Elisabeth Kidd (3 page)

He supposed he had never felt completely at home at the Abbey since Richard married, or he would not have gone into the army at the age of twenty, his younger-son status notwithstanding. But Robert’s imposing height—six feet, three inches in his stockinged feet—and broad-shouldered strength made him a perfect candidate for the Royals, and his open, generous nature combined with a decisive will had made him both well-liked and instantly respected by the men who came under his command. He took to army life as a duck to a pond and plunged into the life with a zest he had not felt about anything else he had done.

At the end of the long campaign in Spain, he had been promoted major, but he preferred to continue wearing the rank he had gone through the war with, which unintentional modesty had contributed to his being much in demand as a staff officer in the Waterloo campaign, an honor which he had declined in favor of active service. He had thus emerged from the campaign with an enhanced reputation—but with a wounded left leg as well, which still gave him a stiff gait and ached in wet weather.

He supposed it was his own fault that he felt himself out of place in his boyhood home—he had, after all, been literally out of the place far longer than strictly necessary. He had therefore determined to give himself enough time to readjust before making any irrevocable move out of it again. But like many another war veteran, he was coming to the realization that his life could never be just as it was before, because he himself was not just as he was before.

“You should marry and set up your nursery,” Lavinia had advised him in the forthright way she had of handing out counsel to other people. “You could have any local girl you liked for the asking, and I’m sure that even your leg would be no handicap were you to spend the season in London. Even the more sophisticated girls would be delighted to be seen sitting out a dance with you at Almack’s.”

Robert groaned at the thought of dancing attendance, figuratively or otherwise, on some empty-headed chit who scarcely came up to his elbow. No, he informed Lavinia, he most definitely would not go to London. But it was considerably more difficult to explain why he would not heed his sister-in-law’s alternative advice to “at least attend a few of the local assemblies, Robin dear, even if you do not care to appear to be casting about for a bride. The neighborhood families will be glad to see you again, for whatever reason—indeed, it is your duty to show them that courtesy.”

It was when Lavinia began preaching duty that Robert ceased to listen. Since Richard and Lavinia were the proud parents of two vigorous sons, Robert failed to see that any more could be expected of him than the considerable service he had already given his country. He would like, he thought, to be married, but he recognized no duty to take a wife merely in anticipation of the unlikely event that the entire Ashton dynasty save his hypothetical offspring might be wiped out by fire, flood, or a return of the plague. He could afford to marry to suit himself.

But that was where the real difficulty lay. Another of Captain the Honorable Robert Ashton’s virtues which had endeared him to his army comrades was his unswerving loyalty. But in civilian life, this virtue was proving more a liability than an asset, for Robert had unexpectedly, on his first leave home, fallen in love, and the seven years since that astonishing event had not been long enough to shake him in his loyalty to that first and—as it subsequently proved to be—impossible love. He was much afraid that it would take another seven years to find a woman who would be able to push to the back of his mind the memory of Sabina Bromley.

He had been aware since his boyhood of the century-old quarrel between the rival earls, at that time represented by his and Richard’s father on the one side and the aging Earl Bromleigh on the other, but because Robert had more than enough boyhood playmates who met with his father’s approval, he had never felt any necessity, or even curiosity, to cultivate the acquaintance of any the Bromley children. Indeed, since The Quarrel did not affect him personally, he was barely aware of the rival family’s existence.

That, however, was before he came upon Sabina Bromley one day at the edge of the canal. He had been out driving his new curricle—a birthday gift from his father—when her unoccupied horse had drawn his attention. He stopped, further arrested by the sight of an abandoned bonnet lying by the road and, when he had dismounted, by Sabina herself leaning over the edge of the canal. Her thick chestnut hair tangled, her skirts stained with grass and mud, and her bodice wet enough to reveal the youthful but already fully developed shape beneath the cloth, she seemed oblivious to his presence.

Robert had stared at her, rapt with admiration, for several minutes before he realized that she was attempting to drag some heavy object up the bank.

