Incognita (Fairchild Book 2) (41 page)

“Frederick!” One of the seconds came running, mouthing a steady stream of disbelieving recriminations. Morris swam into the fellow’s arms, his legs too soft to keep him standing.
 

“Staunch it quick,” shouted the other second, falling to his knees and clapping his hand over Morris’s wound. Together Alistair and Cyril stumbled across the grass.
 

“Here!” Cyril said, throwing down a wad of lint and a roll of cotton from his greatcoat pocket. These were snatched up and swiftly applied, but Alistair knew from the way they drank up blood that it wouldn’t be long. Morris’s eyes were wide, searching the sky. His breath dipped quick and shallow, a stone skipping across water for a few exhilarating seconds before it sinks and falls.
 

Alistair shut his eyes. “God, I’m sorry.” It was the wrong thing to say, a terrible lie that was painfully true—all week he’d meant to kill Morris, until this morning, when he’d decided to shoot for the shoulder. Then, with Morris advancing, he’d unthinkingly aimed for the chest and gotten him between the neck and the shoulder instead. Strangely enough, it was a killing shot. He wanted to leave, to get away from the smell of blood, but he must wait for Morris’s steaming blood to spread over the grass, and for his breaths to finally rattle to a stop. And then for Cyril to help Morris’s seconds carry his body to the cart. He knew how it would happen, but it didn’t make it go any faster or quiet the thudding in his ears.

He and Cyril drove back, fighting silence.
 

“It was a lucky shot,” Cyril said.
 

Alistair supposed it was. Unlucky for Morris though. They had blood on their boots and brown crusts under their fingernails. Alistair hadn’t been able to help the futile attempts to stop the blood, or to compose the corpse. He’d put a hand on the ground though, still surprised to see so much blood. It mingled with the melting frost, staining the dead grass.
 

“You won’t have to worry now. That’s a good thing,” Cyril said, guiding the horses round the last curve on the hill.
 

“True.” He watched as the gate came nearer. “Do you think Griggs can bring me clean clothes?” He could, of course, but how to get word to him without alerting Anna? Impossible. She was probably making herself sick, waiting for his return. He wanted to see her, just not stained with Frederick Morris’s blood.
 

“Don’t get maudlin,” Cyril said. “Ghastly business, but it had to be done. I’m just thankful we didn’t load you in the wagon. Hungry?”
 

“Enormously,” Alistair said. How lowering.
 

“We’ll get you a drink, some breakfast, and let your wife weep over you. You’ll feel better then.”
 

Of course he would. Ten years of campaigning had already proven so. One remembered the chill of watching a life expire, but one didn’t always shiver. Thank God. He had time to let warmth work its way into his fingertips again.
 

Anna burst onto the step before he’d been extracted from carriage. She fell upon him, crying and scolding, clinging to him and feeling for hurts. Henry hung back on the step, troubled and silent.
 

“Henry is worried,” Alistair whispered into Anna’s ear.
 

She rubbed off her tears, clamped her lips shut, forced her face into a trembling smile. Draping his arm over her shoulders, they made shaky progress to the door.
 

“Are you all right?” Alistair asked Henry, leaning down, steadying himself on the door frame.
 

“Mama was afraid you wouldn’t come back,” he said.
 

Alistair slid his hand through the boy’s soft falls of hair. Perhaps there was no excuse for what he’d done, but right now, Henry seemed like a good one. Anna too, could be quite compelling.
 

“Were you?” Alistair asked.
 

“A little.” Henry bit his lip.
 

“I’m well, Henry. As well as may be, but I would like my breakfast. Are you hungry?” Alistair knew him well enough by now to know he always was.
 

Tears came, when he saw Anna had laid out breakfast in the sitting room, though he gave only cursory attention to the tablecloth, the smell of warm bread and the evergreen branches gathered in a glass on the table. The threadbare cushion she’d procured last week was waiting for him in the sturdiest chair. Two more places were set, one on each side.
 

“I didn’t think,” she sniffed. “I’m so stupid this morning. I never laid a place for Cyril.”
 

