by Edith Layton
Warwick seemed to recall how closely he held Susannah then and so he released her shoulders. Although he was reluctant to leave her, once he saw that she could stand unaided, he put her aside. Then, on legs he was surprised to find reacting to his possible extinction, as he’d not yet done, he strode to Lord Moredon, and with Julian, knelt beside the fallen man.
“No need to study him,” Lion commented as he strolled up to them and looked down at the man they inspected, “unless you want to claim bounty. Then it would take some of my medical friends up in Scotland to take him apart well enough to see which of us it was that did him. My pistols made their point,” he said, squinting down, “but I do believe that carbine answered the question. It would have done for the side of a barn. I’m all over admiration. Not exactly a dueling piece, my lord,” he commented, looking at Julian, “but damned effective.”
“A coachman,” Julian answered, rising from his knees, “has no time for the niceties. I always keep a blunderbuss behind the seat. One never knows when a driver on the line might find a nice fallow deer, for instance, and a silver-handled pistol won’t do him any good in the night, on the road, if that deer has mischief on his mind. But thank you for giving me the opportunity to use it. I might have been able to get him after he’d altered Warwick’s jacket for him, but this way when you appeared all his attention was for you. Even I believed for a moment that Gentleman Jones had risen to avenge his great-grandson.”
“Yes, Lion,” Warwick said, rising and looking at him curiously, “not that we’re not grateful, and you may impersonate the Gentleman anytime you choose, although I do believe you’ve too much chest and not enough nose for it, though I certainly won’t quibble about the results. But whatever caused your presence here today?”
“Ah well, I hear things in my line of work. Easy enough to find out about that poor lout Fred Stevenson who was being paid to play at highwayman on the Brighton Road, the idiot was drinking himself under the table every night on the proceeds and bragging from here to London about his exploits. Professionals don’t take kindly to amateurs, so I heard about it soon enough from some coves who were interested in retiring poor Fred and trying on the post in his stead. But it’s a lost art and a loser’s ken I wanted no part of, the horse patrol is accomplished and has done for the game, and so would’ve done for Fred in a week or two.
“So I came down to interview the lad for a different position, but since he didn’t care for the post of featured player at a funeral, he agreed to give up life as a land pirate after this one last run, and I doubt he’ll trouble anyone but his livestock again. Still, so long as I was about it I thought I’d be in at the kill, so to speak. Say I did it out of curiosity, or as a tribute to Gentleman Jones, or to save his descendant’s fine jacket, or for the sake of beautifying England’s roads by keeping such handsome coachmen on it. But whatever you do, gentlemen, never say”—and here he dropped his voice to a stage whisper that clearly carried to Susannah—“that I did it all for Miss Logan because I thought she graced this old earth and believe it needs all the grace it can hold. No, never say that, or I’ll deny it if only to save myself from all those impassioned kisses she’s sure to want to cover me with.”
“As to that,” Julian replied as he walked to Susannah’s side and took her hand, “I think that since you’ve given my carbine so much credit, I can claim those kisses as my reward. Only not here,” he said, no longer to Lion, but only to her as he gazed down at her, “and not just now,” he whispered, as a promise.
“And as to my Lord Moredon?” Warwick said as though thinking out loud, as he abruptly turned his attention from Susannah and Julian.
“Oh, I’ll lug the guts,” Lion said.
“Will Shakespeare was obviously a favorite at the foundling home,” Warwick mused as Lion bent to hunker down near the fallen nobleman.
“Indeed,” Lion said, “and he’d be the first to say that if it were done, it would be best that it were done quickly. I’ll leave my lord on another, less-frequented road to Brighton, near to Dorking, I think, and by the time he’s found with this silk on his face and his pistol in his hand, the horse patrol will be pleased to settle the matter by jumping to decide he was the gentleman highwayman they sought, come to his just reward. A few questions will show he hadn’t been himself lately, and they’ll soon find out he needed the money well enough. And then the thing will be over.”
“He has a sister, he once had honor,” Warwick said softly, as he gazed down at what had once been his enemy. “It would be just as easy to strip him of his mask, and leave him that at least. A name’s not much, but all any man can bring whole to his grave. Let them think he fell afoul of the highwayman he feared. His pistol’s been discharged, and when there are no further incidents, they’ll think he either got his man or discouraged him from the trade forevermore…‘the quality of mercy,’ as the man said, you know,” he said with a sad smile. “Now, Lion, please, I own a debt. How may I repay you?” he asked on a sigh.
The large man looked at him at that, and smiled.
“You have,” he said quite simply, very sincerely, “recently, when you told me I might still call you ‘friend.’ Now I see it’s more than reward. It’s an honor.”
And then he took his cloak and covered over what remained of Lord Moredon before he went with Warwick to see to the fallen footman, who was moaning in the dust.
By the time that Julian cracked the whip and started his teams again, the footman had been restored with some brandy and a bandage round his head, and Susannah could see Lion so busily securing a large black bundle to the back of Lord Moredon’s horse that he didn’t even have time to wave good-bye as they drove away. Since she’d already thanked him so often he’d finally ordered her off and into the coach, she settled back and watched him grow smaller as they pulled away.
