“I confess I do not understand the first detail of military life, but your ideas must be quite brilliant if gentlemen come from Russia just to witness them.” Silk rustled and lavender wafted on the air in a delicate assault on his nostrils. “You have always been acknowledged as an outstanding horseman, Captain Esterly.”
“Please do not flatter me too much, Miss Verewood. I am told it is extremely bad for me and might well turn my head.”
God, how he longed to tear away the black band over his eyes to see the effect of his words on the girl who had quoted them to him only yesterday. Silence had descended. What were they all doing? Exchanging significant glances? Signaling that it was time to go and leave him isolated in his darkness again? Raising their eyebrows at his facetiousness?
“Will you take tea with me?” he asked in the urgent hope of keeping them there.
“I really feel…” Charity began, when Victoria cut across her refusal.
“That would be very pleasant. I am persuaded Miss Verewood must feel the benefit of some refreshment if she is to set forth in the December chill once more.”
“Stokes!” Hugo called and listened for the door to open.
“Yessir?”
“We would like tea as quickly as you can produce it.”
“Right away, sir.” The door closed again.
“There is something missing. Where are Badejos and Minden today?” asked Victoria in identifiable teasing, and Hugo knew she had dropped her guard.
He laughed. “You have heard about my dogs, have you? They are called Salamanca and Waterloo, in fact. It was probably Mama who told you of them, for she can never remember names correctly.”
“Yes, it was your mama.”
He could tell she realized how near she had come to betraying herself, for a little of the earlier warmth had gone from her merry tones.
“Are you not afraid to have two such boisterous creatures with you at this time? If they should leap at you?”
“They are intelligent beasts, Miss Verewood, who appear to know I cannot cope with their romping.”
The laugh was lifeless in contrast with Victoria’s. “You are always so loyal. I trust the animals appreciate their good fortune in having you for a master.”
“They should, for I have impressed the fact upon them often enough.”
“My brother has the same affinity with dogs that he has with horses.” Charles’s rich baritone revealed that he must be smiling. “He can persuade animals to do as he tells them immediately.”
“Ah, Charles, I am glad you use the word persuade. Therein lies the secret. When one has a shy, frightened or sensitive creature in one’s hands, force or anger only increases those tendencies.”
“So you maintain, old fellow, and I am prepared to allow that you are right, since your results are so successful.”
The tea appeared to loosen Charity’s tongue and relax her stiffness with Victoria that puzzled Hugo so much. The girl from the neighboring estate was usually so very sociable and warmhearted. But Hugo was in for a more puzzling surprise when his guests rose to depart.
The lavender perfume rustled nearer until he could feel Charity’s warmth beside him and her sweet breath on his neck.
“Goodbye, my dear Captain Esterly. My prayers will be for your complete recovery…as they have been since I first heard of the tragedy. But prayers alone will be useless. You must take very great care of yourself. Rest and quiet are essential in any illness, and I cannot approve of taxing you with the problems to be read in the newspapers these days. May I depart in the confidence that you will heed my advice?”
Charity’s voice had altered in some subtle way. He was sufficiently familiar with women to recognize the preliminary sharpening of claws before battle, but why should this girl leap out of character over Charles’s chosen bride? Having learned some hard lessons in tact where women were concerned, he smiled in what he hoped was the right direction and said, “Your concern is very comforting, dear friend. I promise to do nothing that would cause you to leave here with anxiety clouding your brow. Thank you for your visit…and the gift,” he added hastily, not being more explicit because he could not remember what it was.
A hand was lightly laid on his arm. “I will come again and promise to inform you of the latest items of local interest so that you will not feel neglected.”
“Whenever you decide to visit, Miss Verewood, I shall be happy to abandon what I am doing in order to accompany you,” said a merry voice from the center of the room. “But I must ask you to choose your items of interest with care. We do not wish to tax Hugo with inconsequential nonsense, do we?”
