by Wilma Counts
But at some point in the earliest hours of the morning, he woke abruptly from yet another journey to yet another battlefield. Scenes of beautiful young men dying, body parts and abandoned weapons strewn about, blood and mud and confusion, the moans of the wounded blending with the screams of injured horses. God! Will it never end? he asked himself. He got up, grabbed a robe, and sat beside the window, mindlessly watching as the darkness gave way to something resembling daylight over the rooftops of the city.
The next day, as he and his father had conjectured, the bank was more than willing to lend a sufficient sum to the son of a duke for whatever purposes that son might have in mind. Although he had had little doubt of the outcome—especially after his father had offered to accompany him—Alex breathed a sigh of relief just to know that hurdle had been conquered. He also met with his solicitor and apprised of him what had transpired at the Abbey.
The following day, he set out to find Alistair Gibson.
This task proved to be more difficult than he had expected. Army headquarters had no current address for Gibson himself, though they did have an address in Richmond for a sister, a Mrs. James Reeves, who had been listed as “next of kin” to be notified in the event of his death on the battlefield. Alex returned to Thornleigh House for a proper mount and rode out to Richmond to find Gibson’s sister, who turned out to be the wife of a butcher. She was waiting on customers as her husband prepared cuts of meat behind her. Alex waited politely in line to speak with her, and when it was his turn he handed her his card and introduced himself merely as Alexander Sterne. She took the card and, without looking at it, put it in a pocket of her bloodstained apron.
When he asked about her brother, she was guarded in her answer. “My brother is not here, but I will see that he gets your card.”
“I should like to contact him in person, Mrs. Reeves. It would be most helpful if you could just give me his direction,” Alex replied.
She sighed. “If he owes you money, I am sure he will pay you just as soon as he can. His wife has been ill recently and the family are having a difficult time.”
Alex gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “He does not owe me anything, and I was rather hoping he would be able to help me with a difficulty I am facing.”
She pulled the card out of her pocket and looked at it, turned halfway toward her husband, and said in a louder voice, “Lord Alexander Sterne? What would a lord want with my brother?”
Her husband slammed a cleaver down on his cutting block and came to look over her shoulder at the card. “Hmm. I seem to remember Al talkin’ ʼbout a Major Sterne.” He looked up at Alex.
Alex nodded. “The same. Can you help me?” He was aware now of people behind him.
“That depends,” Reeves said. “Don’t know as Al would want us giving out information on him.”
“I assure you, sir,” Alex said, “that I mean Mr. Gibson no ill at all. In fact, I have a proposition for him that he may very well wish to consider.”
Reeves looked at his wife, who shrugged in an it’s-up-to-you sort of gesture. “He’s working as a scrivener for some lawyer in the Inns of Court,” Reeves said. “Walker or Walter—something like that.”
It was obvious that the Reeves couple were parting with no more information than that, so Alex took his leave. As the door closed behind him, he heard the shop already buzzing with the news of a lord’s having visited there.
By the time he arrived back in London, it was far too late to visit Gibson at his place of work. Alex fumed at the Reeves couple for not giving him any more information, but he resigned himself to an extra day in the city. That evening he accompanied his father in visiting White’s, the duke’s choice of the gentlemen’s clubs, where Alex played several hands of vingt-et-un while his father visited with old friends. Late the next morning, Alex presented himself at the law office of Walker and Sons, where his card caused a slight stir and a good deal of curiosity when he asked to see not one of the solicitors, but one of their scriveners. But soon enough Alistair Gibson came from a back room. Gibson, in his midthirties, had dark red hair and worried brown eyes. He wore dark trousers held up by suspenders and a white shirt rolled up to the elbow on the right arm. His left sleeve, which was pinned up just above the wrist, was stained with ink, as were the fingers of his right hand. He walked with a limp.
“Major!” Gibson said in surprise, and wiped his hand on his trouser leg before offering it to Alex in a warm grip.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Alex asked.
“If you will give me time to finish the document I am working on, I will meet you at the pub around the corner, though I cannot be gone long.”
Alex nodded and left. Since it was nearly noon, the pub was serving a number of lawyers and their clerks. Alex found a corner table and ordered both the set lunch and small ales for himself and Gibson. A quarter of an hour later, Gibson, wearing a black coat over his shirt, hurried in and sat across from him.
He looked down at the plate and drink. “I usually have a sandwich in the park.”
“I am hoping to put a stop to that,” Alex said with a smile.
“Sir?”
“I am in sore need of a steward in Cornwall, and it occurred to me that you might be interested in such a position.”
“A steward? As in an estate steward?”
“A steward as in an estate steward,” Alex affirmed.
“B-but I have never—I’m not sure—Cornwall? Except for school and the army, I’ve always lived in the city. And I’ve not had any experience managing anything.” Gibson looked dumbfounded.
“Yes, you have,” Alex said. “You were the best quartermaster officer in the entire Peninsular army. It strikes me that a steward does the same sorts of things—only he does them in a set location and he does not have to scrounge among foreign locals to obtain proper materials.”
