Chapter Five
ROSS TURNED HIS collar up at the increasingly cold breeze.
Inviting Reggie had been an attempt to recreate their last meeting, but midnight in September was very different from what midnight in July had been.
He checked his watch against his lantern’s light— the waning crescent moon did not provide much.
Twenty minutes after the hour. Was she not coming?
He had done everything he could think of to show her the depth of his feelings, with hope that any one of his attempts would earn a response on her part.
She had remained silent, however, and this was his last hope.
Perhaps he had spent all those years making more of their attachment than there ever had been.
His body and soul recoiled at the thought, yet he could not make her love him, not with memories, not with gifts.
That was why he had promised to leave her alone if she did not come tonight.
It had been a very difficult promise to make, but he loved her, and because of that, if she truly did not want him, he would not press her further.
The glow of another lantern in the distance caught his attention.
He jumped off the wall and moved toward the light, attempting to not show the limp that had become more apparent after he’d been thrown out of Crumhall.
However, when he made out her form beside the light, he felt the rejuvenation of his arms and legs and heart.
They came to a stop before one another in the meadow they’d once danced in.
His eyes soaked her in. Her expression was guarded, but she did not look angry, only cautious.
Her hair fell in a plait over her shoulder, and she wore a long blue dressing gown tied at the waist, with a thick shawl about her shoulders.
The thought that she’d snuck out to see him made him smile.
This was just as it had been when they were younger— meeting in secret, their love belonging to them alone. He longed to return to the time of innocence and simplicity they’d once had.
“I’m so glad you’ve come, Reg— Miss Weathers.”
She looked about herself nervously and pulled the heavy shawl tighter at her neck. “I am unsure why I did, Mr. Martin. This is quite inappropriate.”
He wanted to say that she’d come because she still loved him, but he could sense her wariness and did not want to destroy the simple trust she’d shown in coming tonight.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for giving me an opportunity to explain myself.”
He noted interest in her eyes— only a flicker— but it was there all the same and gave him blessed encouragement. He was of no mind to delay the heart of the matter, therefore he took a breath and dove straight in.
“When I left under the counsel of my parents all those years ago, I thought I would see the world then return with confidence and swagger, as well as a military career. I expected to spend the years of my service running drills in the oppressive heat until I could return to you.”
He paused in an attempt not to get too drawn into the memories of what had happened next— it had taken many years not to be haunted by those things day and night.
“Napoleon changed everything. My regiment was one of the unlucky ones called up to fight the ground war, and we were sent to battle after battle throughout Europe, watching our friends be killed and then marching in their places.”
He paused, the memories pushing too hard at his defenses to allow him to go into more detail. Better that he skip ahead; besides, she already knew some details from his letters.
“Early in the Fourth Coalition, I was wounded so severely that I was sent to Italy to recover. It was there, while anticipating my return to England, that I heard of your engagement.”
“You had been gone for six years by then,” she said quickly. “Six years, Ross.”
She had used his Christian name! His heart soared. But she was not done speaking.
“And you never wrote to me as you promised. I could not wait forever.”
“I never wrote?” Ross repeated, pulling back slightly in shock. “I wrote you every month unless I was in battle, and even then I wrote as often as I could.”
“You did not.” She shook her head. “You wrote me when you left London— that is all. You said as much the other night at my niece’s ball—you admitted that you should have written.”
“I meant that I should have written when I came from London two weeks ago; that I should have warned you of my arrival.”
She looked confused, but determined. “I have never received word from you, not since you first went away.”
“But I did write to you all those years. I…” The words trailed off as he realized that her not receiving his letters explained her coldness, her unwillingness to see him.
She’d believed that he hadn’t cared for her at all.
He reached for the lantern in her hand, and she allowed him to take it and set it on the ground at their feet.
He then reached for her hand and relished the warmth of holding it in his own.
“Reggie,” he said, daring to use the name he’d called her by all those years ago. “I swear to you that I wrote you often— as much as I could. When I did not get a response I assumed that I was simply not in one place long enough for your letters to reach me.”
She said nothing, but he could see that she did not believe him, and her distrust made his stomach tight.
She pulled her hand away and used both to clutch at the shawl around her shoulders.
“I would have received your letters if you had ever sent them— I was at Crumhall for years after you’d left; I did not even leave to have a Season in London.
Whenever I was invited to visit a friend or relative, I was always fearful of missing your correspondence, yet none ever came. ”
That was impossible! “Surely some were lost due to the war, but not all of them. Not every one.” There was no reason she wouldn’t receive any of them. Unless... “Did you speak to anyone of our engagement? Did your family not approve, as mine did not?”
“I told no one,” she said with confidence. “I kept our secret at first because it was ours alone, then to be protected from judgments, and finally because I was too humiliated to explain that I had believed your word for so long.”
The accusation stung, but he remained steady. “The only way you would not have received my letters is if someone intercepted them.”
Her forehead creased with worry for a moment but then she lifted her chin and shook her head. “No one knew of our promise to each other; therefore, there was no reason to prevent me from receiving your letters. Writing a soldier was patriotic, if nothing else. No one would have objected.”
“But someone must have discovered the engagement and—”
“You were to tell me all that happened.” She waved her hand through the air in a gesture of impatience. “I believe you left off with news of my engagement, which did not last even a week.”
“Why? Why did it not last?” How he wanted to hear her say that it was because the man was not him, was not Ross— the boy she still loved and who still loved her from afar.
“It is impertinent for you to ask such a thing,” she said, looking at the ground. “It was not a good match; that is all. How did you hear of it?”
“From another soldier at the hospital in Italy— last name was Lebelson. His family was from Wolverhampton. Do you know them?”
“Our families have been friends for years; their oldest son went to university with my brother.”
“Yes. He’d been there two months longer than I had, enough that his letters had found him, and he had one from home announcing your engagement.”
“Which would have been finished by the time he learned of it,” she said.
“I assumed it was the wedding that was finished by then.” He could not push away the lingering pain the news had caused him. “To say I was heartbroken is to put it far too mildly— I was dumbfounded.”
“It had been six—”
“I know,” he cut in, not wanting her to think he was angry but needing her to understand.
“But I had believed that the reason I had been spared when so many others had not was because of you, because you were waiting for me and we were destined to be together. When I thought that you had married another, I questioned the purpose of my entire existence.”
She was silent, looking between him and the ground a few times as she seemed to gather her thoughts. “Did you get my letters?” she asked. “I wrote you faithfully for the first two years.”
“Some.”
“Some?” she asked, looking confused.
“In wartime, people move a great deal, and the mail was unreliable at best. I received six, perhaps, maybe seven in those early years, and how I relished your words— and I could see that I had missed some in between. It did not matter; I was so glad to have your letters. When they stopped, I blamed the continued conflicts, certain that once I was in one place long enough they would catch up to me.”
He smiled, but the furrow in her brow only deepened, spurring him to continue.
“In Italy, when I learned of your engagement and did not receive your delayed letters, I realized how foolish my hope had been. It was obvious you had moved on, and, as you said, it had been six years— why would you not move on by then? I could not bear to return to England and see you on the arm of another man; so, I agreed to go to Spain despite my injuries, which had earned me a way home if I wanted it. I told myself that I did not care what happened to me next, yet I fared well; investments I had made in India grew, and I was more able to determine where I went and how I served. But even when I tried to distract myself with my duties, I could not stop thinking of you.”