She opened her mouth, then slammed it shut again and shook her head. “Any opinions on the subject of her courtship are best expressed by the countess herself.”
“You’re right, of course,” said the viscount. “I really needn’t consult you at all. I know it seems unlikely to ask one such as yourself, but Lady Stratton relies on you so. And so I’m willing to overlook the disparity in our station and allow you to express your opinion.”
“You honor me,” she said drily. “But I doubt I have anything to say that you’d want to hear. Excuse me.”
She threaded her way across the room to Caroline and bent her dark head down to her cousin’s fair one. With a nod, she seemed to accept some order. She moved across the room again and consulted with a servant in the doorway.
All without another look at Henry or Bart or Wadsworth. It was well done—but Henry had hoped for some small sign of friendship. Another wink, another smile. They were allies, after all.
Wadsworth snorted. “I do enjoy that woman. She is the prickliest female. Quite a guard dog for her employer.”
“If Lady Stratton has any undesirable suitors, then a guard dog is precisely what is needed.” Henry shoved himself forward in his chair, then stood. “If you’ll excuse me. Bart, I’ll see you soon?”
He wasn’t sure exactly what he ought to say to Mrs. Whittier, but he had to say something to let her know he welcomed the help Lord Wadsworth scorned.
Or seemed to. Damn, maybe Henry was tilting at windmills, ready to imagine enemies everywhere. This was London, not the Bossu Wood. No one was hiding, ready to fire at him.
“Mrs. Whittier,” he said softly as he came up behind her near the doorway of the drawing room.
She started, then turned. “Oh. Mr. Middlebrook.” Her eyes seemed unwilling to meet his, and she had plastered her tall form against the wall, as though she could shove herself through and into the corridor if only she tried hard enough.
“Call me Henry if you wish,” Henry offered. “My friends do. Well, some of them call me Hal, but I hate that.”
The bright eyes lifted to his, and her expression turned shrewd. “This is what your friends call you? And yet I heard Lord Wadsworth call you Middlebrook.”
“Exactly.” Henry wanted to sigh. “Lord Wadsworth is not the kind of man to set people at their ease. In fact, I think he prefers to do the opposite.”
She drew in a long breath. “Yes, I know that about him. I suppose I’m rather too proud for my own good. You probably don’t understand that from someone in my position.”
Henry let out a quick bark of laughter. “Too proud? Mrs. Whittier, I had my turn under his quizzing glass before you did. I’ll wager I can muster as much pride as you can.”
At last, he won a smile from her. “Frances.”
“Pardon?”
“If you like, you may call me Frances. Caroline calls me Frannie, but I cannot abide it.”
“Frances, then,” he said, shaking her hand in his left. “Since we are soldiers together.”
She caught her breath, and her cheeks darkened, the blush of a plum on the skin of a peach. She was all brights and darks, this woman. Such coloring would require much layering to capture it well in oils, but she would look well painted, with her determined features and elegant carriage. He wondered if a portrait painter could capture the snap of defiance in her eyes, though, or the wry curve of her mouth.
Her fingers moved within his, twisting, and he realized he still had hold of her hand. “Pardon me,” he muttered.
“It’s quite all right,” she said quickly. “So, we both have dreadful nicknames. Is it not odd how the people who are closest to us persist in addressing us as if we are six years old?”
“That may be the last time they saw us clearly.”
Frances looked thoughtful. “You may be right. And that might not be a bad thing. I was a much better person at the age of six than I am now.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Her brows lifted. “You need not say things to me just because you think politeness requires it, Henry. I am sure you too are not the innocent you once were, for good or ill.”
Probably she meant the statement to be taken lightly, but Henry turned it over in his mind.
For good or ill, she said. The edges of the words tumbled roughly, snagging his thoughts. “Do you truly see good in it? The way one changes over time?”
To Frances’s credit, she did not look surprised by his odd question. She caught her lower lip in her teeth and shook back a lock of coffee-colored hair that had fallen free from its pins.
