Since the Surrender

by Julie Anne Long

  Not one of them needed to be told twice.

  All, that was, except Meggie Plum, Lucy, and Cora Myrtleberry, who’d been restored to her own clothing (“Ye willna tell me da I dressed as a mermaid, will ye?” she asked anxiously, and she was assured they would not) and returned with Rosalind, Chase, and Sergeant MacGregor through the museum tunnel. Ireton had apparently regained consciousness and gone home. He was no longer slumped against the wall, anyway.

  Though he’d forgotten his hat.

  “Oh, Ireton was forever going out the wrong way,” MacGregor explained. “He has a terrible sense of direction. He likely wanted the Covent Garden tunnel and ended up here.”

  Which explained why he’d been scurrying through the museum that day.

  “Would you like a souvenir?” Chase asked Rosalind, holding out Ireton’s hat to her, chucking her under the chin with the plume.

  “Let’s leave it here to confuse future generations when they excavate a bricked-in tunnel. They’ll be puzzled, no doubt.”

  “Very good thought, indeed.”

  So they left the hat upside down, where it was, and he pulled the sconce, and for the very last time they all passed through the museum wall.

  The wall thunked closed behind them.

  As an afterthought, Chase lifted the Rubinetto down from the wall and took it with him. He had plans for it.

  Cora Myrtleberry was restored to the arms of her joyous father, who was waiting in the museum breathlessly, and they dashed off to no doubt do puppety things.

  Meggie Plum was delivered to a joyous Liam at the home of Cousin Adam Sylvaine, and Meggie dropped to her knees and squeezed her brother nearly blue and wept just a little.

  “Girls,” Liam said disdainfully over his sister’s shoulder to Chase, though his eyes were suspiciously damp, too.

  Rosalind decided to take Meggie and Liam to her town house.

  So Rosalind’s formerly quiet town house was suddenly filled with people: a chastened Lucy, who was packed off to bed with tea instantly, and Liam and Meggie, who were to share another room for at least the evening. It was rather nice but a bit overwhelming. She would need the maid to come in more frequently, she thought, if this was to be the shape of things.

  Rosalind considered making tea, but her eyes would not stay open.

  “I suppose I’ll be off.”

  She looked up at Chase. It was something someone might say after they’d departed a dinner. It reminded her of his There’s that done, then, after they’d made explosive love for the first time in the museum.

  “Why are you smiling?” he wondered.

  She just shook her head.

  “Rosalind?”

  “Mmm?”

  He hesitated. “Did he really forgive us?”

  “He did. The only person who hadn’t forgiven you is you.”

  Chase’s head went back at this. And then came down in realization.

  And then he frowned at her a bit to punish her for being so insightful. Which made her smile.

  “I was sorry to have to leave you alone with the consequences, Rosalind. I knew he must have known.”

  “Oh, I survived. It wasn’t comfortable, but he was not as shredded as one might think. He was made unhappy, but I believe he understood. He loved us both, and he knew I was terribly sorry to hurt him. I never had any illusions about whether or not I was human; I am all too human. But Chase…I knew I ought to have been, but I was never sorry that you kissed me.”

  He hesitated. “Neither was I,” he said softly.

  Quite an admission of humanity from Captain Eversea.

  And then they were quiet.

  This had begun to feel very like good-bye.

  He glanced at the door, as if to confirm this, and then hesitated.

  “Am I doing the right thing?” he asked. “Allowing all those women to go? Letting Kinkade go to Botany Bay without a public humiliation?”

  “What is right? What is wrong? You made a few people immeasurably happy. You righted a few wrongs. You can only follow your instincts when the rules fail, and I would trust the people I love to your instincts any day, Chase.”

  He gave her a half smile. “It’s an honor to be trusted by you, Rosalind.”

  She looked into his blue, blue eyes. He was weary, too.

  “I have a confession,” he said. “I know I righted a few wrongs. But I mainly wanted to make things right for you.”

