The Beloved One (21 page)

Charles, hearing the guilt in the boy's voice, reached out and found his shoulder.  "Will," he said gently.  "You owe me nothing.  You never have.  What happened to me at Concord was a direct result of my own actions, not yours.  You did nothing to bring on my infirmity; instead, you acted as any Christian man would, putting aside the differences between your people and mine, and doing everything in your power to help me.  Anyone else would have finished me off right there — or left me to the angry people of Concord.  You did not.  Instead, you chose to bring me home at great risk to yourself, and endeavored to save my life — for which I shall always be grateful."

Will swallowed hard and looked down, both humbled and a little embarrassed by the captain's words.  "Thank you, sir."  He was still kicking at the straw with one foot, a lock of unruly brown hair falling over his brow.  "It makes me feel a whole lot better, hearing you say that."

"My only regret is that it should've been said sooner."  He stood stroking the stallion's neck and pulling at the animal's forelock with gentle hands.  "And that this horse, like its owner, is going to be yet another burden upon you and your family."

"Oh no, sir, he isn't a burden, I brought him back with Pa's blessings."

"Even so, he will eat you out of house and home, and I have no means of paying for his keep."

"Oh, don't worry about that, Captain.  Pa said that as long as he can borrow him once in a while to make calls on his parishioners, he'll pay for himself."

But Charles's smile faded a little, and Amy saw the shadow of pain that darkened his eyes.  Did he not want Sylvanus riding his beloved stallion?  Was he feeling guilty that Will had gone all the way down to Woburn to bring the animal back?  Coming up behind him, she touched his arm.

"Charles?  What is wrong?"

That rueful little smile still in place, he bent his head, looking down as though he could see the beautiful animal whose broad forehead was pressed to his chest, and whose ears were only a few inches from his nose.  "I cannot ride him," he said softly, with one of his long, slow, blinks that lent him an air of studied sadness.  "As much as he means to me, as much as I've missed him, he is nothing more to me than a pet, now —"

He never finished the sentence.  As though he'd taken violent offense at his master's words, the stallion flung up his head, the blow catching Charles squarely beneath the jaw, snapping his head back and sending him reeling backwards into Amy's arms.

She staggered under his weight.

"Will, help me!"

Her brother rushed forward, and together they eased the captain down onto his back in the straw.  He lay unmoving, his lashes still against his cheeks.  Blood gushed from his nose.

"Charles!"

Amy slid a hand beneath his nape and lifted his head just as his eyes fluttered open.

"Oh-h-h-h," he moaned, covering his nose with one hand and trying to stop the bleeding.  "
Damn.
"

"Will, get some cold water, quick!" Amy urged.  As her brother ran out of the barn toward the well, Amy helped Charles to sit up.  Cradling him against her body and tipping his head back over her arm, she tore off her neckerchief and pressed it to his nose.

"You silly man," she said, in gentle admonishment.  "I would've thought you knew your horse well enough to realize he doesn't take kindly to insults, either to himself or to his master."

"I didn't insult him. "  His voice sounded nasally and thick.

"You insulted yourself."

"I did not."

"You did.  You said you couldn't ride him."

"I damn well can't."

"You damn well
will
.  My brother didn't go to all the trouble of bringing him back just so you could do nothing more than groom and feed him."

"My dear Amy, please be realistic.  I cannot ride him."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't
see
."

"So you can't.  But there's nothing wrong with your legs —" she blushed hotly, remembering the feel of them hard and strong against her own — "or your balance, or anything else about you.  You simply can't see where you're going.  But Contender can."

"I shall not be able to guide him where I wish to go, pull him up when he needs pulling up, anticipate possible dangers to both himself and I."

"Then you can go out riding with Mira and me, and
we'll
anticipate those things for you."

"But I shall look the fool, up there on his back."

"You shall look splendid."

"Amy," he said in a patient, controlled voice, "you do not understand.  If something cannot be done the proper way, it should not be done at all.  Since I cannot ride him the proper way, I should not —"

"No, Charles,
you
don't understand.  Sometimes there
is
no right way to do something, but a whole parcel of varying ways.  So you can't ride him the way you used to.  You find a different way."

