Chapter 17
By the time Elijah rode into Chearsley, he was bitter. Bitterly cold. Bitterly frustrated. And bitterly desperate to find Joanna.
He had never felt such relief as when Father Franklin told them that Caroline, Thatcher, and Joanna had been to the church and were currently on their way to Aylesbury, but then the vicar had mentioned Gretna Green and Elijah became worried all over again. He could only hope he had made it in time.
When he arrived in Aylesbury, after feeling the fool when he had to ask for directions as he had forgotten just how to get there, he knew he would have no choice but to stay overnight unless he left his horse and hired another. But at this point, he would have to determine just where his next stop was, if one was required, before rushing off to chase them down once more.
He stepped into the inn, weary, cold, and at war over whether his first drink should be whisky or a hot coffee.
Whiskey, he decided, as he secured a room for himself and asked if the innkeeper had seen three people matching the descriptions he provided.
When the man pointed to the dining room, Elijah didn’t know whether to weep in relief or rage in frustration.
Then there they were, Caroline and Thatcher sitting at a table at the far side of the inn, close to the fireplace, huddled together as they ate. They didn’t even notice him until he stood right beside them, arms crossed over his chest.
“Elijah!” Caroline finally exclaimed, jumping back and out of her chair. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” he repeated dryly. “Caro, what do you think I am doing here? Did you really think you could leave for an entire day and no one would notice?”
He didn’t tell her that it was actually Thatcher’s disappearance that had first come to everyone’s attention.
“Eli,” she said, her voice gentling. “I’m sorry. I never meant to leave you all in panic. I truly didn’t think anyone would even realize—”
“Where’s Joanna?” he asked, unable to allow her to finish, and Caroline’s eyes widened. He wondered if he had ever taken such a tone with her before.
“Her whereabouts seem to matter to you,” Caroline said instead, her words careful, measured, observant, and Elijah gritted his teeth to keep from speaking out toward her.
“Where is she, Caro?”
“She’s upstairs,” Caroline said, guilt now crossing over her face. “She has her own room and had to warm up after the journey. She was so cold. I forgot how cold she always gets. I really shouldn’t have asked her to come. I—”
But before Caroline could say anything else, Elijah had turned away from her and was beginning to exit the dining room.
“Elijah!” Caroline called out, and he stopped and waited for her response. He would give her a moment, but nothing more. “Before you go, I have to tell you — we are going to Gretna Green. We will be leaving on the stagecoach at first light. It is not up for discussion.”
She held herself rigidly, determinedly, with Thatcher at her side, holding her hand in support of her. The look Thatcher bestowed upon her was one filled with such love and admiration that Elijah knew right then that neither he nor anything or anyone else could ever come between them.
He knew something else, too. It was a look that described exactly what he was feeling for another.
“Very well, Caro,” he said with a nod. “I only ask that you travel safely, be careful, and when you return to England, be sure to visit.”
He surprised her by closing the distance between them, crushing her into an embrace and then shaking a shocked Thatcher’s hand. He grinned at them, and then turned and all but sprinted toward the stairs.
* * *
Joanna wondered if she would ever be warm again.
The fire blazed before her as she sat, covered in every threadbare blanket the room had to offer. Unfortunately, her own pelisse and cloak were not exactly made for the harshest weather, and even bundled in it all she shivered. She took a sip of the strong coffee she had requested to be brought up to her room. Caroline had urged her to dine with them, but Joanna could sense that the two of them required time alone, and so she had given it to them. She would return downstairs later on and wish them farewell.
A tear pricked her eye at the thought of her friend leaving. She might be back, true, but she also might not. Caroline and Thatcher could end up anywhere — wherever the two of them might find work and a place to live. Joanna sighed at the thought, hoping that they might consider making London their home.
That idea, at least, cheered her.
She was so lost in her musings that she jumped at the quick rap on the door, trying to hurry toward it but getting caught up in all of the blankets that covered her.
“One moment!” she called out, but then the door opened of its own accord.
In stepped Elijah.
“You should lock your door,” he said, standing there in the entrance, looking down at her with some strange expression on his face that she couldn’t quite place.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone to let themselves in.”
“You never know what a man might do.”
“No, I suppose I don’t.”
As they bantered, she was attempting to extricate herself from all of the material enveloping her, but then finally Elijah either noticed or took pity on her — she couldn’t be entirely sure which — and crossed over to her.
“Here,” he muttered, “let me help you.”
Finally she stood unrestricted before him, and his eyes raked over her.
“Why are you wearing your outerwear?” he asked.
“Because,” she said with a small shiver, “I’m cold.”
“Oh, Joanna,” he said, the tension seemingly draining from him as he closed his eyes for a moment. “Thank goodness.”
“Thank goodness?”
