Carla Kelly (16 page)

Nez sighed. “You don’t understand. These are things people wanted me to do!”

Lord Wogan only chuckled and patted his cheek. “Benedict, really! I think I know about the streak of real stubbornness you possess. Augusta, my love, you share it, too. I personally believe that the two of you, spoiled and willful as you both may be, have been doing good as long as I have known you.” He shook his head. “The misfortune is that you are quick to see it in others, but unable to see it in yourselves.” He leaned across the bed and kissed Gussie. “But I see it. Luster, you see it.”

“Certainly, my lord.”

Lord Wogan waved his arm to include the whole estate. “I have never known a more content and better run estate than Knare, since you came into its management.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Nez declared. “I have—had an excellent housekeeper! A fine butler! The best gardeners! The finest soldiers!”

“And who do they take their cue from, brother?” Lord Wogan said quietly.

They sat with him awhile longer, no one saying much of anything, because it had all been said. Finally Lord Wogan got up and held out his hand to his wife. “Come, my dear, and let us retrieve Sophie.” He reached down to touch Nez. “I must take them to Wogan now.” He sauntered to the window. When he spoke, his voice was casual. “You’re a lucky dog, Benedict, to have so excellent a bailiff. You can probably take off in a week to go look for Liria, and your harvest won’t suffer in the least.”

Gussie nodded, and kissed Nez. “We could have been reared better, I suppose, brother, but Mama and Papa did get in the fundamentals. I’d think you rather rude if you didn’t fetch Liria back here to run things.” She shook her finger at him. “Mind you, I’m not totally pleased with you!”

“I wouldn’t think so, Gussie,” Nez murmured. “We mustn’t abandon all our differences. How boring.”

By the next morning, he was ready for a bath, a good shave, and then breakfast on the terrace. He spent the afternoon walking up and down in Mama’s formal gardens, then composed a letter of apology that evening to Miss Audrey St. John, who deserved better. As he sat in the book room, he noticed the shoes and artillery ledger than he had placed there nearly a week ago. I must return those to their owner, he thought. If I knew for certain where she was, I would post them to her. It may be that she never wants to see my face again. And certainly not my armory, or those guests that must have been troubling her all summer, far more than she ever let on.

He picked up the artillery ledger from the edge of the desk, where he had left it during his agitation last week, and opened it again. He knew it would cause him a real pang to see Juan’s little drawings here and there on the pages, but he had no idea, until he ruffled through the ledger, how heavy his heart could feel. He doubted he would ever meet other children quite like Juan, quiet, adaptable children who went about their daily business with a certain steely calm: children with no expectations of good fortune, who could be so surprisingly cheerful when something good did happen.

“Liria, you were hardly more than a child six years ago,” he whispered, his lips against the ledger. Is that the secret of your serenity? he asked himself, and then found himself facing a more chilling thought. Are you really and truly serene, or do you just have no expectations?

He took another look at the ledger, not knowing if he was seeking answers, or just raking more hot coals upon himself, something Gussie had practically made him swear not to do when she and her husband and Sophie left that morning. He looked again at the pages of the dead, and Sergeant Carr’s careful notation of letters sent, and their date. He turned the page with Quatre Bras written on the top. “You were determined to do them yourself, weren’t you, Carr, a dead man writing to dead men’s families? Were you that conscientious? You must have known you were dying. Did you want to spare Liria from this task?”

He turned the page and sighed to see the new handwriting that had seemed unfamiliar to him when he first looked at the book, but which he recognized as Liria’s lovely script, found now in entries in the household ledgers belowstairs. Carr wrote until June 22, four days after the battle, and then on June 23, it was Liria’s writing. He leaned back in his chair, his finger in the ledger. And then, my dear, you could not bear to look at your sergeant’s butcher bill, could you? he thought. You gave it to your son for his little drawings, because you were too frugal to waste the blank pages.

