by Wilma Counts
“Can we hold off on that for a moment, Miss Whitby?”
“If you wish.” His touch elicited an unfamiliar—and very physical, almost breathless—reaction in her. Flustered, she quickly disengaged her hand from his and sat down in the chair her father had vacated.
“I… uh…wanted to apologize again for this afternoon,” he said. “I did not intend to embarrass you, Miss Whitby.”
“I know. Apology accepted.” She held his gaze. “Actually, your interruption was rather timely—but I suspect you know that.”
He grinned. “Guilty as charged. Sorry about that pitcher.”
“I should thank you, Mr. Wainwright. You helped me avoid—or at least postpone—a confrontation.”
His expression sobered and he continued to hold her gaze. “If I can help in any way, Miss Whitby, you must let me know.”
She smiled. “Hero. Call me Hero, please.”
“And I am Adam—I guess.” “For the time being anyway.” She rose to reach for the bellpull. “Tell Mr. Stewart to wait here while I get that liniment for you.”
* * * *
Hero lay awake staring at the underside of the canopy of her bed. Three things kept her from the sleep that beckoned just beyond her reach.
The first was what to do about Mr. Teague. She supposed she might simply ask her father to warn the man off, but that went against the grain. Hero Whitby was accustomed to handling her own problems. Marriage had never—in her adult life—held any real attraction for her. Marriage to Teague was a decidedly repugnant idea. She knew he had enjoyed his reputation as something of a ladies’ man even while his wife was still alive. Hero had seen Teague’s wife through two of her four pregnancies, the last of which had killed her. Women in the throes of childbirth were often less than discreet in their talk. Aside from the fact that she was quite content with her life as it was, Hero was furious at his presuming she would welcome his advances. However, she knew he was not a man to handle well any hint of criticism or rejection.
And he could be vindictive.
Henry Thompson, one of the Abbey’s tenant farmers, had been somewhat the worse for drink when he complained at the inn about his barn that needed repair and how the Abbey steward refused to do anything about it. A few days later the barn mysteriously caught fire. Teague accused the farmer of arson. Thompson vehemently protested his innocence—and half the parish believed him. Nevertheless, Teague summarily evicted the whole family. Most Weyburn folks thought it had been done as a warning to others. That farm was still mostly idle.
But it worked, did it not? she thought. Diana and Malcom are certainly reluctant to say anything about their roof, which leaks profusely with every storm. Hero gritted her teeth at the thought of her sister’s rearing four children—one just an infant—in such an environment. She recalled Teague’s smug comment about that being a problem that could be remedied. Was that a threat? A bribe? Aimed at her?
The second cause of her sleeplessness was also a man: Adam Wainwright. However, this issue was more pleasant to contemplate. She recognized a sense of personal power in Adam Wainwright—or whoever he was—that came with the authority granted the most privileged class. He might not be the lord Mrs. Hutchins had dubbed him, but he was close. His accent proclaimed that about him. He’d not merely been in the military, he’d been an officer. It was true that many officers—such as her own brother—came from the gentry class, but it was equally true that most had family ties to the aristocracy. Had not Michael written of them often enough?
Still, she could not deny that Adam was one very attractive man. Not since she was in her teens had she been so physically aware of a man, so alert to his presence whenever they were in the same room, so sensitive to his slightest touch. She had been fully sensible to him as a man even while he was unconscious, just lyng there helpless, exuding masculinity. But her awareness had intensified exponentially with his awakening. Those blue eyes were downright mesmerizing.
Stop! she admonished herself. You do remember—do you not—what an utter disaster followed that youthful infatuation? No. She would not relive, yet again, the terror—the pain—the betrayal—the humiliation of that event. She would not! She had managed to get beyond it years ago. Nevertheless, Teague’s casual reference to “damaged goods” rankled.
The third matter keeping her from dreamland was perhaps a more universal sort of issue: what the future might hold.