“But, sir, I’ve no experience,” Gibson protested.
“Neither do I.” Alex explained about his inheriting the property and leaving it up to his solicitor and steward to oversee matters while he was in the army and the situation as he had found it recently. “Now I am taking more direct control—but I need help. The kind I think you can give me.”
“Sir, I—I don’t know what to say.”
“I understood your sister to say your wife has been ill,” Alex said. “Have you children too?”
“Two. Timmy is three and Beth is eight months. Alice had trouble with the second babe—but she’s much better now, though I was worried for a while there.”
“I do not mean to pressure you overly much, but the steward’s house on the estate would certainly accommodate your family,” Alex said, and named a salary that he was certain exceeded what the man made copying legal documents all day. “And,” Alex added, “if either of us finds this does not work for us, I will ensure the expense of your returning to the city.”
“Well, sir, if you are willing to take a chance with me, I’d certainly like to consider your offer. I would need to talk it over with my wife, though.”
“I would think the less of you if you did not,” Alex said, “but, at the risk of contradicting myself and pressuring you a great deal, I need an answer soon—like tomorrow. I must return immediately to Cornwall, but I am prepared to advance you the funds to make your way there in due time with your family—say three weeks? I should think that would be sufficient for you to give notice at your current employment.”
“I’ll have a definite answer for you tomorrow morning, sir, but I’m quite sure Alice will be excited about moving to the country.” Gibson glanced at a pocket watch and grimaced. “Right now, sir, I have to get back to the office.”
“I’ll drop by here tomorrow morning, then,” Alex said, standing to shake Gibson’s hand again.
The next day, after meeting with Gibson, Alex started the return journey to Cornwall, secure in the k
nowledge that he had hired a new steward.
Chapter 20
For Hero the days dragged following her sister’s visit and the disclosure of Lord Alexander’s plans for the Abbey. Her own life seemed in a state of suspension even as the atmosphere in the town had taken on a more positive, cheerful note. But beneath the more buoyant morale, there was a strain of apprehension, of people waiting for a catastrophe. The smugglers seemed to be lying low for the nonce, but there was an expectation, a fear of something to come. Hero noted that many were still wary of being totally candid in conversations. The uncertainty was like a festering sore on the body politic. Hero and Diana privately consoled themselves with the fact that at least Anthony and Jonathan were out of it: The boys had returned to school—reluctantly—five days after his lordship’s departure.
Swearing publicly and repeatedly that “no one was going to tell Willard Teague what he could do and where,” Teague had vacated the steward’s house on the estate as he had been ordered to do, but he had not left the town. In fact he, along with his children and a servant to care for them, joined the household of Jessie Howard, a soldier’s widow with whom everyone knew he had been carrying on an on-again, off-again affair for several years. Mrs. Howard had two half-grown children of her own, so the addition of six people put a strain on her household. She was a rather brash, blowsy sort of woman, who supplemented her widow’s jointure by taking in laundry and mending. She helped with the laundry for the inn, for instance. She had brown hair, which was helped to that color by a regular application of henna; she was rather buxom, but not unattractive. Her cheerful personality and live-and-let-live demeanor allowed her to shrug off the gossip she knew very well swirled behind her back.
Hero saw Teague in town occasionally. She usually tried to ignore him, but one morning as she stepped out of the mercantile store, where she had gone to buy sewing thread for Mrs. Hutchins, there he was, right in front of her. He had obviously been waiting to accost her. She smelled alcohol about him.
He lifted his hat. “Good morning, Hero. Allow me to walk you to your carriage.”
“I-I have other errands to run,” she said evasively.
“Ah, well, then I shall escort you.”
“That is really not necessary.”
“Indulge me.” He gripped her elbow. “I suppose you have heard that I may be leaving Weyburn in a few weeks or so.”
“I had heard something to that effect, yes,” she replied, not looking at him.
“I want you to come with me.”
“You—what?” Flabbergasted, she stopped and stared at him, and then just babbled the first thing that popped into her mind. “But Mrs. Howard—”
He snorted. “I want you, and I want you to come with me. I find myself still very much attracted to you. I have enough money stashed away in the bank in Bristol. We could have a good life there.”
“Mr. Teague—” she began, but he ignored her.
“Surely what with your brother’s returning with a wife, you must be a bit de trop in the Manor. Let me be clear: I am no longer offering you marriage. Don’t know what you had going with his precious lordship, but he’s gone now, isn’t he? Back to London where he probably has a mistress. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, eh?”
She shook herself free of him and fairly hissed her response. “You, sir, are a scoundrel of the worst sort. That you would even dare to offer me a slip on the shoulder—it—it is simply beyond comprehension.”
He made a gesture as though he would take her arm again. She flinched. “Don’t touch me!”
“Oh, come now, Hero. You’re no schoolgirl innocent. There is no need for you get so high-and-mighty with me.”
She brushed him off and took a step to put distance between them. “And I have never given you permission to use my name.” She was furious with herself for honing in on such a triviality. “Now get away from me or I will scream, and you know very well that someone in this town would come immediately to my aid.”
