by [No data]
That voice.
“Leo?” Marielle said. “Leopold Drake?” His features had matured from adolescent beauty into a man’s rugged countenance. The years of soldiering were marked in the lines beside his eyes and mouth, and in blue eyes that had once been merry. Those eyes were chilly now, and guarded.
For a moment, Marielle fell silent. Her body was both hot and shivery, as memory and reality collided in the man she beheld.
“Miss Redford.” He bowed correctly, which was ridiculous given the setting, then produced a wrinkled handkerchief.
Marielle took it and dabbed at her cheeks. “What are you doing here, Leo, and is this a flag of truce?”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Happy Christmas to you, too, ma’am. You are looking well.”
“I look a fright. You look to be thriving.” Her splotchy cheeks and puffy eyes were his fault, for which she was grateful. The sight of him—the simple sight of him—well, whole, and healthy, threatened to turn her weepy again.
“I am well, if a bit chilled. How is your husband?”
The question was meant to establish some sort of picket lines, and that would not do. Leo’s abandonment had hurt, but Marielle refused to make an enemy of him—tempted though she might be.
“He’s dead, Leo. Gone three years, from a wasting disease. I’m a comfortably well off widow.” Without children, and Drew’s dying regret had been that they’d never had offspring. Marielle hadn’t understood the intensity of Drew’s sadness over that lack until she’d been wearing her weeds, listening to the bishop drone on about God’s will and faith and other platitudes.
Children were somebody to love, and without somebody to love, meaning in life was hard to come by. Remarriage loomed as a solution to the problem of the childless widow in society’s eyes, and lately, in Marielle’s too.
“My condolences on the loss of your spouse,” Leo said. “What of your father?”
Leo’s voice had deepened, and acquired an implied hint of command. He expected his questions to be answered.
“Papa died shortly after I married. He’d apparently been unwell for some time.” Drew had thought Marielle was mourning her papa, and she had been, but she’d also been mourning her first love.
Leo took a scowling visual inventory of the saddle room, as if rearranging his own view of the past.
“It’s cold enough to freeze Lucifer’s ears off in here,” he said. “May I escort you to the inn?”
That was Marielle’s turn of phrase, borrowed from a long-ago nanny. Leo had kept that much of her with him. Had he carried other memories of her into battle, and exactly what had prompted him to choose the constant threat of death to her hand in marriage?
“We’re going to talk, Leo Drake,” Marielle said, rising and dusting off her backside. “For Christmas, you will give me the answers I deserved ten years ago.”
He peered down at her—he’d not been this tall as a lad of seventeen—his expression unreadable. Ten years ago, Marielle had been able to accurately translate his sighs, the angle of his shoulders, his stride, his word choices, even his silences.
Now, he was a stranger inhabiting the person of her dearest, lost love—a handsome stranger.
“Perhaps you’ll favor me with a few answers too, madam.”
Not milady. Perhaps Leo hadn’t kept track of her, though what would a soldier care for the doings of a lord’s wife back in London? Marielle was tempted to ask if Leo was married, but she’d moved on with her life, made other plans.
Perhaps it was for the best that she and Leo had encountered each other like this. She could close the door to her past before stepping through the door to her future, all tidy and calm.
She preceded Leo through the door of the saddle room, waited while he stowed his gear—a half-pay officer wouldn’t expect the stable lads to wait on him hand and foot—and then permitted him to escort her across the frigid, snowy inn yard.
She was Lady Drew Semple now, widowed, and of means and consequence.
So why was her heart pounding if she were a seventeen-year-old girl on the eve of an elopement?
* * *
Chapter Two
* * *
Of all the ambushes in all the villages in all the hinterlands, coming upon Marielle Redford at the same hostelry where Leo had last heard her declarations of undying devotion was the most diabolical.
Surely, only a very, very naughty fellow deserved that blow on Christmas Day, though Leo had been nearly a monk where the ladies were concerned.
