by Elisa Braden
“You will fight, Robert.” His voice was as rough as his knuckles. “That is what we were made to do.”
Robert did not want to fight. His steel was not Grandfather’s steel. His hands were not Grandfather’s hands. They shared a name, a bloodline, a resemblance. But Nathaniel Conrad had been one of the youngest captains in His Majesty’s army to earn not only a promotion to lieutenant colonel but an additional title—the Marquis of Mortlock. He’d been a second son, like Robert. He’d purchased a commission at sixteen, fought in the Seven Years’ War. When his elder brother had died, Nathaniel had inherited the title Earl Conrad. And though he’d done his duty by taking a genteel wife from the “thoroughly domesticated” Northfield family and producing an heir, he’d never been anything but a soldier.
A ferocious, fearless fighter whose blood ran thick with the steel of Saxon warlords, Norman invaders, and Prussian crusaders.
Nathaniel Conrad had been a mere six-and-twenty when he’d led his men into the jaws of certain death during the Battle of Belle Isle. Previous attempts to take the French island had failed, but Captain Conrad had never been an ordinary soldier. He and his men had scaled impossible cliffs, beat back French forces into retreat, and set the stage for the siege that later claimed the island. Belle Isle was strategic territory, its proximity to mainland France making it an ideal base from which to launch future attacks. The victory had positioned England to greater advantage in the negotiations for peace with France two years later.
By then, Captain Lord Conrad’s heroism had become legend, earning even the king’s admiration. Indeed, His Majesty had bestowed a rare honor upon Earl Conrad, making him a marquis and granting him a small but coveted property near London.
Grandfather had accepted the title and the property, naturally, but he’d never worn the cloak of refinement well. He preferred the ancient stones of Rivermore Abbey to the civilized symmetry of Mortlock Manor. He preferred the title of lieutenant colonel to that of lord. And he preferred the company of the grandson who was most like him, rather than the heirs he regarded as “more Northfield than Conrad.”
For his entire life, Robert had understood his place. He was Grandfather’s boy, a living legacy. He hadn’t the ready charm of John Huxley or the fine manners of his father and elder brother. He scarcely knew which spoon to employ during the dessert course. But the outsized hands that felt oafish with a teacup gripped a sword with perfect dexterity. The warrior’s gaze that found ballroom machinations incomprehensible could predict battlefield maneuvers with little trouble.
Grandfather had it right. Robert was made for war.
He shut his eyes against the taunting square of light. Let his head float. Gritted his teeth against the pain.
The fall had broken more than his body.
He glanced briefly at his hands. They hadn’t been strong enough. Bloody hell, he hadn’t been strong enough to pull her up. Without proper leverage, he’d barely managed to swing her to the middle of the river.
She’d survived. A few bruises on her arm, scrapes on her knees, scratches on her cheeks and hands, according to Hux. But she was alive and whole. It was his only consolation. The only thing that mattered, really.
Still, rescuing Annabelle exacted costs. This one had been particularly steep.
He gripped the blanket beside his hip, the fabric of his sling. His neck and shoulders screamed through the laudanum’s haze, forcing his fists to loosen. Fists were pointless, now, weren’t they? He was useless as a broken sword.
A firm knock sounded at the door—two taps, then the twist of the knob. He didn’t need to glance up to know who it was, so he elected to keep his eyes on his hands. The sound of liquid sloshing inside glass confirmed it.
“Con. You awake?”
He raised his gaze. Still no sign of John Huxley’s ever-present grin. His best friend had come to see him several times since the accident. He hadn’t grinned once.
Huxley moved hesitantly toward the bed. The scrape of a chair being dragged closer felt like saw teeth grinding Robert’s bones.
“Brought you some relief.” The other man raised the bottle, sloshing the amber contents inside. “Later, perhaps.”
“Why do you keep coming, Hux?”
Huxley stretched to set the brandy on the table next to Robert’s laudanum. He sighed and ran a lean hand through thick hair. “I should have taken her home.”
“No.”
“She is my sister. My responsibility.”
“We argued about her. Nothing new.”
“Yes.” Huxley’s mouth twisted. “And you leapt to her defense. Nothing new there, either.”
“You had the right of it,” Robert admitted, noting his friend’s bloodshot eyes and tense jaw. “Coddling her made everything worse. My fault, not yours.”
Hux blew out a breath. For a bare moment, his mouth relaxed into a quirk of affection. “Annabelle. Ever the exasperating pest. I should have known better than to leave you both …” His voice rusted, and the flicker of amusement vanished. “Good God, Con.” He gestured sharply toward the odd apparatus the surgeon had applied—a splint that elevated and immobilized his fractured leg. Hux seemed about to speak before thinking better of it, instead hanging his head and glaring toward the brandy bottle. He strummed his jaw several times with his knuckles before speaking again. “She wants to see you.”
“No.”
“To apologize—”
“I don’t want her apologies.”
“What of mine?” Haunted hazel eyes met his. “I am sorry, Con. For … for everything that happened.”
“I don’t want your apologies, either.”
Silence fell between them like a bramble thicket.
