by Lauren Smith
“What are you thinking about?” Owen asked as they entered the gardens in front of the house.
She answered honestly. “Dancing. I miss dancing.”
His bark of laughter made her bristle.
“You could have fooled me. I distinctly recall you telling Hampton off when he asked you to dance.”
Milly huffed, pulling her arm free of his as she stalked ahead of him.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Owen called out. His arms banded around her waist as he caught hold of her from behind.
She squealed in surprise and swatted at his hands but he twirled her around, lifting her enough that her boots skimmed the grass.
“Put me down, Owen. Heavens!” She squealed again as he set her on the ground, then spun her in his arms so that she faced him. The delighted and all-too-smug expression on his face made her want to smack his chest. So she did, but not too hard.
“Why not dance with me?” he suggested.
“What?”
He still held her waist, his grip firm but gentle.
“Dance with me, Milly. Come on.”
It was impossible to deny Owen when he flashed that smile of his. The one that made her chest ache and her knees wobbly.
“You like to dance, too?” she asked.
“More than anything,” he replied, then seemed to reconsider. “Well, almost anything.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“You mean…oh!” She felt the red-hot blush flood her entire body.
“Yes, what we did last night is much better than dancing.” He kept one palm on her waist, the other clasping one of her free hands.
“A waltz?” he offered.
She could only shake her head. “This is ridiculous. We are in the middle of a country garden, not in a London ballroom.”
“And that is exactly why we must dance.”
“But we have no music.” She desperately tried to find other excuses. If she danced with him…Her heart thumped wildly at the mere thought of how wonderful it might be.
Owen started to sing, just vocalizing a familiar waltz. His voice was beautiful. Lulled into the spell of his singing and the pull of his arms, they began to dance. The world around them spun in a shimmering haze as they twirled and whirled. The gravel of the garden path crunched beneath their boots and the occasional thrush chirped along with Owen’s captivating melody. He was a wonderful dancer, anticipating her own pattern of steps as though they’d danced together for a hundred years. By the time he finally slowed their steps to a stop, she was humming along with him.
“There now, see? Breaking the rules of propriety can be fun.”
She smiled. She supposed dancing in a garden wasn’t exactly breaking propriety, but she hadn’t thought she would ever do such a thing. He was right, though; it had been fun.
“Now, let’s get to town. I peeked at your list this morning and we have quite a bit to accomplish.”
Two hours later, she and Owen were visiting the last shop, a tiny bookseller, at Owen’s request. Not that Milly would have argued, since she adored books. Owen didn’t hover over her as she perused the shelves. The store didn’t have many of the most current titles but that was no surprise. A small shop, out of the way of London, wasn’t likely to have the latest books. She selected a few classic titles like Ivanhoe and Emma before she went in search of her husband. He was standing by the doorway of the shop, deep in conversation with another man.
Something about their rigid stances made her stay concealed, peering at them from around one of the bookshelves.
“Never thought I’d see you settle down, Hadley. Finally found a rich widow who doesn’t mind paying your debts?” The barbed comment came from the other man and Owen clenched his hands into fists at his sides.
“Brandon, you are on dangerous ground.” Owen’s tone was low but hard as iron.
Brandon laughed. “You went too far when you had an understanding with my sister. When you cried off, it broke her. She’s never been the same, especially not after the scandal with her condition.” Brandon growled. “No man would have her, even though the babe died.” The last was uttered in a vicious growl.
Owen stepped back, his face ashen. Milly covered her mouth, hoping to quiet her frantic breathing.
A baby? He cried off an engagement and left a woman with child?
“It wasn’t my child, Brandon. I broke it off because she didn’t love me. She told me she loved someone else. I let her go. Whoever she was seeing put her in the family way, not I.” The barely restrained fury sparked in Owen’s eyes, so strong that Milly could see it from where she stood.
Brandon squared his shoulders, sneering. “My sister wouldn’t lie. She said it was you.”
