Chapter 5
Alistair winced as pain shot up his leg, a sudden jolt that made him stagger.
His heavy overcoat flapped in the wind, and blown sand stung his eyes, making them water.
At least it wasn’t raining, or particularly cold; it wanted only that to make him thoroughly miserable.
It was counter to all common sense, to keep on walking when it hurt so much, but his doctor had told him that the only way he’d return to anything like his previous level of fitness and mobility was to exercise, no matter how much it pained him.
‘The wound has healed well,’ the fellow had told him, poking it disagreeably.
‘But the muscles have wasted during your long illness – you can see that yourself, Major – and you must bring them back into condition. Use your stick, of course, for balance, but if you don’t keep trying, if you give in to the temptation to sit by the fire like an old man, you’ll never be any better than this. ’
This was a pathetic, hobbling figure, lurching along the beach.
Sand was particularly hard to walk on for one as unsteady as he, Major Bartrum had found, but on the other hand, if he fell over – which he knew from experience was more than likely – it would provide a soft landing, softer than grass or mud and less likely to stain his clothing and make unnecessary work for his mother’s maids.
Sand could always be brushed off; humiliation was harder to disregard.
There was nobody about to see him today, and he was glad of it; the very last thing he needed was pity.
Physical strength was something you took for granted, it seemed, until the moment after you lost it and found yourself face down in the sucking mud somewhere in north-eastern France.
He’d been a heedless idiot for eight and twenty years, till last year, taking as a birthright and even a virtue something that was a matter of pure chance.
That superb, unquestioned sense of well-being, even superiority, that came from being a healthy male animal in one’s prime – that was gone for good.
Alistair was still called Major by almost everybody, but that was merely a courtesy.
He’d never lead men into battle again; that part of his life had ended last year at Saint-Dizier.
And he hadn’t even been bloody well supposed to be there.
He thought he might have the ridiculous distinction of being the only Englishman wounded in that significant engagement.
Now his regiment was somewhere across the narrow sea, not all that far away as the crow flew, preparing to beat Boney one last time.
But he wasn’t with them; as his friend Will Lavenham wrote with wry mockery, it was a real puzzle to know how they’d manage.
Will was there, no doubt having the time of his life, invigorated by the approach of danger; meanwhile, Alistair was staggering along a beach in Suffolk feeling extremely sorry for himself, leaning on a stick like an old man, while invisible demons prodded wickedly sharp little weapons into various tender parts of him.
He had a stitch in his side just from walking this distance, but he gritted his teeth and stumbled on.
All he needed – really all he needed – was for some damn busybody of his acquaintance to appear here on this enormous and previously entirely deserted strand and decide to come over and bloody well talk to him.
He was acquainted with the operation of malign fate, due to his recent life experiences, and so it was no great surprise when he looked up and saw a figure in the distance.
Someone on a horse. A fast one, no farm nag this, coming directly his way, speeding towards him.
No doubt it would be somebody he particularly disliked.
He recognised the horse before the rider – a showy black stallion.
Honesty compelled him to admit that it was just the mount he’d have chosen for himself – if he’d been able to afford it – when he was one and twenty, which still did not prevent him from characterising its rider as a flashy young idiot.
He stopped walking. Sebastian Pallant was just the sort of reckless nincompoop who’d love to ride him down as if by pure accident, see him topple into a puddle, and then apologise with an insincere smirk while storing up the amusing anecdote for later.
Alistair leaned on his stick and waited.
It wasn’t as though a good day was about to be ruined; he’d been out of sorts already.
Foul temper was his new normality. He knew it, he knew he was unpleasant to be around, he knew he made his mother cry sometimes, but he didn’t seem able to stop.
‘Bartrum!’ the boy exclaimed when he was close enough.
The disparity in age and experience between them meant that it would have been much more correct for the stripling to address him by his military rank, but all the Pallants disdained such petty courtesies; the sister seemed to be as bad as the brothers.
They also shared a marked lack of respect for personal space.
The beast was too close for safety and pirouetting on its hind legs as though it and its rider were on stage at Astley’s Amphitheatre.
