Those Autumn Nights

by Theresa Romain

  “Back to the Friar’s House,” Bertie corrected.

  “—and Eliza returned in the carriage only to bid us farewell. She has left, and a maid is packing her trunks to follow after.”

  “She’s returning to her father’s lodgings, I expect. Or to London to stay with one of her brothers.” He fairly spat the words. This was the human equivalent of watching a ceiling crumble and fall and knowing one had been right, had always been right. Even though he had wanted to be wrong.

  Georgie shot him a startled expression. “You knew she was planning to leave?”

  “I forgot for a while. That’s all.” The only surprising thing ought to be that she stayed as long as she had before she became more Greenleaf than Eliza.

  “But you were to be married. Are to be married?”

  “There are…some things I didn’t know. It’s not going to happen as I had planned.”

  Georgie muttered some words under her breath that she ought not to have known. “Well, you’re wrong in one respect. She’s not staying with her family. She’s returning to Sturridge Manor.”

  “Sturridge…Manor. Huh.” He looked out the window, as though he might see his friend Sturridge marching up the footpath—or see Eliza walking away.

  But she had already left, of course. She had left long ago.

  He tried on another smile, smoothing it to fit a face that did not seem to want to smile, then turned toward his sister again. “That’s all right. She must like it there. And it will be good having her gone, won’t it? We’ll be a nice family circle again. I’ll devote myself to being the best brother imaginable, Georgie, and you’ll want for nothing.”

  She blinked at him with solemn dark eyes.

  “Er…try a biscuit, won’t you?” he tried. “If you like them, we can take the carriage into Tunbridge Wells again this afternoon, and you can buy as many as your heart desires.”

  Georgie sighed, tracing a finger over the embossed letters on the spine of her book. “My heart does not desire biscuits, Bertie. I’m not a child any longer.”

  “I thought you—”

  “You thought you knew what I liked. You thought you knew what I wanted. I know, I know. You always have. But there’s something I want very much, and you haven’t allowed it.”

  “Just say the word,” he said eagerly.

  She spread her hands. “Freedom. Air. Trust. I want you to stop coddling me.”

  “But your health—”

  “I regained it months ago. If I’m still thin, it’s because I’m thin by nature. If I’m pale, it’s because my mother wasn’t Spanish like yours. By harping on everything wrong with me, Bertie, you might as well be telling me I’m not the sister you want. Not as I am.”

  “Of course you are.” Stung, he crossed the room to sit on the sofa beside her.

  “Mind the biscuits,” said Mrs. Clotworthy.

  Just in time, Bertie rescued them from being squashed. He leaned forward to hand the package to the older woman, then settled back to regard Georgie again.

  “Georgie, you’re a marvelous sister. I have been glad to know you every day since you were born. Since our parents died, and since I was shot, and you fell ill—all of that made you even more dear to me. I just…want to keep you safe. I want what’s best for you.”

  “And how will you know when you’ve done enough for me? Because, in my opinion, you did enough long ago.”

  “I see. Fine. Wonderful.” He flung his hands up. “My wife-to-be has begged off for the second time, and now my sister doesn’t need a thing from me. This is a day when everything turns the wrong way ‘round. Why don’t I ask a Frenchman to come shoot me again?”

  “Why don’t you? There are plenty of them about,” Georgie retorted. “Florian!”

  The butler appeared almost at once in response to this bellow. “Mademoiselle?”

  “My brother wants to be shot. Probably because he is in love with Eliza Greenleaf and said something horrid to her and she left.”

  Bertie rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I meant at—”

  “Monsieur, I will defend against the shooting of you. Still, you are un con.” Florian wagged his grizzled head. “Not always. But now, yes.”

  “How generous.” Bertie folded his arms. “And why am I”—he struggled for the translation of con— “an idiot?”

  “Because you make Miss Greenleaf think how she must leave. But you want to marry Miss Greenleaf. And she wants to marry you.” His pursed lips and shrug were so completely French, it was a wonder a tricolor flag didn't snap into being over his head.

