The Bridal Season (17 page)

Good gads. What was wrong with Sir Elliot that he couldn’t
recognize her youth? Perhaps he wasn’t so perfect after all. Clearly, he wanted
spectacles.

“Is something wrong?” Bronze color filled his lean cheeks. “Of
course something is wrong. I checked up on you as I would have some vagrant
who’d arrived in town with a line of patter and empty pockets.”

Letty swallowed, disagreeably conscious that a satchel stuffed
with Lady Agatha’s things leaned against her legs. Guilt reared its ugly, and
hitherto happily unfamiliar, head. “Don’t feel bad. I’m sure you had good
reasons.” Though what they might be, she couldn’t imagine. Her impersonation
had been spot on. “Just what
were
your reasons?”

“They hardly bear comment,” he answered uncomfortably.

“I imagine I’ve more flash than you’d expected from a duke’s
daughter.”

“Yes.” He leapt on her suggestion. “That’s it.”

She settled back. “Ah, well, then. In that case your caution
was perfectly understandable. You
are
the local magistrate, after all.”

“You’re kind as well as generous. But my actions are
nonetheless inexcusable.”

“I beg to differ. I excuse them.” She waved away his gravity.
“So, see? No harm done.”

“But there is,” he insisted. “Suspicion and caution have been
my talismans, Lady Agatha, and I have obeyed their dictates because I have
learned it is better to err on the side of distrust than to put people at risk
through blind acceptance.”

The rising wind blew the lapels of his jacket against his
throat. He didn’t even notice. He was speaking of some specific incident, she
was certain of it.

Alarm bells jangled along her nerves. She didn’t want to know
more about him— No, that wasn’t true.

She wanted to know
everything
about him and that scared
her. She’d never met a man like him. She probably never would again.

“Where did you learn such a thing?”

For a moment, she thought he would evade her query. He was too
much of a gentleman to tell her it was none of her affair.

“In the army. In the Sudan. I was under the command of a... an
officer known for his tactical genius. I was so proud to be his subaltern.” His
bearing had become stiff.

“He betrayed you.”

“I was idealistic. So young.” He glanced at her and his smile
was apologetic. “My brother Terence had died in the Zulu Wars and upon hearing
of his death I enlisted immediately, itching to take up the banner. I was sent
to the Middle East.

“You’ve met my father.” His gaze softened with affection. “You
might imagine the sort of upbringing we had. We’d been taught since the cradle
that England is the greatest nation in the world and that her greatness rests
firmly on a foundation of justice for all her citizens.”

“Yes. Justice.”

“The officer of whom I spoke drank heavily, but never in the
field. Except for one time.”

She waited.

“It was late and my troop was ten miles inland, on point duty.
We didn’t expect any action. Things had been quiet for days, but that night one
of my scouts returned with some information that the enemy was amassing to the
east of our main encampment. I sent a messenger with the information at once.”

“To the commanding officer.”

“Yes. There was no reply. The next day, as was expected, the
enemy attacked his forces. We arrived too late for the fighting. It was... a
disaster. So many dead and maimed.” His eyes were filled with remembered horror.
“I sought out the commanding officer to find out what had gone wrong. He
claimed he had never received my message.”

This time when he looked at her there was a savage bitterness
in his face. “I then found the messenger, a man I’d trusted implicitly. He was
in a field hospital. He’d been horribly wounded in the battle and must have
been in terrible agony, but it was the slur on his honor that consumed his
final thoughts.

“He swore to me he
had
delivered my message, but that
the commander had been too sotted to read it so my man had read the message
aloud. He also swore that he thought the information had sobered the commander
sufficiently for him to act or at least call upon those who would act in his
stead. He was wrong. But that’s the devil of it. There weren’t any witnesses.
The commander was alone.”

“How terrible,” Letty breathed.

“Yes. It was a betrayal, not only of a soldier this officer
was responsible for, but of all the principles for which we fought. And the
commander got away with it. Do you know, he actually was in the process of
bringing a court-martial against the messenger when the poor man died?” A deep
mystification and ineffable sense of personal failure suffused his tone.

