Those Autumn Nights

by Theresa Romain

  “Excellent!” Georgie rolled the completed fringe and handed it to Eliza. “I have only one request: that we not drink the mineral water. Mrs. Clotworthy always forces me to choke down at least two glasses.”

  “Ah, I see the real reason you want to walk with me. Never fear, Georgie. We shall go forth with nothing on our minds but the desire to be pleased.”

  “And who shall please us?”

  “That depends who is fortunate enough to cross our path.” Eliza rose, shaking out her skirts.

  As Georgie stood, the door to the morning room opened. Bertie peeked in. “Georgie? Ready to walk out?”

  “Right away. And Eliza will join us too. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  The minx. She didn’t turn a hair.

  Maybe because Georgie looked so pleased, Eliza felt suddenly shy. “Your brother is accompanying you? I don’t need to go, then.”

  Didn’t need to, no. But if they would only reassure her…she liked the idea of walking with the two Gages, as though there were a place for her in their family.

  “Nonsense!” Georgie exclaimed. “Eliza, you must come along. Walking with Bertie is like walking with a—”

  “Careful how you finish that sentence,” he warned.

  “—wonderful brother who doesn’t appreciate any of the shops in Tunbridge Wells.”

  “That’s a fact.” Bertie shouldered the door fully open, filling the doorway. “If you want to shop with Miss Greenleaf, I needn’t accompany you.”

  “You two will make me weep if you continue trying not to walk with me,” said Georgie, not sounding at all downcast.

  Eliza would have liked to fill her hands with knotted silks again. Empty, they felt agitated, wanting something to grasp and hold fast.

  Bertie looked so calm. So certain. Even a little amused. But when she caught his gaze, something hot kindled in its dark depths.

  Maybe he would offer her something to hold onto at last.

  For now, the promise of a walk was enough. “All right,” she said lightly. “But before we reach Tunbridge Wells, we ought to agree on a few things.”

  Bertie leaned a shoulder against the door frame, a rare break in his military-straight posture. “I am all ears.”

  “A list of things we do not want to do.”

  “Such as, ‘I do not want to drink the mineral water,’” said Georgie. “It’s awful.”

  Bertie tipped his head, regarding his sister. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “You think not?” She marched across the room to face him. “All right. Let me amend my item: I do not want to drink the water unless my brother drinks it first.”

  “Fine, fine. For your health, I will. For my part, I don’t want to be dragged into a milliner’s shop.”

  “What about a dressmaker’s?” Eliza could not resist asking.

  “Acceptable. Dresses are necessary. Most hats are fashionable nonsense.”

  “No milliners,” Eliza agreed.

  Bertie stood aside, allowing his sister to pass through the morning room’s doorway, then turned back to Eliza. “What is your wish-not-to?”

  That was easy to answer. Far too easy.

  I don ’t want to call on my father.

  I don ’t want either of us to remember how easily we were once split apart.

  Closing her lips on these replies, she waved a careless hand. “I’ll think of something if need be. Only let me fetch my fashionable nonsense of a hat, and I shall be ready to walk out with you.”

  * * *

  Tunbridge Wells was a very different town when seen at the side of Eliza Greenleaf.

  When Bertie walked here with Georgie, he spent his time fetching shawls and mineral water to keep her comfortable. When he called on Andrew Greenleaf with news about the Friar’s House, he generally felt the need for a pint or three at the Joyful Shepherdess on his way home.

  But with Eliza on one arm to balance his concern over Georgie on the other, this was a pleasure outing. For the first time as he walked The Parade, he noticed the intricate march of clay tiles beneath his feet. The fine new buildings edging the pavement, trim and colonnaded. The shops’ plate glass windows sparkling on the ground floor, with bays on the upper stories and arches like mischievous eyebrows.

  Here were coffee houses leaking the acrid scents of roasted beans and tobacco smoke; here, too, were bakeries from which wafted the scents of spice and cooked fruit. Dressmakers. Milliners—shudder. A cobbler. An apothecary.

  A pleasant variety, really.

  As the trio strolled, they passed many familiar faces. Bertie nodded to acquaintances time and again, while Georgie burst into ready conversation. Miss Peterson and Miss Rogers, chatty as ever, would hardly let her walk on without them.