“Very well,” Hux said after a long pause. “Be vexed at me, if it helps. Bloody hell, I’ll stand still for the thrashing you’d like to give me, once your shoulder heals. But do not deny her this.”
His head might be floating, but his gut burned. “What am I denying her?”
“She is tormented. She blames herself.”
“Blame changes nothing.” He sounded low. Mean. Bitter. But his tone was misleading, for he felt none of those things. Quite the opposite, in fact. He loved her. He always had.
“She hasn’t eaten in days. Wanders about like some phantom.” The charming, insouciant John Huxley swallowed as though he might retch—or weep. “Please, Con. Let her have her say.”
Robert closed his eyes. There, in the dark, her face appeared. White with innocent horror. Mouthing his name. Silently begging. Those deep brown eyes—Huxley brown—had always dominated the round lines of her nose and chin, giving her the look of a wild sprite crossed with a cherub. Now, he could only picture them filled with terror, remember the moment he’d known they would both fall.
He could not bear to keep reliving it—the sensation of her fingers slipping from his grip, the sickening thought that he hadn’t done enough to save her.
He blinked his eyes open, banishing the image. “Very well.”
As though aware just how close Robert was to reversing his decision, Hux rushed to the door. A moment later, he ushered her inside Robert’s bedchamber.
She had always been small. Her rounded features gave her the look of plumpness, but Lady Annabelle Huxley was as delicate as a teacup. Presently, in fact, she was the color of bone china, her lips bloodless, her eyes enormous and dark. The fiery scratch upon her jaw was the only bit of color he could see.
She stood weaving in place, her hands folded neatly. Long, white-muslin sleeves covered her arms to the wrists, so he was unable to discern the extent of the bruises he’d left upon her.
The very thought burned his stomach, dwarfing the pain of his injuries.
He dropped his gaze. This was a mistake. She was too young to witness the blackness inside him.
“R-Robert?” Her voice warbled. Muslin swished as he sensed her moving closer. When he glanced up, her bowed lips quivered and curved down.
“Say what you came to say,” he ordered softly, hoping she would leave. He could not bear this much longer.
Frantic and pooling, a brown gaze combed his immobilized leg and arm, his blackened neck and bruised eyes. Tears spilled over bone china cheeks as her delicate throat bobbed on a swallow. “I—please.” She covered a gasp. When she lowered her hand, he spotted the scabs on her palm.
Fire burned deeper, burrowing into his bones.
“I am so very sorry, Robert.” A faint sob shook her chest. She moved into the golden light cast by the lamp at his bedside. Swaying as though waves knocked her to and fro, she suddenly collapsed to her knees.
From his position in the shadows near the door, Hux rushed toward his sister, only to halt when Annabelle held up a hand and shook her head. She placed her palms upon Robert’s bed, her fingers spreading near his hip.
“I wish it had been me.” Her statement was a mere breath. But he heard. And the words detonated something inside him.
“But it was not,” he replied, scarcely able to whisper, to do the hardest thing he’d ever done.
“I beg of you, Robert.” Her voice twisted. “I beg your forgiv—”
“Do not. I shall not grant it.”
She fell silent, dark eyes searching and swimming—tormented, just as Hux had said.
It was Huxley to whom he next spoke. “Take her home.”
“Pl-please,” she sobbed. “What can I do?” Delicate fingers brushed his left wrist, the one she had gripped desperately only days before. “Let me earn your forgiveness. I shall visit every day until you are improved. I shall bring you broth from Clumberwood’s kitchen and books from Papa’s library. I shall—”
“Stop.” His guts felt like molten lead.
“—do anything you ask. Anything. Please.”
He summoned the strength he’d lacked for too many years—strength bred into him by Saxon warlords, Norman invaders, and Prussian crusaders. His grandfather had been right. He had a battle ahead, one requiring Conrad steel. Bone china teacups would never survive it—nor should they have to.
“Do you mean it?” he asked. “Anything?”
She knuckled away her tears, nodding frantically. “Anything you wish. You enjoy my drawings, do you not? I could sketch a new one each day. If you prefer, I could write letters like the ones I sent when you were away at school. At least it might offer a bit of amusement—”
“Here is what I want most, Lady Annabelle.” He forced the words from his throat. Forged them with bitter cold that was both cruel and necessary. “I wish never to set eyes upon your face again.”
He’d imagined she could not get any paler. He’d been wrong.
Her lips were gray. She swallowed reflexively. Panted like a wounded pup.
“Bloody hell, Con.” Hux’s rasp sliced through the long silence.
Robert could not let it dissuade him. He kept his eyes upon hers, held her gaze so that she could not mistake his resolve. Conrad steel must be wielded decisively. “If you truly wish my forgiveness, then you will do me the favor of removing yourself from my sight. Not merely today, but forever.”
She’d gone still. Even her breathing appeared to have stopped.
He must finish it. “If you see me on the road, you will change direction. If you hear that I might attend the fair, you will avoid the same. If I must visit Clumberwood Manor to speak with Lord Berne, you will confine yourself to an unseen chamber until I have departed.”
Her lashes fluttered. Her gaze fell.
