A Kind of Honor
Page 15
Adam watched her disappear then turned to his father. “Well, sir, I could use a glass of brandy. Shall we go to the library?”
“An excellent idea, Adam,” his father replied.
When they were seated before a comfortable fire, with glasses in their hands, he looked at his son and said simply, “Well?”
Adam took a sip of the brandy and stretched his feet out in front of him. “It’s good to be home,” he said contentedly.
“It’s good to have you home, but that’s not what I meant.”
The light from the fire glinted on Adam’s tanned face and amused smile. “I know what you meant, Papa. I am merely trying to collect my thoughts.”
“I see,” Lord Seaton said.
Adam took another sip of brandy and said, “I’ll begin from when I landed in Stade.” In a voice that was as crisp and neutral as if he were reporting to a superior officer, he told his father the story of what had happened in Baden.
“And that is all of it,” Adam concluded. “Nanda has agreed to an immediate wedding, and I should like to be married in the chapel here at Trenent. I thought perhaps we might send for Lady Menteith, Nanda’s mother. If both you and she are present some of the gossip will be quieted.”
“Nothing is going to quiet the speculation that will surround this marriage, my son,” Lord Seaton said with exasperation. “For God’s sake Adam, wait for half a year at least! If you marry her now, people will say you had something to do with Gacé’s death.”
Adam shrugged. “It can’t be helped, sir. We may be accused of bad taste for rushing the wedding, but that is probably all. I doubt that people will connect me to the Duc’s death. After all, we were both working for Menteith and he will be pleased with the marriage. Even if there is some gossip, it won’t go anywhere or do any damage. Everyone in London loves Nanda.”
The earl promptly came up with another objection. “Won’t her children find it a bit hard to accept, coming so soon on their father’s death?”
Adam shrugged again. “Possibly, but I doubt it.”
His son’s seeming indifference infuriated Lord Seaton. “Dammit, Adam! I’m not asking you to give her up. Just to wait for a decent period of time.”
“You don’t understand, Papa.” Now the boy sounded patient, which made the earl even angrier. “It’s not possible to wait.”
Lord Seaton was silent as he digested Adam’s words. When he understood their meaning, all he said, grimly, was “I see.”
Adam leaned forward in his chair and smiled. He looked suddenly very young. “I’m so happy, Papa,” he said. “Please be happy for me.”
At the sight of that look something shattered inside the earl. He had resented Nanda de Vaudobin bitterly, but now, as he looked at the happiness on his son’s face, a face that was usually too reserved, all his objections died.
If any doubts still lingered they disappeared when Nanda came into the big hall where the family usually gathered before dinner. Adam and the earl had been chatting quietly in front of the Beauvais tapestry when she appeared. She greeted them both in her lovely low-pitched voice, and the earl saw her exchange a brief glance with his son. It seemed to him that an invisible current had leaped between them, and from the way the rigidity went out of her back, Lord Seaton knew that reassurance had been sought and given.
If they could communicate like that with just a look, the earl thought, then there was nothing more he could decently say.
# # #
The following day Lord Seaton sent a groom to carry a letter from Nanda to her mother. Then the family settled down to pass the time until she arrived. Adam spent most of his time in the library, working on an official report for Menteith and Lord Bathurst; a private letter to Menteith had gone to London with Lieutenant Singleton. Adam also was engaged in drawing up a proposal of his own to submit to the foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh.
Adam wanted to organize an intelligence department that would set up and monitor a network of agents scattered through Europe. The sort of information that was often most useful to governments did not get passed along through diplomatic channels. It was not learned at embassies, but from the gossip of ballrooms, bedrooms, sports parlors, and social clubs. Information was as valuable as gunpowder to a nation at war; and once the war was over, a nation’s future course of action could depend on the accuracy of its judgment about past enemies and allies. Adam’s part in the peninsula war was over, but the taste of life at the Horse Guards had whetted his appetite. He wanted to run an espionage unit, and he hoped he could convince the government that it needed one.
Lord Seton was full of encouragement when his son discussed this idea with him. He thought it was a brilliant plan and said so numerous times as Adam worked on his proposal. Of course, Lord Seaton would have been thrilled with any plan that did not send his son back to the peninsula.
While Adam was toiling away in the library, the earl set about getting to know the woman his son was so set on marrying. To his surprise, he found himself liking her very much. She was a beautiful woman, but it was her other qualities that the earl came to value. For one thing, she was a devoted mother. Few mothers in the social circles in which the earl moved were personally involved with their children. They were brought to the drawing room for an hour a day, and that was sufficient for most society mamas. It was how his own children had been raised.
But Nanda’s children were a large part of her life. She knew them, knew their likes, their dislikes, their jokes, what games they liked, what books Ginny was reading, what Marc’s favorite soldier figures were. Lord Seaton remembered several times the words Adam had used to describe her: She has the kind of courage that not only gives, but gives up.
The more time he spent in Nanda’s company the more Lord Seaton understood Adam’s words. Before her husband had died she and Adam were lovers, but no one who knew Nanda would ever make the mistake of thinking her a light woman. She was a woman for whom others mattered more than she did herself, a woman whose soft, gracious manners could not conceal an inner core of integrity and stability as strong as a rock. And she loved Adam deeply. One had only to look at her face whenever she looked at him to know that.
