Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) (26 page)

“Do not look at it that way,” the countess said. “I am sure when Drake realizes, he will do the right thing and ask you himself, I just thought I should prepare the way. My dear, I welcome you as my daughter-in-law!”

“Because I have been compromised! And out of some mistaken notion that I require a reward for whatever part I played in restoring your son to health.” Shock forced a bluntness that was not True’s usual way. “Believe me, ma’am, I did not do it for a reward! I did it out of human compassion. I would have done the same for anyone!”

“But it was you he asked for,” Lady Leathorne said, and her voice was gentle. “It was your name he whispered in the depths of his fevered state. It was
you
he wanted, Miss Becket . . . Truelove. Is that not love? And do you not love him too? Don’t talk to me of what you would do for others. I saw how you were with him, and there was love in your touch.”

Yes, she loved him, too much to trap him into a marriage just when he was well enough to start making his own decisions about life.

“Answer me, Miss Becket. Do you love my son?”

If she told the truth—if she said yes—Lady Leathorne would go to Drake and tell him that Miss Becket had been compromised and that he must marry her. And Drake would do it. He cared for her, she knew he did, but how humiliating to have him marry her to save her reputation. She could not stand every day of her life to look at him and know she was not his choice, that she was foisted on him to save her standing in society from being degraded.
“Oh, yes, poor Drake . . . had to marry a Miss Becket, a Miss Nobody . . . compromised her, don’t you know, on his sickbed of all places!”
She could hear the ill-natured gossip, the tittle-tattle of vacant minds and spiteful tongues. She would hate it, every minute of it, and she would be in that circle, then, as viscountess and future countess, where she would hear it.

She straightened her shoulders and faced the mother of the man she loved. “I do not love him, Lady Leathorne.”

The countess gazed at her steadily, doubt clouding her amber eyes. “Your cousin, Lady Swinley, read a letter of yours out loud to us. In it, you said you were betrothed to a vicar and were to be soon married. Is that true, then?”

True saw the danger. She had already lied by saying she did not love Drake, but that might not matter to the countess. Love did not come into marriage for many people. A prior betrothal would end her efforts on True’s behalf. She swallowed. “Yes, I . . . I . . .” She could not say it, but the countess accepted it as said.

“I will not push the matter.” Lady Leathorne gazed at True with kindness in her eyes. Her voice serious, she said, “But if your vicar hears the gossip and will not marry you, or if you change your mind, my son is yours to wed.”

Chapter Nineteen

Somehow, though she had determined that she should leave the next morning, Lady Leathorne talked True into staying for a while longer. She said she wanted to show her appreciation, but somehow it was True who ended up feeling obligated; obligated to stay, obligated to acquiesce even though she feared her own feelings.

Because, like it or not, Lady Leathorne’s offer of her son’s hand in marriage was tempting. True loved him so much, and to look at him and know that just a word would make him her husband for all time was the stuff of sweet dreams. She could marry him, take his name, live in his house, have his children, love him forever.

But the cold, sober reality was, could he ever love her in the same way? It was obvious that he cared for her, and True was confused as to what that meant, for sometimes, in the past, he had kissed her as though he really loved her. Nothing was stopping him, though. If he really loved her that way he would tell her, he would ask her to marry him.

Wouldn’t he?

Reflecting on it though, she realized that to a man of honor she must have seemed as good as betrothed from the beginning, as she was considering an offer of marriage. And then Lady Swinley had read that foolish letter she wrote, the one claiming she was to marry Mr. Bottleby. Well, not foolish. She had thought she
would
be marrying him when she wrote it. So it seemed she was caught by her own lie to Lady Leathorne in confirming that letter. And yet if she had been honest when the countess asked, the woman would have forced a marriage of convenience, to save True’s precious reputation. And so she was caught in the awkward position of regretting what was unchangeable.