There were times when looks had to suffice for words. Alistair gave Anna one, hoping it could spare him from having to think too much about what he was feeling. It was too painful to hold. “You better get another plate.”

Anna said little over breakfast, brimming with too many watery emotions to speak. Miser-like, she quietly stored every moment: his hands dabbing his napkin to his mouth and spooning up egg for Henry, his tired smile and his shadowed eyes, the weary look that silenced Cyril when he began talking about their morning.
 

“We can tell it another day,” Alistair said.
 

Anna didn’t mind. She’d lived through his death so many times this week all she could do now was cling to his hand and look at him.
 

“You haven’t eaten,” Alistair said, when Mrs. Orfila came to clear the plates.
 

“I can’t,” she said, amazed his own breakfast was gone. His hand had hardly left hers, because each time it did, she felt a spurt of panic that didn’t fade until his fingers slid back into her own. Somehow though, he must have managed his fork, for only crumbs and smears of butter remained. Anna hovered at her husband’s side as he maneuvered his way into the sitting room, steering him to the sagging sofa. It would be a struggle for him to get out of it, but that suited her purposes. She had no intention of letting him move beyond her reach anytime soon. Later, when she wasn’t trembling inside. Perhaps.
 

They slid in one warm lump to the hollow in the middle of the seat, nudged together by the sofa’s worn velvet and decrepit springs. Alistair winced as Henry clambered aboard, bumping his left leg, but kept him close.
 

“Let’s stay here and never move,” Anna said, too exhausted to do more than tether herself to her family through touch and listen to their breathing.
 

“Never?” Henry asked.
 

Anna shut her eyes, knowing he was wondering how they’d manage without a chamber pot. “Maybe once in a while,” she conceded.
 

“Señora Orfila doesn’t allow food in here,” Henry added.
 

“We’ll just stay for a little while then,” Alistair said. “We’ll get up in time for supper.”
 

That satisfied him. Anna moved her cheek away from Alistair’s coat buttons. Cyril lit a fire and found himself a chair. He and Alistair were talking, but Anna couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t even follow the words. All she could hear was the cadence of their talk, the regular thump of Henry’s feet waggling against the sofa. The room grew warmer, the sounds smoother, until they stopped her ears.

When she woke, the sitting room was dim and quiet. She was curled into Alistair’s side. He was stretched out half-beside, half-beneath her, his head resting on one arm of the sofa, his good leg propped up on the other. 

“What time is it?” she asked, sitting quickly and wiping a hand across her lips. 

“No idea.” He picked up her hand and brought it to his cheek. “Are you all right?” 

“I will be, since you are.” He didn’t seem uncomfortable, despite the sofa’s shortcomings, so she wriggled back into the narrow space she’d just left. Might as well. It was still warm. She didn’t sleep though, just lay beside him while he toyed with a wisp of her hair. The knot she’d twisted on the back of her head this morning was squashed and listing toward her shoulder. “What happens now?” Anna asked.
 

Alistair didn’t immediately answer. “Frederick Morris is dead, Anna.” She wanted to squeeze his hand, but one of hers was caught between their chests. She couldn’t reach his with her other, never mind her instinct that it would be wrong to arrest the idle movements of his fingers, winding and unwinding her loose hair. She burrowed her chin closer and waited.
 

“I didn’t want to kill him. Probably couldn’t have done it if I tried, but—” His words came quickly now, a muddy rush of confession, both guilty and painfully glad. Frederick Morris wouldn’t trouble them again. Wouldn’t trouble anyone. No more wrangles over Henry and his money, no more slurs hurled at Anna. They were free, so long as she could stand to live with him.
 

Anna licked her dry lips, warned by his desperate tone that she must choose her words with care. She must not be flippant. He wouldn’t be the man she loved if he could exterminate another and walk away without a backward glance. And yet she was glad Frederick was dead, so horribly relieved she felt dizzy. Frederick couldn’t take Henry or steal his money or fill him up with his own consequence and teach him to despise her.
 

