Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) (19 page)

Drake glanced over and chuckled. “I fear he is besotted. She is fetching, isn’t she?”

“She’s beautiful. And really a nice girl, I think. She improves upon acquaintance. What say you?” She shot her son a sideways glance.

“Very nice. More intelligent than I at first thought, spirited, reasonably good-natured. A man could do worse.”

Lady Leathorne’s hopes soared. Was he really looking seriously at Arabella Swinley with marriage on his mind? Oh, if he only would!

Lady Swinley swept into the room that moment. She waved a cream piece of paper that was crossed and recrossed with writing, around in the air. “Marvelous news!” she crowed. “Our little cousin, Miss Becket, has accepted her vicar and is to marry him within the fortnight!”

• • •

The mud, always the muck squishing up under his scarlet tunic! And the pain from the damned saber thrust shot through him. He was going to die. Andromeda’s ponderous weight was burying him alive on the muddy field of Mont St. Jean, and all he could see were the faces of the dead, screaming out for his blood, shrieking like Valkyries for him to join them in hell.

He couldn’t breathe! Another few minutes and he must perish, suffocated with the hideous guilt of a thousand deaths, those of the enemy, and those of his own men, men who would never see sweethearts nor babies, aged mothers nor frantic wives again. Faces twisted in pain, crabbed hands clawed at him, dragging him . . .

“Sir! Major! You’re right bedeviled again, sir, an’ ya must wake up.”

Drake awoke gasping and striking out with his fist, his pillow over his face, the case rent from his desperate clawing to escape the suffocating mud of the battlefield. Abruptly the night demons fled, leaving him shaking and weak with horror. “Oh, God, Horace! I thought I was back there; I thought I was dying again!” He sat, but doubled over and buried his face in the silky counterpane, pounding his fist into the mattress. “I thought this was over! Merciful God, I thought I was cured.”

“’Pears like you’re not quite over it yet. But ya had a good run o’ nights, sir, and that’ll happen again.”

Drake flung the covers back and slung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I don’t think so, Horace. I don’t think I shall ever sleep peacefully again. Get my shirt.”

“But there’s a rain’s set in, sir . . . my lord. You’ll catch yer death, an’ that’s a fact.”

“I don’t give a damn,” Drake roared, his fierce eyes blazing in an unusual show of temper. “Get my damned shirt and breeches, or I’ll report you for—”

“To who will you be reportin’ me, sir, beggin’ yer parding. Her ladyship?” Horace stared at Drake, sadness in his brown eyes.

“Just get my breeches,” Drake said wearily.

Lady Leathorne, awoken by the angry roar of her son’s voice, watched out the window, fretting. Yes, there he went down to the stable, and clad only in his shirt and breeches and boots! There was a steady, cold drizzle coming down. What did the foolish boy think he was doing? She laid her face against the cold pane and watched as a few moments later Drake galloped from the stables on Thunder, his favorite gelding. No more sleep for him that night, she guessed. Nor for her. She put on her wrap and went downstairs to wait.

• • •

“And so Miss Stimson said to Andrew Fetterly,
‘Sir, you have ruined my train, and I would be very grateful if you would refrain from ruining my joke!’
Isn’t that delicious?”

Drake stared off into space, his handsome face, which in the last month had lost some of its gauntness, spoiled by a brooding expression. Arabella gazed up at him desperately, wondering how one charmed a man who did not even know one was there? No one had ever prepared her for that skill.

“Lord Drake,” she said, hearing the angry edge to her voice but starting not to care. “Have you been attending?”

“What? Huh? Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Swinley. You were speaking of a delicious, uh, a delicious . . .”

They walked together along the riverbank, near an enormous oak tree, and Lord Drake had stopped to caress the weathered bark as if it were the softest of skin. Arabella, bewildered, watched him. What was wrong with him? Was he mad? She had heard his screams the night before; they had awoken her from a sound sleep and a dream of the sparkling London Season and a ball to end all balls. She shivered. And this was the man her mother wanted her to attach herself to for all time?