  “She wants to marry me so she can get her dowry.” Briefly, Bertie explained what he’d learned that morning.

  “All right. So what?” Georgie said, sounding mulish.

  “So, she was deceiving me. All of us. She cares for her family’s reputation and doesn’t care how many times she hurts me to maintain it.”

  “Spoken like un con,” Georgie said. “You could choose to look at it that way. Or you could choose to believe that she genuinely wants to marry you. She wants to marry you now so she can keep her family from wasting their remaining fortune. And what is the harm in that? Wed is wed. If you could rescue thousands of pounds from a gambler by doing something you wanted to a bit sooner than you otherwise would, then…”

  “C’est juste,” said Florian.

  Georgie acknowledged this agreement with a gracious bow of the head. “You see? It’s perfectly logical. Which makes sense, for she’s good with numbers. She told me so herself.”

  “Stand up, dear, and let me see if this is long enough,” said Mrs. Clotworthy, stretching out her knitting. “Tut! Not nearly.”

  As the butler offered his opinion and Georgie chimed in, Bertie sank back against the horrid chintz sofa and let his mind fall into wrack and ruin.

  Two ways of seeing the matter. Two sides to family loyalty.

  He had let his heart grow hard, hadn’t he? He had never softened entirely toward Eliza since her return. He loved her, but he was not surprised when she rejected him. He expected it, in a way. Expected it with a certainty so deep that he shoved her away as soon as he learned something he hadn’t anticipated.

  A preemptive attack was highly effective during war, for it devastated people who had no chance to prepare themselves. This morning, he had carried out just such an attack on Eliza.

  He had sworn he would not want her to choose between him and her family—yet faced with the slightest inkling of divided loyalty, he turned on her. With the same small, unworthy part that had felt triumph to see the Friar’s House crumbling, he felt righteous in his anger.

  But why? It wasn’t as though she wanted the dowry for her own gambling debts. She wanted it for…

  For them. For herself and Bertie. For a life together.

  “Oh, God,” he groaned, interrupting the chatter about the knitting. “You’re right. All of you. You’re right. Except you, Mrs. Clotworthy. It is dragging on the floor already, whatever you’re knitting.”

  “That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” said that lady mildly. “You must trust that others besides you know what they’re doing, Bertram.”

  Florian nodded. “She is très intelligente, that one.”

  “I know, I know. It’s true. None of you need me in the slightest.”

  “Maybe not,” said Georgie. “But we like having you about. Usually. So maybe it’s time to think about what you need.”

  “He needs French lessons to help him with that terrible accent,” said Florian. “Maybe he can have them from Miss Greenleaf, eh?”

  Georgie shushed the butler. “Bertie. There’s just one thing to decide. Do you want Eliza, or do you want to score off the people who once hurt you?”

  The question struck to his heart.

  And the answer was clear at once. “There can be no triumph if there’s no Eliza.”

  “Then you’d better try to persuade her to tolerate you.”

  He rose to his feet, chuckling. “When did you get
to be smarter than I am?”

  “It’s been coming on for years,” she said. “You just didn’t notice.”

  “There’s a lot I haven’t noticed.” He kissed her on the top of her head, then crossed to the doorway. “Thank you, Georgie. And never mind about the biscuits. I shouldn’t have brought them.”

  “More lunatic speech,” she said. “You absolutely should have brought them. You should always bring biscuits. You’re right, they really are my favorite treat. Please hand me the package, Mrs. Clotworthy, if there are any left.”

  * * *

  Before settling matters with Eliza, Bertie had to settle them with himself.

  And that required paying another call on Greenleaf.

  The older man had exchanged one silk banyan for another, but other than that, he seemed not to have moved from the spot he had occupied earlier in the day. The flush of his cheeks betrayed how he’d spent his time—as did the lower levels in the bottles of spirits at his side.

  “You are no gentleman, speaking to my daughter harshly before me as you did,” said Greenleaf.