Hugo fought a desperate battle against laughter. So Victoria had her claws out, too. What a delightful situation. If only he could see the confrontation. There was nothing more entertaining than two of the fair sex in skirmishing order.
“I think you need not worry, my dear. Miss Verewood has had a great deal of experience with invalids.”
“But, Charles, your brother is not an invalid. I have seldom seen a gentleman in more splendid health. That he has been forbidden to use his eyes for a short while does not mean that he has a fever or will collapse with shock if he discovers yet another railway has been opened.”
“I think you have had scant experience in the sickroom, Miss Castledon. I have invariably found the patient who resists the rules takes longer to recover. Captain Esterly might put on a brave face, but it is up to his friends to show an understanding of what he is suffering.”
Good God, thought Hugo. She will have us all in tears before long! Attempting to put a strangled note into his voice, he said, “Forgive me if I remain standing no longer. One is apt to lose one’s balance after a short while.” To emphasize this he began to sway slightly.
There was an immediate rustling of skirts and sighs of concern from female throats. Charles manfully assured the ladies his brother had enjoyed their visit and was merely feeling a little tired, and they all departed, leaving Hugo free to explode with laughter as he manhandled Waterloo and Salamanca, who had been allowed in for a biscuit.
But Charles was soon back, as he had guessed he would be.
“By heaven, Hugo, that was the most infernal trick you have ever played, but it has done me more good than any of your capers so far.” Charles collapsed into a chair with a heavy grunt of laughter. “I am now fully persuaded you have come to terms with your present situation. God, man, you have had me worried these past days with your introspection.”
“It is easy to become introspective in one’s own black company. I tried hard enough to impress you with the fact.”
“Dammit, Hugo, the first time you do have visitors you stage that excruciating melodrama in order to be rid of them.”
“Only one, Charles…only one. Charity Verewood is a sweet girl, but I swear her patients must cure themselves very hastily in order to avoid a second visit from her.”
Charles laughed again, and Hugo heard the sound with pleasure. It was good to have his brother’s companionship once more. Lately, he had been creeping in and out of this room as though entering the presence of the Angel of Death.
“Your Victoria is quite charming. You have had the devil’s own luck in capturing her when she is scarcely out, I should say.”
“Have I not?” There was pride as well as humor in Charles’s voice now. “As soon as I set eyes on the latest Castledon ingénue I knew she was for me and moved in with heavy artillery. She has the most devastating way of making honest observations as if she had never been told young females do not do such things.”
“I have noticed” was the reply as Hugo forgot that Charles did not know of yesterday’s meetings.
A shout of laughter preceded his brother’s next remark. “You should have seen Charity Verewood’s face when Victoria referred to local matters as inconsequential nonsense.”
“The Verewoods believe the world revolves around Buckinghamshire.”
“Mmm. Mama has informed Victoria that she
has high hopes of your offering for Charity Verewood.”
“Has she, by George! I tell you, Charles…” Hugo flung out a hand that knocked a tea cup from the table beside him. “Hell and damnation! There, you see what a prize I would be for any woman?” The sudden return of frustration made him bitter.
“At the moment your activities are somewhat restricted, I agree, but I would swear there is many an Austrian mädchen who would vote you a splendid lover. Am I right?”
Hugo relaxed and silenced Waterloo, who was barking at the broken tea cup. “The troops over there are more concerned with the conquest of mädchen than martial skills, you know, Charles.”
He could imagine his brother’s handsome face breaking into a smile as he said, “Gentlemen after my own heart, Hugo. Who wishes to dwell on ways of cutting each other to ribbons when one can make the ladies swoon at the first sight of a handsome uniform?”
Hugo shook his head sadly. “You sound like our senior officers. They think me a madman and not infrequently tell me so.”
“And they are right. We are keeping the peace in England and the Empire, adding color and visual attraction to ceremonials and ensuring that the female population is happy and contented. Would you wish us to rush off to have at some fellow’s throat just to show how fierce we are? Come, Hugo, it is an obsession with you. The world has never been more settled and at peace.”
