Kane, Samantha - Brothers In Arms 3 (3 page)

“Mr. Schillig—” she began, but he cut her off.

“Kurt, I am Kurt,” he said softly, smiling at her. Her stomach flip-flopped at the thought of using his given name. Then Mr. Westridge picked up her hand and slid closer on the bench.

“And I am Valentine,” he said, kissing her hand. She felt the kiss deep in her core, and the fire there surprised her. She couldn’t possibly be considering this, could she?

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She looked back at the tall blond man before her. What she had to ask wasn’t the most pertinent question, considering all they had just told her, but it was the one uppermost in her mind. “Kurt,” she tried out, speaking his name slowly. She was rewarded with another smile. “What do you hope to gain if I am to take Mr.

Westridge’s name?” At the slight squeeze of her hand she looked over. “Valentine, I mean Valentine.” He also rewarded her with a smile.

“I will gain the same thing as Valentine, my dear, a wife and a mother for my children.”

Leah’s stomach clenched at his words. No, not her stomach, lower, and it was desire that caused it, not disgust. Her eyes widened as she stared at him, and she saw his brown eyes deepen with an answering desire as if he knew what she was feeling.

“This is something you would gain from also?” he asked, his accent more pronounced than it had been before.

“Perhaps,” Leah said slowly. She licked her lips nervously, her agitation growing when she saw Mr. Schillig, no Kurt, watching her mouth avidly. “But you must understand this is quite shocking to me. May I…may I inquire as to why you wish to take a wife?”

“Of course, Leah. I’m sure you have a great many questions.” Valentine sighed. “I know this is highly unusual—” Leah couldn’t stop her snort of disbelief at the sheer magnitude of that understatement. Valentine merely arched a brow and continued,

“But we hope you will at least consider our proposal.” He rubbed a thumb over her knuckles, and Leah was startled to realize he still held her hand. She gently disengaged it and folded both hands in her lap. Valentine smiled a little wistfully and moved away from her slightly, clearly recognizing her need for more space. If she was to seriously consider their proposal she needed her mind unclouded by the nearness of him.

Leah waited patiently for him to answer her question. Valentine leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, staring at the ground between his feet. “I 19

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mentioned earlier that Kurt and I were on the Peninsula together.” He looked over at Leah and she nodded.

“Yes, with Mr. Matthews.”

“Yes, with Stephen and so many others. Do you know much of war, Leah?” The question was asked casually but Leah noticed Valentine’s hands were fisted.

“No, Valentine,” she said softly, “not about the most recent I’m afraid. My own personal struggles took precedence over the news sheets.”

Valentine looked away and nodded. “That’s as it should be.” He sat back on the bench and looked at Kurt. “So many times we wondered, why are we here? What are we fighting for? What are our friends dying for? As young men you think it’s glory, heroism. But if you are there long enough you realize it’s more important things. Things such as honor and tradition, a way of life. You begin to categorize what’s important to you.” He looked at Leah. “Do you understand?”

Did she understand prioritizing your life? Oh yes, she understood. She’d had to do that many times over in the last few years. What was more important, the financial security of marrying an abusive bully, or shielding her children from the abuse they might suffer? And after that decision, what was more important, having new clothes to maintain a veneer of respectability and perhaps catch the eye of a potential husband, or making sure her children ate well? And on down the line, each decision altering her future until this moment. And now yet another decision stood before her. As with all her past decisions she would try to make a well-informed choice, but it would always, as in everything she did, be what was best for her children. They were the most important thing to her, their welfare her main concern. Valentine tipped his head to the side and regarded her quizzically and she realized she had not answered his question.

“Yes, I understand having to choose what is most important to you.”

Kurt spoke from where he had moved to lean against a tree a few feet from the bench. “Not so much choose as decide. I do not believe we were in the same situation as you, Leah.”

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Leah blushed as she saw the sympathetic look in his eyes. “No, Mr. Schillig. In my experience, men rarely are.” Kurt merely nodded once in acceptance of this fact. Still looking at Kurt, Leah asked, “And what was important to you?”