“Yes, I do. At least, I think there is always the hope and possibility for good.” She smiled, looking rueful. “I know as well as any that such hopes and possibilities are not always fulfilled. But that is what tomorrow is for, is it not? To try again? Or so I tell myself in my most ambitious moods.”
“Awfully cozy, aren’t you?” Wadsworth’s voice drawled into Henry’s ear. Henry jerked, caught unaware.
Wadsworth nodded silkily to Frances, then turned to Henry. “So, Middlebrook. Have you decided to leave Lady Stratton to better men?”
Before he could reply, Frances lifted her chin. “Lord Wadsworth, I doubt there are any better men here than Mr. Middlebrook. And as you are aware, Lady Stratton trusts my opinion implicitly.”
“I am aware,” Wadsworth said. “It is her ladyship’s only fault.” He kissed his fingertips in the direction of Lady Stratton, who was still holding forth to a rapt Hambleton and Crisp.
Frances bristled, and Henry felt the urge to jump to her defense, just as she had his. “Wadsworth, you cannot insult this lady in that way.”
Wadsworth smiled. “But I just did, did I not? It seems I can do as I like. Pity you can’t do the same.”
And with a final flick of his eyes over Henry’s arm, he strolled back to the center of the room. Back to Lady Stratton, who had heard nothing of what had just passed.
He was efficient, that Wadsworth. It took him a scant minute to abandon even the pretense of politeness; even less time to eviscerate Henry’s tentative peace.
Frances’s cheeks were vivid with color, and her chest caught with shallow breaths. She looked like she wanted to claw out Wadsworth’s throat.
Henry found her fingers again, pressed them for an instant. “You must tell Lady Stratton he speaks to you this way.”
“He’s never done so before.” She ground out each word through clenched teeth. “He’s always been civil. He’s…” She drew in a deep breath and slapped a smile on her face. It didn’t reach her eyes, and it began to fade at once. “Well. Never mind. I can handle him myself.”
“Why should you have to?”
She folded her arms, then pressed herself against the wall again. “I’m only a countess’s companion, Henry. He’s a viscount. He’s just having a bit of fun at my expense. As long as he treats Caroline well, that’s all that matters.”
Henry wanted to shake her. “That is not all that matters. If one doesn’t stop a bully, he will continue.”
She frowned. “He’s not Bonaparte, Henry. He’s only a bored aristocrat. If Caroline enjoys his attentions, it’s not my place to send him away.”
“Surely she owes you the respect of her friends.”
Frances turned her head away, as though the gilded plasterwork that framed the doorway deserved every bit of her attention. “No, it is I who owe her everything. And she gives me her own respect. She cannot be responsible for the behavior of others.”
She drew herself up straight. “Besides, it is no worry of yours. Wadsworth is not the first such man I’ve encountered, and he probably won’t be the last.”
Her smile trembled, and Henry actually reached out his hand to touch her cheek, to offer some comfort.
But his hand didn’t reach out. His right shoulder flexed, his arm dangled and seesawed numbly. From the corner of his eye, he saw Wadsworth lift his eyebrows, then turn toward Caro. He murmured something low, and a burst of laughte
r succeeded from the men around him.
In the clear afternoon light, the countess’s fair hair shone richly, the bright ruddy gold of Indian yellow pigment. Precious and rare. For her, only the best.
In this room—in London—there might always be people like Wadsworth, who doubted Henry could resume his place in society. Who doubted him. The war was over, and its tactics were of no use anymore. He couldn’t win the esteem of the men in this drawing room by offering them meager privileges like dried-out snuff or extra biscuit; they could do better for themselves simply by stepping out the door with a shilling in hand. And he could hardly soothe and train Lady Stratton to follow his will, as once upon a time he had been able to command a horse.
He had lost his easy place in this world, and he did not yet see his way to a new one.
He could not stand still any longer; his muscles jumped to act. “I must leave,” he blurted to Frances.
She sank a little against the wall. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”
If so, that was more than Henry understood.
