Elisabeth Fairchild (4 page)

They settled into Wharton Manor as if it were meant solely for their recuperation, welcomed with quiet resignation by Val’s parents, who gave them run of the place, circling them like passive planets dwarfed by the blazing son. Lady Wharton kept herself largely confined to her sewing and embroidery room, while  Lord Wharton closeted himself in his study, or rode the estate on the back of a stout-legged roan. They seemed, to Alexander, more like visiting guests in their own home than their guests.

They appeared at the dinner table, and passed one in the corridors, but they were neither of them given to conversation, and when they did speak, it was always of the weather, or some mention of the local doings. The war, just ended, was never mentioned.

The three comrades in arms, took over the drawing room where the decanters were kept filled on one of the sideboards, and into this domain the Wharton’s never intruded.

“You mean to go walking where?” Valentine asked in disbelief,  on their second evening together, the brandy decanter halted mid air above his glass.

“The fells. The lakes,” Alexander replied quietly, unsure what it was he read in Val’s eyes. Strong emotion--just what emotion remained a mystery.

“With Penny Foster?” His friend laughed, sloshing spirits. Was there anger in his eyes? “Did she ask it of you? Has the girl no shame?”

Shame? Alexander cocked his head, intrigued. What history did Val and Miss Foster share? There had been undeniable tension between the two on the road in their initial meeting.

And when Miss Foster had asked for what every young woman wants on Valentine’s Day--was it something to do with Valentine Wharton?

“We must come along,” Val suggested, setting down the decanter with a thump. “Else you shall have a devilish dull time of it.” He bent his handsome nose to the glass, smiling as he breathed in the brandy’s perfume. His voice echoed a little in the hollow of the glass when he said, “Miss Touch-me-not has meager conversation at best.”

“So she warned me,” Alexander agreed, swirling the contents of his own glass, determined to dissuade Val.

Val’s elegantly plucked brows rose. “Did she really?” He downed a gulp, smacked his lips appreciatively and shooed his mother’s lap dog from a settee that he might sit himself there. “You realize you are a lucky dog, to have been paired with her.”

“How so?”

“Well, while there are half a dozen girls in the village I am sure you would find much prettier or more personable, you will not find another so ready to spread her legs for you.”

Alexander blinked, stunned. He stood speechless, with the feeling his ears had just been boxed, Val’s words in every way offensive, and in some way incomprehensible.

“Town trollop, is she?” Oscar spoke from the depths of the chair in which he lounged.

Val assumed an irritatingly superior expression. “I cannot attest to the town, only to my own experience.”

“Had her, have you?” Oscar downed the last mouthful of his brandy with relish.

Alexander sank into the nearest chair. A trollop? Could it be true? Nothing in his encounter with Miss Foster led him to believe Val’s claim. Had she deceived him completely? Touch-me-not, Val called her.

“Threw herself at me, she did,” Val contradicted the moniker. “Just before I bought my colors. I was only too happy to oblige.”

Oscar chuckled appreciatively.

Val poured another brandy, and refilled Oscar’s empty glass. Alexander waved the decanter away, waiting. There would be more. He knew Val well--the tales he enjoyed telling--the women he told them of. Handsome, charming Val was the top dog of their little trio when it had come to winning women. He had left a trail of broken hearts in his wake. Or so he claimed. He had certainly taken his share of debauchery among the camp followers.

And this woman--this shy flower with the wary eyes--had he thrust himself upon her, obscene bumblebee?

Val strode the room, the brandy giving him a buzz of contentment. “Queer creature,” he said. “Quiet as a child, distant as a girl, the local mystery as a young woman. Kept close by her father, a local squire. Close-mouthed sort. Has a bit of land, and the best flocks in the dale. I believe he owns an interest in the local mine. Shrewd. He has done quite well for himself, except when it comes to his women, especially his wife.”

“What of them?” Alexander asked.

Val savored his brandy, rolling the glass between his hands, swallowing with a contented sigh. “The lads noticed her eyeing me. Dared me to see where those looks might lead.”

“What? You pinked the man’s wife?” Oscar blurted, amazed.

Alexander, too, was caught up in the tale.

