Chapter 20 #2
Had he once thought her beautiful? It was true that her hair still shone golden upon her head and that her eyes glistened with the depths of the sapphires they resembled, but the combination did not move him now.
There was little depth in her features, and less in her expression, and he understood what a dire fate he had avoided with her refusal.
He breathed a quiet sigh of relief as she blinked furiously in search of something to say.
What she managed was a simple expression of acquaintance. “Major Fitzwilliam!” She dropped a cursory curtsey, her face a mask of shock. “I had thought you abroad.”
He did not honour her with a bow. Instead, he corrected her. “That is Colonel Fitzwilliam, madam.” And he turned on his feet and left. His mother would chew his ear for this slight later, but it was a willing price he paid.
Honoria Ingalls held no power over him anymore.
He felt nothing for her, not even contempt.
There was no lingering pang of regret or of pain, no flash of a wish that things had been different.
His heart had long since healed from her wound, nursed as it was by the caring friendship of Emily Barrow.
The only scar he still bore was his distrust of women’s affections in general and his decision never to marry, which was now a purely intellectual resolution, no longer driven by the brute force of emotion.
It was a choice he could reflect on with cold reason and with which he could live because it satisfied his desires in life.
He would not have sought out Honoria Ingalls, but he was, in a way, glad he had seen her, for he now knew that his life and his choices were fully his, and that she had long since ceased being anything to him but a distant memory.
“Colonel!” Miss Eastway’s voice cut through the din, interrupting his reveries. She had found him, obviating his need to search her out.
He greeted her most civilly. The crowds in the centre of the room were thinning now; the music for the ball was about to begin. “Shall we, Miss Eastway?” He offered his arm, which she took, and led her to the chalked area of the floor to await Lady DeWinter who would call out the first dance.
As he led her in the steps, he glimpsed the unhappy face of Honoria Ingalls watching him, and he smiled all the wider at his current partner.
The following morning, at first light, Richard mounted his horse to return to the camp.
His luggage would follow in the cart, but he cherished the thought of a good ride through the warm and brightening morning.
He arrived in excellent time and set about reclaiming his desk from the officer who had been keeping command during his absence.
There was a notification upon his desk, one which he had been expecting.
His new recruits were to spend the summer training at Brighton before being redeployed to different units and sent overseas to fight the French or to the north of England to quell the growing unrest in the countryside.
He would be required to join them initially to oversee the transfer of command before returning to his camp to welcome and train the next set of green recruits.
He smiled. A few days in Brighton at the start of summer would be a good change, no matter how brief.
Other administrative tasks occupied the rest of the day, and by the time he closed his ink well as the sun started its descent, he felt he had hardly been away from his desk at all these last three weeks.
The following morning’s mail brought two letters to his attention. One was from Mr Underwood from his club with the direction for the private investigator he had recommended. The other was from Darcy.
Why did you not tell me you needed an investigator? I had need of one last year while you were overseas. On recommendation, I hired a certain Mr Lyons, and I found his results quite satisfactory. Here is where you can find him.
So, Lyons it would be! He set about writing a letter of introduction and arranged to travel back to London on Friday to take care of some military business and to engage the investigator.
Lyons’ rooms were in a low building down a narrow street near Covent Garden, in that area suspended between the sparkling theatres where the wealthy paraded in their jewels and the direst poverty of St Giles.
This lane was a middling sort of street, neither fashionable nor dangerous, exactly as a working man’s offices were expected to be.
Richard found the building and let himself up the staircase to the appropriate door and knocked.
A voice bade him enter, and he did so. There, at a large desk that seemed the wrong size for the compact room sat a young man, about twenty-six years of age, with a pleasant if unremarkable face and muddy green-brown eyes.
His most notable feature, however, was the shock of bright copper-hued hair upon his head.
The room was comfortable and not too warm, and the piles of paper on the side table were neatly arranged with labels and tags, ready to be filed into the bank of drawers that covered the far wall.
A single window was clean and let in sufficient light that no lamp was necessary at this time of day.
“Good afternoon,” the man welcomed him. He spoke, as Richard had been warned, with a thick Scottish accent. Glasgow, perhaps?
“Richard Fitzwilliam. I wrote to you…”
“Ah, yes, Colonel. A pleasure to have you here. Please be seated and tell me more of your problem, and I shall let you know if I think I can help. Brandy?”
Richard declined the offer of a drink and remarked upon the weather and the interesting neighbourhood as Mr Lyons made ready with a sheet of paper and a pencil. “Your name was given me by two men of my acquaintance, Mr Underwood and Mr Darcy.”
“Yes, yes, I remember both well. I cannot discuss either case, if you don’t mind.
I take my clients’ privacy most seriously.
But I am pleased both were satisfied with what I was able to do for them.
Rest assured that should you engage my services, I shall give equal weight to your own confidence. Now, Colonel, how may I help you?”
Richard then began his tale. Lyons listened carefully, asked a few questions, and nodded sagely.
Richard understood why both Underwood and Darcy had such confidence in the young man, for he exuded an aura of quiet competence.
Despite their very short period of acquaintance, he decided he quite liked the man.
Eventually, his recital ended. Lyons peered at him from under russet eyebrows and chewed his bottom lip.
“Just so! I completely understand why you want this character found and watched. Allow me some time to locate him, and then I shall set someone to watch him. You do not know whether he be in London or the countryside? Where is his father’s estate? ”
Richard gave the relevant information.
“I shall write today to an associate there to make some inquiries. Likewise, I shall begin at once to seek him out in London. I can make no guarantees as to my success, but I shall work hard in your stead.”
This was satisfactory, and the conversation turned to Mr Lyons’ fees and expectations. Richard departed shortly thereafter with a sense of satisfaction in having done something, no matter how small, to set a dire wrong to rights.