The Earl's Honorable Intentions (9 page)

“I must admit, for the sake of your children, I wish you could be more cautious.” That was not the only reason, though Hannah could not bring herself to say so. The thought of any harm coming to the earl chilled her. “But I cannot fault your courage or your willingness to risk your well-being for that of others. It is all part of what makes you the man you are.”

She hoped her tone conveyed her belief that he was a very good man in spite of the mistakes and weaknesses that made him human.

“As for your friend,” she continued, “his death was no fault of yours. Do you suppose he would have been better off if you had left him on that field?”

The earl thought for a moment. His gaze seemed to turn inward, as if reliving the incident in search of the answer to her question. “The French were not taking prisoners that I could see. I suppose he would be dead either way.”

That realization seemed to bring him some consolation, which pleased Hannah.

She fought the sudden urge to brush a lock of dark hair back from his brow as she might have done with his young son. “Thanks to you, Major Molesworth spent his last moments among his comrades, being cared for. And he died knowing you were willing to risk your life for him. Do not underestimate the value of such blessings.”

His lordship mulled over her words. “I would never have thought of it in quite that way. You bring a fresh perspective to many things, Miss Fletcher. Now, may I beg you to reconsider my offer to invite Lord and Lady Benedict to Edgecombe? I mean it when I say you would be doing me a favor.”

“Very well, then,” Hannah agreed, still somewhat reluctant. She could foresee considerable awkwardness in having her personal friend as a guest in the house where she worked. The place of governess in any household was ambiguous at best, hers more than most due to her friendship with the late countess. “Since you seem quite determined.”

“I am.” The earl appeared pleased at having gotten his way. “Though my father would have called it willfulness. If you would be so kind as to fetch your writing box, I wish to dictate a letter of invitation.”

Just then the mantel clock chimed.

“Is it that time already?” the earl cried. “I must say, my convalescence is passing faster than I ever expected.”

He did not sound as pleased about that as Hannah expected.

* * *

His fortnight in captivity was more than half over. Gavin marveled at how swiftly it had passed. If he’d known how it would be, he would not have objected so strongly in the beginning.

Miss Fletcher’s schedule had broken the endless stretch of hours down into more easily endurable divisions. He seldom had an opportunity to grow tired of one activity when it was time to move on to the next. Often he and Miss Fletcher would fall into conversation and forget the schedule entirely as minutes and hours flew by.

He had originally demanded her companionship in a mistaken belief that their mutual antagonism would challenge and amuse him. Instead he’d discovered they had more in common than he had thought possible. The visits with his small son and daughter had helped, too, much to his surprise. He was discovering their distinct personalities and noticing small changes in them as they grew. He was astonished to find he could handle an infant without sending the child into a frenzy of tears. And if the child did cry, he was capable of soothing it.

“It never occurred to me,” he remarked to Hannah Fletcher as they played chess while waiting for the Friday post to arrive, “that caring for infants was a skill one could learn, practice and improve, like riding or shooting. I always assumed a person was either naturally good with children—as you are—or quite hopeless, as I thought I was.”

Miss Fletcher moved her bishop forward. She was a much more cautious, thoughtful player than he. Sometimes that gave her an advantage. Other times his bold, decisive style of play brought him victory.

Now he sensed she was trying to suppress a self-conscious smile. Was it because she expected to win the chess match or because he’d said she was good with children? “Surely you have spent enough time with babies to see that nearly everything human beings do must be learned. I am no more
naturally
adept at caring for children than you or anyone else. But I have had a good deal of practice and learned from my experience how best to handle them. It is all a matter of application and a desire to improve.”

“Are you certain of that?” Gavin moved a pawn forward to threaten her bishop. “Do you not believe a person may have special aptitude for certain things—music or languages or gardening?”

Or riding. Someone must have put him on a pony and taught him how to make it run and jump and stop again. They must have told him how to keep his seat and move with his mount so he did not bounce up and down like a sack of meal in the saddle. But it was so long ago he could not remember a time before he’d felt perfectly at home on horseback. Far more at home than he ever had in a schoolroom or attending a fashionable assembly.

Could he have acquired the skills necessary to excel in those situations, as well, if only he’d applied himself? He had convinced himself it would be fruitless to try. Now he began to wonder if he’d been wrong.

Miss Fletcher studied the chessboard, pondering her next move and perhaps his question, as well. Gavin looked forward to hearing her answer. Her opinions often disagreed with his, challenging him to weigh them more critically and sometimes look at the world in a whole new way. To his surprise, he was beginning to enjoy it.

His opponent had just grasped the bishop’s miter in her slender, deft fingers when Owens marched in bearing the day’s post.