She was walking in the garden alone two days after Lady Leathorne had made her incredible offer. It was late October, and the landscape was a palette with gold and gray and deep, conifer green squeezed on it in thick, vibrant array. Golden leaves had drifted to the ground to lie in puddles around the tree trunks and blew into heaps against the sides of stone walls and outbuildings. Lea Park was on a prominence, and from the terrace one could see the whole park, long, jewel-green swards of grass broken by the river and the willows and the distant meadow.

There was a chill in the breeze as autumn rolled across Hampshire.

Drake strolled out onto the terrace and watched True, aware that she did not yet know he was there. What was this indefinable feeling of unbearable joy he felt just to be in her company, to see her slight figure, buffeted by the wind, her soft hair tugged into stray tendrils from under her bonnet? It was like music in his ears, a sweet melody that filled his heart. She had been right; the unutterable beauty of everything about him had faded somewhat, but not the emotion he experienced when he looked at her.

He loved her.

And yet she would go away soon, back to her vicar, back to marriage and life. When she was near he felt like himself, like the warrior he had been, strong and capable, sure of himself. He had ridden over that morning to Thorne House for the first time since his illness. Though still in the middle of renovations, enough was done that it was ready to move into. And the Drake School would be a reality; he had spoken to his steward and to Stanley, and both had sworn to help in the endeavor and were excited about the future of it.

But still, as long as True was at Lea Park he would not leave, would not move into his rightful home. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her behind without being able to see her every day. What was it going to be like when she left for good?

He would survive. He knew he was over the dreams, the nightmares. But it was still as if some light in his life would go out when she left, never to come back to Lea Park again. He was deeply, completely in love, such as he had never thought possible; in fact, he had never known such an emotion existed.

He remembered before his illness that he had thought he would ask True to marry him. It had seemed a good idea, and since she was not
officially
betrothed, there would be no dishonor in asking. She liked him, he thought. She had responded to his kisses with a delicious, tender ardor that he had found entrancing, but sometime after she left she had evidently decided on marriage to the vicar. So was he mistaken? Had she felt nothing for him, or was it just that she felt more for the vicar?

It was her rightful place. She deserved a man who could make her proud, who had spent his life helping people, not killing them. She turned, saw him and smiled, and his heart leaped. Almost against his own volition, he stepped down onto the terrace and walked toward her.

“What a glorious day,” she said, making a sweeping motion with her arms to include the sky, the earth, everything around them.

“Breathtaking,” he agreed, never taking his eyes from hers. She blushed, adorably, and looked down at her toes, peeping out from underneath the hem of her ivory-colored walking dress.

“I love this time of year,” she said, her voice a little breathless.

“But it’s the end of summer! The end of walks and warm weather and the garden!”

“Oh, I never look at a season for what it means or portends, but for what it is! The temperature is invigorating, but not freezing, and there are still flowers in the garden, and the leaves have fallen, giving everything a different vista, do you not think?” She swept her arm out, indicating the view of the park. “Does everything not look different now?”

Drake could not speak. He swallowed. Yes, everything looked different. He was completely head over ears in love with Miss Truelove Becket, and she was going to leave and marry another man. Forever gone. He would never see her again. He had known it all along, but had not acknowledged what it meant to him, personally. He would go on with life, but some part of him would die when she left.

She turned and looked up at him, the sunlight brightening her blue eyes to the shade of bluebells. He longed to take her in his arms and kiss her, fiercely, and then put her away from him, asking her if her vicar could ever kiss her like that. Would the good vicar ever need her, want her,
desire
her that much? She was too fine to use in such a vile way, too precious. He would break her with his need, clutch her to him too hard, want her too badly, and she would hate him for it. He finally understood all the poetry Reverend Thomas and his other schoolmasters had forced him to read; love was a cruel and bitter agony when unrequited.

“Wy, what’s wrong?”

He took another step back, bumping into a stone planter with a yew in it. “Nothing is wrong.” Nothing but a pain so wrenching as to rival the saber thrust he had taken at Waterloo.

