Chapter 25
CAPTAIN JOHN CALDER
It had only been a few weeks since I’d worn my uniform, and it still fit my arms and chest in the way it had when I’d been an active cavalry officer.
But I felt different in it—the dark blue wool and gold braids were uncomfortable in ways they hadn't been since the first year I wore them.
As rewarding as it had been in friendships and finances, I was ready for that part of my life to be over.
But I wasn’t capable of ignoring a command from General Blackwell, even if that command was issued as a suggestion. So I was back in my blue coat, grateful Old Boney was safely tucked away in exile. May he die and rot on Saint Helena and never give me cause to ride Scout against him again.
I tugged at the hem of my coat and then stepped into the drawing room.
As had become my habit the past few days, I found Miss Blackwell’s form first. She was deep in conversation with Mrs. Pryor near the fireplace.
Her long, graceful form was clothed in a pale ivory gown with gold embroidery that winked with firelight each time she lifted an arm or turned her shoulders.
How was I supposed to see anyone else when Miss Blackwell insisted on sparkling at me from across the room?
Mrs. Pryor gave me a polite bow in greeting. Miss Blackwell’s graceful shoulders lifted as she turned toward me. I caught the briefest flicker of her eyes as she traced the cut of my coat and the fit of my white breeches.
I’d never understood men who used a uniform as a means of garnering the attention of women, but that flick of her eyes had me suddenly feeling a bit more charitable to even the most flamboyant of cavalry officers.
I swallowed. What was Miss Blackwell doing to me?
I’d always been true to Harriet. Never once had I been tempted by a smiling face or a fine figure.
I forced my eyes away from Miss Blackwell and found Harriet standing next to Brookhouse, watching me.
A slow, steady smile rose to her lips, and my heart landed heavily in my chest.
As indifferent as she had been to me throughout this house party, she hadn’t been indifferent at Applewood, and she didn’t seem indifferent now.
I had to speak to her. If Harriet had spent the last six years waiting for me, setting aside other prospects because of the promise she’d made me, I couldn’t abandon her.
I wouldn’t be like my father.
The dinner bell rang and I started. The time would come when I would speak to Harriet, but before that happened, I needed to sit through at least one more dinner with Miss Blackwell by my side.
I strode toward Miss Blackwell, pausing only to give a brief nod to those of the party I passed on my way.
She didn’t watch my progress, her graceful neck lowered and her head bent down and away from me.
She still wouldn’t look at me. All my righteous thinking of only a moment ago fled.
If we were alone, I would have lifted her chin with the knuckle of my white-gloved index finger and brought her gaze to mine.
It would have been highly inappropriate, but as I’d said to her at Applewood, we’d done much more inappropriate things.
“Miss Blackwell?”
Her eyes flicked up, and then away, before she very gently wrapped her hand around my arm, almost as if she were trying to be careful with me.
In all the evenings I’d escorted her, she’d never been careful or soft in her touches.
She’d grabbed my arm with force and clamped her fingers into my forearm like a vise grip.
One evening she’d even pulled me this way and that to make it look as though I couldn’t walk a straight line.
I almost didn’t recognize her. I could have used some of this softness when she’d had me chasing a shuttlecock on our first day of warfare.
General Blackwell and his wife led the party into the dining room with their partners, and I took that moment to tip my head toward her. “I believe introductions are in order. I am Captain John Calder. May I ask who I’m escorting into dinner this evening?”
Her lip turned up in a smile and she glanced up at me through the corner of her eye. “I am the same woman I’ve always been.”
“Impossible. The Evelyn Blackwell I know has never been this compliant.”
“You are done seeing only the worst of me. I shall now be as sweet and helpful to you as an an—” She broke off suddenly, but not suddenly enough.
A jolt of pure pleasure shot up through my legs and chest and straight to my mouth, which erupted into a wolfish grin. “Angel?” I asked.
She cleared her throat softly. “Well, yes, now that you mention it.”
I sneaked a quick glance at her. A soft blush colored her cheek. It seems my comment at the shooting range had hit the mark. I’d figured as much when she’d shot so poorly, but I didn’t mind an additional confirmation in the form of a blush.
Perhaps Miss Blackwell wasn’t as indifferent to the fact that I’d kissed her as she pretended to be—not if simply telling her how angelic she had looked brought heat to her face.