  “Your sister has many friends,” Eliza said in Bertie’s ear. “You see how lively she is?”

  “I have never doubted her liveliness. Only her strength.” Next to the other young women, Georgie looked frail within the heavy sweep of her cloak.

  Along with friendly greetings of her own, Eliza won curious glances. Why that should be, Bertie couldn’t imagine. Anyone who knew she was Greenleaf’s daughter ought to understand why she wasn’t living in her father’s household. Who would unless compelled to?

  She would, a treacherous voice whispered from memory. She did. She chose her family’s good name over yours.

  Within his coat sleeve, his biceps flexed in a protective reflex. No. That had been long ago. This was now: Eliza, who had kissed him tongue to tongue until he thought he would combust. Eliza, holding his arm, a fashionable nonsense of a hat tipped at a lovely angle above one of her wicked eyes.

  “Are you ready to drink the water?” Georgie gave a tug at Bertie’s other arm, and he realized they’d arrived at the building that housed the town’s famous spring. Cream-colored and sturdy, the structure was practically the seat of Tunbridge Wells. A steady flow of traffic—on foot, in wheelchairs, on canes and in the arms of caregivers—proceeded in and out.

  They all looked much more ill than Georgie. As he squinted at her, evaluating, he wondered whether her cheeks were rosy from the cool breeze, or whether health and high color were returning to her.

  When she shivered and clutched at the edge of her cloak, though, he was decided. “Into the line we go.”

  Bertie paid their admission, and they joined the line, shuffling across a smooth floor until their turn came to face the spring itself. Framed within wicked-looking iron pikes, a stone basin was set into the floor. From it, rusty-hued water welled up and was dipped out into glasses.

  “One for you, Georgie, and one for me. And one for you, Eliza?”

  She stepped back, laughing. “I’d use my wish-not-to on this if you asked it of me.”

  “Not necessary.” Bertie sniffed at the brownish liquid in his glass. It carried a strong odor of sulfur that would have made his cavalry horse snort and refuse to drink. Trying not to inhale, he gulped it quickly.

  “Blargh,” he spluttered, handing the glass back to the dipper. “It tastes of rusty metal.”

  “I told you it was awful,” Georgie said. Her glass was still untouched.

  “It wasn’t.” His voice sounded hoarse and false. “It was wonderful. I feel so strong and healthy now.”

  “So convincing,” said Eliza.

  Bertie narrowed his eyes. “Drink your mineral water, Georgie. You owe me. I mean—you owe yourself. For the sake of your good health.”

  “So convincing,” repeated his sister. “Very well. The revenge water shall be consumed.” With a practiced toss, she swallowed the drink, shuddering as she returned the glass. “That’s the most I’ve ever enjoyed taking the water here. It becomes much more pleasant when someone else drinks it first.”

  “Anything for you, sister dear.” Bertie grimaced. His mouth tasted of old nails.

  “Does this anything extend to the consumption of a cream puff?” Eliza asked as they made their way out of the building. “Or some other baked treat? Because I suspect yo
ur sister would consume such a thing even if you did not lead the way.”

  Georgie bounced on her toes. “I could eat an entire tray of Madame Florian’s biscuits. The walk from the Friar’s House has given me a prodigious appetite.”

  “I know just the place,” Eliza said. “One street north, there’s a bakery that creates wondrous confections with puff pastry and piped sugar.”

  “I need that,” said Georgie. “North, you said?”

  As she strode off, gesturing impatiently for them to follow, Eliza laid a hand on Bertie’s shoulder. “I’ve chosen my wish-not-to,” she murmured, her breath a tickle in his ear.

  Of its own volition, his hand covered hers. His throat felt tight. “And what is that?”

  “I wish for this not to end.”

  Before he could unlock his tongue, she slid from his hold and walked off after Georgie—leaving him puzzled and yearning in her wake.

  He ordered his feet into service, following after Eliza. Toward wondrous confections. Toward something Georgie wanted that he had never thought to give her.

  I wish for this not to end. Whatever Eliza had meant by that—this moment? This hour? This day or season?—he agreed.

