Chapter 4 #3
Uncle Willard hadn’t urged her to come, but Aunt had—had insisted in fact, and Augusta had sought desperately for some sign from her uncle that he was willing to spend the coin to bring her along.
He’d been particularly unforthcoming, his silences considering and unnerving.
Julia had asked for her assistance, though, because two girls with one chaperone would always have to be in company, and such an arrangement was not conducive to fostering a betrothal.
Augusta was pleased to see a tea service waiting for her on the escritoire by the windows. The earl’s staff was very thoughtful. She must compliment Lady Mary Frances on this, and find a way to do it that wouldn’t offend the woman’s pride.
Mary Fran was also making an effort to bring Matthew out of the grim mood he’d brought back with him from the Crimea. Uncle had prevailed on Matthew to come home before the official fighting was underway, though everybody spoke of war as if it were inevitable.
Matthew had been smiling at Mary Fran as they’d all wandered back to the house—all save Con and Julia, who’d gotten off to God knew where—and Matthew’s smile had been more like the easy, charming smile he’d sported to such advantage as a younger man.
All in all, it had been a wonderful outing. Augusta sat on her big, fluffy bed and bent to unlace her old walking boots. She paused to pet her cat, who was motionless on the floor beside her bed, probably exhausted from chasing every mouse in the Balfour stables.
· · ·
Ian knew better than to ask a servant where his sister had gotten off to.
They were loyal to her, the lot of them—the grinning footmen, the giggling maids, the cheerful tyrant in the kitchens referred to simply as Cook.
The stable lads were the worst, mooning after Mary Fran like a pack of schoolboys, when to a man, they were old enough to be her father, some of them old enough to be her grandfather.
But Mary Fran was either in hiding or seeing to the guest chambers, so Ian took himself in that direction only to stop abruptly in the corridor.
Weeping. The sound was quiet but distinct, coming from the other side of… Miss Augusta Merrick’s door. Ian recalled the location of her room because she’d had that great, fat black cat, and had requested access for him to the outdoors.
He rapped lightly on the door. “Miss Augusta? Shall I send my sister to you?”
He had to strain to hear her words. “Please just go away.”
Ian had only the one sister, but she’d trained him properly. That had not been a particularly emphatic command, and in the way of females, it had strongly implied its opposite. Cautiously, he opened the door—the woman hadn’t had time to discard her clothing after their walk, or so he hoped.
“Miss Merrick?”
“For pity’s sake, close the door.” Her breathing hitched. Ian heard it, and he saw it in the twitch of her shoulders where she lay curled on her side on the bed. Her back didn’t tell him much, except that she was upset enough to be in tears.
And she was not a crying type of female. “Was it something I said in the woods?”
He hadn’t said much really. She was the kind of woman a man didn’t feel the need to chatter with. A restful woman, easy to be with.
She pushed up and scooted around, cuddling the furry black beast that had taken such exception to being transported in a hatbox.
“I’m being ridiculous.” She pushed her way one-handed to the edge of the bed, and laid the unmoving cat beside her on the quilt. “He was very old, even for a house cat.”
“Your cat has gone to his reward?”
She sniffed and nodded as she stroked a hand over the animal’s fur. “I’m being maudlin. He was happy to be here, and I don’t think he suffered.”
And then she curled in on herself, losing her composure again. It broke Ian’s heart to see it, to see her struggling against tears when it was just the two of them…
In her room, behind a closed door. Good God. The ramifications if somebody came upon them were too awful to contemplate.
His indecision lasted but a moment. If this wasn’t a damsel in distress, then such a lady didn’t exist. He locked the door behind him and crossed the room.
“You were attached to him,” Ian said, wanting to take the mortal remains from the room, but understanding he couldn’t yet.
He shifted to lean against the bedpost. “When my first pony died, I wouldn’t let Grandfather bury him until the parson came from the kirk to bless the ground.
” He passed her his handkerchief, somewhat the worse for having been balled up and stowed in his pocket earlier.
She took the linen from his hand. “Ulysses was my friend. My only…” She fell silent again as weeping overtook her, giving Ian the sense Augusta Merrick would not cry often, but she’d grieve bitterly when tears befell her.
She reminded him of Mary Fran in that, so he sat beside her on the bed, the cat between them.
“You’ll miss him.”
She nodded. “I live in a modest house, not even a real manor, and my third cousin is elderly and rarely leaves her rooms. Ulysses would not let me be alone. He’d come wherever I was when I was home, and when I was not, he’d wait on the porch for me no matter the hour.”
“Loyal, then. A good friend.”
“He would sleep at my feet on the coldest nights. I’d let him have a little cream when I sat down to tea, like a little girl, having a tea p-party.”
She covered her face with her hands while Ian gently shifted the cat. These were confidences wrested from her because she was upset. He had no business hearing them, and she’d be embarrassed to have shared them unless he somehow conveyed that he understood her misery.
He moved closer and put an arm around her waist.
“When I was young, we had a dog. He was my dog, given to me because Asher had been given his own horse, and Grandfather said I wasn’t yet old enough for that honor.
I suspect we simply couldn’t afford to feed another mouth in the stable.
The dog’s name was MacTavish, and he went everywhere with me, though he’d been pronounced too lame to hunt.
Asher offered to trade the horse for him, but I wouldn’t give up my dog. ”
“How did you lose him?”
Her head rested on his shoulder while Ian’s hand moved slowly over her back. Her bones were more delicate than he’d have thought, and she smelled good, like sweet, new hay and pungent lavender overlaid with lilacs.
“He lived to be thirteen, and though I was a man well grown by Highland standards, when he died, I cried. He was asleep by the hearth, having pride of place as the oldest hound, and then he was gone. It was winter, but Gil and Con had dug some early graves in the fall before the ground froze.” He fell silent, recalling the sweep of the wind through the pines on that bitter day; feeling again the painful lump in his throat, the hot tears tracking down his cold cheeks. “Con piped him home.”
And for all that Ian had felt as if his very childhood were going into the ground with the old dog, it was a good memory. A memory of how family could comfort and ease heartbreak just by being family.
Though Ian sensed Augusta Merrick’s family wouldn’t comfort her over the loss of her pet. Matthew might make some quiet gesture; the women would cluck and murmur, but not enough to matter.
“I’ll bury him for you. Put him in the ground beside MacTavish and my old pony. I’ll have the priest up from town, too, if you like, to bless the plot again.”
She was quieter beside him, not giving off so much heat. Ian felt her gathering her dignity and pushed her head to his shoulder lest she move away.
“I would appreciate that, if you’d give him some sort of burial. The priest won’t be necessary. Ulysses never did have much patience for my outings to church.”
Humor, a small jest, a sign she was recovering her balance. Ian wondered where his own had gone. She sighed, and he resisted the urge to brush his lips against her temple in a gesture of comfort.
Surely, it would only have been a gesture of comfort.
Wouldn’t it?