Chapter Eleven #2
Warmth filled his expression, and she had no doubt that he was totally devoted to his new wife. “Lady Rebecca is a lucky woman,” she said.
“It is I who am lucky, but never mind that. Tell me what Major Vance does to irritate you so.”
“It’s the way he talks to me. He doesn’t want me to marry Lord Benedict and is doing everything he can to dissuade me.”
“That makes sense.”
“What?”
Lord Nathaniel’s expression turned almost wistful. “Major Vance is a hopeless romantic.”
She couldn’t credit the thought.
“He believes in marriage in the original way. He believes in one woman and one man joined before God in love and devotion. He’s incredibly moral about things like that.
Indeed, if he weren’t a bastard, I believe he would have gone into the clergy and been annoyingly priggish about how everyone ought to live.
” He leaned forward. “Believe me, Miss Caddick, it is God’s own joke that he created the most godly man in the body of a bastard. ”
“Godly?” she said. “But he’s… He…” She thought of all his scars and the warlike way he stood and moved. He was a fighter through and through. “He’s violent.”
“With you?”
“Goodness, no. But he seems like he could be.”
“He can be. I have never seen him in battle, but I have heard. He is a fearsome soldier. He believes in his cause. He protected the Spaniards from being conquered and he protects Lord Benedict because he believes your fiancé will set the world to rights now that Bonaparte has surrendered.” He shrugged.
“That may be his biggest fault as well as his greatest strength.”
“Being godly?”
“Being loyal. He knows the business of politics is not a moral endeavor, but he believes in Lord Benedict’s vision. I don’t think he trusts Castlereagh completely. But he will fiercely protect your fiancé in all things.”
“Even to the point of driving a wedge between me and my husband?”
“Even so.”
“And you think that is a good thing.”
“I think that is a noble thing. Miss Caddick, is that not what we are all searching for? Something to believe in, someone to fight for?”
She tilted her head. “But isn’t that dangerous? To put so much blind faith in one man.”
“The major is not blind, and Lord Benedict has more than earned the respect we give him.”
She considered his words, struggling to find her place in all this. “But what am I to do then? It seems you men have figured out all the pieces without telling me where I fit.”
He chuckled. “I doubt that. If I might guess, I believe you are here because the major has told you where you should fit and you do not like the place he wants to put you.”
She sighed, forced to admit the truth. “Perhaps that is true. Are my choices truly to do as the major wishes or cry off? Won’t Lord Benedict fight for me?”
“Will you help bring peace to the continent? Will you ensure that we shall have peace for generations?”
She blinked, startled. “I cannot promise such a thing. No woman could.”
“Then you are a lower priority for Lord Benedict. He and the major work well together for that one vision.”
She threw up her hands. “You are telling me to cry off then.”
“On the contrary, Miss Caddick. I am telling you to join their fight, in so much as you can. And where you cannot, show them that your passion, your priorities are equally worth defending.”
She stilled. “What makes you think I have a passion the equal of world peace?”
“What makes you think you don’t?”
Her thoughts skittered and scrambled like mice running in a dozen different directions. She was used to working in the places men did not go. She’d never had to defend her work because no one of importance ever saw it.
“I don’t trust the major enough to show him my passions.”
“If you don’t, then you will never gain his trust, and he will fight you. Indeed, he will ruin any chance of peace between you and your husband.”
“That’s insane!”
“Would you risk world peace on the secret agenda of a wife? It is the truth that peace rests on the shoulders of Lord Castlereagh and Lord Benedict. They work day and night to settle things in the wake of the Corsican nightmare. Lord Benedict may have chosen you as wife, but you must gain the major’s trust if you wish to have any kind of true relationship with your husband. ”
“Isn’t that for me and Lord Benedict to figure out?”
“And has Lord Benedict shown any desire in doing that with you? I doubt it. I know how busy he is, and I think he handed the task to Major Vance. As odd as it seems, that is the way Lord Benedict works.”
She didn’t answer. How could she? Lord Nathaniel had hit the nail on the head. She’d expected to spend the next few weeks creating a relationship with her fiancé. Instead, she found herself constantly tripping over Major Vance.
Meanwhile, Lord Nathaniel slapped his hands on his knees then pushed upright. “Think on it, Miss Caddick. I do not know why Lord Benedict chose you as a wife, but I can tell you one thing for certain—his reasons will not be normal ones, for he does not think as normal people do.”
“I am beginning to see that.” Imagine setting your underling to figure out the details of one’s own marriage.
“But he chose you. And now you must decide—as we all have—if supporting him is worth working with the major.”
“You sound as if he is. As if Lord Benedict is a paragon of virtue—”
“I never said that!”
“That he is worth every devotion, even from the godliest man you know.”
Lord Nathaniel smiled, his expression light despite his heavy words. “I believe he is. Else we will have another generation steeped in bloody war.” His expression tightened. “And I am working in my own way to see that that doesn’t happen.”
And with that, he executed a respectful bow before leaping up the wine cellar stairs. A moment later, he was gone, leaving her to stare at wine bottles and dust while her thoughts scrambled around to no purpose.
How was she to make sense of this? And still preserve what she most wanted? And what did she most want? she wondered.
That answer came quickly. She wanted to make women’s work easier so that great men of state like Lord Benedict didn’t think about it—or her—at all. Hard thing to manage when she’d just stormed Lord Castlereagh’s home to demand a reckoning with her fiancé.
She sighed as she slumped against the hard wooden chair. She really had to start thinking things through better.