Chapter Twenty-Six
Teddy struggled to draw a breath. Spots danced before his eyes and the room seemed to spin around him. Memories and images crashed through him, a lifetime’s worth.
Drake. He had volunteered his battalion for that fateful advance after learning that Teddy and his men had orders—contingent upon intelligence Teddy’s spies had gleaned—to intercept a French column pressing deep into rural Spain toward a crossroads vital for keeping supply lines open.
Teddy had tried to argue Drake out of the mission.
It was overkill, he’d said, his battalion could handle the militia of its rumored size, and, if not, could stage a safe retreat, whereas Drake’s position might leave him and his men susceptible to a route as a notable bottleneck existed from the southern approach.
But once the plans were drawn, neither Drake, nor his and Ted’s superiors, would be swayed.
At dawn, Teddy’s battalion reached a hamlet near an olive grove, approaching carefully through thick morning mist—and found the encampment eerily deserted.
Meanwhile, Drake’s battalion was skirting a ravine, approaching the same French troops from the south.
As they ascended a low ridge, and bypassed that damned bottleneck of which Ted had warned Drake, they were ambushed by French voltigeurs.
The enemy infantry, evidently forewarned of the impending attack, awaited the redcoats from their hiding places among the rocks and trees, slaughtering Drake and his men as they came into view.
By the time Teddy and his men reached the French soldiers and took them out, it was too late. Not one man in Drake’s battalion survived.
But then, there was more.
He remembered his sweet mother—on her death bed, when Teddy was only seven years of age. His father’s stern admonition not to grieve her in his sight.
His father, the earl. Respected by all. Charming, indefatigable, unflappable, and hard as nails to those under his charge.
If Teddy wasn’t perfect—and when was he?
—he disgraced the title, and paid for it, enduring his father’s cutting remarks, frequent in-room incarcerations and deprivations, and, if the earl was particularly in his altitudes when his temper ignited, a well-placed fist where no bruise would show, of course.
Show no chink.
Cry in view again, and I’ll give you cause for your weak tears.
Stand tall, boy, or be trampled by those with spine.
If that foolish baronet’s whelp bests you, you’ll envy the stable boys their gruel.
Hold your tongue or I will see you have cause to bite it. A gentleman does not snivel; he conquers or is ruined.
Then later, when Teddy grew too large to bully physically, he used other means to control him and every last aspect of his life.
The earl chose Teddy’s field of study, his hobbies—The Royal Academy of Art?
You’re joking. No son of mine dabbles in art like some namby-pamby.
You’re a future earl. He even chose his future wife—or attempted to. And it hadn’t been Georgina.
Hell and damnation—Georgina. Rage, fueled by betrayal, swamped him. She’d lied. Repeatedly. She was no more his wife than was Lady Catherine, who was not Drake’s intended. Drake could barely stomach the woman. In truth, neither could he, after a time.
But his father hadn’t cared a jot. She was his choice for the Ainsworth title.
A blue blood with impeccable lineage, one who didn’t lower herself to mix with the irregulars and grubs and the so-called encroaching mushrooms Teddy rubbed elbows with in pursuit of his so-called art—art which he’d finally been forbidden to practice.
If he needed a hobby, by God he could pursue manly, respectable pastimes like horsemanship and politics, and above all, he would do the title proud.
If his father only knew of the books he’d read, books Georgina would likely have approved, like The Disdain, and an old favorite, The Social Contract, he’d have keeled over of an apoplexy.
As it was, that last fight with his father had nearly brought one on—and had been the impetus behind his decision to join the war effort. His father had somehow learned of Teddy’s practice of frequenting a studio of artists, despite the earl’s edict against any such thing.
You shame me with every blunder—need I remind you, you are my heir?
When Teddy had come home with his officer’s commission, his father had demanded and then pleaded with him to sell the thing. When Teddy refused, his parting words had been along the line of, Who are you to lead? You’ll get men killed.
And he had. Drake. His best mate. Drake had followed him—to keep an eye on him, he’d said. To keep him out of trouble, he’d said.
“We’ll come home heroes, and who knows, maybe you’ll exorcise some of those demons and see in yourself what I do.”
The only one of his friends who’d known what his father was really like. And he’d gotten him killed. Because his father had been right. What had he known of leading? It was his intelligence that got Drake killed.
He heard a loud, keening moan, the sound half-animal, and only dimly realized it came from him.
