“Are you still attending the fireworks tonight?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll certainly try.” His steel gray gaze focused on his plate. “You know, perhaps you can help me.”
“Anything, Papa.”
“Who mentioned Chateau Pagnon to you?”
The blood drained from her face. She had nothing to hide, but Robert had asked specifically that she not say anything about their conversation to her father. As for why, she meant to ask him tonight. “I told you that I don’t remember,” she said lightly. “Pass the jam, will you please?”
The general slid the jam in front of her. “Lucinda,” he said slowly, “it’s important. None of your friends will be in any trouble, but this could be a clue to something else.”
“Your tangle?” she suggested.
“Yes, my tangle. I can make a very good guess, of course, but I need you to confirm it for me.”
She drew a breath. “I made a promise to be discreet,” she told him. “I’ll tell you because you’re my father, but…please. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“I understand,” he said simply. “At this point, I would just like to know for my own peace of mind. Was it Robert Carroway?”
“Yes.” Even as she spoke she felt dirty and evil—it had only been yesterday morning that she’d given her word, and already she was betraying it. “We were talking about the war, and he said he hadn’t been at Waterloo, and that instead he’d spent several months at Chateau Pagnon. I thought it might have been a hospital, since he was so badly hurt.”
Her father sat in silence for a long moment. “Did he say how he ended up there or how he left?” he asked finally, his expression unreadable.
“No.” Lucinda frowned at her breakfast plate. “You do know more about that place than you told me, don’t you?”
“What I know about Pagnon isn’t fit for a lady’s ears, Lucinda.”
“Papa, I want to know—”
The general pushed away from the table. “I have a meeting this morning.” He stopped, then leaned down and kissed her forehead. “If you go out today, don’t say anything about our conversation to anyone.” Her father grimaced, then smoothed the expression away again. “Especially not to a Carroway.”
“Papa! What is going on?”
He left the room, and a moment later she heard the front door open and close. His breakfast sat untouched beside hers.
This was wrong, and so strange. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d just done something terrible to Robert. That her father had known something terrible about Robert, and she’d confirmed it.
Slowly she set her napkin on the table. She knew where she could find some answers, if he would talk to her. And if she had the courage to ask the questions.
If she went to see Robert again this morning, after a visit yesterday, people would begin to talk. Even Georgie, who knew of the agreement she had with Robert, would doubt she had only her lessons with Lord Geoffrey in mind. And she would be right.
Lucinda went upstairs to change into a visiting dress. One good thing about Robert’s reticence was that he tended to stay at home. So she would go call on Georgiana—who would be at breakfast with her aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Wycliffe. Lucinda took a quick breath as a thrill of excitement went through her—anticipation which had nothing to do with asking questions and everything to do with seeing Robert again.
Dawkins pulled open the door of her coach as she arrived at Carroway House. “Good morning, Miss Barrett,” he said, handing her to the ground.
As she stepped down she spied Robert around the side of the house. His jacket off and his shirt sleeves rolled up, he was crouched down, pulling weeds from his flowerbed. With dirt smudged across his arm and lanky black hair fallen over one eye, he looked so delectable that her mouth went dry.
“Miss Barrett?” the butler said, looking at her curiously.
Concentrate. “Is Lady Dare at home?” she asked, forcing her gaze and her attention away from the garden. As soon as the butler told her Georgie was out, she could pay a visit to the roses—and whomever happened to be tending them.
“She is indeed, Miss Barrett.”
“Oh, well, in that c—Oh.” Drat. “Is she receiving callers? I don’t want to disturb her.”
Dawkins guided her into the front sitting room. “I shall inquire.”
What was Georgiana doing at home? She and the duchess had scheduled this breakfast over a week ago. Lucinda scowled out the front window. Now she would have to think of a reason for making the visit.
“Miss Barrett, Lady Dare is upstairs in the music room.”
“I know the way.” With a nod of thanks to the butler, she climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Georgiana sat at the piano, arms outstretched to reach the keys beyond her rounded belly. She looked up, smiling, as Lucinda strolled into the room. “I’m so glad you’re here, Luce,” she said, bringing the Haydn tune to a halt. “I am desperate to go for a walk without being surrounded by large, overprotective men.”
Despite her frustration, Lucinda chuckled. “Well, I’m not large, or a man, but I can’t promise not to be overprotective.” She helped Georgie to her feet. “I was halfway here when I remembered you were going to breakfast with the duchess,” she lied. “I’m surprised to see you here, actually.”
“Aunt Frederica sent over a note cancelling.” Georgie grinned. “I think she was out late playing cards with her friends, and wanted to sleep late.”
“She must have won.”
“She always does.”
They headed downstairs, Georgie holding the rail with one hand and Lucinda’s arm with the other. It was the first time Lucinda realized just how far along in her pregnancy Georgiana was. Seeing her nearly every day, the change hadn’t been all that noticeable. “Are you certain you want to go walking?” she asked.
“I’m certain I don’t want to stay shut up in the house all day while my men are at the boat races.” She sighed. “I don’t know how Bit can stand being alone all the time, but he seems to find it peaceful.”