Owen showed his teeth like a cornered wolf. “I’m not going to be a scapegoat for Scarlett. I never bedded her. Do not put that lie on my doorstep.”
Brandon stepped back, but his voice was icy. “I hope your new wife learns what sort of man you are so she doesn’t end up with child and alone.” Then he stormed around Owen and exited the bookshop. Milly tried to duck behind the bookcase, but Owen glanced around and caught sight of her. The emotions racing across his features were wiped clean and he met her stare with a cold, blank expression.
“Milly, have you found any books you like?” he asked.
She was still clutching Ivanhoe and Emma to her chest. She nodded mutely and walked past him to the small shopkeeper’s desk to pay for the books. Owen lingered by the doorway, restlessly pacing. Once she paid for her items, she tucked them in a small satchel and followed Owen out of the shop. Neither of them spoke on the ride back to Wesden Heath. Milly couldn’t get the words out of her head.
Scarlett. A child…
When they reached the house, she was so numb inside that she didn’t flinch when he helped her down from her horse.
“Milly,” he began, then paused when she refused to meet his gaze.
“I think I’ll take some tea in my chambers.” She skirted around him and rushed to the house.
“Mistress,” Mrs. Nelson greeted, but Milly fled past her, up the stairs to her room.
“Milady?” Constance leapt up from the seat by the fire, a pair of boots and a polish cloth in her hands.
“Oh, please sit, Constance,” she all but gasped out. Why did she feel like she was going to cry? She shouldn’t, but the tears were there, ready to fall. She would never forget what she’d overheard, that Owen was the seducer she’d always feared he was. A coldhearted man who took what he wanted and left devastation behind him. This is why I refuse to fall in love. I’m not in love with him. I’m not. Then why did it hurt so much? Why did the thought of him getting another woman with child feel like a knife to her heart? He’d seduced that woman just like he had seduced her and he’d abandoned that woman…just as he would abandon her. It was too much to bear, her heart shattering into a thousand glittering shards.
The door to her room crashed open as Owen strode in, a thunderous expression on his face.
“Excuse us, Constance.” He cleared his throat and jerked his head toward the door.
“No, Constance, stay,” Milly begged. Her poor maid looked between the two of them.
Owen crossed his arms over his chest. “I won’t bother you much longer, Milly, but we will talk.”
Constance bolted for the door and left them completely and utterly alone. Owen closed the door and leaned back against it, preventing any means of escaping him.
“Owen, I have no interest in talking to you.” She sat down in a chair by the fire and opened her satchel of books, pulling one out, not that she could actually read at a time like this.
Owen took the second chair by the fire and leaned forward, angling her chair toward his. He snatched the book and her satchel out of her hands, tossing them onto the bed.
“Listen to me. What you witnessed today doesn’t have anything to do with what lies between us.”
That lit a fury inside her to match his. “It clearly has nothing to do with us. You l
oved another woman, got her with child, then cried off. Thank heavens you never dared to love me. I should hate to think how I would have fared being a woman in such esteem in your affections.”
Owen’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.
“Scarlett was a woman I once cared deeply for. But I never loved her. Would I have married her? Yes. But she didn’t love me. There was a young man who came through the village that summer, and she set her cap for him. She threw me over for the other man, and I let her. There was no reason to keep a woman trapped when she did not love me.”
Milly almost scoffed. It wasn’t as though he could have set her free; they were past the point of no return.
“We never made love. Not once. We shared a kiss or two, but I swear to you, Milly, it was not my child she bore and lost.” His voice dropped and turned rough. “I swear to you on this house, on these lands that give me a reason to draw breath, that is the honest truth.”
Her throat was squeezed so tight, she couldn’t get a breath into her lungs for several long seconds. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream, to hit him, to show him the pain that was tearing her up inside. Even if what he said was true, she was already cut and bleeding.
He stood, his lips parted as though to speak, when an urgent knock came at the door.
“Enter,” he said.
Mr. Boyd came in, holding a piece of paper. “Telegram for you, sir. It was delivered just now from town. Urgent.”
