Chapter Twenty-Three
The following morning, Jack instructed his valet to pack the small portmanteau with the few clothes he had chosen to take on his earlier journey.
“Might I accompany you tomorrow, Captain?” Devon asked. “You might have need of me.”
Jack smiled at seeing his valet’s long face.
“No, thank you, Devon. As you can see, my needs are simple. Please spend the time I am away as you see fit. Of course, you will receive your full wages. You may also return to Albany should you wish to earn a little extra valeting for other gentlemen. As long as I don’t lose you to the place. ”
Devon grinned. “Have no fear, Captain. I’ll be here when you return.”
Jack penned a letter to Althea, which should find her at her home in Burford, Oxfordshire.
Then, he left a list of instructions for the rest of his staff.
He was pleased with Jenkins, his new steward, who had a good brain, and, as the son of a steward, was well versed in his position.
That evening, Jack joined Grant for a farewell drink at his Mayfair mansion.
Jack looked around the small salon where he and his father had spent many a pleasant evening. “I had hoped to say goodbye to Aunt Elizabeth.”
“I shall relay your message to Mother at breakfast,” Grant said. “She is dining with the Moncrieffs tonight.”
“She is well?”
“In excellent health. Which I suspect is not the case for Harry,” Grant said with a sympathetic shake of his head. “I wonder how he fares on board the ship.”
“Poorly, I imagine,” Jack replied. “But he has the lovely, understanding Lady Erina to hold his head.”
Grant rose to pour them another drink. “I hope your journey will grow tiresome and we see you back here before too long,” he said, returning with the filled glasses. “Life’s never dull when you’re around, Jack.”
“Only because I drag you away from your beloved library and your fusty old tomes.”
Grant smiled. “I’m not sure if danger is attracted to you, or you’re attracted to danger. But I take some comfort in the fact that you know how to deal with most situations.”
With a rueful smile, Jack touched the graze from Renard’s ball on his upper arm, which still stung. “Not always.”
“Here’s to a safe journey.” Grant raised his glass of claret.
“Thank you. I’ll endeavor to write when I reach Ireland.” Jack grinned. “Good luck with negotiating the marriage mart.”
Grant shook his head with a wry twist of his lips. “Mother becomes more insistent by the day. But it will be an extraordinary woman to want to live as I choose to.”
Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Perhaps you will fall deeply in love and emerge from your self-imposed isolation.”
Grant grunted.
Jack wondered if Grant would ever recover from his heartbreaking past. He hoped his cousin would not settle for a milk-and-water miss, a young debutante with no spirit. He needed a passionate, fiery woman to shake him up and drag him away from his books.
The next morning, as Jack prepared to leave, a letter from Althea was delivered. He resisted reading it, tucking the missive into his kit. After a final word to his staff, he rode along the Holyhead Road toward Wales.
Hours later, he stopped for the night beneath an oak because the weather was warm and the skies overhead still clear.
He tended to Arian’s needs, then rolled out his bedding beneath the sheltering branches of the towering tree.
Jack leaned against the trunk, enjoying the quiet while breathing in the smells of grass and earth, along with the scents of wild rose, chamomile, beechwood and bramble, which carried on the breeze.
He took out Althea’s letter and read it before the gathering dusk obliterated the words. He’d been afraid that if he’d read it sooner, he might weaken and go to her.
There was gratitude and regret in every line.
Althea was pleased to be home in Oxfordshire once more with her dog and spending her time repotting neglected plants.
Jack would be in her thoughts every day and every lonely night.
“You are a very brave man, Jack Ryder,” she wrote.
“But are you brave enough to defy convention? I love you with all my heart, my darling. Whilst I while away the days and months, I shall wait in hope you’ll return to me. ”
Jack wished he could be there with her. But it would not do.
Any day now, a whippet pup named Brandy would be delivered to her with Jack’s hope she would care for him for a while.
Grant had volunteered to make the journey.
He would hand her Jack’s letter with his promise he would be back before the year was out and would call to see her.
Jack tucked her letter away with a sad tug at his heart. He would think of her day and night until they met again.