With This Ring (12 page)

“
I did. Stupid, wasn’t it? I blame
it on the siege. When you’re in the middle of one, it’s hard to
believe that it will ever end. And who knows? Maybe I would be
killed, and not have to face my mother, my aunt, or the young lady
on the neighboring estate, who I regret to add, did harbor some
expectations in my direction.” He peered at her. “I do not know
that I have ever seen a more skeptical expression, Miss
Perkins.”

“
I doubt you have,” she agreed. “And
who is this paragon you invented?”

“
We—Percy Wilkins, I, and my gunnery
sergeant—we created a daughter of the regiment. I believe we made
her father a major from a very good family. After Badajoz, Percy
found a miniature among the ruins, and included that with the
letters and the marriage license, of course, so Aunt Chalmers would
be satisfied.”

“
How did you find
that?”

“
Simple, my dear. We located a
priest only too eager to help us, especially when it was pointed
out to him that his head would look better on his shoulders. You
should have seen it: all Latin, with gold lettering, and a seal
something like what the lord chancellor must use. They really do it
up right in Spain.” He watched her face. “I can see that you are
not impressed, Lydia. Wait, it gets worse.”

“
How could I doubt it?”

“
Did you meet Percy Wilkins, my
lieutenant?”

Lydia shook her head. “I have a
feeling that I am going to be profoundly grateful that I did
not.”

“
Percy’s a bit of a romantic.” For
the first time in his narrative, Major Reed frowned. “I think this
is where it started going wrong.”

“
You think
this
is the
place?” Lydia asked in amazement.

“
Percy decided it would be fun to
begin a correspondence with my mother. He had rather delicate
handwriting, so that was not a worry ….”

She gasped. “He has been writing for
three years ….”

“
Two, actually, with lots of help
from almost everyone in the battery.”

“… 
to your poor
mother?”

“
And my aunt. They can’t wait to
meet Lady Laren.” He scratched his head. “Matter of fact, neither
can I. I’m certainly ripe for suggestions, Miss Perkins.” He took a
long look at her, and she stood up quickly and started to back
away, even before he continued. “Are you interested in getting
married?”

M
ajor Reed
laughed and motioned her back. “I did not expect a general stampede
to the door!” he protested, his good humor intact. “You wound
me.”

She returned to the table, quite in
charity with him, since he was so obviously joking. I can certainly
respond in kind, she thought as she sat down again and folded her
hands in front of her. “Dear Major, while I am not insensible to
the honor which you do me, I must decline with regret,” she said.
“There now, I think I said that right.” She dipped the quill in the
ink again and continued her copying. “Seems a pity to turn down my
first offer, Major, but I doubt that you and I would suit.” She
started to laugh again, and he joined in.

He lay back on his cot again. “You
see my dilemma, Miss Perkins.” He frowned at her. “Your first
offer? I can hardly believe that. What is wrong with the men of
Devon?”

It was her turn to frown. “Nothing,”
she replied, “once they see my sister. Kitty has had reams of bad
poetry composed in her honor, and more proposals than are strictly
legal, I am sure.”

“
No one’s captured her heart?” the
major asked, his eyes closing again.

“
Of course not!” she replied. Kitty
has no heart to capture, she thought. “Mama is convinced that
someone so beautiful must only fall in love with a marquis or an
earl, perhaps a duke. Do have a care if you should chance to stroll
down Holly Street. You are fair game!” she teased.

He was silent quite a while, and she
thought he had drifted to sleep again. I do not know why a little
exertion won’t help you find a wife, she considered, although I do
not know that two or three weeks is precisely enough. While no jury
would convict you of being handsome, I don’t have any difficulty
looking at you. Although I am no judge, you will probably look just
as nice thirty years from now across the breakfast table. You are
certainly friendly. And stubborn, she added to herself, considering
how you have plagued Horse Guards. And honorable. What other
officer would wear himself out for his men?

“
Are you reconsidering, Miss
Perkins?”

