Charlotte Louise Dolan (7 page)

Sighing, she dipped her quill in the inkwell and continued.

The entertainment at the ladies’ aid society on Monday was provided by the vicar’s wife and the squire’s wife, who in the most genteel manner each accused the other of being an unfit mother, whose son was a menace to society at large. In respect to style of delivery, the vicar’s wife was definitely the winner, but the squire’s wife made up with quantity of words what she lacked in quality....

Captain St. John returned from a meeting with his commanding officer to find a small crowd gathered around his tent. His steps speeded up in anticipation. “Well?” he inquired, pushing aside the flap of the tent.

“Three this time,” replied Munke. He handed the letters to the captain and then exited the tent.

Darius read the letters through once quickly, then a second time more slowly. Finally the murmuring noises from outside the tent penetrated his consciousness.

How the custom had started, he wasn’t quite sure. One of Elizabeth’s letters had contained such an amusing anecdote, he had read it aloud to his fellow officers, and they had enjoyed it so much, they wanted to hear more. Somehow with each letter there were more people waiting to hear news from England, and he did not have the heart to deny them.

He was fully aware that his wife’s letters were not filled with the expressions of passion that one might expect from a recent bride, but he was well content to be able to forget for a short while the reality of long marches and desperate fighting. As one of his men, a particularly hardened old sergeant, had remarked with tears in his eyes, listening to her letters made them remember what they were all fighting for.

He went out to find a camp stool already in place in front of the tent. Settling himself before the group of officers, enlisted men, wives, and other camp followers, he began to read.

“The eleventh of October. Today we made chutney. It was an unusual recipe which Cook acquired from her sister, who is cook for Lord Graveston, whose brother brought it back from India. As the principal ingredient is green tomatoes, which I must admit does not sound terribly appetizing. I was a little dubious at first. After we had cooked down the first batch, however, I sneaked a spoonful of it while Cook’s back was turned (she insisted it would not be fit to eat for at least a month, as the spices need time to blend), and with that taste to inspire me, we worked diligently until dinnertime and were able to admire thirty-seven pints before we collapsed.

“Dorie was much help to me in the kitchen, although I suspect she also managed to sample a spoonful or two. In fact, by my reckoning, I had thought we would end up with thirty-eight pints, and can only be thankful Cook was not aware of the possible discrepancy....”

* * * *

Darius unwrapped the oilskin-covered package of letters and added the three new ones. He hesitated, debating whether or not to read one or two of the others again.

“There was another letter come with the post today, Capt’n. I didn’t want to give it to you with everyone around, like. It’s from London, from your lawyer.” Munke pulled a heavy vellum envelope from his inner coat pocket and handed it to Captain St. John.

Something has happened to Elizabeth, was his first thought, and a shaft of pain went through him. Ripping open the letter, he scanned it quickly, then uttered a curse. Turning away from his batman, Darius struggled to hold back the tears. “It’s my cousin,” he said harshly.

“The duke?”

“The only cousin I have. Or, rather, the only cousin I had. Algernon took a chill, and it settled in his lungs, and he died”— Darius checked the letter again—”seventeen days ago.”

“Then you are now the duke?”

“No, thank God! The duchess is in the family way. If it is a boy, he will be the duke. If it is a girl ...” He didn’t even want to contemplate what that would mean; it had to be a boy. “Pray that she has a son, Munke, or our soldiering days are over.”

* * * *

A gust of wind caught at her cloak and whipped it wildly behind her, but Elizabeth had no mind for the cold. Automatically she stamped her feet and pressed gloved hands to her cheeks, but her eyes continued to search the distance. Her feelings of anxiety were increasing with each minute the postman was late. Then her heart quickened as she caught sight of a lone rider coming around the far bend in the road.

In her eagerness she took a few steps toward him, then checked herself. This was not the postman’s horse plodding along with his head halfway down to his knees. This horse was coming along at a brisk trot—and the man on its back was dressed in scarlet.