  It was a lovely confession. “You did.”

  In so many ways.

  “Thank you for everything,” she said softly.

  She did mean everything. From Lucy to the brothel to exquisite pleasure in the huge curtained bed, which seemed an eternity ago. To making her feel more like a woman than she’d ever felt in her entire life. For resolution. For being the extraordinary person he was.

  “Thank you for defending me against the puppet,” he said.

  She laughed.

  He leaned down, cupped her face in one hand and kissed her gently, his mouth warm and open, his tongue touching her tongue just slightly, sweetly. Their lips clung, and once again all of her senses surged toward him. Her body began to melt into him.

  But he ended the kiss before she did, with what appeared to be an effort. “I’m returning to Sussex tomorrow to say good-bye to my family.”

  She reared back suddenly and spent a moment in silent absorption.

  “Will you…will say good-bye to me before you leave for India?” she finally said softly.

  He went abruptly still.

  “Yes.” He smiled faintly, and it was a smile she didn’t quite understand. Ironic. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I will come to say good-bye.”

  Chapter 23

  “What’s this?” Colin was holding the Rubinetto and staring at in puzzlement.

  “It reminded me of you. See? Air whistles right through a hole in the cow’s arse.” Chase demonstrated by holding it up and blowing through it.

  “Splendid!” Colin was delighted with his gift.

  Chase told him the entire story, counting, of course, on his brother’s discretion in every regard, eliminating, for Rosalind’s sake and the sake of his own pride, some of the more intimate details. And was that a twinge of…longing! Ah yes, indeed it was. Longing in Colin’s eyes. Colin missed being a rascal. But not as much as he enjoyed being a farmer and a husband.

  “I thought I ought to give it to you to remember me by. I might not have looked beneath the cow’s tail at all if not for you.”

  This had made Colin nearly misty-eyed.

  But it could have been because they’d just had a series of farewell pints at the Pig & Thistle, and were now lounging about the drawing room as his mother and father and all his brothers and sisters—Olivia and Genevieve, Ian and Marcus—went in and out, testing Chase’s mood and discovering him much improved. They hadn’t taken kindly to his news that he was leaving for India, but if this was the cause of the much improved Chase, they would reluctantly embrace his decision.

  Though they never said as much to him. Just to each other.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so insufferable.” Apologizing was not Chase’s long suit. He said this stiffly.

  “I never thought you were insufferable,” Colin lied.

  Chase stared at him, waiting for it.

  “We all thought you were insufferable.” He grinned.

  And they were worried about him, too, Chase realized now. As usual, they had known what was best for him by sending him to London, and to visit the vicar, and they’d been right. But it was far too girlish a thing for any of his brothers to say to him.

  He was now quite touched he’d been sent off to see to the vicar, because he suspected he knew the reason why.

  They’d been quite worried he’d meant I cannot bear it any longer literally, in another way entirely.

  Perhaps, in a way, he had.

  “Will we like the vicar?”

  “Very much, I think.” He didn’t tell Colin his suspicions about the vicar or
his odd moment of profundity. It was something he would share only with Rosalind. If nothing else, leading Adam Sylvaine to Pennyroyal Green would potentially ensure that the place didn’t become dull in his absence.

  “You look better.”

  “Better than what?” Chase said crossly.

  “Peaceful.” Colin often did that: said something so surprisingly insightful one didn’t have time to formulate a sarcastic response. Chase suspected his brother and the vicar would become fast friends.

  He knew a regret, suddenly, that he wouldn’t witness it. Though he’d begun training his thoughts away from regrets, from all regrets, and toward India, because India would be his life now.

  “I’m doing what I’m made to do. It’s my purpose. Somehow war shaped me; I seemed to have no say in the matter. You, and Ian…”

  “We fought and came home. You were the real warrior, though. Born to it. And the country, and whomever and however you serve are luckier for it. I really think you ought to marry, though.”