Val threw back his head to laugh. “Not the mother, the daughter. No, the mother . . .” He held his glass to the light, studying the liquid. “Ah. There was passion there, but not for me. Ran away with the gypsies when the girl was still in swaddling. They come every summer for our horse fair.”

“And so the local lads decided the daughter ripe for the plucking?” Oscar suggested.

Alexander saw the way of it, the gossip that must have surrounded the girl, the speculation. “Did she take after the mother?” he asked.

Val laughed. “Moon-eyed for me, she was. Wanted loving. We had exchanged no more than a word or two before I kissed her.”

Alexander rose and went to one of the windows. He needed air.

“She had no idea how to go about it,” Val went on, no hesitation in sharing sordid detail. His lip curled. “A quick study, though.”

Such nonchalance in the debauching of an innocent made Alexander sick to his stomach. The room seemed too close, too warm. He longed to step from this unpalatable reality into the cool dream of the misted landscape.

“You ruined her?” he asked quietly.

Val chuckled as he threw another log on the fire. “Wanted ruining, lad. Still wants it. You can see it in her eyes.”

Alexander clamped his teeth on words that would have ended their friendship in an instant. He did not want to believe. And his disbelief, all Val’s boasted conquests were placed in question. Had the man lied all along?

“She does not seem the type.”

“Type?” Val laughed. “They all want it. It is only a question of when, and how much they would have you pay.”

“How much did she want?” He hated himself for asking, but he had to know.

“Penny?” Val laughed, the sound of it brutal, callous. The same laughter that had followed every engagement of the enemy. Alexander had always assumed it a front for shattered nerves. Now he was not so certain.

“Her name says all,” Val winked, and downed another gulp of brandy. “I had her cheap.”

“She gave herself freely?” Alexander confirmed.

“A lock of my hair, a heart-shaped necklace to put it in, sweet words in the moonlight. As free as this.”

Alexander closed his eyes on the misted view of the mountains. Val’s details rang too specific to be disbelieved. “And did she love you?” he asked.

Val spread his arms, brandy sloshing. “All of them love me,” he said. “Heaven knows why. She’ll love you too, given half a chance. You have only to ask. Go fell walking. See if she will not fall into your arms. I cannot think of any other reason to go traipsing about the countryside with the queerest, most awkward lass for miles.”

Too strident the suggestion. A bit of posturing. Was it the brandy talking?

“What say you, Oscar?” Val’s words slurred. “Shall we take our Valentines fell walking? Make a party of it?”

“Count me out,” Oscar muttered dryly. “Miss Fiona Gillpin does not look like she often enjoys exercise.”

Val slapped his thigh with a boyish grin. “Ah, fat Fiona. I did forget with whom you are paired. She has grown considerable since last I saw her, and none of it vertically.”

Oscar set aside his empty glass and joined Alexander at the window. “I have promised her two dances at the fete her father means to host this coming Friday. That is as much movement as I care for at present, unless it be with fishing pole in hand. I swear, lads, I have walked enough to last a lifetime. I shall never walk again where I can ride, and never attempt either if the weather is foul. If the skies are any indication, it promises to be foul.”

Alexander found the rain-starred windows anything but foul. Here was a quiet, soft, English rain, grown out of the mist. He had longed for just such rain while they were abroad.

“You will not want to walk the fells if it is wet,” Val warned him. “Too easy a thing to slide about on shale. And if the sky is overcast, there is little view. Unless, of course, it is other hills and valleys you would explore.”

Oscar laughed.

Coupled with Val’s lewd innuendo, it irritated Alexander.

Oscar, watching, caught hint of his discontent and raised his brows in silent question.

Alexander forced a smile, wondering if it would not be better if he just packed his bag and went home.

“Would you not rather come fishing?” Oscar asked.

“Or follow the Ullswater hounds in a foxhunt or two?” Valentine suggested, throwing companionable arms about their shoulders. “The quarry is cunning hereabouts, and as the hills are generally too steep for riding to hounds, a brisk walk is guaranteed.”

Alexander recoiled inwardly. He could not tell Valentine he preferred a quiet, languid walk, and vast open spaces where neither gunfire,or voices, nor the bark of dogs resounded. He could not tell his friends he felt completely estranged since their return, their common purpose no longer binding them, their common past receding. These two had watched his back--indeed, saved his life more than once--and he had returned the favor. They had shared muddy water, and the cleaning of bloody bayonets, and the daily fear that each might be their last. What did they share now?