Dear God, someone was coming to inform her of her husband’s death. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to close her ears to the sound of hooves coming closer, trying to will the rider to pass her by—trying to will death to have passed her husband by—but the horse stopped beside her and whiffled in her ear.

“Do you make a habit of standing in the middle of the roadway with your eyes shut, Elizabeth?”

“Darius,” she murmured. Then her eyes snapped open and her head jerked up. It
was
her husband. A smile started in her heart and bubbled up to her face. “What are you ... Why are you ... Welcome home,” she finally blurted out, feeling suddenly shy and virtually tongue-tied.

“A soldier returning from the wars deserves a better welcome than that,” he said with an answering grin.

Before she realized his intentions, he leaned down from the saddle, caught her around the waist, and with dizzying speed scooped her up onto his lap. Holding her securely with one arm, he kissed her until the world tilted, and she clung to him as the only secure thing in her universe.

Even when he broke off the kiss and nudged the horse into a slow walk toward the house, she could not bring herself to release him, but rode with her arms locked around his waist, her head resting shamelessly against his chest.

“Is Nicholas ... ?” She dared not finish the question.

“Your brother was in good health when I left him, and sends his thanks for the socks you knit him.”

Darius’s voice rumbled beneath her ear and she started to lift her head to ask more questions, but with one large hand he pressed her more tightly against his chest. Then he laughed, and the sound swept through her, warming her to the tips of her toes.

“Are you home for Christmas?” she murmured, breathing in deeply of his warm, masculine scent and trying not to ask too much of a suddenly benevolent fate that had brought her more than she would ever have dared ask for.

“I’m home until the War Office makes up its collective mind.”

She knew the rest of it before he even finished, and just the thought of it made her feel sick at heart.

“Then I will return to Spain with dispatches for Wellington.” He reined in the horse in front of the stables and helped her slide to the cobblestone pavement.

Hiding her anxiety—at least she hoped there was nothing showing on her face except a welcoming smile—she waited while he dismounted and turned the horse over to the groom; then, linking her arm through his, she led him into the house by a small side door.

Her happiness at seeing him was tempered by the fact that although he had been in her heart for months, she had actually lived with him only seven days, scarcely long enough to accustom herself to the idea that he was her husband. And now, as dear as he was to her, he seemed very much a stranger.

She was torn between the desire to touch him and assure herself he was really here and not just a figment of her imagination, and the need for time to ... She was not sure what she needed time for, perhaps just to become used to the reality of his presence, to become reacquainted with him, but time was the one thing she was unlikely to have. At any moment, a messenger might arrive from the War Office ...

No, she must concentrate on other things and put that thought completely out of her mind.

“Dorie is having lessons at the vicarage this afternoon, or she would be here to welcome you, also.”

“I acquit her of neglecting me.”

“You realize, don’t you, that she will use your visit as an excuse to cancel her lessons?” Elizabeth ushered him into the study, which was the warmest room in the house other than the kitchen. “Have you eaten? Shall I have Cook fix you something?” she asked hurriedly, feeling as awkward and gauche as a young girl at her first party.

He settled himself with a soft sigh in an easy chair in front of the fire before he replied. “The first thing a soldiers learns is never to turn down an offer of food since he rarely knows where his next meal is coming from—or when.”

Elizabeth walked briskly toward the door, mentally planning what would be quickest to prepare. Perhaps the captain would enjoy a glass of brandy while he waited? She turned back to ask him and was shocked by the look of bone-deep exhaustion on his face. As soon as he noticed her staring at him, he smiled, but as reassurance, it fell short of the mark because he could not quite disguise the effort it cost him.

Unable to maintain her composure, she slipped out of the room without a word. Pausing only to wipe a stray tear from her face, she hurried through the hallway and down the back stairs to the kitchen, where she sent the butler to fetch some brandy, instructed the housekeeper to make up the captain’s room, and went herself with the cook to see what bounty the larder would yield.