At eighteen, fresh from Miss Penelope Pringle’s School for Young Ladies of Quality, Hero had joined her friends Henrietta and Harriet as they made their debuts in London Society. Harriet’s older sister, the Countess of Sedwick, had generously offered to sponsor the daughter of a country doctor. Hero was sure Harriet had insisted that Lady Sedwick do so, but she had enjoyed London immensely, agreeing with Samuel Johnson of the previous century that “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” None of the three H’s had “taken” on the marriage mart, but Hero, at least, had had no illusions that she even wanted to do so.
She had come home to devour her brother’s medical books and badger her father into letting her help in his clinic. He had been adamantly opposed in the beginning: This was not a milieu for females; she should find a husband and have children; that was what her mother would have wanted for her. Hero would not have minded having children, but the husband part of that was not exactly enticing. Gradually, she had managed to become her father’s apprentice, in fact if not in name. The two of them were an efficient team.
Her brother Michael was the one who had been prepared to be their father’s medical partner. But Michael had gone directly from medical school in Edinburgh to working with Dr. James McGrigor, Wellington’s chief medical officer, first in the Peninsula and then with the army of occupation in Belgium. Now that so many of that army were being demobilized, Michael was sure to come home to take his rightful place here. And where would that leave Hero? Except for those years at Miss Pringle’s school, Hero had, since her mother’s death and her sister’s marriage, managed her father’s household as well as working in his clinic. What would happen when Michael married, as he was sure to do at some point?
What will I do? What about Annabelle?
Oh, do stop borrowing worry from the future…
She pounded her pillow into something offering comfort and willed herself to sleep.
Chapter 6
In the dim light of an oil lamp, the wick turned as low as it could go and still wage a weak fight against darkness, Adam too lay awake after leaving the library. Staring at the whitewashed ceiling and walls of his hospital room, he tried, as he did every night, to bring up something of his past that would prompt a real return of his memory.
Nothing.
He turned to a review of this day.
Though his own taste in women ran to willowy blondes, there was something about Hero Whitby—with her sturdy figure and ready smile—that he found comforting. Her cheerful optimism and generous nature reminded him of his mother. Whoa! Where did that come from? A mother? His mother? He tried to conjure up a perceivable vision, but the image eluded him. He let his mind drift back to Hero and that conversation he had overheard. As he reflected on it, he wondered if he had detected a note of fear in her attitude toward Teague. Fear and anxiety were not emotions one would immediately associate with Miss Whitby.
To Adam, Teague had seemed an overbearing sort—the type of man who tried to turn a simple handshake into a power struggle—but not an especially frightening fellow. Perhaps women would view him differently; he had the sort of looks that women often found attractive: good-looking well-built, exuding self-confidence. But as Adam considered the matter further, it occurred to him that whenever Teague’s name came up, people tended to be rather circumspect in what they said.
Food for thought there.
He turned to lie on his left side as much as his splinted leg would allow, and set about willing himself to
sleep. His back was to the window, which he had asked Stewart to leave open a bit when the servant had locked the outside door. Always a light sleeper, Adam could not immediately pinpoint what it was that woke him. He lay very still and listened. He conjectured that it must be two hours or more past midnight.
There it was! A faint scraping of metal against metal and what could be a shoe sliding on the slate outside the door. Someone was trying to pick the door lock. Whoever it was could have nothing good in mind.
Adam reached above his head to tug on the bellpull, hoping that at this hour someone might even hear it. Then he lay still, feigning sleep, but he was intensely alert. He slid his right hand under his pillow to grip the pistol Dr. Whitby had given him a few days earlier. He heard a click as the lock gave way, and watched through slitted eyes as two figures came into his line of vision. As they approached his bed, one behind the other, the one in the rear gestured to the other bed.
“Grab that pillow,” he whispered, “in case he wakes up.”
Adam raised himself on one elbow, cocked the pistol, and pointed it at the man reaching for the pillow. “He’s awake. Whatever you have mind, you’d best forget it,” he said calmly.
The man in front gasped. “Blimey, George! He’s got a barker!”
