Arabella, her eyes wide at the unwarranted ferocity of Lord Drake’s actions and the pain in his eyes, blurted out, “True?”
“Yes, Miss Becket.”
Arabella frowned and stared at the viscount. It was dreadfully disconcerting to find that all this time it appeared the man had been thinking of True. Disconcerting and infuriating. “No. She is most decisive. Once she has made up her mind, she rarely relents.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Narrowing her eyes, Arabella crossed her arms across her chest in a most unladylike stance and stood in front of Lord Drake. She took a deep breath, her chin went up, and she said, “Sir, what is the meaning of all this?”
“All this? What do you mean?”
Arabella just glared. The viscount had the grace to look abashed.
“Uh, Miss Swinley, would you sit down by the river with me?”
He swept off his jacket and laid it on the long yellowing grass. Gingerly, careful not to tear the exquisite lace of her best walking dress, Arabella sat and neatly folded her gloved hands on her lap. Drake collapsed on the ground beside her and reclined lazily, a piece of grass in his teeth. Scandalized by such ungentlemanly behavior, Arabella refused to look his way, and thus was startled when he grasped her hand.
“Sir?” she gasped.
“Miss Swinley, please relax. I do not bite.” His tone was sardonic, and he retained her hand in his.
It felt like a prison, she thought, regarding his large hand engulfing the fawn glove. “I did not think that you bite, sir. I was just taken by surprise.”
“Have you never had your hand earnestly pressed by one of your London suitors? Has no one ever stolen a kiss from you before?”
Arabella stared down at the brooding man as though he were a snake in the grass rather than a viscount. “I really do not think that is any of your concern, sir,” she said.
“Kiss me,” he commanded.
Arabella jerked her hand away from Drake and stood, brushing at her skirts in case any errant blade of grass lingered. “I will not stay to be insulted, sir.” Head held high, she stalked away, leaving Drake watching her with a bemused expression in his mud-brown eyes.
What had come over him to be so appallingly rude to a girl who had done nothing to merit it? he wondered. It was unpardonable, and unlike him. Disgusting and distasteful the depth into which he had sunk. He had become slovenly, even more so than usual, and exhaustion was wearing him down. But he missed True. He missed walking with her and talking with her, and he especially missed stolen hours kissing her and incidentally sleeping in the autumn sunshine, feeling her small hand tangled in his hair. Every moment they had spent together, sleeping and waking, seemed precious now, doubly so because there would never be more. The memories he had of her were counted and numbered. He had taken stock like a careful shopkeeper, and they would have to last him the rest of his days.
She was to marry her vicar. He had seen her words with his own eyes, had it thrust at him in triumph. The damned letter Lady Swinley had been waving around was one written to Arabella, but the baroness had evidently read it before it ever got to its intended recipient. Then she had shoved it in front of Drake’s eyes and bade him read it as “he had been so concerned about the vicar, and it contained news of Mr. Becket, too.”
He had not been fooled about her intentions, but neither could he resist being sure she was not lying. She would do that as surely as she would manipulate people to her own ends.
Her father was fine, True reported; his illness was just his gout flaring up as usual. Some days were bad, some good. It went on to prepare Arabella for “some very good news.” She had decided to marry Mr. Arthur Bottleby. There was no time to invite her cousins to the wedding, as they were to be married by license as soon as was possible, and then they would travel to his northern parish as their honeymoon. She was very, very happy, she said, and Drake had no reason to disbelieve her. All his presentiments of dread had come true then, and she was lost to him forever.
That evening a headache started, and he had known that he was headed for a nightmare. Sure enough, two hours after closing his eyes the nightmare had started, and then he had flung on his clothes and gone riding in the frigid drizzle. He shivered, feeling the ache behind his eyes. He dare not lay his head back on the ground, not even in the place that was precious to him, the oak tree where she had held him for the first time, for the nightmare would come again as it always did, and he would die once more in his dreams.
