Chapter 6 #2
“More’n a lady wants to know. Sorry. Ugly thing, war.” He drained his glass and poured another. “But, it happened months ago.”
Jamie’s tale stopped too soon and explained too little. She may not know weaponry, but she would bet her quarterly allowance that the line across Andrew’s face didn’t come from cannon shrapnel. She no longer cared for subtlety.
“You have seen him then?” She pleaded with her eyes.
Her good port must have breached his defenses.
He sat back with a sigh, elbows on his knees.
He held the wineglass loosely in both hands between them and hung his head.
“Yes. I saw him yesterday. Getting good care. He’ll be fine.
” His head snapped up as if at a sudden memory.
“Doesn’t need work though. Lives alone. Likes it that way. ” His face looked stern.
Georgiana, beyond caring, dropped pretense. “Why did Andrew Mallet join the army? Didn’t his father intend him for teaching?” Jamie choked on his port.
“Don’t know, Lady Georgie. Never asked.” Jamie mopped drink from his shirtfront.
“Joined quite suddenly. I had my orders with the First Dragoons to follow Wellesley in India. Strutted around in my regimentals bragging to them all. Next thing I knew Andrew bought colors in the Fighting Fifth, and we were both off to war. Dashed glad for the company at the time.”
“You have no idea why?”
The baron’s son shrugged and grinned. “Liked to pretend my sterling example won him.” He lowered his glass and began to swirl the dregs in the bottom.
“Did it?”
He shook his head mournfully. “Andrew didn’t follow.
He led. Always assumed a woman caused it, though I never saw him chase one.
Not even sure why he hung around London that last Season after University.
” His face pinched inward, as if the effort of thought pained him.
The glass in his hand stilled. “The upper ten thousand wanted more than a schoolmaster’s son for their daughters, though, and especially one more or less penniless. ”
“You think he joined the army to impress people?” she asked.
“Maybe, or at least so fathers thought he was up to snuff. It was the same for me. Thought the army would help. Maybe he thought the army would make his fortune. In his case it worked out.” He ran his finger around the rim of the glass and stared at it with unfocused eyes.
“He didn’t care about money,” Georgiana said.
“No,” Jamie agreed with reluctance. “I didn’t expect him to choose the army. I figured him for a university fellow. He wasn’t really the celibate type, though. Can’t say why he bought colors.”
“Where did Andrew get the funds to buy an officer’s place? Isn’t the Fifth a prestigious regiment? You said he was penniless.”
“Don’t know. Never thought of it before.”
“His father perhaps?” The thought chafed her; it didn’t fit what she remembered.
“Old Mr. Mallet couldn’t find that kind of money, now that I think about it. Wouldn’t have wanted to. Andrew must have found a sponsor.” The glass stilled in his hands. “A wealthy one,” he said. “Not a small expense, an officer’s commission in the Fighting Fifth.”
Georgiana remembered that Jamie’s maternal grandfather bought his own commission.
Richard once said it was the only thing the old man ever did for him and that Jamie had refused Richard’s help.
She looked up with pity and found Jamie examining her with calculation and a bit of devilment in his eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The more I think about it the surer I am that a woman drove him into the army.” He watched her closely. An unasked question hovered in the air between them.
“How can you know that? You said he never talked about it.” Heat burned up her neck, but pride kept her from breaking eye contact.
“Broken heart would explain it.” He cocked his head to one side, but he held her gaze.
“Perhaps he made a lucky escape from an unwanted entanglement.” She looked away, dropping her eyes to her lap.
“Perhaps.” He downed his wine, made a face, and went on. When she looked up she found him watching her speculatively. “And perhaps a proud papa wanted him well out of the way of temptation.”
Hours after she saw Jamie on his drunken way, Georgiana’s heart drummed in her throat, just like it had pounded while Andrew kissed a blazing trail down her neck eleven years before.
She had always been certain that no one saw what passed between them in Pembrook’s garden that year, but now she wondered.
Her response to Andrew’s kisses had been passionate and enthusiastic, and she had left Pembrook’s certain that he felt the same way she did, certain he would call on her the next morning as he had promised. He did not.
She heard later—a full month later—that he left for India with his regiment. Her father would have acted if he had found out what had happened or if he had feared worse. Her father would buy what he wanted. It fit.
She wondered if Andrew might have accepted bribery, but that didn’t fit. All these years she assumed he simply didn’t care or that he fled an unpleasant and unwanted entanglement. The army wouldn’t have been his choice, however. He wouldn’t have enlisted on his own.
Suspicion, once admitted, grows quickly. Hunger to know the truth about that night and the day after took hold deep in her gut. The past stood in the way of Andrew’s cooperation with her translations, and she wanted his help, wanted it badly. She needed him.
She stopped pacing and forced herself to be at ease. He would come to Mrs. Potter’s on Sunday. Then she would see him.