The Companion

by Deborah Simmons

  “You must,” Chloe said, drawing his attention back to her. Tucking her cloak beneath her, she sat in a patch of sun, her back against a thick oak, and gazed up at him expectantly.

  Kit blew out a long breath. No one had ever asked him seriously about the experiences that he had pushed into a deep, dark place inside him, and he was both horrified and tantalized by Chloe’s insistence. Against his will, he felt a pressing need to speak, but it was tempered by a reluctance to sully Chloe’s ears with tales no decent female should hear.

  Oh, he knew camp followers and wives who had been to battles, sometimes even charging in to save their husbands at a cost of their own limb or life. But that was different. Chloe was as far removed from that world of gunpowder and blood as was humanly possible, and Kit wanted to keep her that way.

  And yet, the need to unburden himself suddenly surged through him until he could not control himself, and he began to recount the events that had led up to Waterloo. He spoke slowly at first, and then a torrent of words came, startling him with their intensity. After a time, his leg ached, so he sat down beside her, and after a longer time, he found himself unable to talk anymore.

  And Chloe, calm and steady Chloe, did not turn away in horror or revulsion, but reached out and pulled him into her arms until he lay his head against her soft breasts and wept like an infant.

  * * *

  Kit wasn’t sure what had come over him. Somehow he had made it back to the house after breaking down, returning to his rooms to rest. And, miraculously, he had slept. Now he actually felt refreshed, free somehow of a great burden, though nothing had changed. However, despite his comparative well-being, he suspected that he ought to be ashamed of his display, and he was loath to face Chloe again.

  What would she think of him? Kit prepared himself for the worst, only to find her seated in the grand salon, looking as calm and steady as always. Although he searched for it, Kit found no condemnation in her face as she smiled up at him, only acceptance and something else. If he hadn’t known better, Kit might have thought it admiration. But what woman could find anything to appreciate in a man who cried?

  Certainly not his grandmother, Kit thought, for she glared at him with her usual expression of contempt. “And just where have you been?” she demanded. “I’ve had the entire staff out combing the hillsides for you! Sawyer has arrived and needs to meet with you about those London properties.”

  “I was resting,” Kit said, walking to the tall windows to gaze out at the serene landscape.

  “Resting? That’s all you’ve been doing since you got here! Now its time to do something!” the dowager snapped. “Someone needs to take the reins or this family will fall to ruin, Hawthorne!”

  “I’ll meet with Mr. Sawyer.” The offer, coming as it did from Chloe, made both Kit and his grandmother turn to stare at her. Kit felt his lips curve in silent approval of her fortitude. Nothing frightened Chloe, not horrific war stories or weeping soldiers or even the dowager countess of Hawthorne.

  Predictably, his grandmother was unimpressed and showed it by snorting loudly. “Just what we need, a destitute girl advising our man of business!” She stood up, giving them one of her sweeping, imperious glances, and then thumped her cane. “I will go, since you continue to shirk your responsibilities,” she said, glowering at Kit. Then she turned to Chloe, sending her a hard glance. “And you have done nothing here to earn your wages,” she added before storming from the room.

  Kit opened his mouth to defend his companion, but the sound of her low voice, tinged with anxiety, stopped him.

  “She’s getting too old for this, Kit,” Chloe said. Her words so startled him that for a moment he didn’t think he had heard her correctly.

  “My grandmother? Too old?” he asked. “She’ll wrestle the devil himself in her very grave.”

  But Chloe didn’t smile. “Take a good look at her, Kit, and you’ll see that she’s about to break.”

  “Nonsense,” Kit scoffed. “She’s made of stone.”

  “Or so she would like us to believe,” Chloe said. “Did you ever think that this is her way of coping?”

  Kit uttered a low, bitter bark of laughter, but Chloe did not join him.