“
No!” she retorted, startled into
smudging the paper, certain that her face was red. “You cannot
possibly succeed with this harebrained notion.”

He thought about it. “I believe I
would rather have the wife of my bosom meet with a fatal accident
than have to admit that she was a figment of my imagination,” he
said frankly. “My friends would tease me past bearing, but if it
were an accident, I think I could count on sufficient sympathy from
them to help me bear up.”

“
You should have thought of all this
when you were scheming in Spain,” she told him, as she smiled at
his wit and wondered why there were no men in Devon with a sense of
humor. “Might I suggest another solution?”

“
You know I am up for
it.”

“
The truth.”

He sat up and looked her in the eye,
and she was hard put to keep a straight face. “Miss Perkins, where
is your sense of adventure? I was lying here wondering how to find
a soldier of fortune who would be willing to murder my aunt. She
has been at death’s door for years and years, and I know she would
really like to stick her spoon in the wall and continue plaguing my
uncle, who escaped from her tongue twenty years ago! And all you
can suggest is the paltry truth.”

They laughed together. She returned
to the papers before her, and in another moment, the major was
sleeping peacefully. Well, you are no nearer to solving your
dilemma, but I cannot believe you ever considered that a woman
would just sit on your lap, she thought. She would have to be
awfully desperate to shackle herself to a man she barely knew. I
know I would never.

* * *

And yet …. “Tell me, Corporal
Davies,” she asked as he escorted her home again in the hackney.
“Major Reed is not really serious about finding a wife on such
short notice, is he?”

The corporal only grinned, and left
her to her own thoughts. He helped her down when the hackney
stopped at her house. “It took only one battle, miss, and I knew
what kind of man I was dealing with. Never underestimate the major.
I know I never do.”

“
I am convinced, Corporal, that
finding a wife must be different from conducting a … a
military campaign,” she said in protest.

The corporal only nodded, as though
he indulged a child, and climbed back inside the hackney, seating
himself with an air of complaisance that she found amusing. “Very
well, I will own that your major is a remarkable gentleman, but
ladies do not enter into marriage so lightly,” she told him as the
footman opened the front door for her.

“
Oh, we’ll see, Miss Perkins” was
the last thing she heard as the jehu spoke to his horses and the
corporal settled in for his return to St. Barnabas.

Her amusement carried over into
dinner, where she found it remarkably easy to let her own thoughts
entertain her. A smile or a nod occasionally in Mama’s direction
served to keep her parent at bay. I am becoming so good at this,
she thought, as Kitty smirked and simpered her way through a
commentary on today’s fitting, and the receipt of a most-coveted
invitation to a luncheon alfresco. Kitty even thinks I am
interested in what she says. It would do Kitty no good to
contemplate the hard fact that most of the world already eat their
meals outdoors, and not by invitation. And probably without
strawberries dipped in sugar.

Her mental picture of Kitty nibbling
on raw meat plucked from the arrow point of a Mohican quite ruined
any gravity she could have brought to the discussion, which by now
had moved onto the fact that Kitty’s host was the son of a
viscount, somewhat spotty and rejoicing in a lisp, but worth a
great deal, on his father’s death.

“
What do you think, Lyddy?” Kitty
was asking.

Think? Think? When I am still
diverted by a Stone Age vision of Kitty eating on the ground? This
will never do. “Actually, my dear, I was not actually attending to
your conversation,” she confessed. “Do refresh my mind.”

Kitty frowned. “Lydia, this is above
all serious! I want to know if you think I should wear white or
blue muslin to a picnic.”

Lydia smiled and turned her
attention to her plate. “I think you should send ‘round a penny
post to ask the viscount what he is wearing, so you can
match.”

Kitty’s beautiful blue eyes grew
even more round. “You cannot be serious!”

“
Lydia, there is no hope for you!”
Mama groaned, flinging down her napkin like a gauntlet. “You have
put me off my feed!”

