Once a Soldier (Rogues Redeemed) (8 page)

Chapter 10

A
fter Will asked his question, Athena stared at her interlocked fingers, her face frozen. Quietly he asked, “Should I start with something simpler?”

Athena rose from the bench in one swift movement and began prowling around beneath the overhang. “No, if we are going to be digging into each other’s souls, I must speak of her. But Delilah is . . . hard to explain.”

Guessing she didn’t know where to start, Will asked, “Was her name really Delilah?”

“She was christened Cordelia and called Delia when she was a child.” Athena crossed her arms across her waist and continued to pace. “When she left the schoolroom at sixteen and realized that she could persuade any man to do anything, she announced that she wished to be called Delilah. It was such a suitable name that soon everyone called her that.”

“Even her parents?” Will asked, surprised.

“I don’t suppose they did, but her father threw her out of the house when she was seventeen so the issue was moot.”

“A well-born girl that young was disowned?” Will tried to imagine doing such a thing to a child of his, and couldn’t. “That’s appalling!”

“She was in no danger of starving,” Athena said dryly. “She moved into the home of an Austrian diplomat three times her age and became his mistress. She was pampered outrageously until she decided that she was bored and left him for another man.”

“So she was beautiful, like you.”

Athena gave him an incredulous glance. “You’re joking again. I was never more than average-looking, even as a child. One could easily see that we were related, but Delilah was stunning. Tall—but not too tall, as I am. Dazzling dark red hair, not brown like mine. Charming and outgoing—not practical and reserved, as I am.”

“Except when you have a rifle in hand?”

She smiled a little. “That was practicality, not an outgoing personality.”

She resumed her pacing, the divided skirt swinging provocatively around her shapely ankles. “But more than her physical beauty, she had . . . sensual allure. Even the most happily married men would stare and wonder what it would be like to bed her. You could see it in their eyes.”

“She sounds like a . . . challenging parent,” Will said carefully.

Athena stopped pacing and stared at the stony wall of the overhang. “I loved her more than anyone else in my life.”

“I hope she loved you as much in return,” Will said before he realized that might be a painful comment if her mother hadn’t been a loving person.

“She did.” Athena turned to face him, her arms still crossed at her waist as if her stomach hurt. “I was not an accident, but a pampered pet and companion. She told me often that more than anything in the world, she’d wanted a daughter to love. I gather her parents were cold and disapproving, so she did her best to give them much to disapprove of. That included having a bastard child.”

It sounded monstrously selfish to Will, but he couldn’t wish Athena had been unborn. Perhaps she had been an accident and her mother told her otherwise to make her feel wanted. “Being her pet and companion sounds both wonderful and terrible.”

Athena smiled humorlessly. “It was both.”

“Was Athena a family name?”

“She said that when I was born, I looked like a serious little owl. Since the owl is the symbol of Athena, the name suited me. Also, of course, Athena was the goddess of wisdom and she wanted me to be well educated and well traveled and wise.” Athena’s smile became real. “The first two are true. ‘Wise’ is debatable.”

Will laughed. “What would she have done if you’d been a boy?”

“I’m not sure. She would have loved a son because she had a great capacity for loving. But the relationship would have been very different from what she and I had. I think it was better for all concerned that she had a daughter.”

Certainly it was better for Will. “From what you’ve said, it sounds as if Delilah spent much of her time having passionate affairs. What was she like as a mother?”

“She was a wonderful companion, always interested in new things and taking me to new places. Even when she was in the early throes of an affair, she would take time to be with me, and she would instantly break with any lover who was rude to me.”

“Did that happen often?”

“No, she always made clear to her lovers that if they wanted to be with her, they must treat me with courtesy and respect. Some of them gave me splendid gifts to curry favor with Delilah.” Athena smiled reminiscently. “The best was a beautiful little pony when I was six. I hated saying good-bye to that pony, but we traveled a great deal and seldom stayed anywhere longer than a few months. Delilah always engaged excellent tutors wherever we were, so I learned all kinds of interesting things. How to use firearms because she said a woman must know how to defend herself. She often moved in diplomatic and government circles, so she discussed politics and statecraft with me. If we stayed on someone’s estate, she would ask the land steward to explain planting and animal husbandry. It was . . . an unusual way to grow up, but wonderful and exciting.” Athena’s eyes closed and her voice cracked. “She was everything to me.”