  “Truly,” she said, lifting those great dark eyes to his with gentle remonstrance. “I believe that if your grandmother allowed herself to really mourn her husband or her son or your brother or your health or the dynasty in which she has invested her very life, she would crack in two, like a brittle sliver of rock. She takes her strength from her pride of family, and that is what keeps her going, despite age and infirmity and disappointments. And that is why she clings to it so desperately.”

  Kit blinked in amazement, prepared to argue, but he had learned that Chloe didn’t debate. She simply stated her case as reasonably as possible and then waited patiently for him to agree. But in this instance, how could he? And yet, as if against his will, he began to see the wisdom of her words. How often during these past few months had he decried his grandmother’s ranting? But did he truly want to see the embodiment of fierceness, the stalwart pillar of his youth, the last bastion of his family, crack and crumble?

  As if accepting his silence as agreement, Chloe spoke again. “I think, too, that if you consider it, you will find that you and your grandmother are not so very different. You share the same love of the land, the same pride in your heritage, the same fierce loyalty.”

  Kit sank down onto a carved gilt couch, astonished, as Chloe enumerated the dowager’s finer points as well as his own. And, as she did so, she delicately forced him to examine the consequences of his guilt. Not only was he making himself and those who cared for him suffer, but he was letting the estate go, and that affected the tenant farmers and the villagers, as well.

  While all of his grandmother’s railing had fallen on deaf ears, Kit found himself listening to Chloe. He knew she shared his love of the countryside, and when she spoke of it and the people who were entrusted to him now as earl, he felt a subtle reawakening of his sense of responsibility, a sudden interest in the duties of the earldom.

  All because of Chloe. She continued to speak, and Kit watched her, his gaze resting lovingly on the smooth sheen of her dark hair, on her thick lashes, on the curve of her cheek, which sent his attention lower, to other curves, and he took in a harsh breath at the sudden stirring of his body. He remembered every luscious detail of Chloe’s sweet form and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to uncover them, one by one, to his eyes, his hands, his mouth.

  “Think about what you’re feeling. Be honest with yourself is all I ask,” she said softly, and Kit jerked to attention.

  He knew what he was feeling all right, and mostly, it was unbridled lust for his companion.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Chloe sat by the window in the study, ostensibly reading, but more often than not dividing her attention between the rain that pounded against the glass and Kit. He was seated not far away at a massive desk, looking through some papers that Mr. Sawyer had left behind, and Chloe practically held her breath rather than disturb the fragile tenure of his interest.

  Despite the dowager’s accusation that she was not earning her keep, Chloe knew she was helping and that Kit was getting better. His grandmother was impatient and frustrated, but any kind of healing took time. Why should recovery of the spirit be any different? And Chloe had seen changes in Kit, leading up to today’s effort. If she could just restrain the dowager a while longer, she sensed that Kit would eventually assume a role in the household. The two would still argue, Chloe was certain, but Kit would return to his own.

  And then what of herself? Chloe’s joy at each step he took out of his guilt and mourning was tempered by a kind of sadness. For she knew that Kit’s resumption of his life would put her out of a position, one that she had initially disdained only to come to love. No. Love was too strong a word, Chloe thought, shying away from it. Yet there was no denying she had made the ultimate mistake of those who served, whether governess, companion or
paid help of any kind: she was becoming far too fond of her charges.

  She had come here expecting to be miserable, a useless charity case with naught to do but fetch and carry. Instead she had found a challenge, an opportunity to help someone who desperately needed it. Having lost her father, she had never thought to be part of a family again, but she had created a new one in this household of misfits. She loved the Yorkshire countryside, the immaculate beauty of Hawthorne Park, the spacious rooms and elegant ambience of the house itself, and she had grown fond of its inhabitants, both the fierce old dowager and her difficult grandson.

  Glancing at the latter, Chloe felt a curious sensation within her breast, and her heart began a new rhythm. His hair glinted in the pale light from the window, as if producing its own sunshine, and the golden glow of his skin seemed a testament to it. He was putting on a little weight and losing some of his leanness, though he would never be anything except fit, despite his limp.

