For several seconds, Travener vouched no answer, although it seemed to Anne that not only she, but everyone in the room, waited for one.
"He was named in Darlington's will. Perhaps the colonel realized Sinclair was the one man respected enough to undertake that task," he said finally.
Anne wondered if Doyle realized that his praise for her guardian was such a condemnation of her father.
"Or perhaps Colonel Darlington knew that whatever his personal feelings," Travener continued, "Major Sinclair would take such a responsibility seriously. As he always took seriously the welfare of the men under his command."
"By accepting Darlington's daughter as his ward, Sinclair abuses the memory of men that coward murdered. Including the memory of my son," the old man added.
There was another long silence, and Anne's heart begged for Doyle's denial to break it. What he said, however, was not the contradiction she had hoped for.
"However men may fail to react to crises on the field of battle, sir, you and I both are aware that does not constitute murder. The accusation you have made tonight is unforgivable."
"Through his cowardice Darlington murdered my son," General Mayfield said evenly, "as surely as if he himself had put the gun to his heart. How you can defend him—"
"It is not my intent to defend Colonel Darlington. It is simply my intent to protect his daughter from something for which no reasonable man might hold her accountable."
"Then I must prefer not to be a reasonable man. I won't be in the same room with Darlington's spawn. Her blood offends me."
"Then regretfully, general, I must inform you that your comments about the woman I hope to make my wife offend me," Travener said quietly, bowing from the waist. "My second will call on you tomorrow."
Without another word to Mayfield, he walked around the old man to offer his arm to Anne.
"Come, my dear," he said.
Despite her shock, she had comprehended Travener's ridiculous declaration that he intended to make her his wife. She had given him neither the right to make such a statement publicly nor to hope for it privately. She had no intention of accepting any offer he might make.
Except this one, she realized. Because the arm he offered represented a means of escape, which she wanted more than she wanted anything else right now. And, suddenly Travener's kind face blurred, veiled by her tears. They will not see me cry.
Released from her paralysis by that determination, she was finally able to move, reaching out with fingers that trembled to slip her hand within the crook of Mr. Travener's arm. She felt his close over hers, and she knew that was intended to comfort and give her courage.
She needed both. Because it only got worse. As they began to walk across the ballroom, the silent crowd parted before them as if they were lepers, opening a path to the door.
Anne kept her eyes straight ahead, unable to look at the faces of those around them. However, by the time they had reached the anteroom, still crowded with people coming and going to the ball, she could no longer control her tears.
She took one softly shuddering breath, almost a sob. Doyle turned his head to look down at her. She was aware of the movement, but she didn't dare meet his eyes.
"Not here," he ordered. "Hold your head up until we're outside. And alone."
He increased his pace, not even stopping to collect her wrap. She wouldn't miss it. She longed for the night air, hoping it would cool her flaming cheeks and stop the deep burn of pain and humiliation in her chest.
"Courage, my darling," Doyle whispered as they hurried down the steps. "We are almost away."
She could barely see the steps, forced to trust in his guidance. The tears could no longer be denied, but here in the darkness, with nothing but the flambeaux and the servants to see them, they didn't matter.
There was a carriage at the curb, but it wasn't his, of course. On some level Anne was aware of Travener's discussion with the footman standing attendance beside it. She had no idea what he said to the servant because her mind had begun repeating the general's words over and over, seeking a way past the most painful part of them.
Thankfully, however, it was only a matter of seconds before the door of the coach was opened and the steps lowered. Once more Travener's hand offered support. Using it, she climbed into the welcome darkness and closed her eyes, putting both palms over her face.
She felt the coach dip with Travener's weight as he joined her. Only when she heard the door close behind him did she release the pent-up sobs. And there seemed nothing more natural than to allow herself to be gathered into Doyle Travener's comforting arms. At last, the carriage began to move, carrying them away from that terrible scene.
Despite feeling she should make some effort to compose herself, she instead gave in to the hurt and exhaustion and accumulated tensions of the past few weeks. She sobbed them all out against the broad shoulder that so willingly sheltered her.
Doyle said nothing as he held her. After all, if the general's accusation about her father was true, what possible comfort could he give her? And that was something she had to know, she realized. One of the many things she needed to understand.
Putting her hands flat against his chest, she pushed away from Travener. After a moment Doyle's arms released her, although he seemed reluctant to do so. Did he dread telling her the truth about her father as much as she dreaded hearing it?
Somewhere inside there was still hope that this was all a misunderstanding. A mistake. Something that could be straightened out and the record eventually set straight.
"Tell me about my father," she said, her eyes on his face.
Travener's mouth was set, his eyes troubled. She was unaccustomed to him in the mode, she realized. He was always smiling, never caustic or mocking or moody. Now, however, he cruelly said nothing in response to the hardest question she had ever had to ask in her life.
"Why would he call my father a coward and a murderer?"
She could hardly bring herself to say the word. The other was bad enough, but the last...