As soon as preparations were under way, she returned to the study, only to find the brandy untouched and her husband leaning back in the chair, sound asleep, his legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed.

She was unable to resist the temptation to watch him while he slept. His face was leaner than the last time she had seen him, almost to the point of gauntness. There was a scar on his left hand that had not been there before he left, and the shadow of an old bruise lingered on his jaw.

Her desire was strong to cosset him and baby him like a child, and she had to smile at what his reaction to pampering would undoubtedly be. She could almost hear him say, “I am a St. John. We are not sissies to be mollycoddled.”

Still, she would do her best while he was here to give him some of the comfort he was missing in Spain.

Watching him sleep, he seemed less and less of a stranger to her, and by the time she abandoned her vigil hours later to climb the steps to her room, it was as if the months apart had never been, and her earlier feelings of anxiety were now replaced by a deep contentment.

* * * *

Darius awoke alert and ready for danger, as was his wont. His benign surroundings baffled him for a moment, however. Nothing was familiar, not the chair he was reclining in, nor the table by his elbow that held a glass of brandy, nor the fireplace above which hung a portrait of a happy family—mother, father, graceful young daughter, sturdy son, and two curly-headed toddlers both decked out in lace and frills.

It was only when he looked toward the door that a memory emerged, of Elizabeth standing there staring at him in dismay, her eyes filling with tears.

He cursed himself for being a fool, for stopping in London only long enough to deliver the dispatches and change horses. Munke had advised him to lay over a day, but Darius had been compelled by a sense of urgency he hadn’t even questioned and had ridden straight through, leaving Munke to follow at a more reasonable pace.

The clock on the mantel chimed three, rousing him from his thoughts. He tossed down the brandy, got stiffly to his feet, stretched, and set about the task of finding his wife. Picking up one candelabrum, he snuffed out all the other candles in the room, then stepped out into the hall.

How the devil was he going to find Elizabeth without arousing the entire household? He had no idea who might be visiting for the holidays, and he had visions of opening one bedroom door after another, in each one being greeted by an unknown woman sitting up in her bed, clutching the blankets to her throat, and screaming her head off, a more daunting prospect than facing a row of French cannon.

He had not reckoned on the fact that his wife might be just as eager for him to find her, and he smiled to discover she had left one bedroom door slightly ajar. The flickering candlelight spilled out into the dark hallway like a beacon to guide him to his destination. Pushing the door open, he spotted his saddlebags on the dressing table, beside which rested a tub full of water.

The connecting door was also open several inches, and the adjoining bedroom was lit with a single candle, which gave off sufficient light for him to recognize his wife.

Gently pulling both doors shut, he stripped off his travel-stained garments and bathed in water that, while considerably warmer than mountain streams in Spain and Portugal, still had cooled enough that he felt no inclination to dawdle.

Wrapped in a towel that had been left warming by the fire, he at last entered his wife’s bedroom. She lay sleeping with her face turned toward him, and in the soft candlelight she reminded him of nothing so much as a statue of the Madonna he had seen in a cathedral in Portugal.

With her scar hidden by the pillow, Elizabeth had the same look of purity undefiled, as if she had never known the petty strife of this world, never known a man’s touch, so that he hesitated, feeling guilt that he was the one who had vandalized her beauty by his thoughtless actions—feeling guilt that he was the one who had taken her innocence away and turned her into a woman.

He felt himself to be as much a barbarian as the soldiers who stabled their horses in the houses of Spanish grandees and used ancient statues and valuable paintings for target practice, reveling in the wanton destruction of all that was fine.

Even so, he knew he would disturb Elizabeth’s peace again this evening. There was no way he could play the gentleman and sleep in the adjoining room.

But for a while he found sufficient satisfaction just in watching her, in admiring the smooth curve of her ivory cheek, her dark-blond hair curling around her slender neck, her blue eyes open now gazing back at him, her red lips curving into a smile, her slender arms reaching out to him ...