She caught sight of him at the same moment and called out in tones quite unsuited to the Fair Maid of Astolat, to whom Robert had fancifully detected a resemblance in her, “Don’t just stand there, you great dolt! Help me!”

Robert grinned, thinking,
So much for the swooning Elaine!,
but then removed his coat and scrambled down the bank to discover, first, that there were tears of frustration in the young lady’s beautiful brown eyes and, only secondly, that the heavy object she was clutching by the lapels was a man’s body. Snapping abruptly out of his trance, Robert gently removed her hands, picked the body up easily in his own arms, and started back up the bank with it, followed anxiously by the bedraggled beauty.

“Who is he?” he said as he laid the body in his curricle, disregarding the effect of canal water on the fine new leather seat.

“My brother,” she said, biting back a sob as she reached out to smooth a wet strand of hair off the pale face of a young man perhaps ten years older than herself. Then she straightened her spine and looked up at Robert. “I beg your pardon—my name is Sabina Bromley. This is my brother Lewis.”

Robert was arrested in the act of unfastening his horses’ reins and stared at her again. So these were the despised Bromleys! They did not appear particularly vicious at the moment; indeed, he thought he had never seen a girl so unselfconsciously miserable. He almost wished he could get rid of Lewis and comfort her instead.

“What happened to him?” he asked.

“I don’t precisely know. He must have fallen into the canal somehow. His horse came home without him, so I came out looking for him and found him lying by the bank. He’s not—he isn’t drowned, is he?”

Lewis’s body had been heavy with water and loss of consciousness, but Robert had felt unmistakable signs of life as he carried him and was able to reassure her. Even now, he pointed out, Lewis’s shallow breathing had steadied somewhat.

“Nevertheless, we must get him home quickly! That is—please, sir, if you would be so kind.”

“I think we should take him to Doctor Abbott, rather. He would have to be called in any case, and I expect your brother needs to be treated as quickly as possible.”

“Oh, yes—yes, of course you’re right,” Miss Bromley said, wringing her hands in her damp skirts and continuing to stare at her brother, seeming to forget her rescuer, who thought it best not to draw attention to himself.

Robert had delivered both Bromleys to the doctor’s surgery and left Sabina there, much against his inclination to wait for her and somehow prolong their acquaintance. But he had learned something of discretion as well as valor in his army service thus far, and so reluctantly decided to wait and chance another opportunity’s coming along to further his acquaintance with the beautiful Lady Sabina.

Lewis had contracted pneumonia as a result of his accident, and as a result of the illness was confined thereafter to a chair and unable to walk. Robert discovered all this only at second-hand, however, for he had not revealed his own name to Sabina and swore Doctor Abbott to secrecy. He did not really think that Sabina would be so unfair as to blame him for Lewis’s affliction, but he did not want her to associate him forever after with that particular family tragedy.

However, his hesitation made it that much more difficult afterwards to reintroduce himself to her. She had not, apparently, enquired about him afterwards, and he was forced to conclude that she was aware of his identity after all and did not wish to be obliged to him. He thus returned to his regiment before his leave was up, as much to remove himself from Sabina’s neighborhood as from any eagerness to resume his career.

But although he had removed himself from her physically, he could not forget her. The more he thought about her, as he lay nights on the hard Spanish ground and stared up at the stars, the more absurd the business of The Quarrel seemed, so that when Robert came home again three years later, it was with the determination to mend the rift between his family and Sabina’s—single-handedly if need be—purely so that he would be able to court her freely.

But the first news he heard on his return to Northampton was of Sabina’s engagement to Peter Ogilvey. Peter had been one of Robert’s closest friends when they were boys, although Peter had purchased his colors even before Robert and they had lost touch with each other over the course of the campaign. He was forced to meet Peter at home, of course, and to wish him happy, but nothing would now induce him to approach Sabina. Peter did introduce him to Sabina’s father, however, and Robert was surprised to find the old earl gracious and willing, even eager, to resolve the quarrel between their families.

