My Dearest Enemy (38 page)

Her fingers plaited themselves restlessly together.

"You saved his life there, you know," John said.

She shook her head. "I don't understand what you mean."

"Karl's death." For a second his amiable expression disappeared in sadness. "Avery was killing himself with self-recrimination. Not that he said anything. No, then we might have been able to answer. He wouldn't have burdened us like we burdened him."

He sighed as though still carrying the weight of his thoughts. "We shouldn't have put so much on him, made him feel so responsible, but he made it so easy, you know?"

She nodded mutely.

"Always doing what needed to be done, always found a way—across a river, through the diplomatic uncertainties of hostile nations, whatever.

"After Karl died… well, you could see it was eating at the man. He became silent and guarded. Hesitant in small matters, reckless in ones of personal safety. And then your letter came." He reached over and patted her hand companionably. "Bless you. I

don't know what you said. He never read it aloud— nor did we ask him to—but for a while I'd see him reading it when he thought no one was about, after a particular bad bout or something occurred that would set the haunts in his eyes again. Your letter eased him, you know?"

At her silence, John seemed to recall his manners, and that they were in fact, strangers. His dark face flushed and he twisted the brim of his hat in his hands. "I didn't mean to come over all morose and such. This is a great day for me, finally meeting the woman who married Avery Thorne."

"What?" This new shock supplanted the old.

"Where is he anyway?" John asked. "Rechanneling a river? Man has more energy than is healthy." He finally noticed her stunned expression, her agonized eyes. Immediately, he recognized his faux pas.

"You aren't married?"

"No!" The word shot out, falling between them with all the grace of an ostrich in a dovecote. "We're not."

"I am sorry," he choked out, mortified. "It's just… well, after the letters, I'd assumed. It seemed so obvious that you were both…
courting
. And when I got his address and realized it was the same as yours, I assumed. Well, it wouldn't have been unlike Avery— or even what I knew of you—to run roughshod over the niceties and just get married! I'm sorry I've embarrassed you. Really," he finished miserably.

"It's all right. You simply took me by surprise," she said, her thoughts whirling around the honest mistake he'd made, perhaps because it hadn't been a mistake. Those letters had been a courtship. "Mr. Thorne is at the Hound and Hare in Little Henty."

"I see." John's abashed gaze settled on his shoe tips. "Well, I'd best go find him then. Thank you for the tea and the pleasure of meeting you. You're prettier than I could have imagined," he said smiling, "and a lot quieter."

His smile faded. "Though that's my fault, eh? I can't say again how sorry I am to have prattled on like that, I—"

"Really, it's fine. Think nothing of it."

"Good day then, Miss Bede." He stood up, slapped the huge hat against his thigh, and started for the door where he turned and gave her a little bow. When he straightened the self-assured grin was back in place, a devilish gleam had entered his eye. "Since you wouldn't have Avery, Miss Bede, perhaps you might consider me?"

It said much about Lily's state of mind that she didn't respond to this absurdity. Indeed, she might not have heard it all. "Good day, Mr. Neigl."

She went upstairs to his room and opened the door and memory and sensation rushed in on her. She stood at the threshold gasping slightly as though being caught in an unexpected gale. Here he'd picked her up. Here he'd kissed her, hundreds of sweet, tender, hungry kisses. There he'd carried her…

She brushed her hair back and moved cautiously into the room. It smelled like him. A touch of rich tobacco, the scent of sandalwood soap, the clean linen scent, the subtle woodsy aroma of his travel battered clothes.

She spied a book on the floor near the far wall and she started toward it but a sheet of paper lying on the carpet near an armchair caught her attention. Its edges were frayed to soft velvet by time and much handling. She picked it up and turned it over, unfolding the creases carefully lest it rip.

It was from her.

My Dearest Enemy,

I am concerned.

Your last letter did not contain your usual compliments and flattery, but was terse. What am I to think? Have I lost my most valued foe to his grief? No. You simply must not allow your loss to ripple across the oceans and continents to become mine. It would be most ungentlemanly.

Allow me for a minute to take hold the flail which you have lain against your back. You mustn't castigate yourself for your friend's loss. Even for you, this is a bit overweening.

Would you stand in Charon's boat forever, wresting his oars from him to keep your comrades on these living shores? And who would do that service for you, Avery, and would you want it done? Or would you resent anyone who barred you from taking even one step on a path upon which you'd set your foot? I daresay we both know the answer.