Marielle was prettier than ever—another blow—but she’d lost an ebullience that had come through even when she’d sat quietly and read. Marielle had been like the sun, bringing light no matter how cold the day, and a determined optimism Leo had missed brutally as he’d marched through years of war.
Her chestnut hair was pulled back in a tidy chignon, and her brown eyes bore a woman’s sense of self-confidence. She’d become altogether more impressive for acquiring a faint air of restraint, but he missed his impetuous Marielle.
As much as Leo wanted to resent the lady before him, he could not. A woman made her way in the world as best she could, and clearly, Marielle’s way now was adequately smoothed with coin. She was in good health, in good looks, and expensively attired. Her cloak was velvet, doubtless lined with satin, and cut in the latest style.
“I’ve ordered toddies and toast,” Leo said as he escorted her across the inn yard. “Will you join me?”
Marielle paused outside the main door. They were sheltered from the wind, and all around them, holiday decorations conveyed yuletide good cheer. And yet, the bleakness that assailed Leo was bone deep and colder than a winter night.
He’d lost her. He’d accepted a commission, convinced she’d spurned him. The girl he’d known had been impetuous, passionate, and not always sensible—who was at seventeen?—but she’d been unfailingly kind. Perhaps Marielle had thought sending him off to the glamor of an officer’s life was a kindness, though the romance of soldiering and the reality had been only distantly related.
“Marielle, I’m sorry.” The young man in Leo was also furious with her—joining a war when he’d planned to attend his own wedding had been a horrible coming of age—but his regrets were genuine too. “I’d like to know why you did what you did, but mostly, I’m sorry we couldn’t be together.”
She had grown formidable with the passing years. Widowhood could do that. Marielle had tossed Leo aside to marry some aristocrat, and she had to have loved her husband fiercely.
Maybe more fiercely than she’d loved Leo, though in all humility, he hadn’t thought such a thing possible.
“You want answers from me?” she replied, looking him up and down as if he’d arrived to a fancy dress ball in muddy boots. “That’s rich, Leopold, when you were the one who preferred war to wedded bliss. A gentleman holds a door for a lady.”
Leo bowed her through the door. “A gentleman also doesn’t argue with a lady, but clearly, I’m about to have a rousing disagreement with you. A private parlor is in order, don’t you think? I’ve known you since you gave up sucking your thumb. We can share a plate of toast without offending the dictates of propriety.”
As a younger woman, she might have dressed him down sorely, and he’d have caught her in his arms and jollied her out of her temper.
In the inn’s foyer, she turned her back to him, as the lady of the manor turns her back in expectation of the butler removing her wrap. Leo obliged, and folded her cloak over his arm. The scent of Christmas spices wafted from her garment—cinnamon, cloves, a touch of mace. An expensive and unusual perfume.
“I will oblige you with the disagreement you seek,” she said, taking her cloak from him. “We were friends once, so I’ll not kill you without a fair hearing.”
She stalked off into the common and had the maid scurrying forth from the kitchen and disappearing up the steps with the cloak.
Well. If Marielle wanted a battle, Leo would show her exactly what a soldi
er knew about winning a war, even a war of words. For ten years, he’d been held hostage to her memory, and clearing the air before he took a bride only made sense.
So why was he looking forward to his disagreement with a past love far more than he was to tomorrow’s introduction to his potential fiancée?
* * *
Unfair, unfair, unfair… Marielle sent that protest heavenward, to whatever unlucky angels presided over the fate of thwarted lovers.
Leo was no longer a boy. In every way, he’d matured into the promise Marielle had seen in him as a young man. He was handsome, self-possessed, and apparently had found financial success. When he hung his caped great coat on a hook by the common’s front windows, he revealed riding attire that was bang up to the nines. His cravat was tied in some fancy knot and sported a gold pin adorned with a tastefully discreet sapphire. His left little finger bore a signet ring, and his posture was militarily impressive.
He had to be married. No man with that much to recommend him would have gone unclaimed. Leo’s family had been gentry—mere gentry, according to Papa—but their fortunes must have prospered over the past ten years, or perhaps plundering Spain had left Leo well to do.