  Blushing, Chloe looked down at the book in her lap, acknowledging her own weakness. Somehow, Kit had gone from being a beautiful but fatally flawed man into being a beautiful but vulnerable man, with a character that drew her admiration, not her scorn. And her initial dislike had turned into something else entirely.

  Even as she tried to tear her attention away, Chloe glanced back at Kit, letting him fill her thoughts, worrying for him, wondering about him, and she knew she cared far too much. And unlike a governess or a normal companion, there was a certain yearning attached to her affection that endangered both her good name and her heart. It was wholly inappropriate, especially after what had happened in the folly.

  Chloe refused to consider that night, pushing the memory way down deep until it receded into something resembling a dream. She had been determined to ignore it in the hope that Kit would, too, and he did, after a perfunctory apology. Indeed, he seemed to have dismissed the encounter with uncommon ease, and although Chloe told herself she was grateful, she could not help feeling a tiny twinge of disappointment.

  With a frown at her foolishness, Chloe reminded herself to be sensible and to view the incident in the proper perspective. As Kit healed, it was only fitting that he resume his former activities, including a man’s natural inclination towards the opposite gender. She simply had been the only female at hand when he had been struck with the reoccurrence of that...interest, and that was the extent of her significance in the matter.

  When he was more fully recovered, no doubt Kit would return to the social whirl and choose a suitable countess, just as the dowager wanted, his former companion long forgotten as he made a home at Hawthorne Park, raised a family and reigned as earl. Although that future was certainly what she was working toward and wished for him, for some reason the thought of such success brought a painful lump to her throat, and Chloe cleared it noisily.

  “Hmm?” The low sound came from Kit, and Chloe realized that she had diverted him from Mr. Sawyer’s documents. She knew a moment’s regret even as some selfish, churlish part of her demanded that she steal whatever attention she could get while it lasted.

  “What?” Kit asked when she did not respond. He turned his head to gift her with the full power of his gaze, and Chloe felt like melting into a puddle in her seat.

  “I was just wondering about your fiancée,” she heard herself say. Where had that come from? Chloe thought even as she blushed anew. But hadn’t she insisted on discussing other painful things? What made his engagement any different? Perhaps the fact that she was consumed with curiosity about the woman who had broken it, she decided.

  Kit laid down the paper in his hand, but for a long moment Chloe thought he would not answer. Indeed, she was just going to change the subject when he finally spoke. “Julia was from another world—of frivolous parties, inane conversation and the vagaries of society. It seems a lifetime ago.”

  As if lost in thought, Kit stared off into the distance. “She was a toast of the ton, a duke’s daughter, and a great prize upon the marital market. So, naturally, I was quite pleased when she began to show me marked attention,” he noted with a wry expression. “I was only a younger son then, but she claimed to have been smitten by a dashing cavalry officer. Perhaps she admired the uniform.”

  “More likely the way you wore it,” Chloe commented acerbically.

  Kit turned to look at her then, as if startled by her presence, and he laughed, his green eyes aglow with mischief. “Surely, I wasn’t the only fellow in the entire army able to fill out a uniform.”

  Chloe shifted in her seat, suddenly uncomfortable with his perceptive gaze. “Perhaps,” she mumbled.

  “And maybe you are right, and she only liked the looks of me, for when I returned without the same looks or charm, she was eager to move on to a more robust fellow.”

  Flooded with mortification at her thoughtless comment, Chloe felt terrible for causing Kit more pain. “No! That’s not what I meant at all—” she began, but he cut her off with a lift of his hand.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” he said. Then he paused as if considering the truth of his words, and his lips curved into a smile that rendered Chloe into warm butter. “It doesn’t matter at all.”

  * * *

  They were spending too much time together, Kit thought with something akin to panic. Over the past week Chloe had, indeed, become a companion of sorts, despite his continued misgivings. Although he sensed that she was a threat to the existence he had made for himself here, she managed to lull him with her quiet manner and reasonable speech.