He bade Lady Stratton a proper farewell; he managed that much. Lord Wadsworth muttered in his ear as he left, “Deserting the scene of your defeat? I would have expected better from a soldier.”
His words crawled over Henry like stinging insects, and he shuddered them off, annoyed, as he left the house and began to stride the few streets back to Tallant House. His feet fell naturally into the swift pattern of wheeling step: one hundred twenty paces in a minute, each a perfect thirty inches long.
He halted, forced himself to walk more slowly—the pace of a gentleman, not a soldier. He must remember the kind of man he was now.
Or was it only the man he had once been? He was beginning to suspect that his old self had been trod into the mud of Belgium, burned away under the unforgiving sun of a Spanish siege. He might feel the ghost of the old Henry here, but Wadsworth had just proven: it would be difficult to resurrect his place in society.
He was determined, though. He was haunted by many ghosts these days; the old Henry would merely be one more.
***
Naturally, Jem and Emily wanted a full report over dinner on his call at Caro’s house.
“I brought her violets,” Henry said, looking over the dishes scattered across the table. He had yet to re-accustom himself to the amount of food served for a simple family dinner. Two courses, multiple meats and vegetables, all prepared and seasoned well.
An everyday luxury. Heaven on a plate. He selected beef, creamed peas, and a fricassee of chicken as tonight’s particular heaven.
“Violets were a good choice,” Emily said, cutting slivers of sole. “Really, anything except roses is a good choice. You wouldn’t believe the number of roses Caro gets. She has a horror of them.”
Jem paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Em, I thought you liked roses.”
“I do, Jemmy. But I don’t get hundreds of them every week.”
He stared. “Hundreds? Where does she put them all?”
Emily shrugged. “In the privy, for all I know. Never mind, Hal; you’ve made a good start. Did you speak to her much?”
“Not much.” Henry didn’t want to discuss the afternoon again. The unexpected alliance, the unforeseen attack. He forked through his chicken and found pieces small enough to spear without cutting, then turned his attention to the beef.
“Why not?” Emily pressed.
Jem shot her a look.
“What?” Emily countered. “He went there to talk to her. So why didn’t he?”
“She was… busy,” Henry grunted as he struggled to cut the beef without the aid of a fork. “She had at least ten other callers. Gah.” The sauced beef had shot from his plate into his lap, spattering wine-broth down his shirtfront and on his breeches.
Good God. He looked like a baby playing with its food. He glared at his right arm, but it was insensible. As always.
He would have glared at his brother, at Emily, but they both studied their plates tactfully as a footman helped Henry clean up the worst of the spill.
“The fish is quite good,” Emily said when Henry reseated himself. “I asked Cook to make it salty, just as you always preferred it, Hal.”
She passed him the platter with a smile, though her eyes didn’t meet his.
If she or Jem had offered to help Henry cut his meat, as though he were one of their young sons, he might have left the table. But this—well, she meant to be kind. And she managed it beautifully, as she managed everything she put her mind to.
Such kindness could strangle him, though. Jem and Emily had wondered whether Henry was ready to be back in London, to mix with society. Now they couldn’t even look at him.
A pity, Wadsworth had said. It was pity that terrified Henry. And it was lurking everywhere today.
Except in the dark eyes of Frances Whittier.
Jem cleared his throat, studied the crest on the handle of his fork. “You know, Hal, I was wondering how Winter Cottage was looking these days. No one’s been there since you… ah…”
“Left for war.” Henry’s voice was flat.
Winter Cottage was a small property in Sidcup, a short ride outside London. Jem had deeded it to Henry when he reached his majority.
Jem was the opposite of subtle; his every emotion flickered across his mild countenance. And just now, he had that worried look again. Henry knew what he was up to.
“The season can be awfully exhausting,” Jem continued. “Right, Em?”
“Oh—yes, indeed,” his wife agreed. “Very much so. Yes, I only wish I could go to Sidcup for a few weeks.”