That can’t be difficult, Lydia
thought as she calmly continued eating, particularly since you have
already consumed lamb, fish, and sirloin in the last two courses,
not to mention soup and savories. “I’m sorry for that, Mama,” she
said cheerfully, pleased to feel no fear at her mother’s combative
tone. There is something about working—seriously working—for people
who need my help that could go a long way to making me braver, she
thought. She glanced at her father, happy to note his half
smile.

But there is no sense in rocking
anyone’s boat, she told herself. “Kitty, I suggest that you wear
something other than white, because of the possibility of grass
stains,” she said.

Her sister directed shocked eyes at
her. “Lyddy, I cannot imagine we would be grubbing about on the
ground!”

“
It is a picnic, my dear,” she
replied calmly, wondering where, all these years, she received the
strength to remain sober and upright when she wanted to laugh at
Kitty’s numerous stupidities. “That is, I believe, most generally
where one finds grass.”

Any botanical comment on her
sister’s part was canceled by Stanton’s appearance in the doorway.
“Sir Humphrey and Lady Luisa, there is a gentleman—or rather, a
soldier of some sort—to speak to Miss Perkins. Shall I show him
up?”

“
Not if it is that common corporal
who brings her home each evening,” Lady Perkins said with a
shudder.

The butler hesitated, looked around,
and actually addressed Sir Humphrey. “Sir, I rather think it is an
officer, but his uniform is so faded that it is only a
conjecture.”

“
Why, show him in, Stanton,” Sir
Humphrey said as his wife stared at him. “Best to show a little
courtesy to the men who helped keep Napoleon out of our salons and
drawing rooms, my love.” He spoke quietly but firmly, to Lydia’s
delight.

She knew it was Major Reed, and
indeed, he came into the room even before Stanton could return to
fetch him. She rose and left the table, then started to laugh. “Oh,
Major, did I forget another hat?” she asked, quite overlooking that
her mother and Kitty were watching.

Even wearing a uniform faded by the
Peninsular sun and stooped by his injury, the major looked every
inch the soldier, except for the two straw bonnets he carried. He
smiled, and Lydia couldn’t help but think that in a newer uniform,
and standing more upright, he probably could find a lady to marry
him, possibly even on short notice.

I do believe the men of the
artillery have the finest uniform, she thought, and not for the
first time as she observed the rows and rows of gold braid
stretching across his chest. The fit is loose, though; I fear the
major has lost weight during his illness. I did give him a good
haircut, however.

With a smile of his own, he handed
her both bonnets. “Miss Perkins, it won’t do to be absentminded,”
he chided her. “My men and I are convalescing, and we cannot be
expected to mount a guard over your hats to prevent
mice.”

“
Indeed you cannot,” she agreed with
him. She took his arm, wishing that Kitty would close her mouth,
and not look so astonished. “May I introduce Lord Laren, Major
Reed, Commander of Battery B of Picton’s Third?”

Her mother still sat dumbfounded,
but her father rose and came to shake his hand. “I am Sir Humphrey
Perkins, my lord. This is my wife, Lady Luisa, and our younger
daughter Kitty. Won’t you join us for the rest of
dinner?”

The major shook his head. “Thank
you, no, but I am on my way to General Picton’s quarters.” To
Lydia’s profound amazement, he took her mother by the hand. “Lady
Luisa, may I congratulate you on your daughter Lydia? I can’t
remember when I have ever met a more useful female. I am certain
the credit is yours.” He turned next to Kitty, and flashed a smile
that made Lydia’s stomach ping about, for some odd reason. “Ah,
Miss Kitty Perkins! Several of my brother officers have been lucky
enough to see you at Almack’s, and indeed, words do fail them,
according to their reports. I understand why.”

Considering that Kitty still stood
with her mouth open, Lydia could not be sure if he were serious.
She watched with some interest as he turned next to her father.
“Sir Humphrey, you are lucky indeed to be the proud one in charge
of three—three!—such gems. Surely you will not mind if I borrow
Miss Perkins for the evening? I thought not. Thank you, sir!
General Picton is most particular in wanting to see
her.”