The Wedding Affair (Rebel Hearts series Book 1) (21 page)

“Sally?” Rutherford was peering out the window. “Was that my carriage going out with Captain Hastings inside?”

Sally hurried across the room in time to catch a last glimpse of the carriage disappearing from view. “I believe so. Did you not know he was leaving?”

“He is not to leave and I told him so.” Her grandfather scowled. “Where the devil is he taking my carriage?”

“He never said a word.” She noticed the dining table in the adjoining room had already been set for two. “Are you expecting someone?”

“Yes. Him.” Rutherford shuffled around to stare at her. “I require him here. What did you say to him?”

“Nothing. He was very helpful this morning.” Sally worried at her lip. “You need not concern yourself. I am certain he will return and explain the situation we found ourselves in with Mr. Frazer to your satisfaction.”

“He told you I sent him.” The duke drew close and peered into her face. The shrewd inspection was very familiar. “You are not angry with me then?”

“The weapons were a little excessive and obvious since he had not carried any before. Are you playing games with him?”

“Hardly.” The duke pursed his lips as if he had tasted bitter fruit. “It is your father who plays games, and damn the consequences for everyone else.”

Sally raised a brow at that outburst. Father and Rutherford often did not see eye to eye. Rutherford was usually annoyed that her father spent so much of his time with the admiralty and none at all here. “His presence was remarkably helpful actually. It seems Mrs. Frazer has fallen in love with someone else and run off. She left a letter behind that Felix read to him because he could not. The man was very upset about it.”

The duke grunted. “After you mentioned your concerns about the wife, I sent Morgan out to discover if there was any gossip. They were all so very taciturn that he could not get a hint of the truth. It seems our clever captain made the right sort of impression if he could understand a man like Frazer on first meeting.”

Our clever captain?
Rutherford hardly ever complimented sailors, so his praise of Felix was noteworthy.
“He also promised Frazer he could count on assistance for the repairs he now needs to the cottage from Newberry.”

“Oh, did he now?” The duke nodded firmly. “I was right about him then. Always willing to take charge in a difficult situation but not take the credit. He would make an exceptional estate manager when peace comes.”

“Estate manager? But that has been my role for years.”

The duke cupped her cheeks and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “And you are getting married in a few days’ time, might I remind you. Who will run the place when you leave, eh? Who will be my legs and eyes and ears when you are far away? Certainly not your sister, and I have already asked far too much of your aunt and mother as it is.”

“Louisa would indeed be much too timid to confront the tenants when they are being obstinate.” Sally grimaced. “Even I find that difficult.”

“Our brave, brave girl. What we need is a man with a presence that can get things done. A competent man who will tolerate no nonsense. Someone who knows our methods would be preferred, but also able to compromise within reason. What do you say you show Felix the ropes while I tempt him to stay on?”

Sally shook her head. “I do not think you will be in luck.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Until today, he appeared very comfortable around the estate. I wonder what could have prompted him to leave so suddenly. He was in remarkably good spirits this morning. Has anyone been difficult about your former betrothed being at Newberry?”

“No. Hardly anyone mentions our past relationship even in private, and I still have not mentioned it to Lord Ellicott. He wandered deeper into the stables after Ellicott found me there.” Her voice trailed off as understanding dawned. Felix had turned away as soon as his replacement, Lord Ellicott, had reappeared in her life.

The closeness she craved had vanished as soon as he had spotted the earl, and why would he not turn away from them?

“Probably for the best. Dudley and he need to become acquainted if he is to take up duties here,” the duke murmured, missing Sally’s conclusion entirely. “Felix has made a good effort to restore his friendship with your mother and sister and cousins already, so that is a wonderful start to having him live here. Your mother will be the duchess when my time comes, and given your father’s undependable nature and his dislike of country living, I would not rest easy thinking Maggie had no one to depend on.”

“Mother does have staff of her own.”

“Who mollycoddle her moods just as much as you do.” The duke banged the floor with his canes. “She must have more than just blood relations to guide her. She needs someone who will not abuse her trust. You cousin Rothwell trusts the captain, and we both know how cynical he can be. If Maitland were out of danger I would not have this worry, but even he will have a lot to do on his return. Oh, if only this wretched war would end soon,” Rutherford grumbled with more heat than usual.

“Please, Grandfather. Calm yourself. Maitland will be back. I have no doubt of that nothing could keep my brother away from us for long. And Fredrick and Laurence and William will return one day soon as well.” Sally rushed to her grandfather’s side and gripped his shoulder, feeling the sharpness of bones rather than the muscle of his younger days. “Felix would look after the family’s interests before his own, I am very sure of that. We can always offer him the position and see what he says about it. I do think he likes it here.”

And with that, Sally committed herself to securing Felix for Newberry Park’s estate manager. It pained her that she would have to see him whenever she returned to visit her family, but that could not be helped. He could be of use to them and be as happy here as Sally had always been.

All she had to do was convince him to accept the position after the war was won. If he survived to see the day come. She glanced out the window and spotted Ellicott passing by the study windows. He was waiting for her to finish talking with her grandfather so he could lure her to a private spot and try to kiss her again. He looked to still be in a bit of a temper too. “Would you like company for luncheon?”

The duke spotted Ellicott too. “Just you? No one else?”

Sally nodded quickly, relieved to her core to have an excuse to avoid Ellicott for a little while longer. “Just me. I am sure Mother will not mind entertaining our guests without the pair of us.”

Rutherford studied her long and hard, one brow rising slowly. “Maggie has always been a congenial hostess. I am positive she will not mind at all.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“N
ow that is one fiery wench,” Gabriel Jennings said as the innkeeper’s wife sauntered past their table yet again, juggling a pile of dirty plates and tankards.

