A Christmas Charade (14 page)

Disgusted with his body’s show of weakness, he tossed off the glass of wine. The claret hit his empty stomach, then spread a welcome warmth. He was
not
getting old. Must have been Fanny’s talk of marriage and nurseries that planted the notion of age in his mind.

Nicholas, contrary to his indolent nature, started to pace.

After a moment of heavy silence, Nicholas said grudgingly, “Very well. I admit it wasn’t your fault that we looked for the cave in the wrong place. And since Decimus knew about the smugglers, I admit also that there was no point keeping it from George Wilmott or anyone else. I wonder, though, how your uncle knew.”

“The smugglers were already plying their trade when he and my father grew up here at Stenton.”

“The deuce!” Nicholas choked on a sip of wine. “I can understand that
you
didn’t know, since your father never talked of Stenton. But Whitehall? Didn’t Liverpool or Yorke look into the matter?”

“The way they talked, they were convinced the smugglers started using Stenton property this past summer. But I shouldn’t have set too much store by their words. After all, they’re interested only in the French agents. It was in July when one of Liverpool’s men followed an agent as far as West Dean, then lost him. And in September, someone from the Admiralty traced his quarry to East Dean.”

“And lost him.” Never one to nurse a grudge, Nicholas refilled their glasses, then joined Clive by the fire.

“Dashed wily, those Frenchmen,” he said, handing Clive his glass. “And,” he added pensively, “so are Frenchwomen.”

Clive cocked a brow. “You sound hipped. Was she French, then, the charmer who preferred Sylvester Throckmorton’s bulging paunch and purse to your lean frame and—”

“And lean purse?” Nicholas cut in. He laughed. “Aye. She’s of an
émigré
family. A diamond of the first water.”

Clive knew of several diamonds among the young French ladies who preferred to be mistresses of wealthy Englishmen rather than wives of impoverished Frenchmen. And Sylvester Throckmorton was one of the warmest men in England. A true nabob. Against him, Lord Nicholas Mackay, the younger brother of the Marquis of Belfort, did not stand a chance.

“Tell me about Miss Gore-Langton,” said Nicholas, lounging against the fireplace mantel. “How came she to be knocked down? Did you truly find her by the old landing stage?”

The tale was quickly told. Clive expected more questions from Nicholas, but he only said, “Miss Gore-Langton must have been overjoyed to see you. ’Twas a truly gallant rescue, Clive, old boy.”

Clive gave him a hard look. There was something in the tone of Nick’s voice and in his eyes … amusement? Speculation? What the dickens would Nick be amused about? Miss Gore-Langton? Or the rescue?

But the wine made Clive lazy. The questions did not seem worth pursuing. He moved his long legs. Having soaked up the fire’s heat, they were beginning to feel better.

“Gallant?” he muttered.

He remembered the tiny, mischievous smile when she assured him that she knew him very well indeed. The smile more than her words had aroused curiosity and suspicion, but he had refrained from demanding an explanation.

“Aye, gallant I was even if my armor has turned a bit rusty.”

Major Stewart Astley softly closed the door to his mother’s chamber. For a moment he stood motionless.

He had left his parents bewildered and more anxious than they had been when they first saw that matters between their son and daughter-in-law did not stand well at all. Stewart had meant to tell them straight off what he planned to do, had, in fact, made the attempt three times since their arrival the previous day, but in the end could never find the words. Neither had he been able to explain when they asked what was amiss.

Slowly, Stewart walked past the open door of a sitting room to his own bedchamber. John Piggott, his former batman, was already there, waiting to help him change. They were quite a pair, he and John. The one minus an arm; the other sporting a limp.

All in all, Stewart was glad he had kept John Piggott on. The short, bow-legged man was taciturn to the point of rudeness but knew exactly what to do for him and served him better than any high-nosed valet could. He had even stopped laying out the uniform his master no longer had the heart to wear.

But, dammit, it was galling to know that there was very little he could do without the assistance of a batman or a valet. Couldn’t even take his damned boots off unless he wanted to ruin them with the use of a boot jack.