Owen didn’t immediately take the telegram. He continued to watch Milly for a long moment before he accepted the slip of paper. When he unfolded it and read the words, he growled and crushed the paper in his palm before striding over to the fire and tossing it in the flames.
“I have to go to London tonight. I’ll hire a cab from town and leave as soon as it arrives.”
Milly swallowed the lump in her throat and looked at him. Stark pain laced his features and her bleeding heart quivered in response.
“I shall write to you. Every day. Please at least do me the courtesy of reading my letters.” His shoulders slumped and he exited the room.
She glanced back at the fire and noticed the telegram had fallen short of the flames. It rested on gray ashes, unburned. She used a poker to extricate the slip of paper and smothered it flat on the ground so she could read the message.
Jack drinking again. Need you to come at once. Only you can stop him. Hampton.
Jack? Was this Jack Watson, Owen’s friend that went to war with him? Milly stared into the fire for a long while, the bit of the note still grasped in her hands. Who was Owen really? The rakish man who seduced women and left them in a state of trouble? Or was he a good man who dropped everything to help a friend? She wasn’t sure what to think and she could only pray what she hoped in her heart was true. That Owen was the man she’d started to fall in love with. Her heart gave a shuddering few beats out of sync and she tried to catch her breath.
Please don’t deceive me, Owen. Be that man I so wish you to be…
Her bedroom door opened and Constance entered, her eyes wide with worry.
“Milady? Is everything all right?”
Milly summoned up her courage and put on a brave face. “Yes. I should like to retire now.”
She let Constance help her undress and then she crawled under the covers, shivering from more than just the cold. She missed Owen’s warm bed, but she missed Owen even more. A hundred thoughts fluttered through her mind and she couldn’t sort any of them out.
It was going to be a long, cold, sleepless night.
Chapter 11
Owen felt like hell and knew he must have looked even worse when Leo’s eyes widened at the sight of him. They were outside a rather awful little hovel of a place near White Chapel.
“I’m glad you arrived so quickly, but…” Leo brushed blond hair out of his eyes. “Is Milly making married life difficult?” He worded the question carefully.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Where the bloody hell is Jack?” Owen brushed the travel dust off his sleeves and stared coldly at the pub house’s wooden door. It was a nameless little hole in the wall, in utter shambles.
“He’s inside. He refused to come out when I asked him to. He asked for you.” Leo’s eyes were heavy with sorrow.
“Very well, let’s fetch him.” Owen shouldered his way into the dingy little pub and found Jack at once. He was slumped over a bar, his eyes glassy, an empty bottle loosely held in one hand, humming an old tune. At first the notes weren’t recognizable, and off-key. Then Jack straightened a little and put more gusto into the sound and the tune changed, becoming a song Owen remembered. A song etched into his bones. It was a tune they’d sung during their days in Africa. A tune that froze Owen in his tracks for a few seconds. It was “Goodbye, Dolly Gray,” a song he and Jack had sung the night before half of their regiment had perished.
Blinding sun, decaying flesh, the cries of vultures, and the silence.
I can do this. He reminded himself the war was over, that he wasn’t stranded in a foreign country surrounded by blood and death, not anymore.
“Jack,” he said, his tone gentle but firm as he approached his friend. It had been months since he’d seen Jack Watson, and the days had not been kind to him. He was too thin, his cheeks too hollow, his once-muscled body weak from lack of food and exercise. At the sound of Owen’s voice, Jack lifted his head, his eyes clearing a bit.
“Hadley,” he sighed, and smiled. “Hampton said you’d come. I wanted to wait for you.” His speech was thick with drink.
“And here I am. Why don’t you take supper with Hampton and me?” Owen leaned against the bar, blocking some rows of liquor bottles from Jack’s view. The pub was empty except for an ancient man at the far end of the bar, wiping pint glasses with a gray rag.
“Come on, Jack. Supper would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Leo shared a worried glance with Owen; then when Jack turned to him, fire in his eyes, Leo backed up a step.