“I was so worried,” he said, rubbing at his temple. “We didn’t know where you were. I searched everywhere, trying to find you. I—”
He stopped talking then, crossing to her and then crushing her in his embrace. She closed her eyes and allowed him to hold her, to take away all of the worry, all of the guilt that she herself had been feeling.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he murmured into the crook of her neck. “I would have come. I would have helped. I would have—”
“I’m sorry,” she said, breathing in the scent of the winter air mixed with his own masculine musk. “After what you said about Thatcher, I thought you might try to stop Caroline. She was so adamant that no one in her family know until after the marriage occurred, and while I knew I was betraying you, to tell you would betray her trust in me. Maybe… maybe if you hadn’t seemed so against a marriage to someone below your class, it would have been different.”
He tensed at that, and she understood he might be somewhat insulted, but she had to tell him how she felt. And it was the truth.
He stepped back from her, although he kept his hands on her shoulders as he looked deeply into her eyes.
“I know I said that, Joanna. I did. And I’m sorry. I never meant it like that.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Well, maybe I did, but what most concerned me was the thought of Caroline, a woman who has never known hard work, married to a servant of our house. She will face a life unlike anything she has ever known before. I was worried that she wouldn’t understand, that she wasn’t ready for it. But I was wrong.”
Joanna searched his face, trying to determine if he truly meant the words, or if he was just saying them to right his previous wrong.
“Do you know how I know?”
She hoped she did, but she couldn’t be sure. She shook her head, just to make him say it.
“I know because of how I feel about you. You are far from a servant, yes, but you were also not raised as part of the ton. I find myself, however, not overly caring. It’s not a life that I strive toward. I have my own life now, can sell my commission, and I can do with it what I will.”
A flicker of hope began to burn in her chest, but she didn’t allow it to take flame. Not yet.
“You would go against your family to be with me? As Caroline did?”
He reached out and traced a finger down her cheek, and she couldn’t help but nuzzle her chin into his hand.
“I find myself willing to do anything for you,” he said softly but intently. “I know I was beastly to you, Joanna, I was. But,” he closed his eyes tightly for a moment as he took a breath, and as much as she wanted to hear what he had to say next, she interrupted him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. No,” he sighed, “just a headache.”
She now placed her hands on his shoulders and steered him over to the bed.
“Sit,” she said before crossing to the washbasin and rinsing a rag in water. She placed it on his forehead. “Now,” she said softly, “tell me what happened to you.”
He looked up at her, his brown, full eyes meeting hers, flickering for a moment as the navy ring around them gleamed.
“I’m just frustrated. And a little tired.”
She tried not to smile at his attempt to skirt her question.
“You know I don’t mean what happened to you today.”
He sighed, closing his eyes and lying back on the bed. She lifted a blanket from the floor, wrapping it around her shoulders as she sat down next to him.
“It’s not much of a story, really. It was during the battle at Salamanca. I must have taken a blow to the head, but to be honest, I can’t remember it actually happening. When I came to, the battle was nearly over, and I was lying there in the middle of the filth and blood and — but you don’t need to hear that.”
“It’s fine.”
It did hurt her to hear it, to think of him lying there, all alone, hurt, left for dead. But she needed to hear it. Needed to understand what had led him to becoming the man he was today rather than the boy she had known — or the boy she thought she had known.
“I was a bit confused, unsure of where I was or what I was doing there. Eventually a man from my company found me and led me back. When I couldn’t remember what I was doing there or anything much from one day to the next, they sent me to a recovery hospital in Portugal. I slowly improved to the point where they sent me home.”
He stopped, looking off toward the dirty window, as though he could see beyond it, back to the battle.
“Why did you go?” she asked softly. She had wondered since Caroline had first told her that his father had purchased a commission. It didn’t seem typical of Elijah, and while he had proven himself, she was still curious. Had she so misjudged him?
He looked down at his hands.
“It was actually Alex’s idea,” he said with a wry smile. “He said it was something we would do together. He told me that I should ask my father to pay for my commission first, said it would warm him to the idea. I thought he was being generous. But then when it was his turn—”
“He reneged,” Joanna finished for him, and he nodded.
“He said he wasn’t fit for war. I couldn’t go back on my request. It was the first time my father had ever actually seemed somewhat proud of me.”
Joanna swallowed, compassion filling her for the young man who had only ever wanted his family’s admiration. Who still did.
“Did you tell your family about what happened to you?” she asked gently.
“Not about the memory loss. Just that I had a head injury.”
“That’s why you didn’t remember much when we first… met,” she said, unable to help her grin.
He nodded in return. “My memory is getting better — slowly,” he said. “I recognize people, but sometimes can’t remember their names, for example. I know what I want to say, but sometimes I cannot quite remember the word and its correct meaning. But it’s the little things I often forget. When to arrive at places, what I’m supposed to do from one day to the next. Luckily I don’t have much responsibility so it doesn’t make much difference. Everyone just assumes I’m being my usual self.”
