Chapter 23 #2
Barrow went on. “Initially, I was supposed to return to England for only enough time to receive my next commission. In the initial missive from the War Office, they had suggested somewhere in Upper Canada, or perhaps Montreal. But I became ill… yes, I know you can see it. My heart.” He put a hand up to his breast. “I became ill on the ship on our return and spent much of that journey lying in my cabin. The doctors here have examined me upwards and downwards and claim that I am in no immediate danger, but that I cannot return to a command. And so, I spend my days sitting at a desk at the Dunning Street building,”—he named the location of a second set of rooms to support the war effort—“filling out forms and eating the bland and uninteresting food my doctor suggests. This,” he declaimed as he held up his glass of whisky, “is a rare treat, and I thank you for joining me in it.”
“Then you have not been back in England for much time?” He needed to know how long it had been that Emily had avoided informing him of her presence.
“Not long. Only two months now. I am still hoping to be sent at least to York, where I may be of some use, but I sadly suspect my career will be continued here in London.” He took a small sip of his drink.
“Can’t rush this,” he explained. “I enjoy it so rarely now, I must make it last. But drink up, lad. The less there is for me, the more for you. I long to hear about your own career. You have been at your command for six months now, I believe. I insist on hearing all!”
With such an invitation, how could he do anything but comply?
He talked his way through his glass of whisky, and then through another, before refusing a third.
It would not do to walk back to Darcy’s town house whilst in his cups.
And Darcy would most likely offer him a glass of something after dinner. A man could only hold so much.
It was growing close to dinner time when he finally took his leave.
Emily still had not returned, and he despaired of seeing her.
He had not asked her father about her, other than general inquiries after her health, for if Mrs Barrow had been amazed that she had not written, the colonel would know even less.
Still, his eyes had flicked towards the door at every creak or sound, and his smile upon taking his leave was strained.
“You will come again when next you are in London.” This was more a command than a request from the lady of the house, and Richard agreed.
Such a visit would be no chore! He found his hat and stepped out into the warm summer afternoon to begin the short stroll back to the fashionable streets where his cousin lived.
He had gone no more than a dozen steps when he saw her.
There was no flash of light, no stirring fanfare from the heavens, just a quiet parting of the clouds that had shadowed Richard’s life for so long. There, quiet and unassuming, the haven he craved in the storm, was Emily. Hope burgeoned within him.
She was coming around the corner, carrying a large package that must be candles, and looking down at her feet where the pavement was uneven.
He stopped still in his tracks and waited.
He would not alarm her by calling out her name.
She would see him in time. But would she acknowledge him?
Or walk right past and pretend he was not there? Stop, he prayed. See me.
Emily’s good breeding won out. She raised her eyes from her shoes and slowed almost to a stop. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth stiffened. He could see the tension rise in her shoulders as she recognised who stood in her path.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam.” There was no warmth in her voice.
“Emily! Why so formal? I thought I was your friend!” It was no more than he expected, but he could not keep the hurt he felt from coming out in his tone.
“Colonel.”
She tried to duck around him to return to the apartment, but he shifted to step in front of her. This was no time for delicate politeness. He was a soldier, trained to confront issues and not back down.
“What is wrong? What have I done? I have been searching for any news of you for these past four months, and here you are in town and have not sent me a word! Was our friendship worth so little to you? I had thought we meant more to each other than this!”
She levelled her eyes at him and clenched her jaw. There was an echo of her father’s steel backbone in her regard.
“After what you said, now you come and claim friendship? You have surely heard of my good fortune and have come to claim your stake.” She tried again to step around him. Instead of allowing it, he reached out to take her package. It was heavy and lumpy; her trip to the chandler was no false story.
“After what I said? I cannot imagine what that might be… What words rubbed you ill? I wrote to you only twice, once with news of my journey home and again, very briefly, in case that first missive was lost. What did I say that upset you so?”
She furrowed her brow and scowled. “That is not what I read.”
“I recall it perfectly.” He ushered her to the three short steps that led to her door and sat down on the second of them.
“I returned home—well, to Darcy’s home—and almost before taking a drink or greeting my cousin, I sat down to write to you about everything that had happened on my voyage home.
There was not a great deal to relate, since one ocean journey is much like another, but I thought you might wish to hear about Darcy’s house and my welcome back to England.
I did not wish to end the letter, for it was my one connection to you.
I must have written four pages of nothing, to be sent off in the next morning’s post.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Four pages? About the ship and your cousin’s house? But that is not what I received…” She sat down beside him. “The letter I read was short, only a few lines. It said nothing of the voyage, and nothing of your return. It was curt and cruel.”
“What did it say? Do you have it still?” A vile suspicion began to uncoil in his breast, and Colonel Barrow’s good whisky roiled in his belly.