At first, it hadn’t seemed to matter. Nothing much had mattered when he gained consciousness in the hospital tent and realized that many of his friends lay dead at Busaco while he had gotten away with a deep bayonet cut across his left forearm.

When the surgeon told him he could not save the arm, that too much muscle and bone had been severed, Stewart had not sunk into self-pity or despair like many others facing amputation. He had said grimly, “I’m alive, aren’t I? Go ahead. Cut off a piece of me and bury it with my friends.”

The knowledge that Juliette was waiting sped recovery after the amputation, and long before the date predicted by the sawbones, he had been able to sail for England.

Deliberately closing his mind to John Piggott’s ministrations as pantaloons took the place of breeches, a coat of superfine that of the corduroy riding coat, Stewart recalled those first hours of the reunion with his wife. It seemed a long time ago. Yet only three weeks had passed.

Dear, sweet, beautiful Juliette. His Julie. She had laughed and cried at the same time. Called him her handsome hero and, in the same breath, a thin scarecrow whom she must coddle and pamper before he could be allowed to travel into Hertfordshire to see his parents.

She did not seem to mind about his injury—until that night. He had gone to her with all the pent-up ardor of two long years. And Julie, his wife, his beloved, had gasped at the sight of the ugly, scarred stump that was left of his arm. He could not miss the shudder that racked her slim body before she caught herself and, with tears streaming down her face, opened her arms to him.

Too late. During those few seconds while her flesh shivered, his ardor was doused and their lovemaking doomed to dismal failure.

It was agony facing her afterward. She did not understand, asked him what was wrong until he could bear it no longer. He took refuge at the clubs, in the company of men.

He still wanted her. Damn, he wanted her! But he would not make her face the ugly stump again. And neither could
he
face another failure.

Instinctively, his eyes sought the door connecting his and Juliette’s bedchambers. He could hear her move about, her footsteps quick, impatient whispers on the carpet. She was coming toward his chamber, then stopped in front of the door he had shut when they arrived and had not opened since.

His breath caught. He strained to hear the knock demanding admittance. But all he heard was the swish of her skirts as she turned and walked away. He was glad, he told himself.

Juliette was young, her only experience of love the four days after the wedding. She did not understand what she had done to him. He did not quite understand it himself. He loved her so, yet he knew he could never make love to her again.

But Juliette, his darling Julie, deserved to be loved. She was a scarce twenty years old and had already given him two years of her life, yet had received none of the happiness and pleasures a woman could expect from matrimony. Instead of enjoying the social whirl under the aegis of a devoted husband, she had spent those two long years with an ailing mother-in-law in Hertfordshire or with a staid, elderly cousin in the small house he had bought her on the fringe of Russell Square.

“Major!” John Piggott’s raspy voice cut through the thick fog of his thoughts. “Lest ye want to go down in stockings, ye’d best sit and let me pull on yer Hessians.”

Stewart sat down on the edge of the bed. “I shouldn’t have come here, John.”

He hardly noticed that he spoke his thoughts aloud. It was a habit acquired during his soldiering days, and John never made the mistake of thinking that a reply was expected. At times, Stewart wondered whether the batman even listened.

“I should’ve stayed in town,” he muttered. “Alone.”

Apparently, John did listen. He gave a grunt, but whether it denoted denial or agreement Stewart could not tell.

“Should’ve sent Juliette off by herself.
She
wants a family Christmas.
I
don’t.”

The batman flicked a cloth over the shining Hessian boots he had placed on the major’s feet and rose.

“I have a mind to return to London, John. There’s much that needs to be done. They expect me at the Horse Guards. I haven’t resigned my commission yet.”

John picked up the discarded breeches. “Time aplenty to resign
after
Christmas.”

Since the batman spoke only when it was absolutely necessary, the sound of the raspy voice gave Stewart quite a jolt. But, perhaps, the response had taken him off stride because the Horse Guards had not been uppermost on his mind when he spoke of business in London.

He must file a petition to have his marriage voided, but he hadn’t the vaguest notion how to go about it.

Stewart walked over to one of the mullioned windows. Frowning, he stared at the bleak view of denuded flowerbeds and scraggly, leafless hedges.