"You are not responsible for your father's actions."
"Tell me what he did," she demanded, her voice sharp with frustration. "Believe me, it can be no worse than what I will imagine."
Even that wasn't true. She could not begin to imagine what her father, her own flesh and blood, might have done that was awful enough to acquire those sobriquets. Or to cause the look of absolute disdain in the old man's eyes.
"Your father's actions in battle caused the death of a number of men, one of whom was the general's son."
She examined the words and found them less horrifying than whatever she had been expecting. Your father's actions in battle...
She remembered vaguely that he had said something like that before. That it had not been a deliberate murder. Your father's actions in battle...
Her heart was beginning to beat again, if not with its normal regularity, at least in some semblance of it. She took a deep breath, which still sounded suspiciously like a sob, and Doyle's thumb traced over the track of an escaping tear, wiping it from her cheek.
His eyes had left hers to watch the movement of his finger, and when they came back, they were somber. And pitying.
"Your father chose not to bring his command to the rescue of a unit which was under attack and heavily outnumbered."
"Chose not to?" she repeated.
"He had not been given a direct order to reinforce them, but..."
"Tell me," she said when the explanation again faded.
"Any other commander would have come to their rescue. Everyone knew that. And because he refused...men died. It was Sinclair's command your father failed to reinforce. His men who were slaughtered."
The resulting silence as she absorbed that blow was almost as deep as that within the ballroom. I am not a coward, she reminded herself, as all the telltale clues she had missed paraded mockingly through her consciousness.
Including the sudden memory of Doyle Travener's eyes meeting her guardi
an's the night they had been introduced. She had asked him if he knew her father, and he had denied it, but his eyes had found Ian's, and within them... Within them...
"My father was responsible for the injuries Ian Sinclair suffered on the Peninsula," she said, speaking the realization aloud as soon as she made it.
The injuries that had crippled him. The injuries that had left him forever vulnerable to the kinds of illness he had suffered in rescuing her from the highwaymen. The injuries Ian refused to discuss were the result of her father's cowardice.
Doyle nodded, the movement slight.
I should want to kill a man who hurt my brother...
Now she knew why the Earl of Dare had told her that. And it was no wonder he had disliked her from the beginning, even before he knew her. He blamed her father for all that Ian had suffered since that day, and like the general, he had transferred that hatred and disdain to her.
"You have known this from the first," she accused.
Doyle's lips tightened, but he told her. "I have."
"How many others knew? How many others here in London besides the Sinclairs?"
"Some of those who were there that day have returned, invalided out of service as Major Sinclair was. A few within the War Office knew of the incident."
"But it was not general knowledge within the ton. Not until tonight."
Slowly, he shook his head.
"And now it will be."
He hesitated again before he answered her, but by now he understood she would not be put off until she understood it all.
"There will undoubtedly be...gossip," he admitted.
"Gossip," she repeated softly.
His phrasing was intended as a kindness, she supposed. Gossip. The story of the general's actions tonight would certainly be told with varying degrees of horror or relish across a hundred breakfast tables tomorrow. And she realized she truly did not care if it were. That she was ruined in the eyes of the ton was the least of her concerns.
"How could he not hate me?" she whispered, knowing this was the answer to so many things she had not been able to understood.
"He lost his only son," Doyle said. "Perhaps it makes that loss easier for him to bear if he has someone to blame."
And lost in grief, Anne did not even bother to correct his mistake.
Chapter Twelve
Williams had taken one look at her face and, despite the lateness of the hour, told her where she would find her guardian. Without even considering whether or not he would welcome the intrusion, she opened the door of the library and stepped inside.
Ian was asleep in the same wing chair where she had found him a few days before. The curtains had been drawn against the night, and a low fire burned in the grate, the only light in the room. She stood unmoving for a long time, watching it play across his face.
His hair, tousled as if he had run his fingers through it, was touched with gold by the subtle firelight. It emphasized the slight hollows in his lean cheeks and the dark shadows that lay beneath the long lashes. And the bone structure that underlay those beloved features was too pronounced, more so than it had been on the day she had first seen him at Fenton School. All indicators of the reality behind the facade of health and vigor her guardian outwardly maintained.
She took a breath, fighting a surge of guilt and the strongest inclination to back out of the room and leave him in peace. Not a coward, she told herself again.
There was a book, open and lying facedown across the arm of the chair, as if he had tired of reading and closed his eyes to rest them. A half-empty glass, its liquid ambered by the flames, stood on the table beside him. And she wondered how many nights he had fallen asleep in this cold, dark room.
Seeking escape from things too painful to remember, just as she had done in the endless round of the Season's entertainment? Or dutifully waiting, in spite of his exhaustion, for her to come home? How many nights, she wondered, had she passed this door, never dreaming Ian was here? Listening for her return?