Owen hated this. He, Jack, and Leo had been friends—great friends—so long ago. Three mischievous lads at Eton sneaking out at night to get into mischief the way only boys could. They’d gone to Cambridge together, too, their bonds even tighter than before. But the war had eaten away at their boyhood ties. Leo had tended to his estate, while Jack and Owen had rushed off to Africa to fight the Boers. None of them could have known what awaited them on the shores of Africa—and even Jack, who had once been optimistic and carefree, was reduced to this most basic of beings. Jack had been unable to sleep, to eat; he curled up inside a bottle, ready to die. Leo had become the enemy to Jack, because he hadn’t served; he couldn’t understand the horrors, the sacrifices, the tragedy of war. Only Owen had held the three of them together by a grasp as tenuous as a fine thread.
“Jack, what if you come to Wesden Heath and spend some time with me?” Owen offered. As it was, it couldn’t make things worse. Milly had run from him. She’d gotten hurt and withdrawn, just as he’d feared she would. He had no damned clue how to convince her he wasn’t a blaggard. If only he hadn’t run into William Brandon, the damned ignorant fool. He’d told Milly the truth about Scarlett but it hadn’t seemed to matter. The damage was done. She thought the worst of him. Spending some time with Jack couldn’t be nearly as bad as being so close to his wife and having no way to touch her or hold her. She needed a reprieve from him to settle and he needed time enough to figure out how to win her back and return his home to the peace and comfort he’d been working toward.
“Come with you?” Jack blinked through bleary eyes.
“Yes. To Wesden Heath. It would do you good to spend time in the country.” Owen shared a look with Leo and the other man gave a subtle nod.
“I suppose,” Jack grumbled, and tried to stand. He made it two feet before the glass bottle he held slipped from his lax grip, shattering on the floor even as Leo and Owen swept in and grabbed Jack around the arms, supporting his dead weight.
“Do you need a cab back to Wesden?” Leo asked.
; “No, I have one waiting for me at the corner. I’ll bring him back to Wesden after he’s had a week or so to sleep off the drink at a hotel,” Owen explained. It would be easier to let Jack dry up in a hotel with Owen to watch over him and then bring him home to Wesden Heath, where he would have an easier chance of stealing liquor from cabinets and hiding it away for later consumption. If Owen could keep Jack confined in a small room without access to anything but food and water, he might be able to get him through the worst of his withdrawal.
“I’ll be in London for a few days if you need me,” Leo replied as they walked out of the pub and headed toward the hired cab waiting on the corner.
“Thank you,” Owen said as he helped Jack into the back of the cab.
Leo took the front seat of the cab. “I’ll ride with you and help you get him settled.”
Owen nodded. The driver started the engine and headed for the hotel address Owen gave him. Owen vowed that the moment he reached the hotel, he’d write Milly a letter letting her know he was staying in town to help Jack. She deserved to know him, to understand his life, his past. Maybe she would be able to forgive him for having a past. None of it influenced his life now with her, but he had to make her understand that. He wanted their marriage to be a good one. Passion and love may someday be able to follow. He hoped.
She deserves to be loved, loved fiercely and passionately. And I want to be the man who loves her…
* * *
Milly collapsed into a plush chair in the library. A dinner tray sat on a nearby table. Mrs. Nelson had asked the cook to prepare another hearty feast of beef and soup, and Milly wondered if the woman was trying to fatten her up. She’d spent the entire day working alongside the new fleet of footmen and housemaids to train them and to determine what repairs and cleaning were needed on the rooms. Despite the new staff being able to take over the cleaning, she had worked alongside them, unable to sit still. If she did, she thought of Owen and it made her chest ache. Working herself to the bone had been the only way to dull the pain in her chest, and Wesden Heath looked much better for it. Old ratty drapes in three of the bedrooms had been removed and new fabrics ordered, carpets had been taken outside and beaten of their dust, and then the wood floors had been mopped and polished.