He turned to another page with a drawing of men on cots, and a small boy carrying water, and the tears welled in his eyes.
“Eres tu, Juan?”
he asked softly. He turned another page, and saw piles of dead horses and a man approaching them with a torch. True, they were a child’s drawings, but he could almost smell the burning horseflesh; he had detailed his own men to do exactly what was done there at Quatre Bras. It hit him with the force of a blow that he was holding a priceless document of Waterloo, from a perspective so rare and personal that he felt only awe.

He turned one more page and looked closer, squinting to see both a drawing and words underneath. Under the drawing of a surgeon surrounded by a pile of what looked like sticks with boots on them, but could only be amputated legs, he identified the sergeant’s writing again, ragged-looking, and slanted now across the page, as though written with great effort. He could barely see the words for the horrific drawing, but his heart stopped when he read
“Querida, La Duquesa.”

Barely breathing, he held the ledger closer. The other words were in English, as far as he could tell, and they were unevenly written. “My God,” he whispered when he realized that he was gawking at Richard Carr’s last writing on this planet. He dropped the ledger on the desk as though it burned, then opened the top drawer and looked for an eraser. He found one, and took a deep breath until his hand was steadier. As much as he disliked doing it, he carefully erased Juan’s breathtaking drawing, done in pencil, to expose the ink below.

When he finished he looked hard at the words, not allowing his eyes to focus on them at first because he felt like a voyeur witnessing another man’s most private acts. He began to read. When he finished, he set down the ledger gently, as though it were made of porcelain. “Liria, you have to read this,” he whispered, knowing that if she had been aware of the note, she would have torn apart her room to find the ledger and take it with her.

He looked at it again and read:

My Darling Duchess,

When you read this I will be dead. Thank you for your many kindnesses to me and my men. I never told you, but I tell you now, how much I loved you. Everyone talked to me, and I listened. You could have talked to me. Was the wound too deep? I pray God you will talk to someone. God bless and keep you and your dear son.
Love, Richard Carr, Battery Master Sergeant, the Nineteen.

Nez quietly closed the book and swiveled his chair around to look out at his mother’s gardens. It was August and everything was a riot of color, as far as he could see. On the land sloping farther away, the harvest had begun. He thought briefly of the hops harvest in Kent last year, when he had lost Libby Ames, but the image dissolved almost before it completely formed, to be replaced by Liria and Juan, walking in his mother’s garden, Liria and Juan walking in the rain by the highway, Liria with Juan on her hip walking through dusty Spain with the Nineteen.

He was still staring out the open window, his feet propped on the sill, when Luster came in to light the lamp.

“Your Grace, you did not eat the lunch that Betty brought to you.”

He smiled faintly at the disapproval in his butler’s voice. “Will you believe me if I tell you I wasn’t even aware that she had brought it in? No?” He swiveled around in his chair. “Ask Haverly to fetch my traveling case. I mean to visit a textile manufacturer in Huddersfield tomorrow.” He picked up the ledger. “Rumor has it that he is a benevolent employer, so he should be as easy to find as a solid-gold dinner plate in a midden.”

He was pleased to see his butler smile. “Luster, it’s time I delivered some possessions that don’t belong to me,” he said. He opened the ledger again. “And do you know, I have a duty to discharge for a soldier who has been unavoidably detained.”

Chapter Thirteen

“Scipio Butterworth? You are quizzing me. That sounds like a name from an amazingly vulgar novel.”

“Nay, your excellent worship!” The innkeep of The Hart took another brisk rub of the glass he held, spit on the cloth in his hand, and rubbed some more. “‘Course, I don’t read those,” he added virtuously.

“Neither do I. Next you’ll tell me that his middle initial is
A,
” Nez continued, “which I will never believe.”

The keep shook his head sorrowfully. “Pardon me, your solemnity. I have to wonder if all Yorkshire folk are so skeptical! The
A
is for Hafricanus.”