Before any further effort could be made to do so, however, both Peter and Robert were recalled to duty. Peter was subsequently killed at Vitoria, and by the time Robert returned home at the end of the Peninsular campaign, the old earl was on his deathbed. Robert went in secret to see him and was gratified to be remembered, but the earl was too weak to speak at any length, much less to venture onto sensitive subjects.

With the news of Bonaparte’s escape from Elba, Robert rejoined his regiment in Belgium. When he finally returned home for good in the spring of 1816, the earl was dead and The Quarrel seemed no nearer to being mended than ever. And Sabina seemed still further out of his reach.

It was when Captain Ashton was racking his brain for a reason to call on his neighbors on a visit of condolence that he came upon Bill Theak and his lock and discovered that he could effectively vent his frustrations on what he would a year ago have described as “sapper’s duty.” He was aware that he was only postponing a necessary decision about his future, but with the resilience of youth and health, he was able to put off the future—at least for a little while.

His respite was to be shorter than even he anticipated, however. After he and Bill had declared the brick wall now sturdy enough to hold back any flood, and Rose had attempted with minimal success to make his visiting clothes respectable again, and Robert had assured her that his social call could be put off for another day, the Theaks and Captain Ashton found themselves enjoying a well-earned pint of home-brewed on the deck of the
Rose Franklin
, the narrow canal boat on which all three Theaks made their home.

Bill sat back against the wall of the sleeping cabin and lit his pipe, while his father, George Theak, a man of seventy-eight summers and frail health but robust mind, presided over the little party from a canvas hammock slung between one side of the boat and the other.

“Aye,” said George, finishing his tale of how he had come to be on the canal and giving the wooden hull a satisfied slap, “this old boat was the best part of my Rose’s dowry.”

“Do you not be deceived, Captain Ashton,” Rose told him, her thin cheeks blushing girlishly pink with the attention. “The
Rose Franklin
—it was my maiden name, you know—was all my poor dad could offer, but George said he would take me just the same.”

“Nay, it was the boat I was after all along,” George insisted. “I can tell you that,” he added in a loud whisper to their guest, “now it’s too late for Rose to find herself a richer man.”

He reached out to pinch Rose’s cheek, and the captain thought he could be satisfied himself with the few worldly goods the Theaks possessed, if the right woman came along with them—a woman he could count on still being there forty years on, as Rose Theak was with her George.

“Of course, until my boy here decides to find himself a bright girl and start raising his own family, I can’t properly retire, so maybe I’ll get rich.”

“More likely that than I’ll get married,” Bill said, well used to his father’s frequent less-than-subtle hints about his lack of a wife at nearly forty years of age.

Rose got up to refill Captain Ashton’s glass of ale, then her husband’s and son’s. But Bill left his untouched as he cocked his head to one side, listening.

“What’s that?” he said, his sharp sergeant’s ears catching some distant sound. The captain smiled, knowing that since they had come home, he too had heard echoes of rolling cannon that turned into mundane farm carts and musket fire that was only the volleys of sportsmen in the wood.

But then Robert heard the sound too—hoofbeats, and pounding harder than they had a call to on this peaceful summer afternoon. Both men’s heads turned as a rider appeared a little distance away, going
ventre à terre
along the bank.

“It’s a woman,” Rose observed. She rose onto her toes for a better look.

“She’s riding too close to the bank,” Bill said, scowling. “It’s a sharp drop there—muddy, too.”

Robert was on his feet then, propelled by an urgent sense of having lived this scene before. He leapt for the shore just as the oncoming horse, spooked by an unexpected branch over the path, made an abrupt swerve. The rider clutched at the reins, but the mare skidded on the muddy bank, and before she could right herself, her rider had lost her seat and was tumbling head over heels down the bank towards the canal.

Oh, God, no!
Robert thought.
Not again—not her, too!

Chapter 3

Sabina opened her eyes to morning sunlight filtered through brightly colored window curtains. It was several moments, however, before full consciousness returned and she was able to interpret the unfamiliar sensations that assailed her in gentle but insistent waves.