The rain continued, postponing all outdoor entertainments, delaying the intrigue of his second encounter with Miss Foster, throwing Alexander into what Val considered the “excellent” company of any number of morning callers, for everyone must come to visit Master Wharton now that he was safe home from the fighting, and with him two intriguing strangers.

Most especially, three of his childhood chums made Wharton Manor ring with their voices. These boisterous young men were anxious to set out on a hunt when the weather cleared, anxious to recount the tale of a mad, wet ride that very afternoon where a prized mount’s hock had been bruised in not quite clearing a stone wall. The owner, one Jeremy Leeds, hoped the horse would not have to be put down.

He seemed none too concerned, soon detailing the number of deer downed while Val was away, and birds, and rabbits. Anything that moved, it would seem. It was only when he had run out of tales of his own bloodletting that he evidenced an interest in hearing of the manhunt he had missed.

“Kill many Frenchies?” he wanted to know.

“Too many,” Alexander longed to tell him, knowing the lad had no real idea what he asked. These ruddy cheeked chubs did not want to hear regret, however. Bright eyed, they waited, as anxious as hounds to the scent.

He held tongue, drifting to the half open window that overlooked the dormant garden, gaze drawn to the cool blue mist shrouded hilltops, the chill breeze that stirred the draperies welcome against heated flesh. It would be dark soon, the gray afternoon sliding into grayer dusk, the sun never having pierced the clouds.

“It is Cupid you must ask about head counts,” Val attempted to pull him back into the conversation. Alexander stepped closer to the swaying curtains. He had begun to regard the window as his safe haven--his escape. He braced his hands against a damply chill pane.

“A marksman, you see,” Val bragged.

There were times, like this, when Alexander thought it was the braggable tally of his kill Val loved most in him.

He pushed the window higher with a squeal of swollen wood, closing his eyes to the sweet rush of cold air against his cheek, his hands. It swept damp, ghostly fingers down his sleeves, and under the lapels of his coat.

“Bagged twice the number Oscar and I did combined. Was it only twice as many?” Val asked, his voice almost drowned out by the rattling flap of wind-kicked draperies.

Alexander leaned his forehead against the cool pane, studying the sill, the misted brick without. The ground was dark with the rain.

He had seen enough dark, wet ground for a lifetime, heard and seen enough of killing. He ducked his head to clear the window, and stepped over the rain-dewed sill. He did not mind the wet, the cold.

How many young men had he stolen such a night from? How many clocks had he stopped? How sweet the privilege of rain-kissed cheeks, the smell of damp grass, and sodden loam.

He did not stop when they called after him, did not even slow when Val warned him he would catch his death. They hung in the window a moment deriding him for a wet fool. Why be soaked when one might sit warm by the fire?He could not explain. They would not have understood. And so, he merely waved, saying, “I would stretch my legs abit.”

They closed the window behind him, shutting out the sound of bemused laughter, ribald jests, and catlike yowling. They had their own ideas why he chose to wander. Val and Oscar had assumed the worst of him in Paris, then again in London, when he went walking for hours in the evenings, when he went looking for warmth, and life and laughter, not in the arms of the ladybirds they themselves took comfort in, but in the lighted windows of the bourgeois --the  framed mundane,  where lamplight was all it took to hold at bay the darkness.

He walked for half an hour along the road, away from the manor, through the quiet village streets and beyond, reveling in the strength of his legs, in the heat within him exertion generated, in the unbroken stillness that fell along with the deepening gray of night. The rain stopped, and while the air was moist enough to bead the surface of his coat and waistcoat, and his boots splashed now and again through puddles pocking the road, he remained dry enough to avoid the shivers. Hands jammed deep in breeches pockets, shoulders hunched, he thought of other nights he had spent in the elements, grim nights that smelled of gunpowder and fear.

He closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply the smell of wet pine, juniper, and rain soaked earth. How beautiful the silvered gleam of moonlight breaking through thinning clouds. How wonderful the heated steam of his breath on rain washed air.