubs is that he’s requested to have his tour extended.’

  That boded ill for her. He couldn’t wait to get away and stay away, apparently. ‘We need some time to readjust after the loss of our child and he needs time to sort through his options with his military career. Everything has been so sudden.’ It was a bald-faced lie, but it was the only bluff she had. As long as she was married to Cam, she had her freedom. She could not be bartered off.

  ‘Then that’s what I’ll ask the Major when I meet with him.’ Her father blew out a satisfied smoke ring. ‘I can’t have him abandoning my daughter like Tresham did with his wife. It would have been better to cut her loose than to leave her hanging on alone for years.’

  Pavia schooled her features to show none of her inner turmoil. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I would like to lie down and rest before Mother comes home.’ She had to get to Cam first and beg him to corroborate her lie. Without his protection, she was trapped, traded off into another marriage. To a man who wasn’t Cam. By the time she reached the top of the stairs, her initial reaction had ebbed, replaced by the new reality of her life. She could not run to Cam and assume he’d be her bulwark. She’d pushed him away, told him there was no reason to be together. All for his own good, but now for her own good, she needed him back and she didn’t know if he would come. Perhaps this time, she’d lost him for good and the realisation sickened her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The note came for him in the midst of a bustling late afternoon at White’s as Cam sat over drinks with the Duke of Cowden, discussing how to proceed with the Fortis situation. ‘Probably just more orders from Raglan.’ Cam took the note and the interruption from the footman good naturedly. The week had been peppered with interruptions like this one, full of excited notes from headquarters over the development and the possibility of bringing home a duke’s son.

  ‘I hear there’s talk of a promotion for you,’ Cowden put in as Cam unfolded the paper. ‘For valour and persistence in the field. Some are even calling for a title.’

  ‘It’s just talk at this point.’ Cam shrugged. Those same people had also called for his being sent home when that persistence had proven inconvenient and embarrassing to them. People were fickle creatures, changing with the wind. He looked down at the note, his nonchalance turning into something more complex, elation and anger rolled into a complicated combination of emotions. Pavia needed help. More specifically, Pavia needed him.

  ‘Not bad news, I hope?’ Cowden stilled, his features paling. Cam blamed himself for the fear suddenly scrawled across the older man’s face. He needed to be more careful with his own emotions, always remembering that, to Cowden, ‘bad news’ could only be about Fortis, another hope dashed, another reminder that Fortis was dead and nothing was going to change that. He knew too well the hills and valleys the Treshams had been through since October. He’d crested those emotional hills himself.

  ‘Nothing, Your Grace. I am sorry to have disturbed you.’ Cam folded the paper and put in his pocket, but not out of mind. She was here, in London, and already in trouble. Part of him, the instinctive part, wanted to run to her, wanted to walk out of White’s and go to her side. But another part of him, the part that was still reeling from their separation, cautioned against such impetuosity. She’d cast him off. She’d shunned their marriage. She needed to look elsewhere for assistance.

  ‘You’re a thousand miles from here, Camden. If I were a betting man, I’d say it was something to do with your orders. Eager, are you, to be back with your troops?’ Cowden chuckled confidentially. ‘Or are you wishing you were back in Little Trull with your new wife?’

  The surprise was enough to draw Cam back to the present. ‘How do you know about that?’ So much for his grandfather’s theory the marriage was invisible.

  The Duke shrugged. ‘I hear things.’

  ‘From whom?’ How widespread was this knowledge?

  The Duke laughed. ‘From Conall, of course. He wrote and told me about your partnership. He also mentioned you’d brought your lovely wife to visit.’ Cowden’s eyes softened. ‘He told me about your loss as well. I am sorry, dear boy.’ He reached out a fatherly hand and placed it over Cam’s. ‘Since you won’t say anything on the subject, I will. Is this really the best time for you to go back to Balaclava?’

  ‘There’s no question of that,’ Cam answered resolutely. ‘My leave is up in a couple of weeks. My duty here is done. My men are waiting and Fortis needs me. I owe Fortis to be underway as soon as possible. And you.’

  The Duke scowled. ‘There will be no talk of owing. You owe us nothing. We don’t even know that the man in question is Fortis. You could be haring back for another wild goose chase. I can send Ferris. He can go.’ The Duke sat back in the tall leather chair and signalled for another round of drinks.

  ‘There’s a reason young couples go on a honeymoon. It’s to give them time to become accustomed to one another, to the rhythms of living together. It’s been barely five months for you and your bride. That’s hardly enough time for you to know one another, let alone to weather loss and yet you’ve had to do both under a cloud of uncertainty and a decided lack of support from your families.’ Cowden raised his eyebrows meaningfully. ‘It’s no wonder that you’re here and
she’s there and soon the Crimea and months apart will be between you.’ He tapped his finger on the table, giving Cam time to think as fresh drinks were delivered. When the footman left, Cowden said, ‘I wouldn’t go if I were you.’

  That was pretty blunt. ‘We need time, Your Grace.’ It was the lie he’d told himself all the way to London. They needed time. Pavia needed space. He would find her after the business with Fortis was over and things would be different. They’d have a second chance. He’d convince her he loved her. That had been his mistake. He’d not told her he loved her when he should have. He’d assumed she’d known. When he had told her, it had been too late. She saw the words as patchwork done in haste. She’d only sent him away because she understood his loyalty to Fortis and because she felt she’d trapped him in a life not of his choosing. That was when he was feeling charitable. Other times, he was brutally honest with himself. All the time and space in the world wouldn’t change the fact that she wouldn’t have chosen him if she hadn’t been desperate.

  Cam tossed back his drink. She was desperate again. The note proved his more brutal thoughts were right. She’d written out of desperation. Otherwise, she’d not have turned to him. Just as she would not have turned to him the first time.

  ‘You’re the not the first man driven to drink over a woman.’ Cowden eyed the disappearing drink with mild disapproval. ‘I would have thought you’d learned a little something from Fortis, though. He left when things became difficult with Avaline.’ He sighed and spread his hands wide. ‘I don’t know what things. He never said. But he left, thinking time and distance would solve their problems. In a way it did. They never saw one another again. The longer they were apart, the less inclined they were to retrieve their relationship. Is your marriage not worth fighting for, Cam?’