At some point he’d risen from behind the desk.
Now, he charged the sofa across from him.
Reaching it, he bent, scooped his arms under its frame and hurled it onto its back and nearly into the glass paned doors.
It crashed to the floor, rattling the panes in their frames, as papers swirled from the desk and candles tipped in their holders.
His father was right. Who was he to lead? He was an irregular, a disgrace, a namby-pamby pretender.
He hadn’t any recollection of sinking to his knees, or any real awareness of the tears coursing down his cheeks, or the shouts spilling from his lips until Mr. Danvers arrived. The man kneeled beside him, grabbed him, and gave a little shake, which snapped Teddy from his near-fugue state.
He stared at Danvers. Breaths shuddering in and out of his lungs. “I remember,” he choked in a hoarse voice.
“I know, son. Now the healing can begin.”
“I don’t deserve it. I should have been the one to die. Not those men. Not Drake, Georgina’s brother. He was the best man I knew and I got him killed.”
Danvers shook his head. “The war did that.”
“Georgina.” Her name was an anguished cry. He wasn’t even sure what he meant by it. The fact he’d caused her loss. The fact she’d lied, and the love he thought she’d given so freely was not his to claim. Damn her, eyes. And damn his.
“It’s going to be all right.” Danvers wrapped Teddy in his embrace, and held him while he continued to cry like a bloody baby.
Show no chink.
Stand tall, or be trampled.
You are my heir.
He grabbed onto the words like a lifeline until his tears ceased and the place in his chest, housing his heart, ceased aching. If it felt, simultaneously, as if he’d swallowed a block of ice, so be it. His arms fell away from Danvers, his jaw hardened, his spine straightened.
Danvers seemed to recognize the dam erupting inside of Teddy’s had emptied. He released him, and the two men rose to their feet.
“Well, Major. Now what?”
Teddy surveyed the chamber. The overturned sofa and broken table—he hadn’t recalled smashing that. He’d have to replace it. At least now he could. He would have access to his accounts. Tugging his cuffs straight, he replied in a cool tone. “Now I’m to London to deal with my family—and her.”
Danvers slanted him a warning look. “Your wife, you mean? Lady Arlington?”
Pain, sharp and poignant, sliced through him, momentarily slipping past the ice encasing his chest. With an effort of will, he banished the useless emotion and issued a humorless laugh.
Seeing no point in replying, he crouched to collect pieces of the splintered wood.
Without a word, Mr. Danvers set about helping him.
“She’s not my wife,” he heard himself say, and cursed his own weakness.
“There’s where you’re wrong, sir. And I’ve the document to prove it.”
“That scrap of nonsense from Gretna Green is nothing but trash. It’s not real, Danvers. It was a forgery, and not a very good one at that, only I was too naive to know. She lied,” he finished, speaking through his teeth, then glared at Danvers, daring him to deny the truth.
Danvers straightened, his face remarkably unperturbed. “A forgery. I see. I never had occasion to study it.”
“You’ll have to take my word for it, then,” Teddy said. His tone was not at all petulant. Not in the least.
The butler announced, “Be that as it may, the one I possess is not a forgery.”
All Georgina wanted upon reaching her family home was to look in on her father to assure he fared as well as her mother’s unflappable attitude would seem to indicate—why her Mama had gone to the trouble of collecting her in the first place was a mystery—and then announce her intention to return to Brighton on the morrow.
She did not feel right about leaving Teddy behind, nor about the quagmire in which he found himself, thanks, in part, to her.
She should have told him everything the moment she returned from consulting with her friends.
No. She should have told him the night she realized he’d never needed the prescribed tisane. Instead, she’d indulged her own selfish desire to hang on to the fantasy she’d spun, a little while longer.
“Well. Here we are,” her mother announced in a peculiarly chipper tone.
The carriage jostled with the groom’s movements, as he climbed down from his box to set the step, and Georgina took a hard look at her mother. She looked odd. Anxious. Perhaps her father’s illness was more serious than she’d let on.
Georgina sent her an encouraging smile. “So we are.”
Minutes later, they stood in the foyer, stripping off their gloves, bonnets, and pelisses.
“Shall we go straight up to Papa?” Georgina suggested, already turning toward the grand staircase.
Her mother did not reply.
Their butler did, however, sounding bemused. “I beg your pardon, Lady Georgina, but if you wish to see your father, Lord Belfry is entertaining Mr. Mealy in the drawing room.”