“Valentine,” was Kurt’s simple reply.

Leah turned to Valentine, who was smiling wryly. “He over-simplifies. We were important to one another, the most important thing, to be accurate. But we did not just want to survive. For many who were there too long survival became the main goal. But I, we, wanted more. We wanted a future.”

“Yes,” Kurt whispered, and when Leah looked Kurt had turned away to stare off into the hills in the distance.

“We thought very hard about what kind of future we could have, and what kind of future we wanted. As you can imagine in our situation the two are not always the same.” Valentine’s voice held a bitter note.

“That is true in most cases, Valentine, not just for you and Kurt.” Leah’s tone was bitter as well. How well she knew the taste of future happiness turned to ashes in the ruin of what was, never to experience what could have been.

“Of course. I guess we tend to forget everyone else’s troubles in light of our own.

I’m sorry, Leah.”

Leah smiled wryly. “Yes, well, I’ve been rather wrapped up in my own troubles as well. Please, go on.”

Valentine sighed. “There’s not much more actually. What I wanted was a simple life. I wanted a nice country life, a modest home, a pretty wife, children. I want my most pressing concern to be whether it is hunting season or racing season. I want a pack of dogs, a houseful of children, and with all that I want Kurt.”

“And Kurt?” Leah asked, watching the blond man slowly turn to look at her.

“I have already told you. I want Valentine.”

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“I see.” And truly she did. They were obviously in love with one another, a concept that should have shocked her but didn’t. She understood that when your back was to the wall you could no longer lie to yourself. You found yourself doing or saying things you never would have before, but when you had nothing left to lose what did it matter?

When these two men were faced with death on a daily basis they looked at one another and with perfect clarity realized this is what I want, this is what I’m fighting for. And they survived. Leah had survived for her children.

“Why me?” Leah’s question wasn’t vanity. While she knew she was attractive, she had almost nothing else to recommend her to a potential mate. She was worse than penniless since she had unpaid debts, she had two young children, and no familial connections. “Surely there were women in London, women with whom you were acquainted, that you could have asked?”

Kurt straightened from the tree. “We did. They would not have us.”

“Oh I beg your pardon,” Leah said, startled and a little embarrassed. “I just assumed I was the first woman you had approached.” She smiled self-deprecatingly.

“But now I understand, I am a last resort, am I not?”

Valentine looked very embarrassed but Kurt eyed her with approval. “You understand then where we are coming from, yes?” Kurt asked shrewdly.

“Why would they not have you?” Leah wanted to know if there was more objectionable about the two gentlemen than the fact that they were lovers. She surprised herself with that thought. Already, knowing them for less than an hour, the thought of their being lovers was unexceptional to Leah. Now that she understood them a little at least, she found them to be amiable and honest, so far. Coupled with their expensive attire and their assurances that they were financially able to take care of Leah and the children, these attributes far outweighed their unusual relationship.

Valentine looked uncomfortable. “They naturally objected to our relationship. We first approached a woman I knew before the war. She is now a widow and we’d hoped that being sexually knowledgeable she would understand that our being lovers was not 22

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the horrific act so many people decry. Particularly since she knew me before I met Kurt, we thought she would be tolerant. As we mentioned, we are both wealthy men and we thought that in exchange for our wealth she, or someone like her, would accept both of us.”

Kurt snorted in disgust. “She swooned with horror and then shrieked for us to get out. She did not wish anyone to know that we thought she would accept such an

‘unnatural’, to use her word, relationship. Her vitriolic response made us more cautious. We waited months before approaching another woman. Valentine courted her singly, although I saw her and spoke to her numerous times. Only when she had softened toward Valentine and indicated she would be receptive to a proposal did we go to her and explain our situation. She didn’t bother to swoon. She slapped Valentine’s face and accused me of being a vile seducer of good Englishmen, and threw us out.”

“But she would have taken you, Valentine? On your own? I’m sure many women would. Why didn’t you pursue that avenue, marrying individually and still keeping Kurt, separate from your marriage?”