“He’s actually outside right now, working in his rose garden. I saw him when I drove up.”
“Did you? His knee didn’t seem to be bothering him as much this morning. A short walk might do him some good.”
Lucinda hadn’t meant to suggest he be dragged along. Yes, she wanted to talk with him, but not with Georgiana present. He probably wouldn’t talk in front of Georgie, anyway—except that he had. Georgie knew things about Robert that she didn’t, and Lucinda abruptly realized that she didn’t like that much.
Oh, that was stupid. Stupid and wrong. Georgiana was Robert’s sister-in-law, for heaven’s sake. And she was just a friend. A friend who was going to marry Lord Geoffrey Newcombe as soon as he asked her. A friend who really had no business gawking at another man—and especially not at Robert Carroway.
Robert looked up from his weeding a moment before Georgiana and Lucinda rounded the corner of the house. He straightened automatically, which amused him. Apparently he still remembered some manners. Or rather, he remembered them when Lucinda was present.
She looked like spring in her white and green sprig muslin, her brown hair topped with a matching green bonnet. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Stop it, he told himself. She didn’t belong to him. He didn’t deserve her, and she would be much better off without him.
“Bit, care to escort us on a short stroll?” Georgie asked.
Since he was already on his feet, he didn’t have grounds for much of an excuse. Shrugging, he rolled down his sleeves and pulled on the jacket he’d tossed over a phaeton wheel. His limp was more noticeable than it had been for over a year, but he’d discarded Aunt Milly’s cane as soon as he could stand it.
They started down the street, passing by pretty front gardens and mansions with dozens of staring glass windows. Lucinda and Georgie walked arm in arm, while he stayed close by Georgie’s other side in case she stumbled.
“We make a fine gr
oup, don’t we?” Georgiana said after a few moments. “Luce, you may end up having to carry Bit and me both back home.”
Lucinda laughed. “One at a time, if you please.”
“Did General Barrett go to view those silly boat races, too?”
“No, he had a meeting.”
A meeting. Robert could guess what it was about. A shudder of uneasiness went through him. If the old generals of the Horse Guards chose to meet on a Saturday morning rather than attend boat races on the Thames, something serious was amiss.
They made a circle of four blocks, and by the time they returned to Carroway House, Robert wasn’t certain who was more grateful to be back—himself or Georgiana. Ignoring the sharpening ache in his knee, he put a hand under his sister-in-law’s elbow to help her up the front steps.
“Dawkins, I would be extremely grateful for a glass of lemonade,” Georgie said, collapsing on the sitting-room couch.
Because he was always aware of where Lucinda was, Robert knew she was going to touch him a heartbeat before she did so. He tensed his arm, but flinched anyway. She burned straight through the material of his jacket.
“Georgie, are you all right here for a few minutes?” Lucinda asked. “When we were outside I noticed a mildew on some of the roses. They’re still quite delicate, and I—”
“Go, go. I’m not moving. Ever.”
Robert followed her back outside. He could play aloof; he was an expert at that. On the inside, though, he was imagining kissing her again. Kissing her, and peeling her out of her springtime gown and running his hands along her warm, smooth skin.
“I lied,” Lucinda said abruptly, stopping to face him.
“I know,” he answered.
“You do?”
He couldn’t help a brief smile. “I’ve seen mildew. My roses don’t have any.”
Her cheeks darkened. “But you came out here, anyway.”
“I thought you probably wanted to talk to me about something.”
Lucinda’s shoulders heaved with the breath she took, and abruptly she began pacing toward the street and back again. Cursing under his breath at the pain to his knee, he shifted backward so he could keep her in sight.
“Yes, I do. After we spoke yesterday, I went through some of my father’s journals. I knew he’d mentioned Chateau Pagnon, but I couldn’t remember what he’d—”
“Forget what I said. It wasn’t important,” he interrupted, trying to ignore the jolt to his insides. After three years, he still couldn’t even stand hearing its name.
“Robert. Why were you there? The general wrote that it was well fortified, but not a place of strategic interest. But it was significant, or you wouldn’t have mentioned it.”
He’d known this would happen. With anyone else, he would simply have walked away. He could talk to Lucinda, though. And her presence eased the distance between himself and the world.
“I was a prisoner,” he forced out.
“A pr—”
“This has nothing to do with our agreement,” he broke in, shoving his hands into his pockets so she wouldn’t see them shaking. “Tell me about your third lesson, why don’t you? I may need some preparation time.”
Lucinda began pacing again. This time he followed her, catching her arm as they reached the end of the drive. She shrugged free even before he could release her. “Don’t change the subject,” she said stiffly. “I want to know about Chateau Pagnon.”
He studied her face for a long moment. “No. Lesson number three.”
Her lips twitched. “Has anyone told you that you’re stubborn?”
“Yes.”
“Robert, I…” Frowning, she turned her back on him. “I came here to find out more about you.”
Her bonnet blocked his view of her face. “Why?” he asked, touching her shoulder and drawing her around to face him again.
“Because.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I thought I was the one with the limited vocab—”
“Blast it, tell me,” she interrupted.