“Very good reports from abroad, my lord.” The butler could not resist waving the newspapers in a gesture that ran contrary to his usual dignity. “Paris has surrendered!”

“It has?” Hannah Fletcher dropped the white bishop and knocked over several other chess pieces as she surged up from her chair to seize the post. “What a blessed relief!”

She scanned the newspaper and found what she was seeking at once. As Owens slipped out of the room, she began to read aloud so quickly her tongue tripped over some of the words. “We have at length the happiness to be relieved from the state of anxious suspense in which we have been held for the result of the expedition to Paris. Last night Lord Arthur Hill arrived with dispatches from the Duke of Wellington announcing the surrender of Paris on conditions on Monday last.”

“I know Hill,” Gavin interrupted. “Aide-de-camp to the duke. His father is the Marquis of Downshire. A sound young fellow.” And a second son, like him and so many other British officers.

Miss Fletcher used his interruption to catch her breath. When he had finished speaking she took up reading where she’d left off, recounting the troop movements that had led Wellington to Gonesse and Prince Blücher to Versailles, while General Grouchy retreated to occupy the heights of Montmartre.

“At length on Monday at three o’clock the city was surrendered on a military convention—the troops laid down their arms—the provisional government dissolved and Louis XVIII was again recognized as their sovereign.”

“That is all very well,” said Gavin. He hated to sink Miss Fletcher’s spirits, but he had to know the full story. “But have they printed the actual dispatches?”

Perhaps those would contain the information he needed to hear.

“I was just coming to that.” Miss Fletcher read the dispatches, including the eighteen articles of surrender as signed at Saint Cloud by the commissioners designated by both sides. “Surely this
is
good news, is it not, sir? From the look on your face I am inclined to think otherwise.”

“It is certainly better than no news.” Gavin began to gather up the chessmen and return them to their box. “And it is official—not the fog of rumors and speculation we have been teased with for the past week. But to me the most significant news is to be found in what the report and dispatches
do not
say.”

Miss Fletcher slowly lowered the newspaper, her brow furrowed. “I beg your pardon, sir? I do not understand what you mean.”

“Did you not notice one name conspicuous by its absence?”

The lady’s eyes opened wide as the truth dawned on her. “Bonaparte. There was no mention of him at all.”

Chapter Eight

N
o mention of Bonaparte. Why hadn’t she seen it? Hannah wondered this the next day when the newspapers echoed his lordship’s question.

“What is become of Bonaparte?” She glanced up at the earl between sentences to gauge his reaction. “His departure from Paris openly and with a great cavalcade is asserted without contradiction. A letter from Rouen dated the third instant says that he was arrested in his flight, but it does not state where or give any particulars. The fact is therefore doubted. It should be a singular incident in this diversified drama if he should be suffered after all to escape.”

With every word she read the earl’s jaw clenched tighter and his black brows lowered over his eyes like thunderclouds warning of an approaching storm.

“How could they let him ride away?” He pounded his fist on his mattress. “Much less openly in a great cavalcade.”

His gaze slammed into Hannah’s with such fierce intensity she could picture lightning flashing from his eyes. “Do you
still
think I am a vengeful fool for being determined to bring that man to justice?”

She flinched from the earl’s outburst in a way she would not have ten days ago. Then she would have expected it, perhaps even welcomed the opportunity to vent her own feelings at him. But over the course of the past few days, something fundamental had changed between them. She thought they had come to understand and respect one another. Perhaps they had not become
friends,
but was it too much to hope they’d at least grown friendly?

“I never thought any such thing!” she protested. At least, not recently...

“Do you still believe I should leave the task to others better equipped than I?” This time he did not give her an opportunity to reply. “The allied commanders, perhaps, who have allowed Bonaparte to slip through their fingers?”

“Are you certain he has?” Hannah’s old antagonism roused like a sleeping dog that had been suddenly kicked awake. “What if that letter from Rouen is correct and he has been arrested?”

The earl reached out and snatched the newspaper from her hands. After the briefest pause to find the report, he read the rest of it in a voice harsh with indignation. “It is worthy of inquiry how and by whom he is to be stopped. The Allies have no force in the road which he was to take—and it is not likely that he should throw himself into the hands of his enemies.”

He slammed down the paper. “If someone does not take action soon, mark my words, Bonaparte is going to slip away to plot his next return. When he comes back, the Allies may not have the good fortune we did at Waterloo to turn back the tide. Who knows how many more young lives could be lost for the want of decisive action now?”

Hannah wished she could argue with his reasoning, but she found it impossible. She’d been so certain the allied commanders would make Bonaparte’s capture their first priority, for precisely the reasons his lordship had stated. But it seemed she’d been wrong. Was the only answer for one determined man to pursue the former emperor in a quest for justice?