She reached out and touched his sleeve. “You don’t look well. You’re not overdoing it, are you?”

“No, my little nursemaid. Stop worrying about me.” He said it fiercely, grimly, but then softened his voice and attempted a wobbly smile. He would not,
could
not punish her for being unattainable. “I’m as good as new, thanks to you. Better than new.”

She smiled and relaxed. “Good. How are the plans for the school coming along?”

With such innocuous subject matter, Drake could relax, and he strolled with True around the gardens, sitting on a stone bench finally, when he could see her tiring. His old wound bothered him hardly at all now, but he thought that nursing him had exhausted her, and she would need a few days to recuperate. They talked about the school for a while, and then about Thorne House. He was surprised at how much, from her brief visit there, she remembered. It hurt, surprisingly, because he could see her in every room, giving light and life to the place with her presence. He was renovating it with a view to marriage and children, and had even planned to have his wife-to-be’s suite done over in periwinkle blue, just for her, but now—

He fell silent and stared off down the walk, at the boxy yew hedges and dying gardens.

True watched Drake’s face, the shifting of emotion over it like shadows over water, ephemeral and quickly changing. He was carefully maintaining a distance between them and True wondered at that, when they had used to be physically close as they talked. She had never thought it meant more than that they felt a natural kinship of sorts, but now she wondered.

“What are you thinking about?” she ventured.

He turned toward her and she was caught, once again, by the fierce golden light that shone from somewhere within him. She had seen a captive hawk up close, once, and the look in that bird’s eye was the same, untamed, proud, and yet humbled by circumstances. She had longed to cut its bonds and see it soar free once again, but the keeper had explained that the bird had been badly injured and could not fly. It hurt itself with every attempt, and so he kept it tethered, hoping it would heal someday and be able to fly again. Comparisons were inevitable. And yet, Drake was healed. He should be free to fly, wherever he wanted.

“Thinking? Do you know, I haven’t had the nightmares since my recovery.”

She laid one hand on his sleeve and felt a quiver go through him. “I’m so glad, Wy. You are reconciled to your past then, as a soldier?”

“No. That’s the odd part. I feel just as deeply that there is some taint in me, some deep scar from all of the killing I did, all the men I slaughtered, all the lives that were changed forever because of my actions, or inaction.”

True sighed, but in her heart she honored him for caring about all of those lives. “Did you ever kill anyone who was not a soldier, Wy?”

“No, I only ever killed in battle. That was not true of everyone. That last day, on the battlefield, some soldiers killed those who put up a fuss as they were being looted. It was horrible. I heard it happening all around me, but I was trapped and dying—or thought I was dying—and I could do nothing. If I had not been so inaccessible, trapped beneath poor Andromeda, it might have happened to me.”

Quickly, to shift his attention from that day, she said, “And was there ever any choice for you? What would have happened if you did not kill in battle?”

“I would have been dead very quickly myself. There was never even any time to think. It was kill or be killed.”

“And was every one of those men beside you and opposite you there of their own volition? There was no impressment into the army, was there? Not like the navy?”

“No, every one of my men made the decision to take the king’s shilling. Not all of them were sober when they signed up, but they went willingly enough.” He smiled wryly. “I see where you’re going with this. Yes, all my men knew, when they signed up, of the possibility of death every day.”

“And you took that same chance alongside of them, every day.”

He nodded. “Maybe someday that knowledge will help.”

True thought for a minute. “My father is a vicar, as you know. He has preached many a sermon condemning violence, and many a sermon praising the men who joined the army and navy. It took me a while to puzzle out the contradiction. We’re supposed to love one another and live in peace, but not everyone follows that commandment. I think that there are times when men have no choice but to go to war to protect those they love. Napoleon had every intention of overrunning our island, and what do you think would have happened to all of us? Your parents, your friends . . . me? Wy, you fought to keep us safe; with every blow, you fought for me!” Her voice shook with emotion.