“It’s ‘Your Grace,’ my good fellow, and I would like a chamber and a parlor. Scipio Butterworth? Amazing. Will you tell me where his mill is located here in town? I must see the redoubtable Mr. Butterworth at once.”

The keep nodded to the boy standing alert by the door. “Take His Graceful’s luggage upstairs to the Blue Room.” He turned back to Nez. “If it’s after six o’clock, you’ll find the mill locked up.”

“My word, when there is still so much daylight left?”

“He won’t open again until seven o’clock tomorrow morning!” The inn keep leaned across the counter. “Amazing what enlightened notions and domesticity do to a man!”

“Well, then, can you direct me to Mr. Butterworth’s house?”

“He lives in Rumsey. Big brick house just on t’other side of the river.” The keep rubbed his chin with the cloth, then applied the cloth to the next glass. “My boy there could send a message for you.”

“Excellent. Can you tell me a place where I might get a good dinner?”

“Why, right here!” said the keep, astonished.

“I prefer to eat somewhere a short distance away so I can get some exercise,” Nez replied hastily. He rubbed his knee. “Waterloo. You understand.”

Waterloo, my arse, Nez thought. I’ll have to tell Tony Cook that I am still pulling out gravel from my encounter with his blasted Kent road. He wrote a brief note, gave it to the boy, and limped, for the landlord’s benefit, to the rival inn he had so grudgingly recommended for dinner.

When he returned, there was a reply waiting for him in his room. At first glance, with the sunlight behind him, he thought it was Tony Cook. Then the man stood up and bowed elegantly. “Your Grace, I am Scipio Butterworth.”

Nez shook the mill owner’s hand. “Mr. Butterworth, I did not mean to take you from your own hearth on this errand. I could have seen you tomorrow.”

Butterworth shook his head. “When my dear wife Jane heard that you were staying at the Hart, she sent me over here to warn you about the food.” He held out both hands. “And what does the keep in high ill humor tell me when I arrive, but that you had fled to another inn for dinner? Wise of you, Your Grace.”

“I also confess to no enthusiasm about being waited on by a man who seems to speak in exclamation points,” Nez said.

“And inspiring you to do the same, eventually, eh?”

They laughed together. What an amusing man, Nez thought. Too bad he does not live closer to Knare; think what fun he would be at an otherwise boring dinner party. “Do sit down, Mr. Butterworth. Is it safe to suggest tea from the Hart?”

“Only if the pot comes with water boiling,” Mr. Butterworth said, but his eyes were bright. He made himself comfortable again after Nez seated himself. “Jane insists it must be a full, rolling boil, but even she will admit that she is particular.”

“Then, we shall insist upon such a thing,” Nez said.

When the keep’s wife had left the tea tray, Nez abandoned small talk. “Mr. Butterworth, I am wondering if you have hired a Spanish woman to work in your mill.”

To his huge dismay, Butterworth shook his head. “She would never do in my mills,” he said, then added, “What a waste of intelligence that would have been to stick her by a cotton spindle. No, Your Grace, I couldn’t.”

Nez leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, unable to hide his disappointment from this man he had just met. Damn, now what?

“That is not to say I did not hire her.”

Nez opened his eyes and sat up again. “What?” he asked, not in the least bothered that the word came out like an explosion.

“I feel a certain responsibility to my employees” was the mill owner’s quiet reply. “But something tells me that you can be trusted.” He smiled then. “When my wife claims I have excellent intuition, I remind her that a certain perspicacity is half the requirement to be a business owner.”

“And the other?” Nez asked, amused despite his impatience to know more.

“Damn good luck,” Butterworth said frankly. “Yes, I hired your Spanish housekeeper. Who would not? She is managing my dormitory for single females.”

“Juan?”

“You like him, too,” Butterworth commented, and took a sip of tea.

“You
are
perspicacious. Imagine what you would interpret from a long, involved sentence from me. Sir, my congratulations,” Nez said, not even disguising his relief. “Tell me. Are they well?”

“Right as rain. Juan is attending the mill school.”

“Liria?”