He crooked a finger beneath her tiny, rounded chin, forcing her back to him. “Perhaps one day, you will imagine my terms must ease, that I spoke in haste at the apex of my despair, and that, in time, I shan’t mind your presence again. This, I assure you, would be an error. You have cost me my commission. You may have cost me my leg, for the surgeon doubts whether he can mend it before the rot sets in.”
She pressed her lips together. Tears were a constant stream now, but she did not look away. He should have been surprised, but Annabelle Huxley had always been braver than a girl her size had any right to be.
“Leave me now,” he said, rending something he knew would never be mended. Something precious and dangerous. “Leave me always.”
Long after John Huxley helped his sister to her feet and guided her gently out of Robert’s life, long after Robert had drained a bottle of brandy so that his head both floated and spun, he could still see her.
Every time he closed his eyes, there she was. His Bumblebee. Mouthing his name as he strangled her tiny, delicate fingers in his big, oafish paw.
Slipping from his grasp. Falling into water.
Disappearing an instant before he shattered into a million pieces.
*~*~*
CHAPTER THREE
“The benefits of feminine influence upon a man’s life are both myriad and essential. Proper meals. Motivated bathing. Decorative pillows. One supposes men are useful, too. I once had a carriage wheel that required repair, for example.”
—The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham in a letter to the Marquis of Mortlock regarding the sad state of his grandson’s attire.
*~*~*
Dearest Robert,
I saw you in the village today, outside Mr. Parnell’s smithy. You did not see me, of course. My skill at ducking into doorways and hiding behind coal carts now surpasses a pickpocket’s. You’ve grown too thin. John assures me you are improving, but I cannot bear to see you in such a state. I have asked him to ensure Rivermore’s cook prepares your favorite beefsteak every day until you are fully recovered.
I don’t know why I keep writing letters I shall never send. Talking to oneself seems the height of futility. Yet, I’ve found emptiness a far worse companion than futility. Perhaps someday, this will change. Perhaps someday, you will forgive me.
Ever yours,
Annabelle
—Letter to Robert Conrad dated August 4, 1810
*~*~*
February 8, 1816
Rivermore Abbey
“You need a wife.”
Robert wiped the back of his neck with the corner of a horse blanket and picked up the bucket near the stable’s entrance. He threw his grandfather a skeptical glower. “I asked why I should travel to London, not whether it is time to marry.”
Grandfather grunted. “Same answer to both queries.”
Sighing, Robert retrieved his cane before limping into the stable yard. The groom, a yellow-haired lad Robert had recently employed, tipped his cap and murmured, “Good day, Mr. Conrad. My lord.” The Marquis of Mortlock’s gait was even slower than Robert’s, but the boy stood at attention like a footman serving supper until they’d both passed by.
The processional was a slow one. Robert’s efforts to mend his broken body over the past seven years had been precisely the battle Grandfather had predicted—brutal, glacial, and riddled with setbacks.
In the first year, he’d fought to keep his leg. The third surgeon had agreed to allow it but warned he was likely to die from putrefaction within a sennight. A fourth doctor had given Robert crutches and told him such severe fractures rarely mended well enough to support a man’s weight. A fifth doctor had given him a cane and warned him to expect pain “like you’ve never known.”
In the second year, Grandfather had summoned Robert to his library, glared at his thinning frame and listless, unshaven face before barking, “My estate manager is leaving for York. Wants to work for his wife’s father or some such. You will take on his duties.” Robert had shaken himself out of his laudanum stupor long enough to protest, but Grandfather had cut him off with a disgusted glare. “He leaves after the harvest. I suggest you use the time wisely, my boy. You’ve much to learn.”
Robert had needed his wits, so he’d reduced his intake of laudanum. He’d needed his writing hand, so he’d fought to restore the strength in his right shoulder. He’d needed to visit Rivermore Abbey’s farms and examine its damaged fenc
es and arrange the chapel roof’s repairs. So, despite his physician’s warnings, he’d fought to strengthen his leg enough for riding.
It hadn’t gone well. The leg had healed badly and proved his fifth doctor correct. Atrophied muscles punished him with weakness during the day and excruciating pain at night. He’d sweated through horrific knots above and below his knee, nearly gagged upon his agony as, again and again, he forced his thigh muscles to lengthen, his calf muscles to limber around awkwardly mended bones.
In the third year after Robert’s accident, he’d finally worked up the courage to mount a horse again. His companion in the endeavor had been Colby, the old stable master who’d lost a leg to a Frenchman’s musket ball at Belle Isle and later followed his captain into employment at Rivermore Abbey. Colby only ever spoke to horses, but that day, as Robert sat in a saddle for the first time in three years, the old major had squinted up at him, patted his own amputated leg, and said, “Best keep yer seat. I ain’t liftin’ ye when ye fall.”
The gelding Colby had selected for him was the slowest and oldest in the stable. Methuselah’s smooth gait, heavy bones, and patient nature made riding bearable, if not pleasurable. Since then, Robert had seen little reason to change mounts. The horse might be a touch swaybacked, and yes, he occasionally fell asleep in the middle of a ride, but he was steady and loyal. Despite appearances, Methuselah had a useful life left in him.