Charlotte Louise Dolan (8 page)

He bent his head and kissed her gently on the lips.

“A soldier’s wife waiting patiently at home deserves a better welcome than that,” she murmured.

He could hear laughter in her voice, and all his feelings of guilt evaporated. With no further hesitation, he slid under the covers and took her in his arms. For the first time in years he felt he had truly come home.

* * * *

“You are up early this morning, my dear.”

Elizabeth looked up to see her husband entering the breakfast room and only with great effort prevented herself from leaping to her feet to fill a plate for him. He had, as she had anticipated, made it quite clear that a St. John was capable of looking after himself in such simple matters.

“The weather was so beautiful, I could not bear to delay my usual morning ride a moment longer than necessary. I am afraid you have been finding this a very poor place to visit, since it has done nothing but rain the entire time you have been here.”

The look of gauntness was gone from his face, erased by three days of stuffing him with every tantalizing delicacy that Cook could come up with ... and perhaps the three nights of sleeping in her bed had helped remove the signs of tension, thought Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, there were still times when he got a faraway look in his eyes, and she knew he was thinking about the war. Every day he read the newspaper accounts of the conflict, though he never commented upon them. Sometimes she wished Squire Higgens would burn his copies, although she knew such thoughts were unworthy and diminished her as a soldier’s wife.

Darius joined her at the table, his plate piled high with kidney and eggs and a mountain of toast. “You have managed to keep me tolerably entertained, in spite of the poor weather.”

He looked at her with such a wicked glint in his eye that she could feel the heat rushing to her face and knew she must be blushing redder than a holly berry.

Before she could think of something witty to reply, he continued. “And Dorie has done her best to alleviate my boredom. So far she has beaten me at spillikins, patience, and checkers, and now wishes me to teach her to play piquet. I trust you will invite me to join you in your morning ride to save me from that dreadful fate?”

“Of course, you are always welcome to join me,” she said without thinking.

He did not reply, and she looked up from her plate to find him once more grinning wickedly at her, but this time, instead of blushing, she laughed out loud.

Breakfast continued in such a spirit of amiability that she felt guilty for rushing through it. Although it was selfish, she really wanted to leave before Dorie woke up. The last three days Elizabeth had not had a moment alone with her husband, except when they closed their bedroom door at night, and just for this morning, she felt a deep need to leave their fifteen-year-old chaperone behind.

By the time she was changed into her royal-blue riding habit, the horses were already saddled and Darius was waiting with them near the stables. After a short gallop to shake the fidgets out of their mounts, they slowed to a walk, which was more conducive to conversation.

“I noticed the painting over the mantel in the study. Is that your family?”

For the first time in three years, Elizabeth was able to think about her parents and younger sisters without feeling a deep sadness, and she knew it was because of the man beside her.

“Yes, that was my family. Now there are just Nicholas and me.”

“Will you tell me about them?”

“My parents died in a carriage accident four years ago. They were very much in love, and well-meaning friends tried to tell me that it was better that they died together, but I am afraid I was never able to see how it is a blessing when two people are cut down in the prime of life.”

“They are undoubtedly the same well-meaning folks who think that war is something grand and glorious,” Darius said with a scowl, “who make a fuss over the heroes when they come back decorated with medals, and who never seem to spare a moment to think about the soldiers who are buried where they fall—the brave young lads who never have a chance to march in a parade and listen to the cheering.”

They rode in silence for a few moments, then he spoke again, the anger in his voice replaced by weariness. “Please forgive me for introducing such a topic at this time. You were telling me about your family.”

“I am afraid it is a story better suited to an overcast day than to this beautiful sunshine.” She paused, then continued. “My sisters were two and four years of age at the time our parents died, and I did not want to disrupt their lives, which is what would have happened if we had gone to stay with Aunt Theo. So, instead, Aunt Phyllis offered to come and live with us. She was not actually our aunt, but some sort of cousin, and she left her quiet home in Devon to come and lend us countenance. She was a spinster and in her eighties, and it must have been difficult for her to live in a household with young children, although she never complained. Unfortunately, the only reward she received for her goodness ...” Here Elizabeth’s voice broke, and it took her a few moments before she was able to go on.

“There was diphtheria in the village, and in the space of four days, both Aunt Phyllis and my two sisters were gone. Nicholas and I were just turned seventeen, and neither of us wanted to stay at Oakhaven, where there were too many memories, so we went to Aunt Theo. We have only been back for short visits since then, but now I am quite content to be living here again. Even though one can never forget, I find that time does much to soothe the pain.”

“And have your servants been with the family long?”

“Oh, yes, since before I was born. Except for the housemaids, of course. With our permission, Mrs. Merrywell, the housekeeper, trains girls from the village, and when she is satisfied with them, they are in great demand and have no trouble finding very good jobs.”

They came to the top of a slight hill and reined in their horses to admire the view.

“And now I will reveal to you the deep, dark secret of our family.” She tried to keep a straight face, but knew she was not managing very well. “My mother’s grandfather was in trade. Nobody mentions it now, of course, but he owned several merchant ships and was the one who built Oakhaven. He married above his station and had but one daughter, who also married well and whose only child was my mother. When he died, everything came to her, although by that time the ships were long gone and everything was quite respectably invested in the funds.

“Maggie told me about him when I was little, and I thought sailing ships sounded much more exciting than government consols, and I envisioned my great-grandfather as a swashbuckling pirate. That illusion was dashed when my mother showed me a portrait of him. He was a rather portly gentleman, complete with lace ruffles and a wig—not at all my idea of an exciting hero.

“My father was the grandson of a baron, and through blood or marriage we are related to almost half the county, so even those with a high degree of consequence are willing to overlook the taint in our family.”