“What did you do?”

“I confronted him. He was... most disturbed that I believed my
man’s word over his and at first kept to his story. But I would not stop. I
knew there was no chance he would ever confess publicly to his lie, but I would
have the truth.” The look in his eye made her shiver.

“And did you get it?”

“Yes. He admitted to me that he had ‘perhaps been incapable of
adequately performing his duties,’ but insisted he had no memory of a message
having been delivered. Of course my note had vanished. He also said, and I
remember this most of all, that the English army could not afford to lose his
tactical genius and that the soldier’s sacrifice had, in the long run, been
worth it. Wasn’t it happy, he asked me, that he’d died before things had gotten
ugly? And what more glorious death than to die in the service of one’s
country?”

“You disagreed.”

He flung her a grateful look. “Fervently. The man died
fighting for a nation that promised him justice and honor, and in the end he
was betrayed by promises we did not keep.

“I have made it my life’s work to make certain justice is more
than a chimera. In order for justice to be served, we must in turn serve her.
She can never be taken for granted.”

Silence fell between them. Even the wind died down. Only the
slight rustle of the grasses disturbed the stillness.

“What happened to the commander?”

“He was investigated.” He didn’t need to say under whose
insistence. “But no evidence of any wrongdoing was ever established. The case
never came to court. A few years later he died of natural causes.”

He looked at her gravely. “I did not tell you this story to
win your pity. I told it by means of explaining my actions toward you. But
explanation does not serve as an excuse. It is I who am sorry.”

“Please, there is no need.”

“There is, though,” he disagreed. He paused, his gaze
lingering wonderingly on her face. His voice softened. “It is ridiculous to
distrust that a vibrant, uninhibited woman is just exactly what she appears to
be simply because I have never met her like before.”

No. Oh, no.
Letty shifted uncomfortably. “To be wary is
no crime, Sir Elliot.”

“No, but unwarranted scrutiny can too easily become
persecution,” he said. “I thank you for reminding me of that before I could do
unforgivable harm to an innocent person.”

She was struck mute with guilt. He should be wary. He should heed
the lesson he’d learned at such terrible cost. He shouldn’t trust anyone.
Especially not her. Worst of all, when he finally
did
discover how she’d
duped him—and he would—he’d
never
trust again. Not anyone. But how could
she tell him without putting herself in danger? To even consider it was
madness—

“I think you were right to send a query about me,” she blurted
out. There. She’d said it. Good enough.

“Pardon me?”

“You can’t trust appearances. Believe me. I know.”

Why in God’s name was she still talking? “You should always
make certain you know what cards you’ve been dealt. Take a good, hard look at
anything fishy.”

Good God, she
was
going mad!

“Be careful. The world is filled with tricksters, liars, and
thieves. And they don’t go around wearing placards announcing themselves. You
were right to check up on me. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

He regarded her gently. “I wish you didn’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“Clearly from the ardency of your voice you, or someone close
to you, was betrayed. I am sorry.”

She remembered just in time to keep her jaw from going slack.
Good heavens, he meant it. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t say a word. She could
only stare at him and wish that she was the woman he thought she was, that she
deserved his tenderness, his concern.

She was a sham, a compilation of second-rate characters from
abbreviated farces. The stage directors had all been right. She’d never be a
star. She couldn’t tap into the deeper emotions because she didn’t have any.
She was the consummate understudy. An empty vessel waiting to be filled with
other people’s emotions.

“I am sorry, Agatha.”

“Letty,” she murmured miserably.

“Excuse me?”

She started. She couldn’t believe her blunder. If she insisted
on acting like an idiot, she might as well just turn herself in here and now.
But she
wasn’t
going to turn herself in. She was overwrought. That was
all.

She must snap out of this self-destructive frame of mind. She
plastered a smile on her face. “My friends call me Letty.”

“Letty,” he repeated, testing the syllables and seeming to
like them. “It suits you. A pet name?”

“My middle name.” It was difficult to cling to hard
practicality when he smiled at her like that. His eyes were so beautiful, his
smile so tender.