He did not step closer, but he did lean toward her and say in a hoarse whisper, “Have it your way, bitch. I could have given you a good life. We would have had a great time together.”
“I saw the ‘good life’ you gave poor Letty,” she said, and turned on her heel to stomp into the nearest place of business, the bookshop–lending library. She merely stood inside the door for a moment trying to regain her composure, but the bell had rung when she opened the door, and the girl who tended the counter came from the back room.
“Hello, Miss Whitby. May I help you with something special?”
“Uh—no, not right away, Carolyn. Just let me browse for a few minutes.” She was surprised that she sounded almost normal.
“We have that new novel, Emma, by the author of Pride and Prejudice. I did not like it so well as her other works, but do have a look at it.”
“I shall. Thank you.” She did not think to tell the girl she had already read it.
Carolyn returned to her task in the back room and Hero made a pretense of looking at several books, until she was sure she really could walk down the street relatively calmly. Her fury was all the more intense because there was no way she could tell anyone what had happened. If her father or Michael knew, one of them might feel obligated to call the bounder out, and she could hardly risk a duel that might result in the death of a beloved family member! But of course, that despicable excuse for a human being knew that, didn’t he? She ground her teeth in frustration.
Nevertheless, as she stepped out of the shop, she saw that Teague had disappeared, and she smiled and greeted warmly the red-coated Colonel Phillips, who was still lodged at the inn. The militiaman’s continued presence, along with that of his men, who were frequently seen about the town, was at once both a reassurance for the townspeople and a cause of apprehension. Everyone seemed on pins and needles, waiting for something—anything—to happen regarding that smuggling business.
As she drove the gig home, glad now that she had come to town alone, she could not get that awful conversation with Teague out of her mind. His comment about her being de trop had hit home. Hero knew that her sense of ennui lately stemmed largely from uncertainty that bedeviled her in spite of those assurances she’d had from both her father and Michael. As the days wore on, Monique was establishing a firm place in the household—and making subtle changes in such things as the placement of furniture in the drawing room or in menus the kitchen staff prepared. Hero was forced to admit—grudgingly and only to herself—that most of the suggestions her brother’s wife made were good ones, and Monique did them in such a diffident manner that one could hardly object, could one? But Hero was feeling less at ease than she had ever been in her own home. In the clinic too, Michael’s wife had taken over certain tasks such as cleaning instruments after a procedure and seeing to their placement on a tray just as Michael was used to having them. Hero told herself that this was only natural as the husband and wife had worked so closely together for so many months, but she still felt a bit left out. No—pushed out.
Also, for her there was the unresolved matter of his lordship, Alexander Sterne. She had to admit that she missed him. She conceded now that she had even missed having him in Whitby Manor during those two days he had still been in the area. Now that he was gone so far away, the sense of longing was more acute. She tried to convince herself that Diana’s faith that he would return was misplaced, that he had gone to the city to escape Weyburn and all its problems. But she fervently hoped that was not true—and chastised herself for wanting him to return, for wanting him to prove her wrong, for wanting him.
Then, suddenly, he was back.
That very day, when she arrived back at the Manor, Stewart commented that Lord Sterne had returned late the previous afternoon. He’d been gone eleven days and, despite her vow to ignore his absence or presence at the Abbey, she had felt every one of those days—perhaps every one of those ho
urs. And now she could hardly ignore what she felt, for his return was the subject of every casual encounter with patients, tradesmen, neighbors—and her family. Even Annabelle was given to asking her constantly about “Mr. Ainrye.”
* * * *
Alex had seen that encounter between Hero and Teague on the sidewalk in front of Wellman’s mercantile store. And he’d seen her dash into the bookshop. He had arrived in town only minutes before and was sitting in that favorite window seat at the inn, waiting for Colonel Phillips. When he saw Teague take her arm so possessively, he had stifled a fit of jealousy, and when he saw her shake him off decisively, he wanted to jump up, tear out there, and plant a fist in the man’s face. Before he could act—civilly or otherwise—it was over, and he told himself she might not appreciate having him intercede. Then Phillips arrived.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” the colonel said.
“Coffee?” Alex pointed at a carafe on the table and two mugs along with a plate of fresh-baked scones.
“Yes, thank you.”
Alex poured the coffee and shoved a cup over to Phillips. “I see Teague is still in town.”
“Blustering some, but mostly rather quiet. Something is definitely afoot. There has been some activity out there at the mine, and at those caves below the Abbey. We think they have moved the contraband down to the mouth of the cave—ready to be loaded on pack animals quickly. Unfortunately, we cannot verify that.”
“I can,” Alex said, reaching for a scone. He explained that he had asked Mac to check on the cellar while he was gone. Immediately on his return, Mac had informed him of that activity. Mac also reported that he had been careful to keep this bit of spy work from the watchful eye of the butler, Mullins, just as Alex had instructed. Alex was not sure why he was wary of Mullins, but he decided on the side of caution.