“No. I was so upset I burned it! I thought…”
“Emily, what did it say? Can you recall exactly?”
She shook her head. “No, not exactly. But the intent was clear enough and is seared on my brain. It said that you could not condone any sort of connection with someone despoiled such as I was, and that our friendship was at a definite end.”
“No!” The word exploded from him before he could think.
“Never! I have missed you every single day that we have been separated! When I heard you had left the Bermudas for places unknown to me, I felt a part of my soul shrivel up and die. How could you think that I would ever abandon our friendship?”
Were those tears in her eyes? “I could not believe it at first… I had thought… but then the letter came, with your name on it. Your handwriting, so I believed. It was so cruel I could not even tell my parents.” Now the tears began to flow.
Did he dare put an arm around her, to offer her comfort and reassure her?
Or would that gesture miss its mark? He glanced around.
It would not do. This was too public a place for such a show of affection. He stood and offered his hand.
“Come. Let us walk for a moment. There is a small park just yonder. Just for a few minutes…”
In a moment they had deposited the candles inside the entrance and started the short walk to the square.
Emily accepted Richard’s offered hand, and they walked in silence.
He could see she was fighting to keep the tears at bay.
A short bank of shrubbery filled part of the square, and he guided her behind one exuberant bush, where he opened his arms. “May I?” His eyes asked the question as surely as his words.
She nodded and melted against him. He felt her quiet sobs against his chest, and he folded his arms that much closer about her. “I would never… I could never… Nothing about your past matters to me. It is your present, your future that I care about.”
“But,” she choked through her sobs, “but what was that other letter? If you did not write it, who did? I really believed it was your handwriting.”
“Handwriting can be copied. I have some thoughts on this.”
“Weekes?”
He nodded. “The very same.”
“How could he have known of my shame? I never told a soul other than my parents… and you!”
She could not believe him to have divulged such a dire secret.
“Do not mistake me, Emily! I have not breathed a word. No, he knows nothing of that horrendous attack on you, at least not through me. But he does know that he importuned you that last night I was to be on the island. That is the ruination of which he spoke. I would bet my life on it.”
“But why… how? What reason could he have to be so needlessly cruel?”
“He was your father’s secretary, known for his excellent penmanship. For such a man, it might not be a great stretch to imitate another’s hand.”
“But he was not even at the Dockyard when your letter… when the letter arrived. He was gone from Bermuda entirely.”
This occasioned some thought.
“Who took his place?” There was a level of deceit here that was most disturbing.
“Captain Notts. He had often assisted Weekes with his duties.” She pulled back from his embrace and looked at him. “I could not think it of him.”
“No. But I could well believe Weekes might have written that missive and put it into Notts’ hands.
The two were known associates, after all.
He could have instructed Notts to replace anything from me with this counterfeit note and destroy my letter.
And Notts would have agreed. The man perjured himself for Weekes, after all.
What matter could a simple substitution be to him? ”
She buried her face in her hands. “All this time… All this time I thought you had forsaken me. I have been here for two months, when we might have continued our correspondence, our friendship, and all I could think was how to avoid you. Oh, Richard!”
He folded her against him again. “Thank God, Emily! I was prepared to throw myself on the ground before you and grovel for forgiveness, whether I had committed the sin or not. But wait!” He grabbed her hands.
“You spoke of your good fortune, that I had come to claim as my own. What news do you have?”
She peeked out from behind the hedges. “There is no one around. Let us leave before we are spotted.” They slipped out of the small copse and began to walk the short paths of the compact park.
“Mother’s father was a baronet,” she began.
Richard nodded. This he knew. “Now my uncle holds that rank. His estate is not grand, but neither is it small, and it brings him some moderate amount of wealth. When he learned of our return to England, and of Father’s ill health… ” she left off to look at him.
“Yes, he told me of it.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “When he heard of it, he gave me a gift of five thousand pounds as a competence. I had a modest amount set aside before; now I am all but an heiress. I may live comfortably in complete independence from the interest.” She peered up at him. “You did not know at all?”
“Emily!” he all but laughed. “You forget that I am an earl’s son. I can scarcely consider less than five thousand a year as a competence! One must have a carriage and pair of matched greys, and dozens of servants on a grand estate, after all.”
Her face fell.
“No, no, I jest! Five thousand is a grand fortune. Not like Darcy’s wealth, but more than any sensible person requires.
Still, I have my own ten thousand in secure investments, and a house near my parents’ estate.
I have no claims on your fortune, other than to celebrate it with you.
Now, I am expected at my cousin’s house for dinner.
But allow me to walk you home, and then we may, with your permission, resume our friendship. ”
Her smile transformed her face. “I would like nothing more.”