by Lynn Kerstan
He followed her intricate map with misgivings, setting a slow pace in his curricle and stopping early at the best hostelries for long relaxing baths and plain country food. It was good to be out of the city . . . away from Prinny and his medals, Jaspers and his carping, the icy halls of Coltrane House. Enjoying the unaccustomed freedom, he took three leisurely days to reach Choppingsworth Downs and decided at the last minute not to stay there. The servants were unlikely to welcome him with open arms, and he felt uncomfortable at the thought of moving into Jillian’s home. Instead, he took lodgings in Eastry, at an inn called The Laughing Pig.
When he appeared at the Downs, Mark had the odd sensation he’d been expected. Most of the staff did everything that was proper while he conducted his inspection, but Jock spared no opportunity to put the London fribble in his place. He always left the crusty Scotsman with the distinct impression he’d failed some sort of test. The housekeeper was more cooperative, answering his questions but volunteering nothing. The other servants kept out of his way.
The property, in spite of Jillian’s “curse,” exuded good management. He could see the clearing where the barn had stood before the fire and the makeshift housing for the milk cows. Recruited under protest to guide him around the estate, Jock grumbled that there was little to be seen anymore. Most of the sheep had been sold at a loss months ago, what with foot-rot and rain-soaked pastures. Now the dogs and shepherds had no work, and fresh spring grass was going to waste. The sheep had to be replaced. Would’ve been, too, if the money hadn’t been cutoff.
Mark accepted the rebuke with a twinge of guilt. “When I find a bailiff to take over the estate,” he promised, “you will have sheep.”
Jock spat a wad of tobacco on the ground.
“Have you knowledge of a good manager?” persisted the Earl. “I’d hoped to employ one before I leave.”
“Aye, there be one,” Jock grunted. “Miss Jillian. And I’ll work for no other.”
Wisely, Mark retreated to the house and confined his business there. The house was neat as a pin, although water-stained in places from the leaky roof. He saw the outlines of frames, where pictures had been taken down, and noticed that a pleasant suite on the second floor was completely empty although redolent of lemon oil, as if it had been scrubbed within the past few days. Frame-marks indicated that all the pictures in that suite—and there had been many—were hung about waist high.
The rooms were empty because they weren’t needed, he was told. The furniture and pictures were stored in the attic. All questions were answered logically, in words of few syllables, but Mark couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that something was wrong.
The tree house caught his attention immediately. It was elaborate, whitewashed, and enthroned in the reaching branches of an enormous oak. Children might have been climbing there like monkeys just hours before his arrival. Miss Jillian’s House, it was called. She kept it up for sentimental reasons.
He spent two days examining the neatly inscribed, perfectly kept books. Only the household records were missing, and Mrs. Enger had no idea where they could be. Perhaps Miss Jillian took them with her to London.
The Earl had to admit that Jillian Lamb was a wizard at running a small rural farm. Choppingsworth Downs was the linchpin for half the county, supplying scores of thriving cottage industries. From the Downs came wool for the weavers, clay for the potters, mead and ale for the taverns. Milk, eggs, mutton, bacon, and honey were sold at the Eastry markets. Oast-houses stored barley, and there was even a small lake stocked with fish. The list of enterprises was endless, and everyone he spoke with said exactly the same thing: Miss Jillian’s doing.
He was also convinced they were hiding something, although he couldn’t imagine what. The local vicar, a kindly, bespectacled man of obvious good heart, took tea with him one afternoon and poured praise on Jillian Lamb, as if drizzling honey over a muffin. Whatever she was doing and concealing, it was nothing that shamed her in the eyes of these clearly honest, forthright people. Accustomed to the intricacies of politics and the disreputable ins and outs of spying, Mark could not decipher the puzzle. He only knew there was one, over and above the mystery of how one tiny creature could accomplish so much. Not to mention how that same paragon transformed herself into a hellborn fury the minute she flamed into London.