Tired of looking up at his companion, Will rose from the bench and took a relaxed position against the stone wall opposite where Athena was standing. “The drawback, surely, was that when you lost her, you had no one else.”

Athena opened her eyes and smiled with brittle humor. “You are much cleverer than you look, Will.”

He thought a moment. “Should I be insulted?”

Her tension eased into a genuine smile. “I hope you aren’t. What I meant was that you look like a solid, unimaginative officer, vastly competent but not . . . not . . .”

“Not very intelligent?” he suggested.

Athena bit her lip as if suppressing laughter. “I would rather end my sentence by saying you don’t look particularly imaginative. Or insightful. But you are both.”

“Being imaginative, I’m now wondering if one of your mother’s wandering amorous adventures brought you to San Gabriel.”

“
Much
cleverer than you look! My mother met Prince Alfonso when he was in London and followed him back here. She was a great favorite with the whole royal family, so we were welcome to stay even when the affair burned out. We lived here long enough for me to learn the language and make friends, and visited again later. I was told to call the king and queen Uncle Carlos and Aunt Isabella. She and the king had lively discussion about how to run a small country, and she let me sit in when they did. That proved really useful when I ended up being an advisor to Sofia.”

“Which is why Prince Alfonso confuses you with Lady Delilah. Is San Gabriel as much of a home as you’ve ever had?”

Athena’s brow furrowed. “I suppose it is. The longest I’ve ever spent anywhere else was in school, and I hated the place.”

Since it didn’t sound as if Delilah would have put her in a hateful school, Will asked, “Were you sent there after your mother died?”

Athena nodded and began pacing again. “I was fourteen. Delilah was very ill and she explained to me that she was dying, so she must put me under my father’s protection. I was devastated, of course.” Her paces tightened to swift, tense steps. “She took me to my father’s family seat and marched in with me beside her. He was furious and horrified, yet I could see that he also still desired her.”

Will frowned, imagining what such a meeting must have been like for Athena. “It doesn’t sound like a scene that any fourteen-year-old should have to witness.”

Athena sighed. “I needed to be there, if only to meet my father for the first and last time. Delilah told him that I was a good, intelligent, obedient girl who would be a credit to him.”

“Were you obedient?” Will asked with mild surprise.

She shrugged. “When I wanted to be. Not that it mattered what she said about me. My father was revolted by my existence, but apparently the resemblance to his legitimate children was strong enough that he couldn’t deny fathering me, particularly since he’d known of my existence since Delilah first found herself increasing. He snarled that I would be cared for and slammed out of the room.”

“My father was not an easy man, but he was a saint by comparison,” Will said sympathetically. “Your father sounds appalling.”

“Based on our very brief acquaintance, that’s an accurate description. But he did fulfill his word to see that I was cared for.”

“And your mother trusted him enough to know that he would. That’s an interesting point.”

“Yes, it is.” Athena looked thoughtful. “He’s an English gentleman who prides himself on behaving honorably, though I doubt if you’d agree with his definition of ‘honorable.’ He was so rich that supporting one schoolgirl was nothing to him, but he could have sent me to a workhouse rather than fulfilling his responsibilities. So he could have been worse.”

“Yet he did send you to a school you hated.”

She grimaced. “It was a grim girls’ school in a ramshackle manor house by the Irish Sea. The icy winter drafts would blow papers off a desk. The headmistress followed that fine Christian dictum that sparing the rod would spoil the child. All the students hated the place, so I became a convenient target for malice because of being a bastard. Too tall, too different, and far too illegitimate. I developed a truly intimidating glare when other girls went too far, and I studied a lot, which kept me busy and improved my mind.”