George, who was closest to the now open side door, looked as though he would run for it until Adam turned the gun slightly in his direction. “Don’t even think about it,” Adam ground out in the manner of a military officer issuing an order to a subordinate. “I am accredited to be a good shot and I could hardly miss at this distance.”
“Oh, Jesus, Mary, and all the saints! He never told us he’d have a gun!” This came as a near whine from the man standing nearest Adam.
“Shut your mouth,” George growled at his companion. He was bigger than the other one; even in the dim light Adam saw that both were unshaven, wore dark clothing and dark knitted caps. George turned his gaze to Adam and said, “What now, fancy boy? You can’t shoot both of us at once.”
Adam pointed the gun more firmly at George. “There is more than one bullet. You first, then the whiner.”
“I ain’t no whiner,” the whiner said.
“I told you to shut up,” George said.
Just then the inner door to the surgery swung open and Stewart entered carrying a bright lamp. “You need something, Mr. Wainwright?”
The man George took advantage of this distraction. He dropped a length of rope he carried and made a dash for the open side door. Adam fired the gun and George yelped, but kept on running. Adam turned the gun on the whiner who now seemed frozen in place.
Stewart held his lamp higher to shed light more fully on the intruder. “Trevor Prentiss? What are you doing here? And at this hour?”
“I…uh…George ʼn’ me—”
Adam broke in. “Had a little matter of murder in mind, did you not? You and your friend George? Thought to finish what you started several days ago, did you?” Adam did not stop to think about what he had just said, but he barked an order. “Keep your hands up where I can see them.”
“Y-yes, sir. Jus’ don’t shoot me. Please,”
“Stewart,” Adam said, never taking his eyes from Trevor Prentiss, “if you would, set that lamp down and tie this miscreant’s hands behind his back. Use that rope they intended to use on me. Then make him sit on the floor over there in front of that closet where we can keep an eye on him.”
Stewart did as Adam directed and was just finishing when Hero burst into the room, holding a lantern. She was followed closely by her father.
“What happened?” she demanded, sounding anxious and somewhat breathless. “We heard a shot!” Her gaze landed on the prisoner. “Trevor Prentiss?” Her voice rose in surprise. She whipped her attention to Adam. “Adam. Are you all right?”
Adam laid the gun on the nightstand, pulled himself to a sitting position, and turned up the wick of his own lamp. “Yes. Luckily, I am a light sleeper.” He explained what had happened, ending with, “I may have winged this fellow’s friend George.”
“That would be George Kempf,” Stewart said from where he stood, keeping watch on Prentiss. “Kempf and Prentiss here are part of Teague’s gang.”
“Yeah. An’ Mr. Teague ain’t gonna like this one bit,” Prentiss said in a show of adolescent bravado.
Adam looked at him closely and was not surprised to find he was quite young—fourteen or fifteen at most. “Prentiss,” Adam said, “you would be wise to take your friend George’s advice and be quiet. Attempted murder is a hanging offense.”
“Transport to the penal colony in New South Wales at the very least,” Dr. Whitby said, sitting on the only chair in the room other than the Bath chair.
The boy’s complexion paled visibly. “We wasn’t gonna kill anybody. Jus’ scare ʼim.”
Hero set her lamp on a sideboard and went over to kneel beside him. She spoke gently. “Trevor. Why? How did you come to be involved with the likes of George Kempf? And, I suppose, Henry Slater?”
Dr. Whitby explained to Adam, “Kempf and Slater are a couple of young toughs about five or six years older than Prentiss.”
“They’re my friends,” the boy said, refusing to meet her gaze.
“I thought Jonathan was your friend.” Adam knew Hero named one of her brothers, the doctor’s youngest child.
The boy shrugged. “Jon ain’t here, is he? Off to some fancy school, he is. An’ me ma and sisters—they hafta eat, don’t they? A sergeant’s widow don’t get much, you know.”
Hero looked distraught. “Oh, Trevor, why did you not come to us? We would have helped you and your family.”