Henry folded his arms—well, one arm—and grimaced, waiting for them to make their point.
Jem widened his eyes, trying to look as though he’d just had an idea. “I say, Hal, you could wait out the season at Winter Cottage. Come back in a few weeks when the City’s thinned out. Er, more relaxing that way, you know.”
“I’m not here to relax,” Henry said. What he was here for, he wasn’t sure. He’d wanted to conquer, to win London. He deserved a victory; he craved one. But not even his family had faith in him anymore.
Why should they, though? If he couldn’t get through a family dinner without dumping food on himself, how could he mix with the ton? How could he dance at a ball or take a lady in to supper? How could he ever again clasp a woman in his arms when he had only one?
“Just think about it,” Emily pleaded. “It would be such a pity to have that lovely cottage unused.”
Pity.
“I’ll think about it,” Henry sighed, and she looked relieved.
And maybe he really would. Leaving for Winter Cottage wasn’t ideal, but then, neither was having a paralyzed arm.
Henry could think of nothing better to do. And surely it was better to do something.
But that night, the first letter arrived, and that changed everything.
Four
The first surprise was the fact that a letter had arrived for Henry at all. Since his recent return to London, he had often been included in Jem’s and Emily’s invitations, but he had no correspondents of his own.
The second surprise was the way it was delivered. Jem’s butler brought the letter to Henry’s bedchamber with a disapproving glare, the first facial expression Sowerberry had ever permitted himself in Henry’s presence. The letter had been, the servant declared, left by a saucy-looking boy for “the soldier what had the gamy arm.”
Henry halted his inventory of his possessions—not that he was definitely leaving for Winter Cottage, just considering it. “My arm is not gamy,” he protested as he accepted the letter from the butler, who drew himself up tall with offended dignity. “Nothing of the sort, or I would have lost it.”
“I am aware, sir. Nevertheless, I judged you a more probable recipient for this missive than Lord or Lady Tallant, who have suffered no such unfortunate injuries,” Sowerberry sniffed, bowing himself out.
Henry hardly noticed his departure, because the letter itself was
the third surprise. The manner of its delivery had led him to expect a note from someone who had known him in the army. Maybe one of the men who had fought under him, God help the poor fellows. But this letter was on heavy linen paper, faintly cross-hatched from the netting on which it had been dried. A quality such that a soldier would never have dared scrawl on a single sheet.
The folds of the paper were sealed with a generous blob of red wax dropped in a deliberate circle and pressed with the image of a hill topped with a cross.
The seal of the Graves family. Of Caroline Graves, Lady Stratton.
Another surprise; by now Henry had lost count of them. He could not imagine why she would write to him. Apart from giving her violets, he had surely done nothing to make an impression on her this afternoon.
Henry pressed the letter against his body and worked open the seal with one awkward thumb.
The handwriting was feminine but bold and clear, the lower loops angular, as if dashed off in haste.
Dear Mr. Middlebrook,
I hope you’ll forgive the impropriety of a private correspondence. I wanted to say more to you earlier today, and I must now resort to paper rather than speech. It is a poor substitute, but I shall imagine your face as I write. Did you know you are positively transformed when you smile? You seem to carry a heavy weight inside, yet I know you are a young man. Several years younger than I, since I can be strictly honest on paper.
A note might be better than a conversation, after all. You are a soldier—or were until very recently—so I know you require proof, facts, evidence. Here, then, is the evidence of my friendship. I believe that your own is well worth having, and I hope you will grant it to me.
I thank you for your call earlier today. The beau monde can, I know, be unmannerly, and that is their misfortune. But do not let it be yours. We all hide our wounds here, but that does not mean they do not exist. Some are very deep indeed. Your wound is simply visible to everyone. For that, you must be even braver than the rest of us. I know you have lived in this world before, and you shall again with great success.
Your company has given me great pleasure, and I would like to see you again, often. I would appreciate your assistance in keeping this correspondence a secret, but if you wish, I will write to you again. Often.
Theresa Romain Page 4