“Ah, these one-word sentences. Who knows? I never met a more contained lady.”

“Nor I, and that may be the dilemma.” Nez settled back in his chair. “Sir, I must acquaint you with La Duquesa. Do you have an hour?”

The mill owner did. Nez took a deep breath and told him all that he knew about Liria Valencia. In the telling, it chafed him to realize that so much was still surmise. “I want her back, sir, and that is the long and short of it.”

Mr. Butterworth read the entry in the artillery ledger one more time, then returned it. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose with considerable feeling. “I cannot compel her to act against her own will,” he said finally. “Too many have made her do things against her will. Perhaps she will find some peace working for me. Should we just leave it alone?”

“I can’t, and neither would Sergeant Carr,” Nez replied. “I have an opportunity here to do a good turn for a man I never met. Somewhere under that serene, rather bloodless shell is a very young girl still trapped by . . . something. There is one more puzzle to this story. I am sure of it, and I need to know it.”

Butterworth was silent for a long time. “If that is the case, it seems that your intuition rivals mine, Your Grace.” He stood up and went to the mantelpiece, giving the little clock there a shake. “How the time passes! Jane will wonder if I have been set upon by road agents in the ordinarily tame two miles between Huddersfield and Rumsey. Yes, you may talk to Miss Valencia.”

“She may not want to talk to me.”

The mill owner thought a moment. “I believe she must,” he said at last. “I hate to, but we can compel her. Didn’t you just tell me that she embezzled funds from you? As her current employer, I will insist that she owes you the courtesy of an explanation.” He perused his cuff. “Either that, or it is a trip to the ah . . . slammer.”

“What? What?” Nez thought a moment then burst into laughter. “Ten shillings from the household money? Mr. Butterworth, you are a complete hand.”

“We shall see, Your Grace. I can guarantee her presence, but you must give her reason to talk to you.” He rose to go, then stopped. “You’re in love with her.”

“I know. It seems to be my lot in life to love women who are unattainable.”

“I wish you all success tomorrow,” Butterworth said. “Just remember, lad, who you’re doing this for. It’s not you, and it’s not even the sergeant, God rest his soul.”

***

Next morning, he looked long and hard in the mirror while he shaved, reminding himself that Liria could just as easily choose to remain where she was, and as she was. He knew that only a woman with extreme strength of will could have survived the ordeal. Face it, Nez, he told himself. She could ignore you and continue as she is.

He dressed and pocketed the artillery ledger, after another glance at what he thought of now as Sergeant Carr’s last will and testament. At eight o’clock he presented himself at the Butterworth Cotton Works and was ushered into the mill owner’s office. They walked three blocks in silence to a two-story brick building whose uniformity of windows, however softened with white curtains, proclaimed its purpose. My home is certainly handsomer, Nez thought. I wonder if she misses Mama’s flowers.

They entered the hallway. The building was quiet, all of the workers engaged in Butterworth’s two mills. In the distance he heard the faint sound of children reciting. “The teacher tells me that Juan is already picking up more English,” Butterworth said.

“Good,” Nez said, but he did not know if he was altogether in favor of the boy losing his charming combination of English and Spanish in the same sentence. Come to think of it, I’ve been speaking that way, too, he reminded himself. Goodness knows
I’m
charming. Butterworth stopped before the door marked Office, Inquire Within. He looked at Nez, a question in his eyes, and opened the door when Nez nodded.

She sat at the desk, dressed in a blue stuff gown that he already recognized as the factory uniform, from his brief stop at the cotton works. He was in the room before she noticed him, and then she rose quickly, her face draining of all color.

“Miss Valencia, I believe we have a matter to discuss!”

Nez widened his eyes in surprise at the sound of authority that boomed forth from the genial mill owner. Well, well, Mr. Butterworth, he thought, I would certainly pay attention if you aimed that much righteous indignation in my direction. “Good morning, Miss Valencia,” he said. “I believe you and I also have something to discuss.”