"But —"

"You're doing it again," she scolded.

"Doing what?"

"Trying to be perfect.  And taking yourself far too seriously.  Stop it."

He began to protest, then grinned and gave her a half-hearted salute.  "Yes, ma'm."

At that moment, Will came running back in carrying a swinging, sloshing bucket of water.  He set it down beside Amy, who rinsed the kerchief in it, wrung it out, and pressed it to Charles's nose.

Will knelt down before them, peering at the captain with anxious eyes.  "Is it broken?"

"It is not," Charles muttered, "though I am not so sure about my jaw.  Damned horse knocked me out, I think."

"Shall I fetch the doctor?"

"The
doctor
?" Charles scoffed, greatly amused.  "For a bloody
nose
?"

Amy saw the chance to rescue poor Will, who seemed at a loss for words.  "The
doctor
?" she mimicked playfully, drawing out the first syllable as Charles had done.  "For a bloody
nose
?

Charles's brows rose, as though he didn't know whether to laugh or take offense at Amy's exaggerated mimicry of his accent.  He appeared to consider the matter for a moment before asking, with studied politeness, "Are you ridiculing my accent, Miss Yankee Doodle?"

"Me?  Never."

"Good.  Because you colonials are the ones who do not pronounce your words correctly," said Charles with a certain degree of hauteur, but a slow grin was spreading across his face, one that put a dimple in his chin and made his eyes seem to glow with inner warmth.  He looked up in Amy's direction and Will, hunkered down nearby with his hands draped over his knees, saw that look, and the tender way his sister was returning it, and decided that he'd rather be elsewhere.  Coloring a bit, he got to his feet.

"Er, uh, I'm going to go in and check on that fire," he said, taking Contender's halter and backing the big animal back into the stall.  "What were you planning for breakfast, Amy?"

She looked up at him, blankly.  "Breakfast?"

Will grinned.  "Yeah.  You know,
breakfast
."

"Oh!"  Amy went as red as the side of the barn.  "I was going to fry some eggs and have them with porridge —"

"I'll go get it started and put the coffee on to boil.  You stay here with the captain and make sure he's all right.  C'mon, Crystal, old girl!"

"I'm fine," Charles began, but the boy had already slipped away, leaving an awkward, expectant silence in his wake.

A silence where Amy became suddenly aware of the hard warmth of Charles's body, and the proximity of his lips to hers, and the way the morning sunlight made all the stubble on his jaw gleam like gold and begged her hand to touch it.

A silence where Charles felt the soft press of a breast against the side of his head, and remembered again, the taste and shape and silky-smooth texture of it beneath his lips.

This was not good.  Not good at all.

"There.  The bleeding's almost stopped," Amy said from just above him.  Her voice sounded slightly breathy, a little nervous.

"Good."

"As nosebleeds go, this one was pretty bad."

"Was it?  Surely, it could not have rivalled the one my brother Gareth once gave me."  He gingerly touched the side and bridge of his nose, neither of which, oddly enough, were sore at all.  His jaw, however, and the entire top of his head, were another story.  If Contender hadn't managed to crack a tooth with that blow, it would be a miracle.

"Why did Gareth give you a nosebleed?" she was asking.  "I thought the two of you were close."

"We are.  But pugilism is all the rage with English gentlemen, and my brother has an exceeding amount of natural talent for it.  We used to practice together."

"Did you ever beat him?" she asked, her voice sounding a bit calmer now that they were discussing something safe and benign.

"Never.  But he never bested me at fencing, so I daresay we're even."

He lay there for a few more minutes, content to be in the cradle of her arms, her breast warm against his cheek.  Too content.  He should get up.  He really should.

He would, in just a few more moments.  When the temptation to stay within these arms could not be denied, then he would get up.

"Amy, I er . . . that is to say, what happened between us yesterday has been preying on my mind, and my conscience.  I hope I did not hurt you."