Wearily, he heaved himself to his feet and limped home.
Chapter Fourteen
“Drake, dear, you look feverish. You have been out in the pouring rain riding again, haven’t you, last night? That makes two nights in a row.” Lady Leathorne gazed across the table at her son, noting the two high spots of color on his sharp cheekbones.
“Don’t coddle the boy, Jess. He’ll be right as rain.” Lord Leathorne plowed through his plate of mutton, while the others politely averted their eyes. Watching Lord Leathorne eat was too much like watching wild dogs pull apart a sheep’s carcass, if any one of them could have seen that sight to make the comparison.
Lady Leathorne held her own counsel, and did not reply to her husband.
“I am fine, Mother. Nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure.” His tone was wry, but Drake realized the justice of his mother’s concern. He really did not feel well. It probably had been foolish to go out the night before to ride after his usual dream, but nothing helped him work off the horrors like riding hell for leather across the dark fields, and a little rain had never stopped the war, had it? He was in his thirties; it was time his mother stopped worrying over him like a child.
Lady Swinley, eyes glittering almost as if she was fevered, too, said, “Arabella, dear, you should make your special nighttime tisane for his lordship, and I’ll warrant he would sleep like a lamb.”
Miss Swinley’s expression warned that the tisane was more likely to guarantee an eternal sleep for the daring drinker, for her eyes glinted like jade, hard and cold. She glared at her mother and shook her head almost imperceptibly.
“Drake should go to sleep with a calf’s foot beneath his pillow. That’s what m’mother swears by. Makes the nightmares just trot right by you,” Conroy said.
Since no one at the table had mentioned nightmares, Drake shot his friend a disgusted look.
Conroy reddened. “Didn’t mean to imply . . . I say, anyone up for whist tonight?”
Drake lost the rest of the conversation, as all entered to cover the awkward moment. As if everyone in the house did not know, by then, that he had nightmares, Drake thought, what with his howling and screaming down the house.
The night before had been especially bad, thus the long ride in the rain once more. And this day the rain had continued, so they had all been forced to stay inside and pretend to be a merry company of friends. Conroy had devoted himself to Arabella Swinley, as usual, and Drake had wandered the house, not quite knowing what to do, but too restless to just sit with a book. There was scads of preparation to putting together the Drake School, but somehow he had lost enthusiasm for that project. He would see it through, but perhaps he would delegate some of the work to Horace, who was wholeheartedly for the idea.
He was lonely, he realized, since True had left, despite being surrounded by family and company. He had fallen into the habit of talking things over with her, anything and everything. She would sometimes listen, sometimes offer her own opinion, and sometimes flat-out contradict him. But that was what he liked. She asked questions, she debated, she disagreed, she never, ever flattered; in short, there was no one else to equal her.
Lady Swinley and her daughter would agree with anything he said; a pair of fortune hunters, the two of them. His mother . . . well, one did not confide some things to one’s mother. He had a feeling it gave her the cold horrors to think of him in the kind of danger he was in on the battlefield. And forget his father. Sometimes he felt as though they didn’t even speak
the same language. Conroy, the best friend of his youth, frankly did not want to hear about it. Drake had come to believe that his friend thought that he exaggerated his tales of the war. He never came right out and said it, but it was in the rise of his elegant eyebrow and the tilt of his head.
Or maybe he, Drake, was just getting too damned sensitive. He wanted True back, but that chance was gone forever. She had made her choice and by her own words was happier than she had ever been in her life. He had to believe that the spark he had felt between them was one-sided, that she had merely been a polite listener and a concerned friend.
He tried to believe it, but he couldn’t. Damn her for throwing her life away before he ever got a chance to offer her his own, whatever of it she wanted. He could not be angry, though; she had what she wanted, he hoped. She would be happy. And was that not what he truly wished for her?
• • •
“True, can I come in?” Faith stood at the door of the room they called the library, though it was more like a closet with shelves than anything resembling the grand rooms at Lea Park and Thorne House.