Valentine was shaking his head before she even finished speaking. “No, that is not what I want. I want Kurt. Everything else is for us, not just for me.” The glance the two men exchanged made Leah catch her breath. Valentine looked back at her and sighed.

“After her dismissal I confided in Stephen Matthews.” He smiled at Leah. “He said he knew the perfect woman for us. I begin to believe he was right.”

Kurt chuckled. “At least you have not been slapped yet.”

“So merely on Mr. Matthews’ recommendation you traveled all the way from London to ask me to marry you?”

“Oh no, I’m sorry. I haven’t made myself clear,” Valentine said, sitting up straighter with a frown. “You see, that’s why I was talking to Stephen. We have purchased Cantley House, just a few miles from here. Certainly your familiarity with the area will help greatly as we settle in here.”

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“Cantley?” Leah asked, surprised. “I didn’t know.” She chewed her lip nervously.

“So you will be living here then?”

Valentine smiled to take the sting out of his words. “Yes, that is our plan, to live quietly in the country as I mentioned before. Not only is Stephen Matthews a friend of ours, but the Duke of Ashland is also a friend. Since Ashford Park is just on the other side of the village, Cantley was a very good find for us.”

“So my location was paramount in your decision?”

“No.” It was Kurt who answered. “Your financial difficulties were. We thought that you would have too much to gain by wedding us to object to our relationship.”

Leah was taken aback at his honest answer. It was rather demoralizing that her greatest asset to these handsome, wealthy war heroes was her destitution.

Unfortunately they may be right. Leah thought it was time to get down to business. “I should like some particulars about the marriage settlement.”

Valentine’s smile grew until it lit up his entire face. “Does that mean yes?”

“I would be a fool to agree before I hear the terms.”

They settled down to talk money. Leah ruthlessly crushed the sentimental part of herself that longed for romance and courtship. She wasn’t a young girl anymore. She had a family to provide for. She would never leave herself open to the kind of poverty she had suffered since her first marriage. She had been young then with no father or male relation of any kind to ensure a proper marriage settlement. She was older and wiser now.

When they were done Leah was stunned. Valentine and Kurt weren’t just wealthy.

A friend of theirs was a genius at investing and they had a combined income that was an outrageous amount to someone in Leah’s situation. They wished to settle a goodly sum on Leah. She would have the interest of that money to spend as she saw fit. They also promised her extra pin money quarterly, and a generous dowry for Esme and school fees for Bastian.

“Will you marry us, Leah?” Valentine asked as she sat there in shock.

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“I…” she hesitated, unsure of how to answer him. Would the money make up for the potential ostracism she and the children might bear should Kurt and Valentine’s relationship become public knowledge?

“Please, Leah,” begged Valentine, “don’t decide now. Take some time to think about it, please.” He raised her hand and kissed it again, and Leah’s eyes were pulled back to him. He kept her hand pressed lightly to his lips as he spoke. “From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were the one. We were meant to be together, Leah. Just give us a chance to prove it.”

His words touched her in a way she hadn’t been moved since Thomas had courted her. She felt desirable, pretty, young again. And of course, she
was
in desperate financial straits. She looked at Kurt standing there, his eyes again burning with desire. “All right, Valentine,” she whispered. “I will give you a chance.”

* * * * *

“Then you will come for dinner tomorrow evening,” Valentine said for the third or fourth time. Leah smiled. The three had walked around the cottage to where the two men had left their horses beneath a large tree. The small Northcott home had no stables or grooms.

She had agreed to think about their proposal and to meet them the following evening with an answer. “Yes, I’ll come. We’d heard that someone had purchased Cantley, but I didn’t know it was you.”

Kurt stood in the sunshine, his blond hair gleaming. “We were friends with the late brother of the Duke of Ashland during the war, and have come to know the new Duke quite well. His companion, Mr. Haversham, is also a close friend. With Stephen here as well, it seemed the ideal place to settle down.”