The boy just stared at her.
“You are Jonathan’s friend. We would have helped you,” she repeated.
“We ain’t takin’ handouts,” he finally said. “Prentisses take care of our own. Don’t need no charity.”
“It is not charity when it comes from friends,” she said, gently patting his shoulder. He shrugged her away.
Adam surmised that his belligerence kept him from showing tears of weakness. A sergeant’s widow? Adam felt an inkling of recognition. “Prentiss!” he said sharply. “What was your father’s name? His regiment?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Just answer the question.”
Something in Adam’s tone got through, for the lad responded. “Spencer Prentiss. The Ninety-Sixth Rifles.”
“Ah, God.” Adam sighed heavily.
Hero stood and turned to Adam. “You knew him? You remember?”
Adam shook his head. “Not well. Not my regiment. Stirling’s. My friend Stirling.”
“You knew Major Stirling? My pa really liked him.” The boy’s tone was eager surprise at first, but then he clamped his mouth shut, seeming to fear he had said too much.
Adam wiped a hand over his face. “Prentiss saved Stirling’s life not once, but twice. Couldn’t manage it a third time. They both died at Toulouse.”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“How sad. How very sad,” Hero said softly.
“War is a sorry business,” her father said. “That battle was particularly so. Napoleon had already abdicated before it was fought.”
Again, there was silence as others absorbed this ugly reality.
“Stand up, Prentiss,” Adam ordered. “And come over here.”
Using the door of the closet as leverage, the young man pushed himself to a standing position and slowly walked over to Adam’s bedside.
“Untie his hands,” Adam said to Stewart, who seemed none too happy about doing so. Prentiss stood looking at the floor and rubbing his wrists. Thinking he must be terrified, Adam had to admire the stoicism the boy displayed. “Now look here, Prentiss.” When Prentiss looked up, Adam held his gaze. “Your father was a good man. Brave. Loyal. I doubt he would have approved of what you were
about this night, no matter what the reason.”
The boy swallowed hard. “N-no, sir.”
“So.” Adam paused, then went on with more assurance. “So—out of respect for Sergeant Prentiss, I am letting you go. You might say the sergeant is saving yet another life. Find another way—a more honorable way—to help your family.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Mr. Prentiss?”
“Yes, sir?”
“There is no shame in needing help.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Now go on home.”
“Th-thank you, sir.”
Trevor looked as though he wanted to say more, but Hero interjected. “Your mother will be worried sick.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He turned and fled through the open side door.
A cool breeze flowed from the open door and window as the blackness of night was rapidly evolving into the gray beginnings of dawn. Adam and the two Whitbys seemed to release a collectively held breath as Stewart too left the room.
“I hope I was not overstepping there, Doctor,” Adam said.
“No. No. I was trying to come up with a solution myself. Let us hope your ‘go and sin no more’ approach works. He has always been a good lad.”
“His father was a good man.”
“And you remember that, do you?” Hero had stood quietly in place during his discussion with the boy, but now she moved more firmly into Adam’s line of vision. She was somewhat disheveled in a serviceable brown wool robe that she had obviously donned hastily, for the robe, though tied at the waist, was open in the front to show the frilly lace of the neckline of her nightgown. Her hair hung in a single braid over one shoulder and reached to her breast. A firm, rounded breast under that nondescript robe. Her nose and cheeks were shiny, and that sprinkling of freckles went right down to the neckline of her garments—and perhaps beyond. He thought she was beautiful. With effort, he brought his mind to focus on her question.
“Yes, I do. I do remember.”
He was surprised at how much he did remember. He realized now that he had not so much recognized Trevor and George individually, but their clothing had brought to mind the men who had beaten him so thoroughly. However, he thought it wise to be somewhat cautious about revealing too much at this point. He trusted the Whitbys implicitly, but theirs was a large household. There might be others like George and Trevor and their friend Henry. And he was hardly in a position to fend for himself much—yet. He would keep his own counsel for the time being.