She could not resist the impulse to tease her husband, who surely had never missed an opportunity in the last three days to tease her. “We can lay claim to assorted earls and barons and baronets, although in some cases the relationship is rather remote, but we have never had such an illustrious personage as a duke connected to either side of the family.”

Instead of laughing, he said in an emotionless voice, “Well, if the baby is a girl, you will be intimately connected with a duke.”

His eyes held no warmth at all, and she shivered. “What are you talking about?”

He stared at her intently, then finally said, “You were not informed of my cousin’s death?”

Elizabeth felt as if she would faint and clung to the saddle until the dizziness passed. “When did this happen?”

“In November. Lady Amelia is increasing. If the baby is a boy, he will be the next duke.”

“And if it’s a girl, you will be a duke?”

“Exactly.”

His voice was harsh, and before she could utter words of condolence, he had spurred his horse into a gallop.

She did not follow, but watched him ride away from her, knowing that with grief this fresh, sometimes a person simply had to be alone.

A duke. And she would be a duchess. At first she hoped with all her heart that the child would be a boy, but then she realized what it would mean if the child were a girl—Darius would have to give up soldiering for good.

Even knowing what it would cost her, she began to pray fervently for a girl-child to be born. She would do anything, even be a duchess, if it meant that Darius would be safe in England instead of facing French guns in Spain. Guilt for her selfishness overwhelmed her, but she could not change the desires of her heart.

“Yes, sir, Gen’ral, anything you say, Gen’ral.”

The groom’s disrespect was beyond belief. It was only with difficulty that Darius kept his temper in check, but he could not keep from wishing that he had the other man in his regiment for just one week. There would be no insolence left in the groom at the end of that time.

Biting back the words he wanted to utter, Darius turned abruptly and strode toward the house, which welcomed him with delicious smells of rosemary and plum pudding. It was too bad the people in the house were not equally welcoming.

The groom’s attitude was a typical example of what the captain had encountered since his arrival. The gardener feigned total deafness around him, the butler treated him as if he were the worst kind of encroaching mushroom, and as for the cook ... the looks she gave him were such that Darius had developed a strong reluctance to eat from any dish that Elizabeth did not also partake of.

He had interrogated captured French officers who showed less hostility toward him than did these servants. If he had the authority, he’d fire the lot of them. Unfortunately, this was his brother-in-law’s house, and only Nicholas had the right to hire or fire the servants. It would appear that they resented having Darius acting as the master of the household when in fact he was no such thing.

In addition, the previous day he had accompanied his wife when she distributed baskets of food to the tenants on the home farm and to several of the poorer cottages in the area. Although they had none of them displayed the hostility he was becoming accustomed to at Oakhaven, neither had they gone out of their way to make him feel welcome.

With a shrug of his shoulders, he now dismissed their behavior as the typical suspicious reaction of country folk to strangers and went in search of Elizabeth.

He found her in the morning room, seated side by side on the settee with Dorie, and there was a flurry of giggles and a rapid hiding of items under pillows and behind backs, and his mood immediately became more festive, since it brought back memories of the stratagems he and Algernon had employed to discover where their Christmas presents were hidden.

One year they had succeeded in finding the gaily wrapped presents and had secretly played with all the toys, before replacing the paper and ribbons. Christmas morning it had been uncommonly difficult pretending to be completely surprised. His feelings of guilt had turned it into the worst Yuletide he ever spent in the duke’s household, and he and Algy had by unspoken agreement foregone such devious behavior during subsequent holidays.

So now he pretended not to notice the corner of a handkerchief sticking out from behind Dorie’s back—a corner embroidered with a partially completed “S”—nor did he comment on the fact that Elizabeth sat stiffly upright and showed a marked disinclination to relax and lean back more comfortably against the pillows.

“What have you ladies been up to this fine morning?”

“We have been discussing the wassail party the squire is giving tomorrow. You have not forgotten that we are promised to attend, have you? All the cream of loyal society will be there, and I am sure you will be amazed at what a goodly company the squire manages to collect each year.”

“And you will be amazed at the variety of dance partners you will be introduced to,” Dorie said with a giggle. “You will be more than happy to dance with me, after you have stood up for a set with the squire’s wife. Nicholas says dancing with her is like trying to pilot a barge around a lily pond.”

“And you will show more respect for your elders, miss, or you will spend tomorrow evening in your room with bread and water.”

It was obvious to Darius that Dorie was not the least intimidated by this threat since she continued with scarcely a pause.

“But the food ... Oh, Darius, you wouldn’t believe the food the squire’s wife thinks is necessary. She always says there will be dancing and a bite or two to eat, and then it is a veritable banquet. There are always lobster patties and fresh peaches that they grow themselves in their succession house and the biggest plum pudding in the whole world.”

“And how do you know all this since you have never before visited us in Somerset at Christmastime and have never been to the squire’s party, hmmm?” Elizabeth interrupted.

Dorie looked monetarily disconcerted. “Oh, Nicholas told me all about it, which I feel is almost the same thing as having been there.”

Darius could no longer hold back a laugh. “It has been my experience, Dorie, that being told about food is not at all the same thing as actually eating it.”

He immediately wished he had said nothing since he could tell by their expressions that they were now picturing him starving miserably in Spain. His impression was given more substantiation when Elizabeth suddenly declared she was famished and casually asked Dorie to ring for tea to be brought up early.

“Let me tell you how they celebrate the holidays in Spain,” he said, wanting to give their thoughts a more pleasant turn. “One Christmas I had the good fortune to be quartered in a small Spanish farmhouse. From the outside there was nothing especially distinguished about it, but inside the family had the most elaborate
nacimiento
you can imagine. The original figures of the Holy Family were quite old, and the family told me that every year they tried to add at least one more figure.”