“This news is five days old!” the earl fumed. “Who knows where Bonaparte could be by now? There are plenty of ports within a five-day journey of Paris. If he slips aboard a frigate and sails away—”

“Surely the Royal Navy will be watching the ports.” Even as she said it, Hannah knew she was clutching at straws. One look at the map of France on which they had been marking reports of Bonaparte’s whereabouts showed hundreds of miles of coastline.

“The Royal Navy let him slip away from Elba!” the earl shot back as if she had been personally responsible for their lapse. “If Bonaparte slips though their fingers again and sails away for parts unknown, it will be a thousand times worse than before. At least on Elba his actions could be monitored to some degree. If he flees to America or the Indies, he could return at any time of his own choosing, perhaps at the head of a naval force raised from among our enemies.”

The alarm and desperation in his lordship’s voice was contagious. Deep in her bones Hannah felt what a terrible thing it would be for so many people if Napoleon Bonaparte was not stopped now. But she could not bear to see Lord Hawkehurst return to France on a single-handed quest to track him down. In a few more days the doctor would declare him well enough to rise from his sickbed. That would
not
mean he was fit to ride and sail for long distances, eating and sleeping under who knew what conditions. Not to mention the danger he would face if he did corner the man who had brought Europe to its knees.

“I was wrong to assume others would capture Bonaparte without any help from you,” she admitted, difficult as that was for her. “I often say if I want something done properly I can trust no one to do it but myself. I understand why you must feel that way about so vital a task.”

“You do?” The earl sounded a bit suspicious to hear her agree with him.

At least he seemed calmer. Hannah was anxious to do anything to keep him that way. The last thing she wanted was for the earl to give in to his frustration and do something that might jeopardize his recovery.

“Of course I can.” She retrieved the newspaper and set it out of his reach. She did not want him to read anything else that might set him off. “But the best thing you can do at present is continue to gather information and concentrate on recovering your strength.”

As soon as she said it, Hannah realized she should have omitted one of those things.

“Information?” The earl indicated the map of France with a disdainful sweep of his arm. “That is what galls me. My information is so far behind Bonaparte’s actual movements. He will have an even greater lead by the time I am fit to follow his trail. For all I know, he may already have set sail for parts unknown.”

“That is possible.” Hannah had far more sympathy with his self-appointed mission than when he’d first told her of it. But it was still at odds with the promise she’d made to his wife. More than ever, she wanted to keep him safe at Edgecombe with her and the children.

Not with
her,
Hannah’s conscience chided, with
his children.

“B-but,” she continued, flustered by her inadvertent thought, “if Bonaparte has fled the Continent, I have no doubt you will be able to pick up his trail once you are well. Surely the worst thing you could do would be to start after him before you are fully recovered.”

That was all she could do for the moment—plead the state of his health to postpone his going for as long as possible. Hopefully by then she could find some other excuse to delay him.

The earl gave a grudging nod. “You talk good sense as always, Miss Fletcher. But you must realize by now patience is not one of my virtues. I hope you know I am not angry with
you,
only with my situation. You are all that has made it bearable for this long...you and the children.”

A bolt of dizzying happiness shot through Hannah. She told herself it was only relief that the recent cordiality between them had not been shattered after all. “I am pleased to have been of service, sir.”

“Everything you have done in the past month has gone far beyond the duties for which you were engaged.” Every trace of his earlier frustration had left the earl’s voice. Instead the mellow warmth of appreciation infused it. “Perhaps it has been that way ever since you came to Edgecombe?”

His questioning inflection seemed to request an answer.

“Not at first.” Hannah could not lift her gaze from her lap. “But over time her ladyship came to see how anxious I was to be of assistance. She began to rely on me and take me into her confidence. I believe she was rather lonely by herself in this big house.”

Lonely and neglected by a husband who put his military duty ahead of his family life. Now that Hannah had come to know the earl better, she realized it was not as simple as that. She could not place all the blame for her ladyship’s unhappiness on the earl. Yet more than ever, she pitied his late wife. How hard it must be to love someone who could not return the feeling.

“I know her ladyship appreciated your companionship and support. I wish I had done the same much sooner. Tell me, have we received a reply to my invitation from Lord and Lady Benedict?”

The abrupt change of subject caught Hannah off guard, as did his use of the word
we.
“N-not yet, sir. I only sent it the day before yesterday.”

The earl could be excused for thinking it had been longer. The past few weeks had altered Hannah’s perception of time. In some ways the hours and days flew by all too quickly. The end of his lordship’s convalescence was approaching faster than she would have liked. On the other hand, so many things had happened and so much had changed—particularly her attitude toward Lord Hawkehurst—that his wife’s death seemed a very long time ago.