Must he see a bishop? An archbishop? He knew only that there was a canon law permitting an ecclesiastical court to void a marriage on the grounds of physical incapacity of either spouse.

To free Juliette from an obligation that had become distasteful to her, he was willing to plead incapacity. And he had better do it immediately, before he changed his mind.

He looked around for John Piggott to tell him to start packing, but the batman had left with the riding coat and breeches. Stewart’s mouth thinned. There were times when John’s taciturnity was a damned nuisance. A proper valet would at least have asked if there was anything else he could do before leaving his master.

Determined to see his gear packed by the time luncheon was over, Stewart strode to the bellpull dangling between the frame of the connecting door and a tall chest of drawers. He was about to clasp the silken tassel when it twitched out of his reach as if yanked by an unseen hand. Reflex made him lunge for it, but he missed and overbalanced, stumbling against the chest and toppling the heavy shaving mirror atop it.

Muttering an oath, Stewart pushed away from the piece of furniture. His eyes went to the bellpull on the wall. It hung perfectly still and straight.

He could not imagine what had happened, how the bellpull could have twitched aside of its own accord. Unless he had stumbled first, and as he fell his perception had altered? But he was certain—well, almost certain—that he had fallen only because he tried to catch the swinging bellpull.

“I’ll be …” Stewart rubbed the back of his neck, as was his wont when he was puzzled.

He heard a chuckle, the merest breath of a sound, from the direction of the closed door, the door to Juliette’s chamber. He heard, but he did not see Annie Tuck, hand clapped to her mouth to stifle the laughter bubbling in her, and mischief gleaming in her eye.

Annie knew she shouldn’t be laughing, but she couldn’t help it. Not having encountered humans in forty-one years—save for an occasional glimpse of the smugglers far below the castle—she had not realized the power she held.

She hadn’t known she could read minds until his grace arrived. She hadn’t known she could be heard until Miss Juliette and Miss Elizabeth mistook her clapping for the tapping of wood beetles. And she hadn’t known she could flip aside a bellpull since she had never tried to move a thing of substance. She had never even thought about substance; she simply passed through walls and closed doors. Stairs did not make her breathless. She simply floated upward.

But she had wanted to stop the major, and in that short, desperate moment she hadn’t been able to think of anything more effective than snatching the tassel out of his reach. And it had worked.

Oh, it was hard not to laugh aloud, filled as she was with glee at the discovery of what she could do if she put her mind to it. But she mustn’t. The major would hear her, and there was no telling what he’d do then. She had startled him enough with the bellpull and the chuckle.

Annie peeked into the next room. If only Miss Juliette would hurry! Miss Juliette wanted to knock on the door—Annie knew it as surely as if the wish were her own. But every time the young lady approached the door, courage fled, and she turned away again.

Pluck up, Miss Juliette!

It wouldn’t do at all to employ the same trick again to stop the major from summoning his man.

Stewart listened tensely.

Was that another chuckle? Juliette, peeking through the keyhole? She must have seen his clumsiness as he overbalanced. Must have seen him miss the bellpull that could not possibly be missed.

Again he rubbed the back of his neck. And why shouldn’t she be amused? For a moment, as he pictured Juliette, a hand pressed to her lips to stifle giggles, gray eyes alight with laughter, his mouth relaxed in a half-smile. If things were different, they would have laughed together.

But he did not want to think about laughs or joys they could be sharing. Besides, he had probably imagined the chuckle. Not a sound from the next room penetrated the door.

He was reaching for the bellpull again when, suddenly, he checked himself.

Annie Tuck held her breath as his hand, slowly at first, then in a desperate lunge, clasped the doorknob. Annie sighed in relief. Now, it was up to Miss Juliette. The young lady must do what she could with the proffered opportunity.

Pulling the door open, Stewart found himself face to face with Juliette.

“Oh!” She dropped the hand that had been raised, knuckles pointed toward the door. “I was about to knock. I … I need to beg a favor.”

As always when he came upon her suddenly, his heartbeat quickened. She was so lovely, her golden curls becomingly disheveled, her cheeks a delicate pink that slowly deepened under his gaze.