“Of course, widgeon,” True said to her sister, with an affectionate glance. Faith had been tiptoeing around her for days, asking to join her, watching her when she thought her older sister didn’t know. Somehow, in a way only sisters would understand, Faith had divined that something had happened at Lea Park, something extraordinary. But as True would not—could not—confide her feelings to her younger sister, Faith was left worried and cautious.
She sidled into the small room and perched on the arm of the only other chair, an oak, heavily-carved Stuart monstrosity. True met her gaze. “What is it, hon?” she asked, setting aside her pen and paper.
“Do you really mean to accept Mr. Bottleby?”
“If he is still of a mind to take me as his wife, yes.” True tried to subdue the faint queasiness and panic that accompanied that statement.
“Do you love him?” Faith’s eyes were wide, and they sparkled the same blue as True saw when she looked in the mirror.
“No, I don’t love him, or at least not in a romantic way,” she said calmly. “He knows that. We have spoken of it, and he believes that it is enough that we like each other, respect each other, and want to work together to help people.”
Faith slid down into the chair, looking about five in her pale blue dress and white apron, her dark curls tied up in a blue ribbon. She had evidently been in the kitchen making pastries, because a dab of flour adorned her nose, adding to the impression of extreme youth. She was one and twenty, though, and not nearly as naïve as her gaze led people to think. “I don’t think you should marry him. I think you should marry the other gentleman.”
“Faith, what are you talking about? There is no other gentleman.”
Rosy lips set in a stubborn line, Faith frowned at her older sister. “You have never kept anything from me before, and I think it is simply dreadful of you to start now, just when there is something interesting to tell. Tell me about him.”
“Honestly, honey, there is no other man who has proposed to me.”
“P’raps not, but there is another man,” Faith said shrewdly. She curled her feet up under her and said, “I shall simply plague you until you tell me about him. Or I will write to Bella. She’ll tell me, if you won’t.”
“Don’t you dare!” True gasped. Wouldn’t that make things awkward, if Faith took it into her head to question Arabella as to the identity of “another man”? True gazed down at the paper in front of her for a moment. She had been composing a list of things to take away with her to her new home, and things to leave. She had spoken with the Widow Saunders, and that good woman was ready and willing to help with the housekeeping at the vicarage any time it should overwhelm Faith, which it was likely to on any given day, as Faith had a tendency to go off on a whim if she thought of something she wanted to do. True had spent a good deal of time over the past week with Mr. Wentworth, the man Faith was “walking out” with, and liked him. He was steady, a barrister and a good ten years older than Faith, but very much, from all signs, in love with True’s little sister.
Their father approved, and True did too. With both the girls gone, their father would finally feel free to marry the Widow Saunders after a lengthy spell as a widower. True wanted that for her father, after seeing how the woman coddled and cared for the vicar. She was a youthful fifty or so, with married daughters and sons, and she had been spending more and more time at the vicarage; True now realized what the attraction was. It was mutual, apparently, a love match if ever there was one. She had seen it in both of their eyes when they looked at each other, and it touched her deeply.
And so life was changing for them all. And why was she keeping anything from her sister? She would trust Faith with any secret, and this one was really no different. It might help her to talk it over.
“If I could choose anyone in this whole world to marry,” True said absently, fiddling with the quill, “I would chose Wycliffe Prentice, Lord Drake. And not because he is Lord Drake, but because he is Wy; dear, brave, sweet Wy.”
“Lord Drake!” Faith breathed. “How grand that sounds. Is he handsome?”
Closing her eyes, True smiled. “He is utterly beautiful, like the stained glass window of Saint Michael in Papa’s church. He has golden hair and golden eyes, and his face looks like it is carved; his very bones are beautiful. But he has suffered, and you can see it in his eyes when he doesn’t know anyone is looking at him. When he is happy, they glow gold, but when he’s disturbed, they muddy to brown.”