Papa had said Leo would never amount to anything. Marielle was delighted to see Papa had been wrong.
Marielle was happy for him, but she was also… quite sad, for she’d been right about Leo, and she’d let him go with barely a whimper.
Leo crossed the common to one of the private parlors and again held the door for her. A fire crackled in the grate, and a table had been set immediately before it. The room also held a settee, and there Marielle did take a seat.
“You’ll let out the heat if you don’t close the door,” she said. “I’m widowed, and need not shiver for the sake of my chastity ever again.”
“You’re also angry with me,” Leo said, poking some air into the fire. “I have a few questions for you too, but ladies first, Ellie.”
Only Leo had called her that. Had he used her nickname as a weapon or an olive branch?
“I am furious with you, which makes no sense. We were young and foolish, and the past has no bearing on the present.”
He propped an elbow on the mantel, looking twelve kinds of too handsome. “Humor me. We were friends once.”
They’d grown up together, their papas owning neighboring estates. When Leo had gone off to public school, Marielle had cried for weeks, and sneaked splotchy letters into the post, knowing he could not reply. He’d brought her a journal at the holiday break, full of the sentiments he’d not been able to send her.
She still had the journal, though she’d not read it since the night before her wedding. “We were playmates.”
He pushed away from the mantel. “And then we were lovers, or the next thing to it. I proposed to you.”
Oh, he had. On bended knee, her hand in his, and it had been perfect. The memory distressed Marielle now, because it was both precious and false. While she grappled with that incongruity, Leo opened the door and said something to a maid, then closed the door.
“You proposed,” Marielle said, “and I accepted your proposal.”
“Then you married another.”
She had, months after Leo had gone haring off on his adventures. Marielle rose and stalked over to him.
“You left me, waiting like the most gullible dupe ever to plight her troth. Left me waiting in that cold, dingy saddle room, for hours. I cried for you, Leopold, and when Papa found me, I swore I would never cry for you again. The humiliation faded, but not the sense of betrayal. If you were so mad to buy your colors, why not ask me to follow the drum? Why not marry me before you went chasing glory on the battlefield? I would have waited… Oh, damn you.”
They stood close enough to embrace, while Marielle fisted her hand around the handkerchief in her pocket. She’d learned not to cry, but indulging in tears earlier had weakened her defenses.
“You waited for me?” Leo’s question was cautious, as if he repeated a phrase he couldn’t quite translate from a foreign tongue.
“For hours,” Marielle said, pity for her younger self swamping her. “Until I was so cold, I couldn’t feel anything except the shame of falling in love with a coward. How could you face Boney’s guns, but not face me? I would have been hurt that you’d changed your mind, Leo, but I loved you. I would have let you go. I would have tried to understand.”
Leo dropped to the sofa and held out his hand. Marielle didn’t at first grasp that he wanted her to sit beside him.
“I’m still trying to understand,” he said. “You waited in the saddle room.”
Marielle took the place beside him.
“I caught a serious lung fever,” she said. “I don’t know how many times I was bled, but I suspect the problem was a broken heart rather than an ailment of the body. You were in Spain by then, and Papa had no idea which regiment you’d signed up with.”
“A simple inquiry at Horse Guards would have told him that much.” Leo stared into the fire as if fairies danced in its depths. “But Marielle, he had no need to ask for me at Horse Guards, because he bought my commission with his own coin.”
If Leo had kicked Marielle in the ribs, he could not have delivered a more stunning blow. “My father sent you to war?”
“With a handsome rank, a new uniform, and hearty best wishes. He also assured me I’d get over your rejection in time, though I was to step aside graciously, for you were intent on making a more suitable match. Eight months later, I read in a three-week-old newspaper that you had made your choice. I stayed drunk for a week.”
“You abhor inebriation.”
“Right now,” Leo said, “I abhor your father even more.”
Marielle sat beside her first love, her heart and mind reeling. “My father sent you to war, and then he arranged a perfectly safe, dull match for me. He told me young men were legendarily faithless, and I must not hold your decision too much against you.”