It nearly worked. For a second, he saw the frightened young girl behind the calm woman. Then with the steely character that he had to admire, even though it frustrated him, she performed that marvelous act of pulling herself up far taller than she really was. You are not a grandee’s child for nothing, he thought; only please give it up now.

“Senor, whatever differences we have, surely they can be settled calmly.”

He knew she addressed him, but Mr. Butterworth banged on her desk, and she jumped a little. “You are certainly a calm one, Miss Valencia, but we are talking about embezzlement,” he told her, his voice rising until it seemed to fill the little room.

Her eyes grew wide then, and she took a deep breath and another. “Mr. Butterworth, isn’t that where someone steals money? I would never do that!”

Nez saw that she had tightened her grip on her hands until the knuckles were white and almost straining through her skin. “What do you call the matter of ten shillings stolen from my household accounts?” he demanded. It sounded so petty that he couldn’t believe he was saying it, but he marshaled all his memory and experience from his brigade major days, and bit off the words until they nearly crackled in the air.

He hadn’t believed she could go any whiter, but she did. Her lips seemed drained of color. As she began to blink her eyes rapidly, he thought she was about to faint. Mr. Butterworth, made of sterner stuff than he, apparently, reached for her and took her by the elbow, even though she instinctively drew back. “Oh, wait,” Nez said in a low voice, which neither Liria nor the mill owner seemed to hear, because Butterworth was rumbling something at her about trust, and the service one owed to one’s employer.

When Butterworth finished his diatribe, Liria trembled and resisted as he pulled her closer. He handed her off to Nez. “Here! You take her outside and talk to her. Young lady, I don’t keep people in my employment who mishandle funds!”

He didn’t know how she could walk, but she did. He marched her out the door, down the block, and across the lawn toward the river. When they were far from anyone, he swung her around to face him. “Ten shillings, Liria! How could you do that?”

It was so absurd that he waited for her to laugh at him, turn on her heel, and go back to the office. I am not a bluffer, and I am a terrible card player, he told himself as he stared her down. Sergeant Carr, you had really better be right about this. “Explain yourself,” he ordered in the voice he had used with raw recruits on the Spanish frontier, when death could be a hill away. “Do it now.”

He didn’t know he could be so heartless. He was on the verge of going down on one knee to beg her forgiveness when he noticed her lips start to quiver. Tears welled in her eyes as she drew herself up again, but with a difference this time. It took all his courage not to leap away from her as he watched her go from terror to the greatest anger he had ever seen in anyone in his life. He stared in amazement as her eyes turned from melting pools to the hardest, coldest granite he could imagine. He was grateful she did not have a knife in her hand. He reached for her. “Liria.”

“You would blight my life for ten shillings?” she asked in a brittle voice as she pulled away from him in a frenzy. “Ten shillings?” she repeated, her voice loud now, with no manners or civility or serenity. “My God!” she exclaimed. “
Dios mio,
I am angry at you! You are a meddler! I am so angry!”

She struck him hard on the face then, once and then again, and he stood there and let her. “I could kill you!” she screamed at him. “I could! I could!”

Over her shoulder he saw people running from the mill, but there was Butterworth, talking to them. In a moment they had returned indoors. Liria continued to pound at him, and he was amazed at her fury and saddened to his very soul by what it told him about her suffering.

Her hair had come loose from its perfect coils at the base of her neck and swirled around her face, but still she battered him until her knuckles were raw and bleeding, and she was panting with exhaustion from the effort. He leaned over then to touch her shoulder, and she connected a fist with his eye that made him stagger back, feeling that his brain had exploded.

Over his own pain, he heard her gasp. When he could open the eye that still worked, she was slumped on the ground, dissolved in tears, the woman of calm possession completely gone. A child sobbed before him. He felt his heart turn over. Slowly he knelt in front of her. “Liria,
querida mia,
how on earth did you survive?” he said softly, as though he spoke to someone Juan’s age.