  Polite Bertie waved a farewell. He would not be present on this call. “I wasn’t aware,” Bertie said, settling himself again on the sofa opposite the window, “that you ever considered me a gentleman. I probably ought to be honored that you entertained the possibility at all.”

  He stretched forth his feet: one boot, then the second, planted solidly on the heavy carpet. “Look to yourself, Mr. Greenleaf. If men are judged by their actions, you will come up very short. You have neglected your ancestral home and overseen the squandering of your family’s fortune.”

  “And how shall I judge you? You seduced my daughter.”

  For a dizzying moment, Bertie thought Greenleaf knew how he and Eliza had spent last night. Then he realized: The older man, wounded, sought to stab at Bertie’s own tender spots.

  The realization blanketed him in calm. “What your daughter and I did was between us, with our mutual agreement, and with the intention of marriage.”

  That was just as true now, wasn’t it, as it had been when he was a younger man? He’d seen so much of the world, but he’d never seen anyone like Eliza. No one had twined through his heart like she had. No one ever would.

  So she hadn’t been brave enough to flee with him when she was barely grown. He hadn’t then had the courage to stand up to her family, to be open and frank in his request for her hand. They had thought themselves better than he was, and he’d believed them.

  But he had courage enough for anything now. He’d been shot in le foie, for God’s sake. He’d handed his heart away long ago. What could Andrew Greenleaf, with his banyans and medicinal spirits, do or say to undo such a truth?

  When Eliza had jilted Bertie, he’d felt he’d never have a home again. For years, he’d camped in army tents or quartered in crumbling hotels and other people’s houses. When he returned to London, it was to the townhouse of mourning in Kensington. Without his father, it was only a building.

  The Friar’s House was Bertie’s attempt to take the Greenleafs’ home, to get a bit of their steadiness and comfort for himself. To snap up their worth.

  But he really ought to trust in his own.

  “You could have the money,” Bertie said, noting the slow kindle of interest in Greenleaf’s bleary eyes. “There’s more than one way you could get it. There is one thing that I’d like very much—other than Eliza’s hand—if you’ll allow me to propose a transaction to you.”

  Greenleaf set down his glass, then leaned forward. “All right. I’m listening.”

  Chapter Nine

  * * *

  It was a day for much traveling. Though Bertie was going nowhere that was unfamiliar, he felt himself in a place entirely new.

  Once his interview with Greenleaf had concluded—tentatively but satisfactorily to both parties—he returned to the Friar’s House to collect an item. But he did not pause in his errand even to exchange greetings with anyone in the household. There was only one person with whom he wanted to speak.

  Thus he turned his steps toward Sturridge Manor.

  Compared to the Friar’s House, the home of Lord and Lady Sturridge was modern and tidy and impeccably kept. The structure was of gray-brown stone quoined in white, with a clever curve outward at the front for a rotunda of an entrance hall, and a dark gray slate roof that no one would ever permit to leak.

  It was too neat, really. There was nothing for a man to do here that someone else had not already done.

  He patted his pocket, reassured that the contents were still there, then mounted the clean-swept front steps. A liveried servant admitted Bertie, granted that Miss Greenleaf was at home—a phrase that gave Bertie a pang—and showed him into the family’s favorite blue drawing room.

  Sturridge was evidently in a charitable mood, for he made himself and his lady scarce as soon as Bertie entered. Only the click of the opposite door into place hinted how quickly they had swept out of the space.

  Bertie folded his hands behind his back. Stood by the fireplace and leaned one elbow on the mantel. Crossed one foot before the other, then uncrossed them.

  Then returned to the center of the room, arms hanging helpless at his sides, waiting for Eliza Greenleaf to enter the room.

  Which, after a few torturous minutes, she did.

  She looked tired and strained. Neither of them had slept much the night before, though the pleasurable reason for that seemed far away at the moment.

  But only for the moment, if he could persuade the lady to forgive.

  She let the door close behind her, then stopped a few feet away from Bertie. For a moment, they simply faced each other—then she spoke.