Bemused and very impressed, the Earl left the Downs for his next uncomfortable errand. The Marquess of Lassiter’s estate bordered Jillian’s, and good breeding compelled him to pay a call. Years ago he’d spent part of a summer there, when Jamie implored him to come along for the obligatory visit home. After three miserable weeks in a household even more forbidding than his own, Mark could scarcely believe the dissolute Marquess and his sour wife had produced Jamie Burnett. Only the legendary Lassiter eyes—unmistakably, startlingly green—traced son to father.
Jamie was the first of his friends to die, at Trafalgar. He was buried at sea, and Mark had dispatched a formal letter of condolence to his parents. He had never opened the black-edged note of acknowledgment, nor did he look forward to seeing them again.
The visit was worse than he’d imagined. The Marquess, both feet wrapped and propped up from an attack of the gout, was nevertheless drunk, as was his thin, distracted wife. The dour couple received Mark awkwardly, barely seemed to recognize him, and he was gone within twenty minutes of arriving.
The brief encounter with Lassiter stirred up a host of painful memories, and when they resonated in his back, the Earl spent several nights at a small inn near Hawkhurst. Walking seemed to help, and he roamed the countryside accompanied by the ghosts of his friends. For the first time in years, he made himself think about Jamie Burnett, and Rodger Mosley, and especially Trevor Ramsey. Hand knotted on a blackthorn walking stick, he tramped across sweeping fields and hills ablaze with yellow gorse, pushing himself to exhaustion, wanting to remember how they’d lived but overwhelmed by the incalculable pain of their dying. He’d never been able to mourn them, any more than he’d mourned the mother he’d never known or the father he’d known too well.
There was only one spark of life—if it still retained any light—that could no longer be ignored. As if summoned unconsciously to an encounter long dreaded, he’d instinctively chosen an out-of-the-way route to London, one that brought him near Kerrington Lodge. He woke up the fourth day at Hawkhurst knowing the time had come.
Summoning his courage, Mark dispatched a messenger with word he was passing through the neighborhood, inquiring if it would be convenient to call. He rather expected Robin to turn him away. A cowardly part of him wanted that, and when the reply came he was in the taproom, a little groggy after several mugs of strong ale. He drank another before breaking the seal.
The scrawled message was pure Robin: Get your ugly butt the hell over here. Mark breathed for what seemed like the first time all day.
The two-hour journey was accomplished on excellent roads, and with the horses requiring little guidance, he let his mind drift back twelve years, to the time when he’d been surprisingly dispatched to Cambridge in the company of his cousin Trevor. He’d arrived at Trinity determined to ply his books diligently and make the Old Earl proud.
Then he met Robin.
Or rather, Trevor met Robin, for no Coltrane would have befriended a rogue like the Viscount Kerrington. Robin had leased a townhouse with-Jamie and Rodger, and he insisted that Mark and Trevor move in, too. The menage a cinq, he called his band of friends. Everyone else called them the Merrie Men.
Robin quickly took Delacourt’s measure and appointed himself Tutor of Vice. No university buck could be allowed to remain so appallingly naive, and he was just the man to provide an education that had nothing to do with books. Within days he produced Foxworth—from thin air, Mark always imagined—to replace a valet who inexplicably resigned after years of service. Foxy’s express duty was to make sure his new employer went astray. Then Robin bul
lied him out of the house, to the kinds of places he’d never been but always wondered about. It wasn’t long before the scion of the House of Coltrane knew how it felt to be royally drunk and royally sick afterwards. He learned to gamble and when to leave the table. Finally, gloriously, he lost his virginity.
For the first time in his life, Mark enjoyed himself. The three years of Cambridge passed before he knew it, and the Merrie Men were planning a capital Grand Tour when the Treaty of Amiens collapsed. Soon Trevor was off to the Hussars, Rodger to the Horse Guards, Jamie to His Majesty’s Navy, and Robin to his father’s old regiment, the 48th. Only Mark, under strict orders from his father, stayed behind. He never saw his friends again.