"Oh, no, Charles.  Not at all —"

"As you know, I pride myself on my conduct, my restraint, my treatment of others, and yesterday — well, yesterday I was not myself.  I don't know what or who I was, but I was certainly not the man I am accustomed to being."  He reached up, searching the empty space above him until he found her face, and let his fingers graze her cheek.  "Forgive me, Amy.  I am making excuses for behavior that cannot be excused.  Allow me to get straight to the point."  He trailed his fingers down her neck, the outside of her arm, then found and raised her hand to his lips.  "I have done you a terrible dishonor, and though I confess my intentions are based more on duty, fairness, and a care for your own future and reputation as opposed to any romantic inclinations I may feel toward you, I know, nevertheless, that I must ask."

"Ask what?"  She sounded genuinely confused.

"Drat it, girl, what do you think?" he asked, trying to keep the frustration and impatience from his voice.  And then, steeling himself:  "For your hand in marriage."

"
Marriage?!
"  She nearly dropped him.  "Good heavens, Charles, you can't be serious, I'm the very last person on earth you should consider marrying.  You should go home to Katharine Farnsley, you should try to win back Juliet, you should find yourself some genteel English bride who'll do your name and rank justice."  She gave a nervous little laugh.  "Marry
me
?  How silly.  You cannot marry
me
!"

"I certainly can, if you'll have me."

"No, I will not have you.  Please don't be angry with me, Charles, but I know you're only offering this because you're a gentleman and feel guilty about what happened yesterday, but if I accept then
I'll
feel guilty as well, and then there'll be two of us feeling guilty, and that just won't do.  Don't you see?  Oh no, Charles.  You're very kind for asking, and thank you for it, but I cannot marry you, I simply cannot."

"Amy, you are babbling."

"You've flustered me!"

"I am quite serious about this."

"And so am I, Charles, truly I am!  But your heart isn't in this.  You're only trying to make amends, but really, you don't have to, I don't expect you to, I don't want you to.  Besides, you don't love me; you still love Juliet, and to marry me . . .  well, that just wouldn't feel right."

"I don't
know
if I still love Juliet," he said tersely.  And then, almost to himself:  "I don't know as if I ever truly did."

"What?"

"She filled a large hole in my heart called loneliness," he said, trying to explain the feelings that he was just coming to recognize, and just beginning to accept.  "She flattered that part of me called male vanity.  She was kind and beautiful and practical and resourceful, but . . . well, it seems as though I didn't know her as well as I thought I did."

"Charles, what are you saying?"

"Only that sometimes it's easy to mistake need for love.  I needed Juliet, yes, but now I cannot help but wonder whether I loved her the way I thought I did."

"Of course you did!  You were devastated when you got her letter yesterday!"

"Yes — but was that because of a wounded heart or wounded pride?"  He sighed and, picking up a bit of straw, began twirling it around his finger.  "Of course you cannot answer that; I cannot answer it, myself.  And now, I can only wonder if I am even capable of loving anyone at all, after all that has happened to me.  You of all people will understand if I find myself frightfully reluctant to get close to another human being ever again."  He tossed the straw aside.  "I am better off alone, I think."

"Oh, Charles . . ."  He felt her hands pushing the hair off his brow, touching his cheek.  "God didn't put us on this earth to be alone.  You deserve happiness just like everyone else.  Please don't lose faith in humanity."

"Humanity?"  He gave a dry laugh.  "Madam, I have lost faith in myself."

"You're allowing your blindness to ruin your life."

"My dear girl.  It is not the blindness, but that particular defect in my character that will settle for nothing less than perfection.  The problem is not with humanity, but with me.  I expect too much.  Not from others, but from myself.  It is only lately, when I observe the way I have thought about, and behaved toward you these past two months, that I have come to realize that I'll never meet my own rigid expectations of how I should behave."

"You have behaved admirably.  You have nothing to be ashamed about."

"Nothing to be ashamed about?"  He laughed without humor.  "I deserve what Juliet has done. 
She
deserves a better man than me."

"You're a wonderful man, Charles, and one that will make some lucky girl very, very happy!"

"I am unfaithful, in thought if not in deed."