  They had already lived through endings enough. He could not let her slip away again.

  Chapter Six

  * * *

  By the time the few remaining days before Michaelmas had passed, Bertie had realized three things.

  First, a well-run household bore much in common—in organization and camaraderie—with a well-run cavalry regiment. Through hours in the study, the stables, and the butler’s pantry, he could give free rein to habits he’d honed in the military: punctuality, meticulous record-keeping, a patience with the grievances of one’s underlings, and a bit of reckless flair to keep everyone full of energy. Best of all, as in the 13 th Light Dragoons, there was a companionship and satisfaction in working together toward a common goal.

  Second, Eliza Greenleaf liked to be kissed to the point of breathlessness in the corridor before the secret passage—and also in the stables, and along the footpath leading to the tenants’ cottages, and late at night in the candle-lit kitchen while they wore dressing robes and boiled milk for chocolat chaud.

  Third, he had fallen in love with her again—if, in fact, he had ever managed to stop.

  In Bertie’s mind, quarter day had loomed in large, jagged capitals across his mental calendar, as he anticipated chaos and unhappy tenants. But with Eliza in the Friar’s House, welcoming everyone with the ease of a lady born to lead, this quarter day would be different. There was nothing he could not overcome.

  On the morning of Michaelmas, when tenants streamed to the house, rough hats in hand, they received smiles of greeting and a bit of chat about their families. Thanks to the notes circulated among those families by Bertie and the footmen, the Friar’s House rent rolls and records were up-to-date for the first time in…

  “Don’t ask how long it has been,” Eliza murmured in Bertie’s ear. She was seated behind a desk in the library, a ledger and strongbox before her. A burly footman kept a wary eye on the file of tenants, but Bertie saw no emotion on their faces except for pleasure at the sight of Miss Greenleaf.

  “What matters”—Eliza dipped a pen, ready to inscribe the next name—“is that we’ve sorted the numbers, at least until my father or brothers work over the accounts again. Mrs. Jenkins!” Her tone lifted. “What a fine baby you’ve brought. How old is he? Five months?”

  Thus it continued, smoothly as the 13th had once drilled and marched.

  The French servants were in their element, Georgie had roses in her cheeks and was chattering like a magpie, and even Lord Sturridge peeped in amidst his own quarter-day wranglings to raise a glass of brandy with Bertie in the study.

  “Atop the usual drama, you’ve stolen my wife’s guest.” Sturridge winked, looking scarcely older than he had during their Cambridge days. “You must send Miss Greenleaf back to us if you’ve a need.”

  “There is no need,” Bertie assured his old friend. “I should have stolen her away long ago.”

  As Sturridge took his leave, he reminded Bertie of their commitment to judge gourds at the harvest festival a week hence. “I must have angered Francesca,” he said of his wife. “She and your sister helped my brother’s bride arrange the whole festival months ago. They certainly could have given us a less dreadful task. Meanwhile, your friend Lochley has the plum assignment of judging cider and apple brandy.”

  “Ah. Greenleaf won’t return, then.” Andrew Greenleaf had once fancied himself the local arbiter of taste in every way imaginable. Now, of course, he had lost his sense of taste. Literally.

  Sturridge agreed. “I had not heard that he would.”

  Which was all to the good, wasn’t it? No need to create confusion in the minds of Hemshawe’s inhabitants about who belonged in the Friar’s House at present. Or to whom Eliza Greenleaf had given her allegiance.

  Eventually, the day’s business was concluded. Bertie bade farewell to the tenants, the justice of the peace, the Lochleys, and a few other callers who had dropped by for tea and a gossip with Mrs. Clotworthy. In the subsequent quiet, he found himself looking forward very much to the next week. And the one after that, and all the weeks beyond.

  Finally, he had a place to belong, and someone to belong to.

  Only one question remained: When to declare himself, and how?

  * * *

  Eliza tied the belt of her dressing robe more firmly about her night rail, then picked up the lantern and directed its light to the seam in the wall before her. Somewhere was the catch to open the panel from the inside—ah. There.

  “Don’t scream,” she whispered into the next room as the panel swung open. “It is only me.”