“You let him have his shot,” she said, tracing her fingers around the lapel of his coat, afraid of saying more. If she wept, he might not understand. She could tell him that he was the truest, best man she knew, but
he wouldn’t agree with her, not now. She must save those words for another time and face the problem of blame instead. He needn’t shoulder any of it. “You will forgive me, I hope, for forcing you into that duel,” she said.
 

“Anna . . . . ”

She didn’t allow him to contradict her, though he tried more than once. “No, love. It can’t be your fault. And if you knew how my heart is flying because Henry is safe, you’d think me a remorseless baggage.”
 

“No, I wouldn’t.”
 

“Then why should I think differently of you?” She shifted her cheek against the soft wool of his coat. “I’m just glad you came back.” Better to examine other ideas later; she couldn’t see them very well when relief kept bumping to the forefront.
 

He heard her covert sniff and swept a gentle thumb over her eye.
 

“So am I.”

Spring was slow in coming that year, or perhaps it only seemed that way because they were journeying north. Progress was slow, and they lingered in Oporto, waiting for a ship. It did no harm though, having ample time for quiet, for there was none to be found on the ship. No space either, but the Gallant was swift and sound, carrying them across cold seas. They were making straight for London.
 

Anna took well to the sea. She took well to everything, even her hop-along husband, who had to be helped across tilting decks, rough gangplanks and, at last, London’s crowded docks.
 

“Beaumaris!” It was Jasper, waving at them over the crowd as he fought his way toward them. “Another ship brought word the Gallant was coming in. I’ve been waiting two days for you in the seamiest taproom you’ll ever see!”
 

“And never enjoyed anything more, I’m sure,” Alistair said.
 

“The words I’ve learned! It’s like another language,” Jasper said. He looked Alistair up and down. “Well, you’re a pretty mess. What’s to be done?”
 

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Alistair said, reaching out to collar Henry before he could wander.
 

“You’re family now, so you’ll have to let me kiss you,” Jasper said, bowing and saluting Anna’s hand. As he looked up, he realized she’d offered him her cheek. “Oh. I will, thank you.”
 

“I warned you about him, but there aren’t words fit to explain how annoying—” Alistair began.
 

“I have my uses,” Jasper interrupted. “Cyril, you’ve got to attend your father—you too, Alistair, but it would be a nice thing to let him chew Cyril apart first. And Anna, your parents are waiting. I’m to deliver you.”
 

“What about Lord and Lady Fairchild?” asked Anna, feeling guilty.
 

Jasper shrugged. “Haven’t seen ’em. Bolted to Cordell at Christmas without a word to anyone. Haven’t been seen since.”

Though tired from the journey, the happy greetings of her parents revived Anna enough to see to the unpacking. She supposed they would find their own home eventually, once they liberated Henry’s inheritance from Frederick’s mother, but Anna didn’t feel any hurry. She’d missed her parents, and liked having her family under a friendly roof. Alistair didn’t seem to mind.
 

“You’ll have to get used to middle class ways, love. My parents only gave us a single dressing room,” Anna said, popping her head into the room in question.
 

“Perfectly acceptable. Even when I had both legs, I depended on Griggs. You’re almost as helpful, you know. Wouldn’t trust you with my boots, though.”
 

“Why not? There’s only one!”
 

He tried to catch her with one hand but she darted out of reach, back into the bedchamber where she was supervising the bringing up of their trunks. She’d let him catch her next time. He was quicker and steadier every day. Soon they’d get him a wooden leg, which the doctors said would permit him to walk with only the aid of a cane.
 

Alistair had already written to Frederick’s mother, but they would need to arrange a meeting, now they were come home—a dreadful prospect, but it had to be done. She felt as wretched about it as he. Perhaps more even, for if she’d never married Anthony, the other Mrs. Morris might have both her sons. And she would have married someone else, borne different children and probably never met Alistair. She had regrets by the bushel, but she wouldn’t wish away her choices if it meant losing him and Henry. If there’d been any way for things to have happened better . . . .
 

It would probably be best, Anna thought, if she and Mrs. Morris only peered at each other through a fence of lawyers.