And apparently her children loved him too. Far from being distressed about their mother’s hasty marriage, they had been delighted. Lord Seaton remembered the times when the twins had been young and Adam a lofty Etonian. He had always been endlessly patient with his little brothers, teaching them to fish, to boat and to swim during the long summer holidays. The twins still adored him, and it was obvious that Marc and Virginie adored him too. He was a man who genuinely liked children.
Lord Seaton was a man who liked children also. After they had been in residence a few days, Marc and Ginny were calling him Grandpapa. Virginie, in particular, had him wrapped around her pretty little finger.
Nanda told him he was spoiling her to death, but he only laughed. “I never had a daughter, only great, noisy boys. It gives me great pleasure to spoil a little girl.”
# # #
Nanda said the same thing to Adam. “Your father is spoiling them both to death. And when my mother gets here, it will be worse.” The amused tenderness in her eyes told him she wasn’t really concerned.
“It won’t hurt them,” he said. “In fact, I have an idea. Let’s leave the children in the custody of their adoring grandparents and take a honeymoon. Alone. Together. Just the two of us. For once.”
They were standing together in the library window and the sun was shining on Nanda’s rich brown hair. The face she turned up to him was so beautiful he had to catch his breath. “I would love that,” she said.
He picked up her hand and kissed it. She smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder. The silence of deep peace filled the room. They loved each other and in a few days they would be married. For now they were content to wait.
# # #
Lady Menteith arrived, bringing with her the outside world. Lord Seaton found her charming, and her presence made
him feel more confident about the marriage. No one, he thought, would dare to question a contract sealed in the presence of the elegant, sophisticated and utterly delightful Dowager Lady Menteith.
She kissed Adam and said, “I’m delighted to be getting such a good-looking young man into my family. We Dounes have a reputation to uphold, you know.”
He laughed as he was meant to, and the awkwardness he had expected to feel in meeting her again never materialized.
She asked no questions. One shrewd look at her daughter had told her all she needed to know about the reason for this quick marriage. She had seen that pearly sheen on Nanda’s skin once before. And if that had not decided her to acquiesce in a wedding she knew would be fodder for gossip, the happiness in Nanda’s eyes would have. Lady Menteith truly loved her daughter and had suffered bitter pangs of guilt over Nanda’s marriage to Gacé. It was a marriage she had mistakenly approved, making one of her rare errors in character judgment. The look she saw on Nanda’s face now made her heart rejoice.
# # #
They were married two mornings after Lady Menteith’s arrival, in the chapel of Trenent Castle. Nanda wore a shell pink morning dress and no jewelry except the ring Adam had given her a few days earlier. It had belonged to his mother, and now the diamonds flashed in the sun coming in from the high window as she held out her hand for him to put a plain gold band on it.
They spoke their vows in quiet, assured voices, and when the ceremony was over turned to greet their family with the gravity of people whose joy is too deep for the ordinary business of smiles or laughter. Even Marc and Virginie seemed impressed by the solemnity of the occasion and were more subdued than usual.
They left for Lord Seaton’s lodge in the Cheviot Hills immediately after a sumptuous wedding breakfast. As Adam got into the carriage beside her, Nanda gave him the first smile he had seen from her all morning. He took her hand and held it tightly. “I feel young,” she said. “I haven’t felt young in years.”
He pulled her into the hollow of his shoulder, his arm around her, his cheek on her sweet smelling hair. His own face was vivid with youth. “I know exactly what you mean, my love.” He kissed the top of her head. “But we are neither of us exactly decrepit; we still have a few years left. He lifted his head and grinned. “I can’t believe I’ve got you to myself for two whole weeks. Do you have the stamina for it?”
Her rich laugh rang out and she looked up at him. “I think I can manage.”
His eyes narrowed and he kissed her, quick and hard, then resolutely took his arm back. “If you continue to sit in such proximity, my lady, I won’t be able to wait to find out. I suggest we occupy our journey in a manner that will keep our minds off….other things.”
The corners of her mouth curved but she replied solemnly, “We could always count sheep.” She glanced over his shoulder to the flock that was grazing on the rough grass next to the road. “That occupies Marc for hours,” she added.
Their eyes met briefly and a familiar spark leaped between them. Nanda scooted over to her window and looked out. “One,” she said. “Two...”
Adam laughed, looked out his own window and began to count.
About the Author
Joan Wolf is a USA TODAY bestselling author, whose acclaimed Regency romances have earned her national recognition as a master of the genre. Her many historical and contemporary romances have been highly praised by reviewers and authors alike. Publisher's Weekly reviewed one of her novels as "historical fiction at its finest." Joan was born in New York City but has lived most of her life in Connecticut with her husband, two children and numerous pets. An avid rider and horse owner, she enjoys featuring horses in her novels.
“Joan Wolf never fails to deliver the best.”
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A KIND OF HONOR
Copyright 2016 by Joan Wolf
Table of Contents
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
About the Author
A KIND OF HONOR