He had seemed better for a while, but the last few days had seen him lapse into his dark moodiness. Nathan, or rather, Lord Conroy, as she should call him, said that Drake had had several good nights at his own estate, but the nightmares had resumed at Lea Park. Perhaps that was the key. Once they married they need never stay at Lea Park, or if he did, she did not have to come.

His handsome mouth turned down into a scowl, Lord Drake slammed his heavy fist against the tree and turned back to her. “Does your cousin . . . does she ever change her mind, say one thing and do another?”

Arabella, her eyes wide at the unwarranted ferocity of Lord Drake’s actions and the pain in his eyes, blurted out, “True?”

“Yes, Miss Becket.”

Arabella frowned and stared at the viscount. It was dreadfully disconcerting to find that all this time it appeared the man had been thinking of True. Disconcerting and infuriating. “No. She is most decisive. Once she has made up her mind, she rarely relents.”

“I was afraid of that.”

Narrowing her eyes, Arabella crossed her arms across her chest in a most unladylike stance and stood in front of Lord Drake. She took a deep breath, her chin went up, and she said, “Sir, what is the meaning of all this?”

“All this? What do you mean?”

Arabella just glared. The viscount had the grace to look abashed.

“Uh, Miss Swinley, would you sit down by the river with me?”

He swept off his jacket and laid it on the long yellowing grass. Gingerly, careful not to tear the exquisite lace of her best walking dress, Arabella sat and neatly folded her gloved hands on her lap. Drake collapsed on the ground beside her and reclined lazily, a piece of grass in his teeth. Scandalized by such ungentlemanly behavior, Arabella refused to look his way, and thus was startled when he grasped her hand.

“Sir?” she gasped.

“Miss Swinley, please relax. I do not bite.” His tone was sardonic, and he retained her hand in his.

It felt like a prison, she thought, regarding his large hand engulfing the fawn glove. “I did not think that you bite, sir. I was just taken by surprise.”

“Have you never had your hand earnestly pressed by one of your London suitors? Has no one ever stolen a kiss from you before?”

Arabella stared down at the brooding man as though he were a snake in the grass rather than a viscount. “I really do not think that is any of your concern, sir,” she said.

“Kiss me,” he commanded.

Arabella jerked her hand away from Drake and stood, brushing at her skirts in case any errant blade of grass lingered. “I will not stay to be insulted, sir.” Head held high, she stalked away, leaving Drake watching her with a bemused expression in his mud-brown eyes.

What had come over him to be so appallingly rude to a girl who had done nothing to merit it? he wondered. It was unpardonable, and unlike him. Disgusting and distasteful the depth into which he had sunk. He had become slovenly, even more so than usual, and exhaustion was wearing him down. But he missed True. He missed walking with her and talking with her, and he especially missed stolen hours kissing her and incidentally sleeping in the autumn sunshine, feeling her small hand tangled in his hair. Every moment they had spent together, sleeping and waking, seemed precious now, doubly so because there would never be more. The memories he had of her were counted and numbered. He had taken stock like a careful shopkeeper, and they would have to last him the rest of his days.

She was to marry her vicar. He had seen her words with his own eyes, had it thrust at him in triumph. The damned letter Lady Swinley had been waving around was one written to Arabella, but the baroness had evidently read it before it ever got to its intended recipient. Then she had shoved it in front of Drake’s eyes and bade him read it as
“he had been so concerned about the vicar, and it contained news of Mr. Becket, too
.
”

He had not been fooled about her intentions, but neither could he resist being sure she was not lying. She would do that as surely as she would manipulate people to her own ends.

Her father was fine, True reported; his illness was just his gout flaring up as usual. Some days were bad, some good. It went on to prepare Arabella for
“some very good news
.
”
She had decided to marry Mr. Arthur Bottleby. There was no time to invite her cousins to the wedding, as they were to be married by license as soon as was possible, and then they would travel to his northern parish as their honeymoon. She was very, very happy, she said, and Drake had no reason to disbelieve her. All his presentiments of dread had come true then, and she was lost to him forever.