Robert studied her expression, a growing suspicion pulling at him. He knew why he resisted talking, but he wasn’t certain why she was doing so. “Something’s happened. Did Geoffrey disagree with your…tolerance for me?”
“It’s not tolerance, for goodness’ sake, and we can discuss Geoffrey later.”
Something was definitely troubling her. “Lucinda, you can tell me anything.”
Lucinda stopped at the foot of the steps. It was the first time he’d called her by her given name, and she liked the sound on his lips. “We are friends,” she returned, facing him again. A very odd pair of friends who kissed and who, for her part anyway, thought of kissing each other quite a bit. “But if you won’t talk to me, why should I talk to you?”
Sky blue eyes met hers and slid away. It seemed to be the one advantage she had, that he had a keen sense of fair play. If she could remind him of that, perhaps he would stop pressing her for information—information she hadn’t yet decided how to tell him, about how she didn’t need him any longer, but wanted him there, anyway.
“What do you want to know?” he asked quietly.
The pain and reluctance in his voice almost stopped her. She might have given in, if her father’s “it’s important” hadn’t been so fresh in her thoughts, along with Robert’s specific request that the general not be told. At any rate, she wasn’t going to make him shout it halfway across the drive. “Shall we go inside?” she suggested.
Robert shook his head. “I don’t know how much I can tell you,” he said, “but I…need to be outside.”
She returned to him. “Give me your arm, then, and we’ll take another walk. A short walk.”
For a moment she didn’t think he would comply. “What about a chaperone?” he muttered.
“Hang the chaperone,” she retorted. “We’re walking around the block, in the open, for heaven’s sake.”
He held out his arm, and she wrapped her hand around his sleeve. His leg did seem better, but it gave her a pretext for touching him, for leaning into him. He smelled of fresh earth and leather, and more faintly, of shaving soap. She caught herself gazing at his sensuous mouth, and resolutely looked away again. Friends. They were friends.
As they continued on in silence, she realized she was going to have to begin the conversation. It wouldn’t be an easy path to tread. The last thing she wanted to do was cause him more pain, but she wanted, she needed, to know more about him. And not just to satisfy her curiosity about her father’s comments.
“In the general’s journals,” she said, sending up a quick prayer, “I’ve noticed that he has three reasons for leaving out details. The first is that the campaign was so involved or was moving so quickly that he simply didn’t have time to record everything. The second is that the incident or battle was too…disturbing, and he didn’t want to record the details. The third reason is that he intentionally didn’t note certain things for reasons of security or to ensure the safety of his men—in case his journals were lost or captured.”
“Lack of detail could also be because of simple lack of significance,” Robert put in.
“Yes, I suppose, but he tended not to mention insignificant things in the first place.”
He looked at her sideways, surprising her with the appreciation in his gaze. “Does General Barrett have any idea you’ve figured him out to such a degree?”
“Oh, I think he has a fairly good idea.” She smiled. “I ask a great many questions.”
“I’ve noticed that.” They walked past another house and turned the corner. “You’re very fond of General Barrett, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. He’s never treated me like an inferior because of my sex, and he saw to it that I received a first-rate education.”
“ ‘I had begun life with benevolent intentions and thirsted for the moment when I should put them in practice and make myself useful to my fellow beings,’ ” he recited, his fleeting smile appearing again.
“That’s from
Frankenstein, isn’t it?” she asked, remembering the tattered pages of the book he’d been reading the day all of this had begun.
“Are you guessing, or do you know?”
“I used deductive reasoning,” Lucinda returned. “I’m good at that, too. For instance, I have deduced that my father’s brevity concerning Bayonne and Chateau Pagnon was for all three reasons: time, content, and security.”
She felt his arm muscles draw tight beneath her hand, but his expression didn’t change. “I couldn’t begin to deduce what General Barrett might have been thinking,” he said in a low, hard voice, “but I would guess that you are correct.”
Lucinda swallowed. She could ask him why he disliked her father, or she could ask him about the thing her father had deemed important. From what she’d begun to learn, she had the feeling they were connected. With another swift glance at his tense, handsome face, she decided. “So Chateau Pagnon was a prison.”
“Of sorts.”
“Of what sort?”
With a ragged intake of breath, he began speaking, his voice low and rough and distant. “I didn’t see much of it, but as far as I could tell, it was a prison for British officers. A place where they—the French—tried to get…information.”
He meant a place where British officers were tortured. Where he had been tortured. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“You’ve never told anyone about this before, have you?” she asked, tightening her grip on his arm.
“No. I mean, I told Georgiana a little, about not being permitted to talk. That’s all. She didn’t need to know anything more than that. She may not have realized it, but she didn’t want to know anything more than that.”
“You weren’t permitted to talk?”
“Not to each other. If a guard heard anyone even whisper, even one word, they would drag us out and beat us.”
“But you said they wanted information. If you weren’t allowed to speak, how—”
“We were only allowed to talk to him.” A violent shudder went through his lean frame.
“Robert?”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “I’ve spent three years trying to forget this,” he murmured. “I don’t like remembering it again.”
England's Perfect Hero Page 16