“But for how long? I tell you, the day will come when we shall all be dying for the want of an army.”
“All right, all right.” He heard the note of impatience in Charles’s voice. “When that day comes, you have my permission to remind me of those words.”
“General Kingsworth said the same to me only last month.”
“You see? He is a shrewd military leader with fifteen years’ experience in the East Indies. He also played no mean part at Waterloo. You, on the other hand, have experienced nothing by way of aggression other than controlling a small mob of factory rioters. Are you qualified to speak on the subject?”
“No, damn you, that is just my point.” He brought his hand down on the chair arm and half missed it. “When trouble starts, men like Kingsworth will be too old for the job, and who is to take over from them? No, I am not qualified on the subject, but I should be — we all should be!”
“If you continue in that mood I shall call Miss Verewood back. I doubt she has yet left the house.”
Hugo had to surrender. “You have found the perfect threat with which to silence me. Her sympathy makes me feel a hundred times worse.” He sighed. “Can you guess what it is like, Charles? I cannot wait for the doctor to arrive on the twenty-eighth, yet I fear the moment. The temptation to lift this damned blindfold overcomes me at least six times every day.”
The squeak of the chair signified that his brother was about to leave. A hand gripped his shoulder. “Bear it for a few days longer. The worst is over, old fellow.” His parting shot was meant to lighten the atmosphere. “If you are Charles’s voice. When that day comes, you have my perence will stand you in good stead. Adieu. I’ll look in again before retiring.”
***
When Charles arrived shortly before the dinner gong that night, Victoria was waiting in triumphant mood, and when he told her he had returned to the sickroom and found the patient not too exhausted, she seemed amused. Looking up at him with dark velvet eyes, she said, “Of course he was not exhausted. It was quite plain to me that he could bear no more of Miss Verewood’s platitudes on ill-health — and I cannot say I blame him, for she is most dreadfully prissy and not at all the right company for someone who is so despondent. I am quite put out that she was permitted to visit him immediately upon calling, when I have been denied the pleasure of meeting my own brother for so long.” Her lashes lowered provocatively. “Has she ever thought of entering a nunnery? She looks so very like a Sister of Mercy.”
Charles regarded her with delighted astonishment for several seconds, then burst into laughter. “That is an outrageous thing to say. Please do not repeat it to Mama.”
“Naturally I shall not, for Miss Verewood is such a favorite with her…and, I thought, with you all.”
He reached for her hand and took it to his lips. “You are my only favorite, Victoria. I am at your feet, as I never was at hers.”
“Thank you, Charles,” she said, moving quickly because the deep look was suddenly in his eyes. “Come, we shall be late, and your mama will not forgive us.”
The next three days passed in a happy state. There were rides with Charles, a morning visit to the rector to make arrangements for the wedding service, excursions into the gardens to gather foliage and flowers to decorate the rooms. The indoor hours were spent writing letters, wrapping gifts and painting cards to go with the presents. And there were twice daily visits to Hugo. She loved the time spent in Hugo’s apartment, talking to him as the older brother she had never had and playing with the dogs to whom she was devoted.
One afternoon Victoria tripped through the Mirror Room, humming to herself and bursting with the happiness of youth. At the Verewoods’ ball the night before, the gentlemen had flocked around her, leaving Charity filled with chagrin…and no wonder, since her own gown of white lace had made the Sister of Mercy look quite dowdy in lavender silk cut in last year’s fashion.
Victoria had discovered that her relationships with gentlemen were much more interesting and satisfactory than those with other women, and here was another example. The girl might have the whole of Buckinghamshire commending her goodness and mercy, but Victoria was not taken in. The fact that Charity had been allowed to visit Hugo on her first application, when she had been denied, rankled still, but she hugged to herself the secret meeting about which the girl with the doll-blue eyes knew nothing. Beneath that sweet exterior there was a sharpness Victoria could not like — and if the girl imagined she would capture Hugo with potted meat and remonstrations she was a great deal sillier than she should be at twenty.