* * *

He should never have spoken so sharply to Hannah Fletcher yesterday, Gavin chided himself as he waited for her to return from church and bring his infant daughter for another visit. Though it vexed him beyond bearing that Bonaparte had been permitted to escape from Paris, the situation was no fault of hers. If the allied commanders had done their duty with the capable dedication Miss Fletcher brought to every task she undertook, Gavin had no doubt Bonaparte would be safely under arrest by now.

When he had first told her of his mission, Miss Fletcher had not seemed to grasp its urgency. But lately he sensed a welcome change in her outlook. She might not
approve
of him leaving Edgecombe and the children long enough to bring Bonaparte to justice, but at least she seemed to understand the necessity.

His attitude had undergone some change, as well, he was forced to admit. Somehow he had grown to share Miss Fletcher’s hope that someone else might accomplish the task he was prevented from undertaking. He had begun to picture himself remaining at Edgecombe, making a life with his young family, secure in the knowledge that Napoleon Bonaparte would not make another curtain call on the European stage.

Friday’s news from Paris had shattered that fledgling hope and sent a slimy wave of shame washing over him. Poor Molesworth seemed to reproach him for his conflicted feelings about the vow he had made. His instinctive reaction had been to deny those reservations and recommit himself to his mission with greater determination. If he could have leaped from his bed and set off for France immediately it would have been much easier. Instead he was forced to cool his heels while unreliable, days-old news fed his frustration. Meanwhile his growing affection for his infant son and daughter threatened to tie him down with gossamer threads.

Part of him had regretted lashing out at Miss Fletcher even as he vented his frustration on her. He’d been certain she would strike back, or retreat into the kind of injured silence with which he was all too familiar and against which he had no defense. Instead she seemed to understand, which had soothed his explosive emotions. He could not imagine how he would have borne the past ten days without her. The time she spent with him sped by while her brief absences seemed to stretch on and on.

This one, for instance. It gave him far too much time to think.

He reflected on what he must do once he recovered and on the tug of reluctance he did not want to feel. After pondering the matter for some time, Gavin finally hit on a solution. He must tell Miss Fletcher not to bring the babies for any more visits. Surely he had proven he cared for his children. The more time he spent with them, the harder it would be for him to leave Edgecombe. Once he returned home with his vow fulfilled, he would have all the time in the world to renew their acquaintance. It was not as if they were capable of noticing his absence or pining for his company. They were far too young to have the slightest idea who he was.

By the time Hannah Fletcher arrived with her precious bundle, Gavin had resolved this would be his last visit with little Alice until he had accomplished his mission. Instead of allowing his feelings for her to hold him back, he would make them an incentive to succeed as quickly as possible so he could return to his family.

“Lady Alice is not asleep today,” Miss Fletcher announced in a doting tone. “She wants to be wide-awake to see her dearest papa.”

“About that...” Gavin instinctively opened his arms to receive the baby. Once he drew her toward him and gazed into her wide blue eyes, he could not remember what he’d wanted to say except, “Good day to you, sweet Alice. I declare, you have grown bigger since I saw you last.”

Without warning, his daughter’s solemn, delicate features blossomed into a great toothless smile that made his whole chest ache with tenderness for her. His mouth stretched into an answering grin that he knew must look positively simpleminded. But he did not care.

“Did you see that?” he cried, anxious to share the experience. “She smiled at me. Come and look, Miss Fletcher!”

“Her wet nurse told me she had begun to smile.” Hannah Fletcher perched on the edge of the bed and leaned in close. “But I was not able to coax one out of her. I suppose you have been saving all your smiles for your papa, haven’t you, Lady Alice?”

“Were you, indeed?” Gavin asked his daughter with a delighted chuckle. “Were you saving your smiles for me?”

It felt right to have Hannah Fletcher by his side to share this joyful moment. If it had not been for her, he would never have experienced one of his daughter’s first smiles. Somehow he managed to tear his gaze away from the baby long enough to glance up at her. In her eyes he saw reflected the same protective, nurturing love he felt for his tiny daughter. No fine silks or jewels could have made her look lovelier.

The two of them sat there cooing and chortling like a pair of besotted fools rather than a fierce cavalry officer and an imperturbable governess. They gibbered and pulled faces—anything to coax another smile from his little daughter. When she did favor them with a wet, gummy grin, they went into transports of delight as if nothing had ever made them so happy. Gavin had to admit he’d never felt this kind of buoyant joy before.

He told himself it was entirely due to his sweet tiny daughter, though he had a faint troubling sense there might be something more to it. Alice was one of the first people close to him who did not judge and condemn his actions; she made him feel entirely accepted and loved. He wondered if that was a truer reflection of divine love than the stern, punishing patriarch he had envisioned for so long.