Was he supposed to be impressed? Frightened?
Jealous? It was perfectly true; he did feel a pang of envy.
Just now, he couldn’t have guaranteed to control an elderly donkey, let alone this glossy, wild-eyed creature.
‘Pallant,’ he replied shortly. He’d be damned if he furthered the conversation; the fellow had approached him, not the other way round. Presumably, he wanted something more than to exchange the time of day, and would eventually get around to mentioning it.
‘I wonder you should choose to walk so far on such a devilish blustery morning. But perhaps you can’t ride any more.
’ This wasn’t something that a sensible human being, let alone a tactful one, would say to an ex-cavalry officer, gravely wounded in battle, but then young Mr Pallant wasn’t either of those things. ‘Are you heading for Albery Hall?’
This was idiocy of no uncommon order. ‘No. Why would I be?’
A malicious light came into the lad’s dark-blue eyes. ‘I thought you might be going to pay a call on our new neighbours.’
Alistair sighed. ‘Do you have something to tell me, Pallant? Because if you do, spit it out, man, before I catch my death of cold. I’m not as young as you, you know, and I don’t have a damn big horse to keep me warm.
’ Major Bartrum found that the list of things and people that annoyed him was growing longer by the day, but right at the top of it, he now realised, were people who had something to say and would not come straight out and say it, but needed half an hour of tedious preliminaries before they got to the cursed point.
‘They’re arriving within the next few days,’ Mr Pallant said, his excitement at knowing something Alistair didn’t overriding his desire to appear dignified and adult.
‘Ellen Pritty has had a letter from the old fool of a lawyer, and it’s all confirmed.
Their maidservant and one of ours are sisters, you know, so we were the first to hear.
Just think of it. Three heiresses, ripe for plucking, accompanied by some damn desiccated old chaperon. ’
‘Servants’ gossip,’ Alistair responded levelly. If he’d been interested in this piece of information – which he wasn’t – he’d have died rather than show it.
The fair, handsome features were disfigured by a sneer. ‘So you won’t be calling, then?’
‘On three young women, and their duenna? I shall not. Are you out of your senses?’
The boy waved a careless hand, and then returned it hastily to the reins when the horse curveted even more wildly in response.
‘Your mother, I mean. That sort of thing is women’s business.
For our own part, my sister Vivienne is determined not to be behindhand in any civility.
She will go as soon as we hear that they have definitely arrived, and it would be perfectly proper for me to go with her, if I wish it, Oliver says.
Perhaps not on the very first visit, but soon afterwards. ’
‘I’m sure Miss Pallant will pay the new arrivals every courtesy, and you will too. I suppose my mother will call at some point, or it would look odd, but it’s a matter of no interest to me. I won’t be accompanying her.’
‘Not throwing your hat in the ring?’ With the shameless cruelty of heedless youth, Sebastian Pallant’s dark gaze travelled slowly, insolently, up Alistair’s body – his stick, his lame leg, his torso where the scars lay hidden, his disfigured face.
‘I am not. No doubt you’ll be delighted to hear that I will leave that sort of thing to you and your brother. And your sister, of course. Is that really why you rode out of your way to speak to me: to see if I meant to make a play for one of these young women nobody here has even met yet?’
Pallant didn’t answer directly, only shrugging pettishly. ‘Well, I’m sure you would have put us all in the shade once, Major.’
‘You really are a little shit, aren’t you? Go away. Find someone else to irritate.’
No doubt Alistair’s expression was forbidding – it always was, these days – and the boy laughed to cover his uncertainty.
Sebastian Pallant, all the Pallants, were supposed to be the ones to dole out incivility, so blithely arrogant were they; he didn’t seem to be very accustomed to receiving it in return.
The young cockscomb wasn’t quite far gone enough in folly to make any sort of actual threat in response – he would have his more cautious older brother to answer to for that – and he clearly couldn’t think of a witty rejoinder either, so he settled for riding off with a careless, dismissive wave.
‘I hope you fall off and break your stupid fucking neck,’ Alistair said into the heedless wind, and then he sighed, and trudged on.