Will winced as he imagined years of living in such a place. “Was your father deliberately trying to punish you for existing?”

“I don’t know. Probably he didn’t care where I went as long as it was out of his sight. He might have specified a very strict school to counter the wild tendencies I must have inherited from Delilah.”

Even at fourteen, she would have been independent and ingenious. Will asked, “Did you ever try to escape from the school?”

“I thought about it.” A faint smile flickered over her lips. “I
really
thought about it. But I had no place to go in England, and no money. I couldn’t possibly have made it here to San Gabriel, the only place likely to welcome me. So I endured.”

“Were you ever told what your future held?”

“The solicitor who took me to the school said I would be there until I was eighteen, at which point I could leave and I would be granted a modest but adequate quarterly allowance on the condition that I never tell anyone I was related to my father’s family. Delilah and I had used the name Markham, which was in her family several generations back. There was no obvious connection to my father’s family, so I was able to continue using the name. Generous of him, wasn’t it?”

Will suppressed a strong urge to find out who her father was so the man could be throttled. “Your father should have been
whipped
!”

“Members of the House of Lords wield the whips,” she said dryly. “They don’t suffer under them. You can see why I am not fond of peers of the realm. Both my grandfathers were lords. The one on my mother’s side I never met at all.”

As a member of the House of Lords himself, Will said, “Not all lords are so dreadful. I went to school with some who are very good fellows.”

“Then I hope they treat their bastard descendants better than my grandfathers did. Your own brother would not have fared well if not for you. But enough of that.” Athena made a dismissive gesture. “It’s time for you to bare your soul and do some more suffering. What are the three worst things that have happened to you? The loss of your wife is surely on the list. What about the loss of your mother? Your father?”

She was right. The knife cut both ways, and it was time for him to speak of things he had long buried. “The siege of Badajoz would make the list of most dreadful things for anyone who was there, but that’s a broadly shared horror. Perhaps we need a separate category for such terrors? Having lived here for the war years, surely you have similar memories.”

She made a face. “None so bad as Badajoz, but bad enough. Another day, perhaps. I’m more interested in what personal trials have tempered you.”

“I dislike ranking tragedies,” he said slowly. “Losing Lily and our son was certainly the first great tragedy of my life, and the event that most changed my life, because if she hadn’t died, I never would have joined the army.”

“Living in England and raising a family would have been such a very different path from the one you’re on,” she mused, her gaze assessing. “I’ve heard the tales of mud and slaughter and horror. The Peninsular Wars have been brutal. Do you regret walking this path?”

He’d not really thought of his life in terms of the path taken versus the one ended by tragedy. “I do not regret the army,” he said, his brow furrowed. “I feel as if I’ve contributed to a worthy goal, and I have made strong friendships. But I’m ready for a change. The peacetime army would be deucedly boring.”

“Then it’s good you’re on your way home.” She cocked her head to one side. “What is another of your worst experiences?”

“When I read the news that my brother, Mac, had died in London.” Will halted, remembering the numbness that dissolved into a tidal wave of pain when he’d read the fatal words. “I was visiting my friend Ballard in Porto on the way home to England when I saw the notice of Mac’s death in a London newspaper that had just arrived.”

“I’m so sorry!” she said, her golden hazel eyes warm with compassion. Then her brow furrowed. “From the way you spoke of him, I thought he was still alive?”

“He is. His death was misreported, and finding him alive when I returned to England was the greatest happiness of my life,” Will said simply. “That didn’t mean my grief hadn’t happened, but at least it ended quickly.”

“Tragedies with happy endings are the best kind, but sadly rare.” Athena looked a little wistful before continuing. “What else would you put on your painful experiences list? The deaths of your parents?”

He sighed. “Neither of their deaths caused me more than a brief, dutiful twinge of regret. I didn’t really miss them when they were gone because I didn’t see a great deal of either. My mother was frail and my father was busy with his own interests. He had a reliable heir, but he wasn’t much interested in me as an individual.”