  Chase gave Colin a dark look and surrendered to a moment of gloom. He contemplated telling Colin that he had proposed to someone, but didn’t want to dim the glow of Colin’s marital bliss by asking his brother to bear his disappointment along with him. And he understood now that Colin wasn’t merely being insufferable: his brother truly wanted him to know the kind of happiness he had.

  “Perhaps I ought to,” he said gently.

  And Colin’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

  And then Chase remembered something he’d meant to ask Colin.

  “Do you still own the suit of clothes you wore to the gallows?”

  “Oh, it’s rather worse for wear now, but I can likely locate all the pieces.”

  “May I have them?”

  “Consider them a parting gift, brother.”

  Rosalind paused between packing her trunk for her return to Derbyshire to arrange a tea tray: black tea, two cups. And then she waited.

  The knock at the door made her heart jump, even as she knew whom it would be.

  She led Chase, hat and walking stick in hand, into the parlor. As usual, he seemed to fill most of the place up.

  She’d drawn the curtains mostly closed, but the afternoon light squeezing in through the many-paned windows wasn’t the kindest or softest. He was stark in it. He looked weary; the lines raying from the corners of his eyes seemed a little deeper now, as did the hollows beneath. He could have done with a closer shave; a faint hint of blue remained beneath his chin. He looked exactly his age. He looked beautiful, in other words.

  “You sail, then. In a few hours,” she said softly.

  Well, why not begin a conversation by stating the obvious? Since he hadn’t seemed inclined to begin the conversation at all.

  “I sail in a few hours.” He nodded, confirming the obvious.

  And then it seemed they’d exhausted conversation.

  She motioned him to the settee, and they sat beside each other, knees not touching. Imposing a certain almost comical propriety, for all the world as though the presence of a porcelain teapot was a grim chaperon ensuring decorum.

  “Lucy has been installed with Miss Marietta Endicott at her academy in Pennyroyal Green,” he told her.

  “Thank you for arranging that. She isn’t a little old for the academy?”

  “Miss Endicott has made an exception for her. And if anyone can do something about Lucy, Miss Endicott can.”

  They smiled together.

  “Mr. Myrtleberry and MacGregor have disabled the museum wall so that it will no longer turn, and a proper painting hangs there now. No cows or angels in it, I might add. I’ve donated Colin’s gallows suit to the Montmorency and allowed MacGregor to take all the credit for the donation, which inspired the museum board to give him a great raise in pay, and there was a line out the door for the first time in the museum’s history to see it.”

  “Aren’t you clever!”

  He rewarded her wryness with a brisk nod. “Liam and Meggie are going to live in Pennyroyal Green. Seems there’s a job for Meggie at the Pig & Thistle, and Liam will be allowed to help out at the vicarage. I’ve brought them to London with me. Meggie wanted to fetch some things from their rooms, and Liam wanted to see my ship off.”

  “And they all lived happily ever after.”

  He tried to smile at that, but it didn’t quite happen.

  There followed a silence. Rosalind filled it by pouring a cup of tea.

  She made quite a ceremony of pouring a cup, in fact. Her hand didn’t shake at all, astonishingly. She offered it to him with politely raised eyebrows.

  He gave a short, ironic shake of his head.

  She didn’t want tea, either.

  Absurdly, she settled it with a clink back into its saucer.

  Say something, she wanted to shout at him.

  He wasn’t a man of words, however. He generally spoke with his body, whether he was using it in the service of love or war.

  She remembered how he’d told her precisely how he felt about her all those years ago, all without saying a word.

  She ought to just say good-bye and have done with it, she thought. It would be easier; the result would be the same. A lingering farewell would make nothing better and give her no memories she wanted beyond the ones she already had of him. She stared at tired Captain Eversea, imagined his things all packed in a trunk in preparation for boarding The Courage.