  Just when he swore to put some distance between them, she would give his arm a gentle touch of reassurance and he would lose his intention in the warm pleasure that flooded him. Or she might fall into a peaceful silence, and instead of driving her away, he would nearly forget her presence, only to look up to find her there, a comforting sight. And if Kit still thought to deny her, he had only to gaze into those great dark eyes of hers, full of compassion, not pity, of sense instead of nonsense, and brimming with the promise of something more, for which he dared not even hope.

  So they took long walks or rides together, and when the weather kept them inside, she read out loud or they played cards or she wrote letters while he began to look over the business of the earldom. He could do it, too, if Chloe was nearby. He could forget that he was taking over Garrett’s position and startle himself with his abilities.

  Chloe was not the least surprised, pointing out that he had led men and planned attacks and strengthened communications in the field, so why couldn’t he do the same here? And, so he did, organizing the tenants, promoting the agricultural methods that had been Garrett’s passion and taking up correspondence with the managers of the vast family businesses. He even found some of it to be challenging.

  But when he was alone in the study, Kit would sink into the dismals again, feeling as though he was betraying Garrett’s memory with his newfound skills. Determined to not forget his brother, he questioned Chloe’s efficacy. And that was when the nagging sensation of danger overcame his good sense, and he began to fear her and everything she represented.

  Leaning in his chair, Kit put a hand to the back of his neck, pressing against the tight muscle. He should be out walking instead of here in this close room with a pile of written words before him. He needed to breathe fresh air to clear his head, to feel the wind, to eat up the countryside with his strides until he was well away from his grandmother’s nagging, from the business of being earl, but most of all from the woman who had taken over his world until it wasn’t his own anymore, but someone else’s. Garrett’s.

  Just then the door swung slightly, and Kit opened his mouth, prepared to curse whoever dared disturb his momentary quiet, only to swallow his protest at the sight of Chloe. As always in her presence, his body warmed and elation filled him, driving away the tension—until he jerked it back and hung on to it for dear life. Fixing her with one of the glares that had sent so many of his old friends and family packing, he unleashed the beast.

  “I can�
�t do this,” he said coldly. And throwing out an arm, he swept the pile of reports, receipts and correspondence to the floor in one fell swoop.

  Anyone else would have been horrified by such a display, but Chloe appeared undisturbed. “Then do something else,” she said, stepping forward to perch on the edge of a small divan. She was so beautiful that Kit could not look at her, not without losing what little resolve he had left.

  “And just what do you suggest?” he asked with a snarl. In the back of his mind, he thought to insult her, but the words only incited him further. Images of just what he would like to do, here with Chloe, flickered through his mind, stealing his breath.

  Seemingly oblivious to that sudden flare of desire, Chloe eyed him calmly. “Did you ever think that you might be alive for a reason?” she asked in a deceptively casual tone.

  Kit shot her a hard look that told her such speech was unwelcome, but Chloe ignored it. “Or at least that you might put your own survival to some good use?” she asked.

  “Haven’t you been listening to my grandmother? I’m here solely for the maintenance of the family enterprises and the propagation of the species,” Kit said. And if Chloe pushed him to fulfill the former duty, why shouldn’t she assist him with the latter?

  “I’m not talking about that,” she said. “Although I think you’d enjoy serving as earl, if you let yourself, I certainly don’t view the continuation of your line as a matter of life and death or a moral obligation.”

  Well, that was entirely too bad, Kit thought.

  “Instead of brooding over those who are dead, those you cannot aid, you might do something to help those poor men, thousands of them I daresay, who have been dismissed from the army and navy since Waterloo, with no pensions or provisions or employment,” she said.

  “Why, I have seen them upon the roadways, doing the meanest of jobs, humiliated and beaten when they should be victorious. You are in a position now to do something for the men who saved your life and our country. You might think upon that,” Chloe said.