Millie was burbling with excitement as they resumed the long drive home. She’d not missed a thing, she said thrillingly, having never really fainted at all, but having only followed her older sister’s advice, which was that whenever threatened, a clever female should swoon, since it’s harder to take advantage of an unconscious girl.
“Not harder,” Warwick said, cutting her off, “only less enjoyable.”
And as she blushed at that, he cautioned her so seriously and severely to hold her tongue about all that she’d seen and heard that she almost wept and then promised on the heads of all her unborn children that she’d never breathe a word.
“No one would believe her anyway,” he whispered in Susannah’s ear when Millie had subsided. That ear was close to him, since as soon as he’d seated himself next to her again, before he could repeat his invitation, she’d decided to rest her head upon that amazingly therapeutic shoulder he’d bragged about less than an hour ago, but what seemed to them both to be days before, when he’d first joined her in the coach.
“Warwick,” she said sleepily as the coach rolled on, so muted that he had to bend his head to hear, thus brushing his cheek against her soft honeysuckle-scented hair, “thank you, there’s no way to say thank you, but thank you.”
Before he could protest that it wasn’t necessary, he saw that she was asleep at last, after all her wild journeying, as though this last incident was the last thing she could take in, and so in her wisdom, she’d simply shut herself off.
Millie remained silent too, although it was some time before she slept, since she was well-rested and still buoyed up by excitement. But as promised, she didn’t breathe a word. Not for fear of disturbing her mistress, since she was fast asleep against Mr. Jones’s chest. But out of consideration for the gentleman, who looked as though he was lost in thought, and sat never moving a muscle, except for now and again when he unconsciously stroked a strand of Miss Logan’s bright hair away from her forehead. And all the while he bore a look of such tender sadness upon that elegant face of his that Millie wished with all her heart that someday, someone would look just so at her, if only for once, if only for a moment.
; When they arrived at last at Greenwood Hall it was late in the afternoon. But for Susannah, who was refreshed after the deep and dreamless sleep she’d enjoyed for the rest of their interrupted journey, it was as if it were a bright new morning. She dashed up the stairs to her rooms and ordered a bath to get the last of the dust of the road from herself, and she sang softly as she scrubbed and lathered her hair. She was alive and hungry for everything now, and having not eaten all day, was so ravenous that she was looking forward to her dinner almost as much as she was looking forward to her entire life.
The gentlemen went to change clothes and wash as well.
Julian, having done, went downstairs to see where his friend was, only to find he’d finished first and so had already left his rooms. The viscount walked with a springy step, he felt lighter as well as light-headed with happiness, and almost a little ashamed of feeling so good about another man’s demise. But just as it seemed that all his recent heartache and trouble had swirled around the name “Moredon,” now that Lord Moredon was dead it looked like the last of the difficulties associated with the time in his life when that name had been important to him had been lifted from his shoulders as well.
His money would have been gone even if he hadn’t thought himself in love with Marianna, but his desperation to recover it so that he could claim her as his wife had made life wretched for him. Ironically, now that he knew he was well rid of her, he was well on the road to recovering himself financially as well. With no more to fear from her mad brother for himself or those he cared for, it seemed to him that the world, as if in apology for all his recent unhappiness, could not now offer him more. He’d worked, he’d planned and plotted, and all to no avail, and suddenly all good things came to him unsought. Warwick had unexpectedly come into his life again to help him from his financial morass. And Susannah had been a special gift, bright, beautiful, entirely good, and only waiting for him to turn and see her so that she could light up all his future.
He was, he knew, a very lucky man. So he was surprised enough to stop in his tracks and leave off the low merry whistling he’d been doing when he saw Warwick at his desk in his study. Warwick’s lean face was so gloomy and intent as he scratched out some note he was writing that his friend thought for a moment that someone else had recently died, aside from his worst enemy and an old, unknown uncle who’d left him a fine legacy. Then Julian remembered something he’d recently heard and was momentarily ashamed of his own happiness. For whatever else, one thing was immutable. Warwick was his friend, and what touched upon his life touched upon his own. Even if, he thought uncomfortably, as he stared at his solemn-faced friend, it couldn’t be helped that as sometimes happens with close friends, precisely because of their commonality, one’s happiness might be the ruin of the other’s hopes for it.
“Clean linen, smelling like a field of heather, working at your desk already—is there no end to your energy, Warwick?” Julian asked as he ambled into the room and took a seat near the desk.
“None,” Warwick agreed, adding a last line, blotting the paper, and liberally sprinkling sand over it. “But then,” he said, sitting back and gazing at his friend, “you appear to be entirely recovered from our ordeal as well. Now that all the running and rambling is done, you look as though you were ready to start all over again. And that’s as well. Because, my dear energetic lad, you’ll have to do just that, and pack again—tonight, I’m afraid. As will I.