  Bertie was seated in a deep upholstered chair by the fireplace in his bedchamber, drowsing over a book. At the sound of Eliza’s voice, his head snapped up, eyes open and alert at once. “Scream? Not when a sight such as this comes before me. I must be dreaming.”

  Eliza stepped into the room, closing the wall panel behind her. “No, you must not have followed the secret tunnel to its end.” She blew out the candle in her lantern and set it on the hearth. “We never did make it past the start, but this is where it leads.”

  One of the finest guest chambers in the house, Bertie’s room was in the wing customarily used by men. Eliza’s own bedchamber was at the other end of the great structure. She could have padded through silent corridors, hoping to remain unseen, but she had liked the idea of sneaking through the secret passage instead. An adventure begun together, and now completed.

  When he opened his arms, it seemed the most natural thing imaginable for her to join him in the chair. She settled sideways onto his lap. Her feet dangled over the padded arm of the chair as he held her steady, supporting her back in his embrace. Her hair now in a long plait, her head was tucked neatly beneath his chin.

  Through the strong frame of his body, she could hear his heart pounding. As she shifted on his lap, she felt his hardness beneath the silk of his robe.

  “Eliza,” he murmured. “How did we let so much time pass?”

  “I cannot imagine how we let any time pass at all.” He made a sound of protest, and she lifted her head, staying his words with a gentle fingertip on his lips. “I know. It was my fault, Bertie. All my fault. All these wasted years, my fault.”

  He kissed her fingertip, then caught her hand in his own. “The years were not wasted, were they? Perhaps they would have been better spent together—but perhaps not. We were very young, and the life of a soldier’s wife is difficult.”

  “Not so difficult as the life of a soldier. If you could be brave enough to be shot at, I ought to have been brave enough to pursue what I truly wanted.”

  “Damn the consequences?” He arched a brow.

  “Damn them all.”

  He sank back. “Ah, Eliza. Maybe we were right to wait. Having lost almost all my family, I would not wish for you to be
estranged from yours. Not for my sake.”

  But for my own? If the act were of my own choosing?

  No, there were some things it was not right to say. Not now, with the firelight tracing his clean, strong profile; with the hard lines of his throat and collarbone bared by the loosened front of his robe. A soldier’s body. The body she’d known so intimately long ago.

  They were different now, but much that they had loved about each other remained unchanged.

  “We did well together today,” she said. “All the business of quarter day. I think we handled it beautifully.”

  “I think we did too.”

  “Are you tired?”

  He cleared his throat. “I thought I was, before you burst through the wall of my bedchamber and flung yourself onto my lap. Now I’m not so certain.”

  She chuckled, tugging free the binding of her plait and shaking out the long length of her hair. Taking up a lock, she trailed it over his temples, cheekbones, jaw, tickling him with the sweet silliness of it. Neck. Throat. She teased open his robe a bit farther. Releasing her hair, she laid flat palms against the bared vee of his chest, then slid her hands over his skin until his breath grew shallow. “Take me to bed.”

  “It would be my pleasure.” He caught her up in steady arms, then stood, holding her as though she were a slip of a girl instead of a woman of not-insubstantial size. “And yours, I hope.”

  She smiled. “I do not doubt it.”

  Still carrying her, he crossed from the fireplace to the great bed that dominated the bedchamber. Large-framed and draped in old brocade, it looked like the sort of bed on which lords and kings might have slept. Tonight, though, it was for a soldier and…whatever she was. Just Eliza. For tonight, she need only be Eliza, and she need only be his.

  When he placed her gently on the bed, she scurried to pull back the heavy coverlet, then she slid beneath the sheet.

  “Still wearing your robe?” he teased, letting his own fall to the floor before joining her.

  Beneath the robe, he was nude, and beautifully so. He had grown into himself, a broad and rangy man with the experience and confidence to carry himself as though he absolutely fit into his surroundings. Standing beneath an apple tree in bespoke coat and Hessians; stripping to shirtsleeves to help a tenant in need; baring himself entirely to Eliza’s gaze. Backlit by the firelight, his strong lines were traced in gold and heat, and words vanished from her mind. All she could do was sit up, shrug from her robe, and hold it out to him.