“How has he suffered?” Faith asked.
“He’s a soldier, a major-general, though he is not above his middle thirties. But he has a sensitive soul, so the death around him, the death he was forced to mete out as a soldier, it has affected him deeply.” True felt the sorrow in her own heart for her friend. She had thought about him often over the past week and hoped he was still doing well. She saw no reason why he should not continue on the road to mending as he seemed to be, but somehow she was uneasy about him.
By the time they headed up to their shared bedroom an hour later, True had told Faith everything. She had cried a little, laughed a little, and sighed a lot over unrequited feelings she had done her best to suppress and would try to conquer before her wedding day. It all seemed unreal so far, since she had still not told Mr. Bottleby her decision. When he came back she would have to, and subdue any residual affection for Drake, but until then she could live in this state of suspended reality.
In their shared room, after they had donned nightrails and True had blown out the candle, Faith spoke once more, drowsily, and as though from a distance.
“True? I forgot to tell you what I came in the library to tell you. A message came this evening. Mr. Bottleby is back, and will be coming to the vicarage tomorrow or the next day for your answer.”
• • •
The day had started with wet, tired, desperately hungry troops awakening from restless sleep in whatever accommodation could be found, the rumble of their yawns and groans and voices like distant thunder. Men slept in cornfields, in the orchard of La Haye Sainte—this was a farmhouse that Wellington had ordered fortified as an outpost and one anchor of his battle area; the other two outposts were a farm called Papelotte and the chateau known as Hougoumont—in hastily rigged tents of standard issue blankets. Drake had spent the night with the select group of commanders in the company of an energetic Wellington. He took his orders from the duke, returned to the field, rallied his troops, and proceeded to move in the patterns decided on the previous night, all on no sleep and little food.
Now it was hours later, late afternoon, and La Haye Sainte was at the center of the fight. All around the Belgian, Dutch, German and British forces the enemy cannonade pounded like thunder; smoke filled the air, obscuring even the burning sun. Then utter silence, and then, more frightening to the experienced among the troops, the insistent drumming of the pas de charge and shouts of Vive l’Empereur by t
ens of thousands of voices, followed by massive columns of French infantry marching on the allied positions.
Incredibly, impossibly, the inexperienced Prince of Orange, too young at twenty-two to be Wellington’s second in command but forced on the duke by virtue of the theater of war, now Dutch territory, gave the command to the King’s German Legion, a group of seasoned Hanoverian warriors, to advance. Advance! Christian von Ompteda, experienced and tough commander of the KGL, knew how enormous a mistake it was. There were holes in his line, but his men were in a good defensive position on the right of the crossroads behind La Haye Sainte, a position they could and would defend as long as there was one man left. They should hold fast. Everyone knew that. To move forward was the command of a young and inexperienced soldier, but the prince’s pride would not let him back down even when shown his error.
There was nothing for Ompteda to do but obey his superior officer, for obedience in the army was the only way to ensure order and discipline. Once that broke down, each man felt justified in making his own decisions, and defections were inevitable. So Ompteda would lead his men to their death, and his own death, for honor would not allow him to live while his men died.
Drake, in command of the Kent Light Dragoons, watched in horror as the Germans advanced toward the French, only to be slaughtered, all in five minutes, it seemed. He shouted an order and spurred Andromeda into a gallop, leading his men in a charge down the slope to try to save them, but it was futile. The next seconds were a blur of smoke and sound and thunder. The Germans were mostly dead but Ompteda, valiant to the end, leaped the hedge into the garden of the farm, his sword flashed, and then he went down. Drake’s cavalry was forced back, but not before Drake turned Andromeda, gallant horse as she was, to face a French officer who raised his saber to cut Drake down. Instinct, pure and simple, enabled Drake to thrust with his sword, spearing the Frenchman neatly through, even as his thigh was being sliced open.
Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) Page 15