“Julian,” Warwick laughed with genuine amusement at his friend’s startled reaction to his words, “our casual style of life of late has clouded your wits. But only think, the contessa is still sulking somewhere on the outskirts of Edinburgh. I received a message from her in London and she claims she’s still making inquiries about her mythical legacy, although I suspect she’s twigged to the truth by now and is simply too embarrassed by her foolish dereliction of duty to return straightaway. It hardly matters, there’s no way she can fly down from the North to us tonight. And, for all our derring-do and skirting the outer limits of respectability of late, we can’t stay on here overnight with Susannah, without a proper chaperon. She’s been seen in local society now, so she’ll continue to be watched. We can’t do that to her reputation, in the name of friendship or good sense. So I propose we take off for Brighton and stay at the Old Ship for the night, or at least until my great-aunt Harriet, my late uncle’s sister, arrives from Cheltenham for a visit. I’ve written to her, the note went off from London before we left. Even if she responds as speedily as I think she will—she’s an incurable snoop and lonely, I should think, now that the old man’s gone, for she loved to fight with him—the soonest she can arrive here is in the morning. The Ship has tolerable beds, if that’s what’s bothering you,” he added when Julian looked down to his fingers, and then to the floor.
It was as Lion had said to him, Julian remembered, as Warwick gazed at him quizzically: if it were done, it would be best if it were done quickly. Yes, if there must be pain, Julian thought, it would be best for it to be given quickly and be done with it. So he took in a breath and with as much care as a surgeon trying to make a quick, clean incision, said as steadily as he was able, “I don’t see the need, Warwick. Because I don’t want to leave Sukey now, not tonight, not after what’s happened today. And I don’t think I have to, for there’s no harm in it if we’re an engaged couple, is there?”
Warwick sat very still. Julian could swear that he’d stopped breathing; the only sign that he’d heard was the way his thin brows flickered and swooped for a moment, as though he’d registered some sudden pang.
But, “Indeed?” he replied as coolly as if he’d been told it might rain. “And are you?”
“No,” Julian said softly, “not yet. But I wish to be. And I see no obstacle to it now. I think it’s no secret what Susannah’s feelings are in the matter, I don’t believe there’s ever been any doubt of that. It didn’t need that madman to say it, you yourself told me, in fact. But as to that, Moredon said something else today, and because we’re friends, and because we’ve been for so long, and because I want us to continue to be, I feel I must know—is it true?”
Warwick paused. Then he looked at his friend, his eyes so brilliantly dark and blue and both amused and pained that it was hard to look back at him.
“Would it make a difference?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Julian answered steadily. “Would it to you, if you were me?”
“No. It would only take some of the joy from it, but there’d be so much joy in it, it would scarce matter. And as for our being friends, it’s important, but there comes a time when a man ought to put down his toys and put aside his boyhood, friends and all, and take to him his greatest friend, his love, and let her supersede all others. That is more than you asked, but it is indeed how I should feel if I were you, if I were so loved.”
He rose from his desk to look out his window, to conceal his face, his hands laced behind his back, a back he’d turned once already this day to a man he’d expected to put a bullet in it. Now he turned it again, this time to his friend, who felt as though he’d placed a knife in it.
“You’re very silent,” Warwick said at length, as Julian struggled for the right words to end this conversation with. “Does it surprise you so much then that 1 speak about love? I, cold, odd, eccentric Warwick Jones? But I do feel things, if not precisely often. And perhaps I think now and again about love, just as other men do. Perhaps sometimes I think that it would be very good to love and be loved in return. Very pleasant not to have to pay to be touched, for example, for that’s what all this business of mistresses and light females comes down to in the end, if you’ll forgive the pun,” he laughed lightly, “you know.
“And even if one loved a female one could never touch, for some reason, why then, even for a fellow such as me, who loves such touching very well, as well you know I do, I sometimes think it would still be more than any man could ask of life—to simply love someone more than himself. Especially if he were able every now a
nd again to let himself believe such love might be reciprocated. Oh yes, I sometimes think these things, you know.
“But what are you to do, poor Julian?” he asked sympathetically, turning to give his friend his whole sad smile. “Offer me first try at her hand? You might. I could go in and offer for her first, so that when you came in she’d be laughing merrily, or weeping, she’s that tenderhearted, you know. Or shall I come in after you do, like the farce, to round out her triumphant evening with laughter? No. There’s nothing you can do, my dear beautiful friend Julian. The moment she clapped eyes on you, she was yours.
“Go to her with a whole heart, offer for her, and please, for the sake of friendship, never tell her about this conversation. I should like to always be at ease in your home. There’s nothing worse than a female who thinks you’ve a passion for her,” he said on a crooked grin; “it instantly erases all naturalness, the best of them can do nothing but primp and giggle and make fools themselves forever after, knowing that, whenever you show your nose. Can you see Susannah in fifty years, plump and gray, with a covey of daughters looking as she does now, and yet preening and simpering every time I hobble in on my cane to inquire after your gout? It’s not to be thought of,” he said with a friendly smile.