With that thought putting a smug smile on her face, she knocked and waited for Stokes to admit her.
“Good afternoon, Miss Castledon. Thank the Lord you’ve arrived. The captain is in a rare old mood, I can tell you. Threatening to tear off that there bandage and I don’t know what, he is. I can’t do nothing with him, straight I can’t.”
“Goodness!” She hurried in, brusquely restraining the dogs, who leaped all over her. Hugo was standing by the window with his back to her, gripping the brocade curtain with his long fingers. She marched right up to him and squeezed between him and the window sill.
“So this is the way you thank me for bringing Aunt Sophy to see you! Have you any idea how difficult it was trying to sort you both out? Do I not deserve a face full of smiles at least?”
“Yes, you do, my dear sister. You deserve a great deal more than that, and I am an ungrateful brute. Does that satisfy you?”
It was said with quiet desperation, and she realized immediately that he was beyond teasing out of his bad temper.
“Nothing will satisfy me until I hear the reason for this, Hugo. I am not Miss Verewood, nor your mama who will not come to visit you because she pretends a dislike of sickrooms — as if you were lying covered in measles spots in an atmosphere of vapors and medicaments. And I am not Lord Blythe, who has enough on his mind with the estate. Lastly, I am not Charles, whom you would not wish to think you unmanly. I am Victoria, your sister, who will listen to anything you have to say.”
He made no response, so she went on. “Aunt Almeira says that ladies cannot have gentlemen friends, only admirers. I cannot agree. I have many friends back in the regiment, and you are my very best friend. Have we not discussed your new cavalry tactics and my wish to become patroness of the Hussars? Did we not discover we are both orphans? Have we not shared a secret about our first meeting? Have I…have I really not earned the right to be your sincere friend?”
“Please, Victoria,” he groaned in protest. “Without your company I should have reached this stage long ago. You know ho
w dependent I have become on your visits — how much of a friend you have been.”
“Well, am I not still?”
He pummeled the sill with his clenched fists. “I knocked my luncheon completely into my lap just now. You have no notion how I felt knowing I could not even clean myself up. The dogs rushed at me, and I struck them. That will tell you how angry I am. I cannot reach for a glass of wine or cup of tea when you are here without praying I shall not smash it; I cannot shake a man’s hand without wondering if I shall not poke him in the chest instead; cannot see the view from the window, the glow of the dogs’ coats, the time of day, the fire that warms me, the pictures on my wall. Dammit, I don’t even know what you look like. I have been spending so much time in your company, yet I speak into darkness to a voice that belongs to nothing I recognize.” These last words were said in raised tones, and Victoria decided to interrupt before he went on.
“That is a simple problem to solve. I have dark hair in curls below my ears, brown eyes and am dressed in a blue silk gown with slippers to match — quite plain because your mama dislikes over-ornamentation, I have been told.” She took his arms and turned him back into the room. “You may know how tall I am by measuring, thus.” Carefully raising one of his arms until it was outstretched onto the top of her head, she added, “I wish I were taller, for a patroness should be elegant. I am sure to be dubbed ‘Tiny Lady Blythe’ by officers and men alike.”
Still holding his hand, she pulled him across to the sturdy table beside his desk. “I have seen this chess set every day and wondered how well you play. I do not see why I should not discover the answer. Sit down and take red. I warn you that I am most likely to win, for my uncle taught me several years ago after I had become fascinated by his lovely ivory set.”
Reluctantly Hugo allowed her to push him into a chair. “Victoria, if ever you become patroness of my regiment they will rue the day. Your strict discipline will be worse than any they suffer from colonels. I cannot conceive how you propose we shall play chess, but knowing you I am certain you will accomplish it.”
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