Aware that his heart was thumping in his chest, he turned off the main road toward Kerrington Lodge. At the end of a long drive shaded with lime trees, the huge Bathstone manor floated on a sea of flowers. Riotous with color, they sprang from every possible hold. The air was heady with perfume. Mark drew up in front of a sweeping marble staircase and a groom hurried to take the reins. No going back now, he thought with a shiver. The day was warm and the sun-bright, but he felt exceedingly cold.
A pretty and very pregnant young woman waited for him at the open door. She curtsied shyly as he approached. “You must be Mark Delacourt,” she said with a lovely smile. “I am Mary Renstow and this”—she patted her bulging stomach—“is Robin’s son or daughter. We are all so happy you’ve come to see us.”
Mark felt as if a cannonball had slammed into his own stomach. But Robin was . . . how could he possibly—?
She was speaking again. “My husband has been leaning out the window this age waiting for you. He hasn’t been so excited since I told him about the baby.” She flushed.
“I am very pleased to meet you,” the Earl said in a cool voice, reverting to the defense of formal manners. “I had not heard Kerrington was married.”
“He did write, but perhaps the letters went astray. I know he was very worried about you. Do come in, My Lord.”
Without ceremony, Mark was ushered to a large upstairs parlor overgrown with plants and golden with sunlight. Robin, sitting by an open window with a fur coat draped over his lap, swung the wheels of his Bath chair around with a flourish. At the sudden motion, the coat broke up into three cats, two leaping indignantly to the floor as the other enthroned itself in solitary bliss.
“Mary breeds cats and flowers,” Robin explained with a wide grin. He extended his hand.
Mark took it automatically, surprised at the strength of Robin’s grasp. He let go immediately.
As if sensing his discomfort, the couple virtually ignored him to bicker cheerfully between themselves. “I experiment with hybrids,” Mary corrected. “The cats breed on their own.”
“Prodigiously,” Robin agreed. “There isn’t a mouse within twenty miles of this place.”
“Perhaps a rat, though. One large hairy red one has been spotted in the vicinity.”
“I’ve seen his mate. She’s breeding, too. Big as a barn.”
Mark found himself laughing, the last thing he’d have imagined doing. He coughed nervously to cover the indiscretion.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Mary said, bending to kiss Robin on the cheek. “Devil mine, do try and behave yourself.”
“See to our dinner, wench.” He wriggled his eyebrows. “And take your time. This ancient relict and I have a great many years to catch up on.” Before he was ready, Mark found himself alone with a man he couldn’t bring himself to face. He retreated to a chair on the far side of the room and dropped onto it like a stone. “Hullo, Robin,” he said stiffly.
Chapter Fifteen
ROBIN CONSIDERED his friend in silence for a long moment. “Coward,” he scolded. “Come on over and have a look-see.”
Mark fidgeted with the crocheted doily on the arm of his chair.
“You’ll have to look at me below the waist sometime, Del. If you need an excuse, come admire my cat.” The enormous marmalade colored creature kneaded Robin’s lap vigorously.
“I don’t need . . . wish to see your cat.”
“I am wearing trousers, you know. It’s not like you’d be face to stump, although I wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, I would,” the Earl gritted. “Dammit, Robin.”
“Later then. So, what do you think of Mary?”
“She’s lovely.”
“Ain’t she, though? Took to you right away, but you were always a handsome one. Fixed on anyone yet?”
“No.” Mark’s fingers discovered a loose thread. “I ought to have come sooner, Robin. I meant to.” He began to unravel the doily with great attentiveness. “That isn’t true. I was afraid to come.”
“Just as well you did not.”
The Earl glanced up, surprised.
“Don’t think I came home like this. The first six months I huddled in bed with the curtains closed, feeling sorry for myself. I’m glad you didn’t see me like that, old rot.”
“I can’t even imagine you like that.”
“Ouch! Stop it, cat. No clawing the family jewels.” Robin flopped the marmalade on its back and stroked a plump stomach. The purr became a loud rumble. “Do you want to hear about it?”