Was that why her father had chosen this man? Because he had somehow known, that of all the men who would despise him for what he had done, this was the one who would be able to put duty before emotion. Honor before any need for revenge.
Ian Sinclair had done both. He had treated her with nothing but kindness and a genuine consideration of her feelings, even when she had been so foolish as to fall in love with him. And more foolish to confess what she felt. Even then—
The man in the chair moved, his head turning restlessly against the fabric of the high back. She had already stepped out the door, prepared to disappear into the hall, when his eyes opened and found her. The paleness of the gown she wore, silhouetted against the darkness, would have drawn them, of course. It seemed, however, that when they had opened, they were already focused on the doorway.
"Anne?"
Too late to retreat. Too late to melt into the shadows of the darkened hall. Too late. There was nothing to do but what she had done in that crowded ballroom. Pretend she was not as great a coward as her father.
"I know what he did," she said.
Even in the low light she could see his brow furrow.
"You know what who did?"
"I know what my father did in Portugal. I know what he did to you."
The silence in the room was suddenly as heavy as that which had fallen over the ballroom. And as isolating.
"I'm sorry," Ian said softly.
It was not what she had expected, and yet she could tell by his voice that it was true. He was sorry for her. And for the first time, hearing his tone, she understood why he feared her pity.
"Why should you be sorry? You aren't the one who killed men by your cowardice. You were the victim of that outrage. I, who bear his blood, should be the one—"
"You are not responsible for what your father did."
Which was what Travener had said. The argument was no more convincing from Ian's lips than it had been from Doyle's.
"Do you believe that will make any difference to them?" she asked. "Do you believe it can make any difference to me?"
"To them?"
The edge of dismay in the question was clear. He had obviously just realized that what her father had done was no longer a private scandal, but a very public one.
"A man named Mayfield was offended by my presence tonight. Actually, I believe he was offended by my very existence. Publicly offended, I'm afraid. He turned his back to me. Whatever scandal you have hoped to prevent by your reticence about my father's actions will be full-blown by morning."
Ian said nothing for several long heartbeats. She measured them by the sound of the blood beating through her ears.
"Mayfield's son served under my command," he said finally, and she could read nothing in his tone.
"And he died because my father failed him. As he failed you. Why didn't you tell me, Ian? Why would you allow me to find out in this way?"
"I had hoped you would never find out."
He had tried to protect her. And in doing so, he had left her far more vulnerable to their cruelty because she had never expected it. All of the pain had come without warning or preparation.
"When you came to find me, to fulfill the terms of my father's will, you thought you were rescuing a child. It seems I am still that child to you. I suppose I shall always be."
"If I could have prevented this, Anne, I would have. That doesn't mean I consider you a child."
She shook her head, her smile almost bitter, and then she turned to leave, knowing there was nothing he could tell her that would ease this hurt. He had known from the first what her father was, and he had tried to protect her from that knowledge. She could not blame him that the story had been too widely known to contain.
"By the way," she said, turning her head to look at him again before she stepped out into the hall. "You should probably expect another visit from Mr. Travener tomorrow. Unless he is wise enough to think better of it after a night's sleep. In coming to my defense, he rather ras
hly announced his intention of marrying me."
"Travener?"
"Which is remarkable, considering that he has always known the whole. Another noble soul. Not one I intend to wed, however, despite my gratitude. As my guardian, discouraging unwanted attentions from my suitors is your office, is it not? I'm sure that in a month or so, when whatever he believes he feels for me has faded, you will have his undying gratitude. As you already have mine."
"I never wanted your gratitude," Ian said.
Or my love. And now, finally, she understood why.
"As I never wanted your noble sacrifice. But then, I suppose few people get what they really want. Or even what they deserve. Only look at my father."
"If you allow it to, what he did will embitter you and destroy who you are."
"I am not his victim," she said softly. "I am his daughter. I bear the same blood. And no one will ever forget that. Not even you."
She held his eyes, expecting a denial. Or at least more comforting platitudes. And she found, surprisingly, that she was infinitely grateful when he offered neither.
At least do me the courtesy of dealing with me honestly. Tonight, at least, it seemed he had.
***
She had finished packing long before dawn stole through the mullioned windows of her room, throwing barred patterns of pale lemon across the hardwood floor. As she had paced it throughout the long dark hours, the soft kid slippers she had worn to the ball made no sound. None that was loud enough to drown out the voices that echoed endlessly through her brain.
Mayfield's. I knew him for what he was—a coward and a murderer. I have no wish to be in the same room as his daughter.
And Doyle's. It was Ian Sinclair's command your father failed to reinforce. His men who were slaughtered.
And Dare's, laced with an irony she had not understood then and could not bear to remember now. I should want to kill a man who hurt my brother. I feel I must tell you that with all honesty, if you and I are to have any sort of relationship. And as for the woman who would hurt him...
And finally Ian's voice, rejecting who and what she was. The fault is not in what you offer...
Wilson, Gayle Page 17