“Why don’t you tell them?” she asked.
He paused, staring at her.
“It would make me out to be… weak. My brothers… well Baxter is the heir so it doesn’t much matter what he does. And Alex… Alex is complicated.”
“In what way?”
“He’s always been good to me, I think. We are as close as can be. But sometimes I wonder about all the trouble I used to get into, and how much of it was my own doing and how much he orchestrated.”
“Why would he do that?”
“For fun, I suppose. A bit of sport.”
“Doesn’t seem sporting to me,” Joanna mumbled, but she began to think on her previous Christmases with the family, remembering instances in which Alex and Elijah had played a practical joke. Elijah was usually behind the scheme, but the intent could be questioned. If Elijah was always trying to do as his older brother wanted him to, then she could see how much of it might not have entirely been Elijah’s fault.
“And now?” she asked softly.
He shrugged. “Now I’ll likely move somewhere away from the family. Live off my commission or half-pay from the army.”
“What will you do?”
He ran his hands over his face.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I’m not good for much. But I’m also not much of a gambler, nor do I have any interest in the clubs or society events. Unless…”
He had the vulnerability to blush, and it was so endearing that Joanna nearly leaned over and kissed him.
“…I can make it a bit more interesting.”
“With a prank or two.”
He nodded with some remorse. “Yes,” he said.
“So, what would you like to do?” she asked, leaning in. “The world is now open to you.”
“Well…” he looked down at his hands, and she realized that whatever it was he refused to say he found somewhat embarrassing, “there is something I would like, but I’m not sure it can ever come to be. Not with the way my mind currently works.”
“I don’t understand.”
Did he want to be a physician or barrister or some such profession? She doubted it, but memory loss would certainly preclude him from those occupations.
He mumbled something so quietly she didn’t hear him.
“Pardon me?”
“I said I’d like to be a father.”
She sat back, surprised at his words and also… warmed by them. A warmth that began in her heart and spread through the rest of her.
“You would make a most excellent father,” she said, trying to hide the emotion that threatened to invade her words. “Christopher and Clementine just love you. Oh, and just think of all the trouble you’ll get them into with their mother.”
She laughed quietly as a vision filled her mind — a vision of her and Elijah, their children around them. A family.
But. There was a but.
She had to ask.
“Why would you think that could never come true?”
“A man with a condition like mine wouldn’t make much of a husband — or a father,” he said, his jaw tightening. “Forgetting birthdays, holidays, when to appear, when not to.”
“Oh, Eli, I don’t think that’s anything to be concerned about,” she said, tilting her head to the side as she studied him. “Your family — anyone who loved you — would understand.”
“But what if…” a pained expression pinched his face, “what if I lose some of the memories that I make with them? What if I don’t recall things about my children — things I should know, time spent with them?”
Joanna sat up, coming to kneel in front of him, taking his hands within hers.
“Elijah,” she said softly. “No one is perfect. Far from it. But all that matters is that you can prove your love to another. If you have that holding the bonds of your family together, then everything else will fall into place.”
His eyes searched hers.
“How are you alway
s so optimistic of what is to come?”
She smiled and shrugged. “It’s no use worrying about it. Might as well hope for the best.”
He chuckled lowly. “I wish I could be that way.”
“I always thought you would be — you’re all smiles and laughter and jokes.”
“It makes it easier to allow everyone to think that,” he said, and then framed her face in his hands. “I think you’re the only one who really sees me for me.”
“Because you let me in,” she practically whispered. “Thank you.”
“No,” he said. “Thank you. Now.” He cleared his throat and stood. “I best get going to bed.”
“Very well,” she said, although disappointment flared. “Before you go, do you mind stoking the fire? I’d do it myself, but I’m too cold to move.”
“Of course,” he said, and then walked over and placed the poker in the hearth. Silhouetted by the fireplace, his shoulders were thick, strong, his lower half perfectly framed by his tight breeches.
“Better?” he asked, turning his head over his shoulder, and Joanna nodded, although she couldn’t help but pull the blanket tighter around herself.
“Oh, Joanna,” he said with a sigh and then sat down next to her. “Come here. I’ll see what I can do to warm you up.”
She nodded and inched closer toward him, his very proximity sending all kinds of curious tingles up and down her body. He slowly, hesitantly, placed his arms around her, until she was snuggled right up against his chest.
Suddenly she wasn’t so cold any longer.
Chapter 18
He had told her far too much.
Or, perhaps, it was just enough. For now she was snuggled in to his chest, exactly where he knew she was meant to be. Nothing had ever felt so right before, and a heart beat hard and strong in his ears, although he wasn’t sure if it was his or hers or a mixture of the two.
For his blood pumped strong, sure, salacious, just from being near her.
Merry Misrule Page 13