Leo continued staring at the fire until a knock sounded on the door. Marielle rose to answer it, and admitted a maid carrying a large tray. The girl set the tray on the table, bobbed a curtesy and withdrew, closing the door behind her.
The tray was laden with a pot of chocolate, slices of Christmas stollen, a teapot, a plate of short bread, butter, and a little pot of raspberry jam.
Raspberry was Leo’s favorite, and he apparently still put butter and jam on his shortbread. Marielle lifted the lid of the teapot, intent on checking the strength of the brew. Warm, tea-scented steam wafted up, and the lid went clattering back to the tray.
“Marielle?” Leo was beside her. “Ellie?”
He put the lid back on the tea pot and took her in his arms. His embrace was both familiar and new, comforting and harrowing.
“He s-sent you to war,” she managed. “My own father, sent you to war. He told you I’d played you false. I never played you false, Leo. N-Never.”
“I believe you.”
And then she began to sob.
* * *
To hold Marielle again, just to hold her…
Leo had marched halfway across Spain, convinced that any day, he’d receive a letter from Marielle, apologizing and begging him to come back to her. He’d gone to bed at night—or to whatever patch of ground he was bivouacking on—praying for Marielle’s wellbeing, and grateful he’d at least not put her at risk for bearing a child.
Then he’d read not of her betrothal per se, but a sly piece of gossip about the Viscount H., much respected denizen of Whitbyshire, contracting for the creation of a full trousseau for his daughter, the lovely Miss M.R. The wedding was rumored to be scheduled immediately after her come out and first Season, but no groom had been named.
Leo would have died from overconsuming rum, except Rafe had found him passed out in his tent, and deposited him in the nearest creek. Leo’s headache had lasted for weeks, following him into battle, and fueling a reckless bravery the senior officers had noted favorably in their dispatches. Promotions had
followed, and eventually, the business of war had replaced the heartache of Marielle’s betrayal.
“Ellie, don’t cry,” Leo murmured, for this was not ladylike weeping. Marielle’s tears were noisy and heartrending.
Leo scooped her up and settled on the settee with her in his lap. She subsided to shuddering and muttered curses, while Leo held her.
To hold her again… Perhaps this was a Christmas gift from on high, to hold Marielle again. A chance to make peace with the past, to forgive and be forgiven.
“I should have written to you,” Leo said. “Your father warned me not to humiliate myself with letters that you’d only return unopened. I could not have borne that, but I should have written to you.”
She was clutching his cravat with one hand, and held his handkerchief with the other. He’d always loved her hands, loved the grace and competence of them.
“I should have made inquiries at Horse Guards,” she said. “It never occurred to me. They would have told me where you were. I could have written, once I was well.”
Another shudder went through her. She was warm in Leo’s arms, and still his Ellie, but also not. Her dress was a rich burgundy velvet no young girl would be permitted to wear, and her fragrance was not the uncomplicated lavender water young women favored. Instead her fragrance whispered of spices—expensive, exotic spices.
My Ellie, and not my Ellie.
“Tell me about your husband,” Leo said. The lucky sod had better have treated Marielle well, or Leo might have to get drunk for another week.
“He made me laugh. That’s why I noticed him. He didn’t ask prying questions, he took me out walking when I wanted only to grow old in my sick room. My husband was a decent man. He neither sought nor offered me great passion, but we were cordial, and eventually we had a comfortable match.”
Was Leo to hate the man more or less for having offered Marielle only a decent, comfortable, cordial match?
“I learned to appreciate a soldier’s life,” Leo said, stroking his hand over Marielle’s hair. She’d once professed to hate her hair for being merely brown. “I wasn’t so highborn that the men disrespected me on sight, nor so much a commoner that the other officers resented me. I had a knack for settling disputes, and doing what needed doing. Those qualities were appreciated. I also had enough Hessians in my unit that I learned German to go with my French, and thus I ended up in Vienna.”