That evening a headache started, and he had known that he was headed for a nightmare. Sure enough, two hours after closing his eyes the nightmare had started, and then he had flung on his clothes and gone riding in the frigid drizzle. He shivered, feeling the ache behind his eyes. He dare not lay his head back on the ground, not even in the place that was precious to him, the oak tree where she had held him for the first time, for the nightmare would come again as it always did, and he would die once more in his dreams.

Wearily, he heaved himself to his feet and limped home.

Chapter Fourteen

“Drake, dear, you look feverish. You have been out in the pouring rain riding again, haven’t you, last night? That makes two nights in a row.” Lady Leathorne gazed across the table at her son, noting the two high spots of color on his sharp cheekbones.

“Don’t coddle the boy, Jess. He’ll be right as rain.” Lord Leathorne plowed through his plate of mutton, while the others politely averted their eyes. Watching Lord Leathorne eat was too much like watching wild dogs pull apart a sheep’s carcass, if any one of them could have seen that sight to make the comparison.

Lady Leathorne held her own counsel, and did not reply to her husband.

“I am fine, Mother. Nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure.” His tone was wry, but Drake realized the justice of his mother’s concern. He really did not feel well. It probably had been foolish to go out the night before to ride after his usual dream, but nothing helped him work off the horrors like riding hell for leather across the dark fields, and a little rain had never stopped the war, had it? He was in his thirties; it was time his mother stopped worrying over him like a child.

Lady Swinley, eyes glittering almost as if she was fevered, too, said, “Arabella, dear, you should make your special nighttime tisane for his lordship, and I’ll warrant he would sleep like a lamb.”

Miss Swinley’s expression warned that the tisane was more likely to guarantee an eternal sleep for the daring drinker, for her eyes glinted like jade, hard and cold. She glared at her mother and shook her head almost imperceptibly.

“Drake should go to sleep with a calf’s foot beneath his pillow. That’s what m’mother swears by. Makes the nightmares just trot right by you,” Conroy said.

Since no one at the table had mentioned nightmares, Drake shot his friend a disgusted look.

Conroy reddened. “Didn’t mean to imply . . . I say, anyone up for whist tonight?”

Drake lost the rest of the conversation, as all entered to cover the awkward moment. As if everyone in the house did not know, by then, that he had nightmares, Drake thought, what with his howling and screaming down the house.

The night before had been especially bad, thus the long ride in the rain once more. And this day the rain had continued, so they had all been forced to stay inside and pretend to be a merry company of friends. Conroy had devoted himself to Arabella Swinley, as usual, and Drake had wandered the house, not quite knowing what to do, but too restless to just sit with a book. There was scads of preparation to putting together the Drake School, but somehow he had lost enthusiasm for that project. He would see it through, but perhaps he would delegate some of the work to Horace, who was wholeheartedly for the idea.

He was lonely, he realized, since True had left, despite being surrounded by family and company. He had fallen into the habit of talking things over with her, anything and everything. She would sometimes listen, sometimes offer her own opinion, and sometimes flat-out contradict him. But that was what he liked. She asked questions, she debated, she disagreed, she never,
ever
flattered; in short, there was no one else to equal her.

Lady Swinley and her daughter would agree with anything he said; a pair of fortune hunters, the two of them. His mother . . . well, one did not confide some things to one’s mother. He had a feeling it gave her the cold horrors to think of him in the kind of danger he was in on the battlefield. And forget his father. Sometimes he felt as though they didn’t even speak the same language. Conroy, the best friend of his youth, frankly did not want to hear about it. Drake had come to believe that his friend thought that he exaggerated his tales of the war. He never came right out and said it, but it was in the rise of his elegant eyebrow and the tilt of his head.

Or maybe he, Drake, was just getting too damned sensitive. He wanted True back, but that chance was gone forever. She had made her choice and by her own words was happier than she had ever been in her life. He had to believe that the spark he had felt between them was one-sided, that she had merely been a polite listener and a concerned friend.

He tried to believe it, but he couldn’t.
Damn
her for throwing her life away before he ever got a chance to offer her his own, whatever of it she wanted. He could not be angry, though; she had what she wanted, he hoped. She would be happy. And was that not what he truly wished for her?