I’d done nothing to endear myself to Miss Blackwell.
She’d seen me ill and at my very worst. I’d kissed her without her permission—without even knowing who she was.
And we had spent most of this house party playing a game of cat and mouse, in which I had always been the mouse, trying desperately to escape her.
If by some miracle I’d been wrong about Harriet, or if by chance Brookhouse had managed to surpass me in her affections, was there a world where Miss Blackwell might be convinced to care for me?
She was a stark contrast to the calm and steady beacon of hope that Harriet had been.
During every battle, through every lonely night, with letters from Arthur and May getting lost on their way more often than not, I’d been certain all I wanted was a family that was steadfast and sure.
And Harriet was that. She had seemed to be a battle already won and a future secured.
Every time I had enquired about her to find her still unattached, that security grew firmer.
Nothing about Miss Blackwell was secure.
My feelings for her were as foolhardy as rushing, outnumbered and without reserves, toward a superior force.
The woman by my side could decimate me.
Being decimated once in a lifetime should have been enough.
But here I was, wishing I was free enough to throw myself into the fray.
The two of us didn’t talk after we sat. She spoke to Brookhouse in such animated tones it was clear she’d been completely unaffected by our conversation, while I stayed silent.
I’d been so hopeful when I’d mounted Scout a few weeks ago, so certain everything would easily go according to my plan. I had been a na?ve whelp.
“Mrs. Wickerton,” Brookhouse piped up, beaming at the woman across the table. There was something in the way he raised his voice and the timbre of it that set my instincts on edge. If I’d been riding Scout in the army, my hand would be on my saber. “I’m afraid I’ve been keeping a secret.”
Miss Blackwell, Harriet, Mr. Howard, and Davis glanced up from their plates.
We all knew what this was—it was finally time Brookhouse paid the piper.
But the grin on his face didn’t look like the kind a man would wear when he was about to do something unpleasant.
And with Brookhouse, that didn’t bode well.
Mrs. Wickerton froze mid-chew. Her eyes locked on Brookhouse and stayed there. Then she chewed as quickly as a rabbit and swallowed hard.
“Well.” She gave a little cough into her hand. “Secrets aren’t typically good things, now, are they? They fester.”
Brookhouse nodded as if she said something extremely wise. “That’s exactly what I was thinking, which is why I feel I should tell you mine.”
Mrs. Wickerton leaned forward, her hands busy in her lap, no doubt reaching inside her reticule for the little book she kept there.
Brookhouse smirked directly at me. My hand went to my side, but there was no saber there to steady me.
I narrowed my eyes at him, but we were both retired on half-pay.
He didn’t actually have to do what I wanted, and the smirk on his face showed me exactly how happy he was about that.
“Captain Calder fell ill on his way to this house party and was saved,” he paused for dramatic effect, “by a mysterious woman in white.”
The table went silent and I forced myself not to turn toward Miss Blackwell. I could not look at anyone. My face was certain to betray me. Miss Blackwell had assured me her parents wouldn’t spread the word about that night, nor would they force a marriage because of it.
I thought she’d underestimated the scandal such news would bring, but I also trusted that she knew her parents best and that she could be right.
But that was before Mrs. Wickerton became involved and before I discovered I’d kissed her.
If General Blackwell interrogated me about what happened in that croft, he would see my guilt from a mile away, and Mrs. Wickerton would follow it like a bloodhound with a fresh scent.
A court-martial would be too good a punishment for Brookhouse.
Actually, his was a face I could look at. He wouldn’t see guilt in my eyes and I didn’t care if he saw murder.
He was waiting for my glance with a smirk and a shrug. Trust him to make certain his forfeit wouldn’t actually harm him.
But he didn’t know who he was harming.
“Mysterious?” Mrs. Wickerton sputtered. “Why mysterious?” She glanced first at Brookhouse, and then at me.
“She wasn’t mysterious,” I said gruffly.
“Then who was she?” Mrs. Wickerton asked. “Did she fetch a doctor?”
“They were alone,” Brookhouse said, almost joyously.
“Only by happenstance. She is someone who helped me out of kindness and I would rather not impose on her any further by trying to discover more about her when she asked me not to.”
Mrs. Wickerton’s eyebrows rose and her mouth, which was small to begin with, practically disappeared into her face. “She asked you not to discover her identity?