He reached out and swept a tress of hair from her brow. His
finger stayed, lingered, following the shallow indent at her temple, the outer
curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw. Scintillating, devastating desire
began to spill liquid heat through her limbs. She forgot her unpleasant
introspection. She forgot her fear. She inclined her head a little, leaning in
to his caress.

“I fear I am doomed to spend most of my time with you
apologizing,” he said. But he didn’t look in the least remorseful.

“Why is that?”

“Because I can’t seem to keep my hands off you.”

Her heart thudded in her chest. “Oh.”

His hand circled to the back of her neck. She closed her eyes.
Gently, he brushed a kiss across her mouth, a sweet, honeyed kiss, a whetting
of passion. Her lips parted a sliver, her head tilted back in anticipation of more.

None came.

She opened her eyes. He’d settled back in his seat, regarding
her with a hungry, amused, and heated intensity. One side of his mouth lifted
sardonically.

Was he playing her for a fool, or teasing her, or was
she—unbelievable as it seemed—simply out of her depth?

“Just what is this game?” she demanded. “What exactly are you
doing?”

“Why, Letty,” he answered. “I’m courting you.”

Nothing seduces vanity

like the word “help.”

“YOU CAN’T LEAVE,” CABOT SAID. HE STOOD inside her bedroom
door, his jowls even droopier than usual.

“Now, Cabot-me-love, who’d have thought that you’d go sweet on
me.” Letty bit through the thread and dropped the spool back into Lady Agatha’s
work-basket.

“Please refrain from levity, Letty. I mean this. You can’t
leave The Hollies.”

Letty held the needle up to the light and squinted as she
slipped the threaded end neatly through the eye. “I’m not leaving. I’m sewing.
And I won’t be able to finish sewing and get this dress done for dinner unless
you let me get on with it.”

She picked up a fold of the deep green-and-lilac-striped
muslin. She wished Cabot would leave. Her head was crowded with unnerving
thoughts, ridiculous thoughts.

What had Sir Elliot meant, saying that he was “courting her?”
He couldn’t mean it. There had to be some explanation. “Courting” probably
didn’t have the same meaning to his class as it did for her sort. He couldn’t
really mean what she thought he meant... because then she... Well, he just
couldn’t mean it, is all!

“
—In order to protect you, I burned it.”

Cabot’s last words penetrated Letty’s thoughts. “Burned what?”

“Lady Agatha’s letter to Miss Bigglesworth.”

“What?” The dress slipped from Letty’s fingers. “What letter?”

“The letter Miss Bigglesworth received from Lady Agatha while
you were in Little Bidewell yesterday afternoon. For heaven’s sake, Letty, this
is important. You really must make every effort to attend,” he said.

Letty ignored his peeved tone. If she intended to bolt, she’d
need to know how much time she had to do it in. “What was in the letter,
Cabot?”

Cabot sniffed. “It was a private correspondence, Miss Potts. I
would never—”

Letty wasn’t having it. “If you’d burn it, I don’t think you’d
have any compunction about reading it. So what did she say?
This
is
important, Cabot.”

Cabot’s superiority fell away with a sigh. “It was short. She
apologized for the inconvenience caused by her marriage and sent a money order
reimbursing the Bigglesworths for their initial outlay. She then listed some
firms in London whose services she could recommend to replace her own, and
closed by stating that she would be out of the country for several months. On
her honeymoon.”

Letty blew out a deep breath. Good. Lady Agatha was still
safely away and the Bigglesworths none the wiser. Her immediate danger passed,
she found herself smiling. She lifted the seam she’d been working on again.
“Good for her,” she said.

“Good for her,” Cabot intoned, “but not good at all for Miss
Angela.”

“Well, there is that,” Letty conceded, her needle flashing
expertly. It left little Angie in the lurch, and Angie already had problems
enough, what with the former boyfriend making threatening noises. Not that it
was any of her lookout. She smoothed the newly created seam with her fingers. A
bit of lace would cover the crease on the outside and dress it up a bit.