You say Karl Dhurmann died homeless, without country, and alone. I know this to be patently untrue. You were there, Avery. Karl Dhurmann sustained many losses: a house demolished, a family killed, a country destroyed.

But in your company he'd found not replacements for those things, but alternatives. Did you not call him "brother"? Who knows better than you and I how closely that word resembles "home"?

You tell me Karl had chosen me for his wife; well then I refuse to lose both antagonist and suitor. I have too few relationships to relinquish any of them
—
most especially those which have demanded such an intellectual investment as ours
.

So, let me claim his widow's role and say that which a loving wife would surely avow. Karl died as the result of an accident which no one could prevent. He died in the fullness of his years, in the course of pursuing his own life, not fleeing it, and leaves behind those who have wept for his loss. May we all have so satisfactory a eulogy.

Now, my dearest enemy, I have done more than smile, I have shed my tears. It is past time that you shed yours, too.

Your own, Lillian Bede

The letter John Neigl had told her about. Those damned, wonderful, impossible letters. Why, oh dear Lord, why couldn't they have continued that way? She put the letter on the table and cried.

@

They returned last night. Lillian Bede

Avery folded the note. "They" were undoubtedly Evelyn, Bernard, and Miss Makepeace. With that short sentence Lily had fulfilled her obligation. For a woman who'd penned voluminous letters on no weightier topic than "a footman's livery" you'd think she would have something more to say. Some cautionary word, some indication… my God! he thought, crumpling the sheet into a tight ball, they'd shared their bodies; she could have shared more than four words!

He dropped the letter onto the narrow cot that one borrowed for six shillings a night at the Hound and Hare. He missed Mill House. No, he missed what Lily had made of Mill House, the uncluttered, homely comforts and relaxed atmosphere.

He missed Lily. The odd, stunningly beautiful woman who challenged his preconceptions and had wrested his wholehearted respect. He missed her sharp tongue, her crafty penuriousness, her ridiculous campaign to save race horses, and her honest bewilderment in dealing with Bernard's adolescent crush.

He did not know how he could live without her.

He certainly couldn't live at Mill House without her. It was hers. From the cheap reproduced Sevres vase to the comfortable sitting room, it bore her stamp. Even the bloody portraits in that embarrassingly pretentious gallery somehow belonged to her. It was a home only as long as Lily was its mistress.

He bent down and extracted from beneath the slumped mattress a battered valise, withdrawing a tightly bound bundle. He could at least make something come right of this ungodly coil.

He snagged his coat from a peg and headed out of the inn, nodding at the blushing girl scouring the whitewashed steps. He began walking the dusty road that led to Mill House.

"Here. This will rebuild the stables and put you in the black once more." Avery dumped the thick packet of bills on the desk.

She looked composed and remote and cool. Her impeccably clean bloomers and stiff man's shirt had more starch in them than a Chinese laundry. She glanced down at the money. "What is this?"

"Your money."

Her gaze, flat and wary, slid up to meet his. "I don't have any money."

"You have this. It's the money you've been sending me for five years. It's the allowance. I kept it."

For a second, surprise kindled a gleam in her dark, empty eyes. He'd only one thing now to offer her— one thing that she might be convinced to take, but he must do it carefully, lest even this small token, this tiny thing he could do for her, be thrown back.

"I don't believe you," she said.

"I don't really give a damn whether you believe me or not," he lied. "Stop reacting like some self-proclaimed misused debutante and
think
."

His words had the desired effect. The pain and wariness disappeared from her expression. Her flesh smoothed tightly to the bone. If she'd been a horse her ears would have been lying flat.

"I do
not
think I have been misused," she said loudly, coming round from her side of the desk. "I am sure that you consider you have acted in a most noble manner by offering me your money—"

"Listen, Lily," he cut in, pulling his cigar case from his jacket pocket and taking his time in making his selection. "I made a bid for you," he murmured. "I lost it. I may be selfish but I hope I am still a gentleman."

"Oh, yes," he heard her say softly. "One cannot say you weren't a gentleman."

He fumbled a cigar free of the holder, in doing so taking a short reprieve. He took his time nipping the end off it, jammed it between his teeth, and finally looked at her.