“Married woman,” Felix reminded Gabriel as he peered across the smoky dark room too. Not that he needed to point out the woman’s status. Gabriel had rules about attached women, especially those with large and dangerous husbands like the innkeeper of the Newberry Arms.

Gabriel peered into his tankard. “I can still admire a married woman’s fine temper, is that not so, Mr. Wharton?”

The innkeeper drew close with a jug of ale. “That you can, but just remember that her temper often requires an outlet and she will use whatever object is near to hand.”

Felix squinted across the room. He was just a little bit inebriated and a pleasant lassitude had washed over him some time ago. Several hours or so had passed since leaving Newberry, and although he was no closer to leaving his own bad mood behind, the fresher company and drink had managed to make his problem recede. “I think she is a fine wench too, but Mrs. Wharton also has a fire poker in hand and deserves the utmost respect.”

He toasted the woman and earned a laugh from the innkeeper.

“Another drink, Captains?”

Gabriel scowled. “He’s the captain, I am just the lone wolf in your midst.”

“You need to get yourself a wife to distract you from saying that over and over,” the innkeeper said and then scowled at Jennings. “And do stop admiring my wife, sir. Find your own.”

“I had a wife. She’s dead,” Gabriel said bitterly. He drained his tankard and slammed it on the table. “More.”

Felix leaned into Gabriel’s shoulder in sympathy. “Now, Lizbeth was a fine woman.”

“That she was.” Gabriel frowned though. “Only I never told her so often enough.”

“I am sure she knew how you felt about her,” he said. They had had this discussion earlier in the day, and the poor man still did not believe. “She was proud to be your wife.”

“You are the only one who thinks that. She married me and I drove her to her death. I should have taken her with me, or better yet have given up my commission. I had enough to live on four years ago, but no, I had to keep fighting, thinking she would be waiting when we won the day.” Gabriel stared down at his hands. “They are not like us. Women like, no need, to have men spell out their feelings in the finest of detail. If you think a wench is pretty, say so. If you love her, tell her so every day, not just the once. I did not deserve Lizbeth, so she was taken from me.”

There was not much Felix could say to that rant that he had not commented on before, so he pushed Gabriel’s refilled mug of ale toward him and hoped he would keep drinking.

The innkeeper topped off both mugs again after Gabriel had taken a long swig. “Are you married, Captain?”

Felix glanced up at the innkeeper’s question. “No.”

“He almost married once,” Gabriel told the innkeeper. “Now, that Sally is a fine wench. Quite the temper, I’ll wager.”

Felix took a sip of his fresh ale. “She is and she does. My word, she does. Usually directed at me.”

The innkeeper’s eyes lit up. “I gather you have fallen under her spell.”

“Unfortunately,” Felix said morosely, considering Sally. She had not been angry with him today. It had been wonderful when she had thrown herself into his arms. Everything had been going so well until Ellicott showed his smug face. And everything had changed for him after that.

The innkeeper drew up a stool. “What happened, Captain? If you do not mind me asking? Did she pass on too?”

“No, she lives on to haunt me in the flesh.” Felix had spent so much time not talking about Sally that he was tempted to share the burden of his mistake. “Her father’s political scheming led to her throwing me over. I did not know what her father was doing until it was too late to save us from an argument that did not end well for me.”

“She blamed you for her father’s schemes. Hard to fight that.”

“Impossible, given her loyalty to her family. Six years and she has not wavered in her conviction that I was duplicitous. I would have beaten down her door and kidnapped her if I had thought it would do me any good. Too late for that now, of course.”

The innkeeper was hailed by a customer, but he leaned closer as he stood. “Then if you still love her, you had best prove yourself a better man than her father.”

“There is no point. She is to marry another man soon, and he is titled.”

“Then you have no time to waste. If she is still angry, she must still care.” The man was hailed again. “Excuse me.”

Felix considered that piece of advice carefully. There were many reasons to keep his distance from Sally Ford. His career for one, her family for another. He would not like to have a second bloody nose courtesy of Lord Rothwell or whatever tortures her brothers could concoct.

Jennings leaned close. “You are still sitting here?”

“She is not the woman I fell in love with.” He took another sip of his ale, pondering all the ways Sally had changed over the years they had been apart. The way she dressed, modest and prim, the way she seemed conscious of every move she made around others—he missed her curses. He missed the wilder Sally of her youth. Her fallen hair and the way she would secretly come to him for a kiss and more.

“And you are not the man who landed in her father’s sticky web of political schemes without a clue how to fix things. Kiss and make up. Ask her to wait. What have you got to lose?”

“Everything I have worked so hard to obtain,” he said. “My ship, my command.”

“Believe me you can live without those. Not happily perhaps, but it is not a death sentence not being a captain.” Jennings lowered his voice. “Can you bear to watch her marry someone else, knowing the fellow is rutting with her, and never once try to win her back?”

He gritted his teeth at Jennings’s coarse description of Sally and Ellicott sharing a bed. He could not imagine Sally happily married to Lord Ellicott, and he did not want to think of her in the earl’s bed, which she probably already was, and that made him ill inside. Ellicott was a smug prick and a fortune hunter. Whenever Felix saw Ellicott near Sally, he wanted to drive his fist into the man’s pretty face and never stop.

“It is too late.”

Jennings swallowed another mouthful of ale. “It is only too late to change a mistake when one of you is dead. Until that time, there is always a choice.”

Felix gritted his teeth. No regrets, no doubts. He had feared and hoped for entanglement with Sally’s life for so long, and now he was neck deep in lust and longing once more. How the hell was he supposed to walk away this time?