  “Bertram Gage,” she sighed. “You wanted me to leave, and I did, and now you have followed me. For what reason? Did you not lambaste me enough? Do you wish to put a complete and irrevocable period to our relationship? It was not necessary. I already received your meaning clearly.”

  “No. Eliza—no. I’m not here for any of that. I’m here to grovel and beg for forgiveness.”

  Her chin snapped back. “You’re here to grovel. Really.”

  “Yes.”

  She arched a dark brow. “You are not kneeling abjectly before me, and I don’t see any bouquets of flowers or lavish gifts.”

  He snapped his fingers. “I do have a gift! Here, one moment.” It hadn’t fit easily into his pocket, and it took a few moments of tugging before he freed it. With more enthusiasm than grace, he took one of her hands and slapped the item into it.

  She stared at it. “A piece of slate?”

  “A very special piece of slate. It’s a shingle. Do you see how neatly it’s been cut? But it’s broken too.”

  She extended her hand, offering it back. “All right, it’s a special piece of slate. Is it meant to be symbolic? Our love is as strong as slate, but it fractured, and…and you ripped it from the place it ought to be?”

  “Good God, no. That’s terrible.” Bertie took the slate from her, holding it lightly in his palm. “I’m too blunt for symbolism. No, it’s one of the broken slates from the roof of the Friar’s House. I’m having them replaced. And the ceiling of the breakfast room repaired.”

  Eliza’s brows knit.

  “You see? Even though it was broken, I can make it better. For you. Damnation. That does sound symbolic, doesn’t it? I don’t mean it. That is—I do mean it, but I didn’t intend to mean it.”

  “You’re babbling,” she said faintly.

  “I am not,” he replied. “I am trying to explain myself.”

  “Wasn’t there going to be groveling at some point? And begging? I’m certain I heard you mention groveling and begging.”

  If she had sounded harsh, he might have given up the matter as hopeless. But it seemed that Miss Eliza Greenleaf was not immune to unwitting symbolism, nor to the frank oddity of having a broken slate tile pressed into her hand. A quirk of her lips and a softening about the eyes betrayed her, and she looked all of a sudden
like a woman who could be convinced.

  With a bit of groveling and begging.

  Dropping the slate to the floor, Bertie sank to one knee and put a hand over his heart.

  “Is it to be a serenade, then?” Eliza asked.

  “No. This is how all the best grovels begin. Do let me think how to start, though.” His thoughts were tangled, all returning to a knot of Don’t mess this up. This is your last chance to win the hand of the only woman you’ve ever loved.

  “You could start,” Eliza suggested, “with something true.”

  Well. That made it rather easy. “This is true: I love you, Eliza. I always have, ever since I met you. I loved you so much ten years ago that I thought I would never recover when you decided not to elope with me. And in a way I did not, for I never stopped loving you. It took no more than a moment for me to remember everything wonderful about you when you returned to the Friar’s House.”

  She had tipped her head to one side, listening. “Go on.”

  “Er—what else shall I say?”

  “You haven’t got to the groveling yet. The part where you apologize for believing the worst of me. We cannot spend time together of any nature if you do not trust me. What is to stop that from happening again?”

  Again, the answer was easy. “I am.”

  His knee was becoming sore, so he extended a hand—and wonder of wonders, she took it and drew him to his feet. “Are you saying I am worth standing up for?” Her smile was faint and tremulous.

  “Yes. Always. I will not let an old hurt go unhealed any longer. I will not forsake you, and I will trust you, and I will love you. If only you’ll forgive me and agree to marry me.” He took a deep breath. “You came back to me after saying no to the idea of us. Now I have come back to you.”

  Her hand clasped his firmly. “It took me a bit longer,” she admitted.

  “Be that as it may, we both believe this—us—is right. But could we stop saying no, please?”

  As he watched her face, that lovely face that defined beauty for him, her tentative smile became a bright one. Then it was a beam of pure joy that settled about his heart. “Yes. I say yes.”