He did not, but couldn’t very well say so. “If you want to tell me . . .”
“Actually, I do. For the same reason I wish you’d haul your ass over here and look at what’s left of my legs.”
“What reason is that?” Mark asked between clenched teeth.
“Ah, Del, I want you to come back.” Robin gave him a lopsided smile. “If you won’t face the ghosts and shadows now, my friend, you never will.”
Damn the man. Mark stared owlishly at the ceiling. He’d only meant to stop by, examine the remains, and pay his respects. He’d barely managed to shake Robin’s hand before slinking to the other side of the room, and he would rather look anywhere but at the red-haired, freckle-faced, broad-shouldered man lounging with positively eerie complacency in an enormous Bath chair by the window. The salon overflowed with potted trees and plants. A pleasant breeze lifted the gauzy curtains, and the room was full of light. How could Robin know he was drowning in ghosts and shadows?
He cleared his throat. “So tell me then.”
Robin grinned. “I was hoping you’d ask. It was at Talavera. God, what a fight. Wish I could remember it. I was on horseback, trying to get a message from Wellesley to Cuesta, and think I got off course what with smoke from the artillery and the dust. M’horse went down, and I rolled right into some kind of explosion. Whatever hit me clipped off one leg above the knee and shredded the other. I woke up on a stretcher outside the infirmary tent, waiting my turn with fifty other torn-up bastards. Seemed like forever we lay there, listening to what was going on inside, knowing the same thing would happen to us. The surgeons were lopping off limbs like tree branches and throwing them into a pile about ten yards from where I was. The pile just got bigger and bigger, arms and legs heaped like firewood, and we heard the saw when it hit bone, and the men screaming . . .” Mark looked over to see that Robin’s eyes were closed. He wondered if he ought to stop him.
“By the time they carried me in, I was screaming, too, like a madman. The surgeon took a quick look and said both legs had to come off. I grabbed his shirt and wouldn’t let go. Told him to let me die, but he’d been listening to that all afternoon, every time the poor sod had to face one of us. Two men held me down while he hacked ‘em off. Fast. Not much else they can do, except be fast with the cutting and the cautery. I was still conscious when they carried me out, and last thing I remember is looking over at that pile of legs, wondering which ones were mine.”
“God, Robin.”
“Look to your lap,” the Viscount warned. “That grey is eyeing it with lustful intent, and the beast sheds something fierce.”
Without th
inking, the Earl reached down and lifted the cat to his knees. It turned around several times and settled in.
“I won’t tell anyone you cried for me,” Robin said quietly.
Mark became aware that his vision was blurred and that tears were pouring down his cheeks.
‘‘Bloody hell.” He groped for a handkerchief and scoured his face. “How do you do it, man? I’m sniveling like a damned watering pot, while you sit there grinning like the village idiot.”
Robin shrugged. “I’ve had time to get used to it, that’s all. Against every act of will, I made a miraculous recovery and a week later I was on a packet out of Cadiz. Didn’t even get seasick. I was the healthiest corpse ever spewed up at Portsmouth. Every way that mattered to me I was dead, but nobody seemed to notice. They cosseted me and tended me like I was a hero. We rich ones have it all, Del—a place to go and people to take care of us. Most of the poor bastards invalided home are never so lucky, but I was one ungrateful sonofabitch. I didn’t want to get better. I didn’t give a damn about anything. I just wanted to be left alone. And that, my friend, is what you’d have found if you’d come rushing to hold my hand.”
“As I should have done, were I any kind of friend at all.”
Robin snorted. “You stupid ass, I hold the record for guilt and self-recrimination. Don’t think you can come to scratch with a puny delay and a bit of missishness about looking at m’legs. Besides, I’d have sent you away.”
“You didn’t send Mary away.”
“The hell I didn’t. Blasted female wouldn’t go. I’ll tell you a profound truth,” he said, pointing to the snoring marmalade sprawled on its back, paws in the air. “Only a fool thinks he can outstubborn a cat or a woman.”