  She couldn’t imagine him growing older across the sea, away from her, where she wouldn’t witness it. It was unthinkable. To not see gray hair at his temples, to see more lines in his face, to see him. Doubtless he would go on being his stubborn, incomparable self, perhaps marry an exotic dark-skinned girl or at least take one for a mistress. They were wanton and free, those girls, she’d heard, at least the ones in the South Seas were, the ones the likes of Miles Redmond wrote about.

  Suddenly she found herself reaching over to lay her hand against his cheek. She’d surprised herself. She felt a little foolish, like a blind woman attempting to get her bearings.

  But all those years ago when she’d touched him just as tentatively, she’d known, sensed, the power of the longing and need thrumming beneath his formidable control, and had wanted to see if he was real, if he was vulnerable, if she could reach the man in there. He’d always seemed afraid of nothing at all. Though she now knew this wasn’t true. His need to do what was good and right had always given him courage, been stronger than fear. He was principled.

  He was astonishing.

  And now, just as then, she marveled at the bristle of whisker over his cheek, the clean edge of his jaw, the warmth of his skin, the thump of his pulse.

  I’m touching Charles Eversea.

  He turned his face into her hand again.

  She held him for a moment, then slowly took her hand away. And then she hesitated, feinted, and tentatively touched his eyebrow. He went perfectly still, surprised to have his eyebrow touched. She couldn’t blame him. She traced the arch of it, then followed the line of it to the bridge of his nose, then stopped and dropped her hand, along with her eyes, to her lap.

  For God’s sake.

  He made a small sound. Almost a laugh. Surprised.

  The truth was, she didn’t know which of his features she’d choose to touch if she could touch him just one last time. He should just leave and be done with it. Say good-bye politely. Quickly, cleanly, briskly, the way he did most things.

  Stay, she sternly told her hands. They lay there quietly in her lap. Reacquainting themselves with the way life used to be before Chase reappeared. Before her hands had become so wanton and knowledgeable about the terrain of his body and gone about touching it freely.

  She could speculate and feel later, much later. She wanted this over and done, now.

  He lunged forward suddenly. She gave a start and reared back.

  Which made him smile. It was a faint one. But recognizable as a smile, nevertheless. Careful, she thought. You’re doing it more and more easily t
hese days, Captain Eversea.

  He leaned back again, indecisively.

  Oh, God. They were comical, the two of them.

  A second later he shifted forward again, a trifle more gracefully, decisively. And this time he gently scooped her quiet hands from her lap, as though they were a delicate bowl, and raised them to his lips.

  He placed a kiss—a soft, reverent kiss—in one palm, then gently folded her fingers over it. In her other palm, he placed another kiss—this one was hot, lingering, and answered by echoes of longing in her body.

  And then he slowly closed her fingers over that one, too.

  And he slipped his hands from hers. Leaving his kisses burning inside her closed fists.

  Two different ways to remember him.

  She would not cry.

  She smiled the sort of smile one manages when fighting tears. A crooked one. She couldn’t tell if her heart was breaking or was simply so full her body could no longer comfortably contain it. Regardless, it hurt. Everything inside her seemed to hurt.

  The corner of his mouth twitched upward, providing the other half of her smile.

  And then his expression drifted into thoughtfulness, and then resolve.

  He inhaled deeply, exhaled extravagantly, and stood, stood, pushing himself to his feet with his walking stick.

  She pretended not to see the hand he reached down to help her to her feet. She was unwilling to offer her just-kissed hands up to him yet; she was hoarding that last feel of his lips.

  She stood on her own.

  Wordlessly, he turned to collect his hat and coat from the chair where they had sat for a mere five minutes. He turned back to her, framed in the window, his features washed in the mid-afternoon light, his eyes brilliant and burning.

  “Good—”

  She didn’t let him say it. She couldn’t help it. She slid her hands around his neck. Soft, soft hair, heartbreakingly soft, brushed the back of her hand. A man this hard had no business having hair so soft. They would say good-bye today the way they’d said good-bye during the war, with a kiss, though they hadn’t known then that it would farewell.