Chapter 18
Terms of Engagement
Marcus glared up the hill at the winding dirt track that led to Seagull Heights. His chest had constricted, and he pressed a hand to the place the musket ball had struck him, a tight, pulling pain tightening like a vice around him.
He was barely a third of the way up and already sweating, his lungs burning and wheezing like bellows. Christ, not so long ago he’d have marched up here without thinking about it. Now look at him, as crippled as a man twice his age, and a gouty, rheumatic old cretin at that.
“Dammit, Hamilton, move your bloody arse, you sorry piece of shit,” he cursed, and forced his unwilling body to carry on.
He told himself he was an idiot for not hiring a hack to make the journey, but there was some stubbornly irrational part of him that would not accept he was no longer the man he had been.
Either he would climb this sodding poxy hill, or he would die trying.
At least then he wouldn’t have to sit for the bloody sodding portrait.
The path wound on and on, becoming steeper with each step, or so it felt to Marcus, whose breath was ragged now.
His steps became shorter, pure stubbornness and determination forcing him to continue.
Though he had known the going would be tough, he had not realised how tough, or perhaps he still underestimated how badly that French bullet had incapacitated him.
With his mouth set in a grim line, one hand clutching at the old scar, he carried on for what seemed like days yet surely could not be, but when he got to the top, the chimes of the village reached him on the breeze.
Eleven strikes, he counted despairingly.
An hour and three quarters, to make a climb that would likely have taken less than half an hour last year.
He muttered a foul oath upon the Frenchman who had wounded him, consigning him to the fieriest pit of hell, and felt a little better for it as he saw the elegant roofline of Seagull Heights come into view.
“Thank God,” he muttered.
When he finally reached the house, he did not go directly to the front door, aware he was sweating profusely and gasping. Instead, he headed around to the stables, meaning to take a moment to rest by the well and have a drink of water before tidying himself up.
With one hand on the wall for support, he trudged around the side of the house. He felt giddy and grey with fatigue, and so it was with an excruciating swell of humiliation that he turned the corner to find Miss Foxworthy standing by the well.
She dropped the empty bucket with a cry of alarm as she saw him and hurried forward.
“Good Lord, Colonel Hamilton! Whatever has happened? You are ill!” she cried, rushing towards him, her beautiful face taut with concern.
“Restrain yourself, madam, I am… I am perfectly well,” he managed, though his lungs seemed to be determined to suffocate him. “I have an injury that makes breathing a… a little challenging, and the climb was somewhat more—”
She stopped, staring at him in outrage.
“You mean to say you knew you had an injury that made breathing difficult, and you just climbed up that ridiculous hill all by yourself? Well, no wonder you are in such a dreadful state,” she said, and all her compassion seemed to have vanished.
Instead, she looked furious. “Good heavens above, one would think a man of your age and experience would have more sense. Come now, let me help you before you pass out.”
Marcus stiffened, appalled by such treatment, and held up a hand to stop her from coming nearer.
“I am perfectly capable of seeing to myself, I thank you,” he snapped furiously.
Eustacia snorted and folded her arms. “Oh, I see you are one of those men,” she said, disdain dripping from every syllable.
He looked at her sharply.
“The sort who never admits he needs help, even if he’s at death’s door. Go ahead, kill yourself, see if I care.” She waved a hand at him, gesturing for him to get on with it and Marcus glared at her.
With every fibre of his being vibrating with indignation, he pushed off the wall and headed towards the well.
He’d have been perfectly fine too, if not for the buzzing in his head, for the breath that refused to fill his lungs.
He turned the handle to draw the bucket back up, the effort far greater than it ought to have been.
Finally, the blasted thing arrived, and he reached for it with shaking hands.
He set the bloody thing down on the edge of the well, slopping water everywhere as his head spun and his knees felt strange beneath him.
Suddenly the world tilted, and the ground rose up to meet him.
He swore viciously, struggling to right himself but, before he could, Miss Foxworthy was beside him.
“Here, take my hand. That’s it. No, don’t try to stand, just sit there for a moment and catch your breath.”
Without any fuss or exclamations of I told you so, she dipped a handkerchief in the bucket and wrung it out, handing it to him. “Here, wipe your face and neck, it will make you feel better.”
Marcus took the handkerchief silently, humiliation burning through him, grateful her words were brusque and unemotional, her actions businesslike. If she had fussed, he could not have borne it.
She reached for a metal dipper that hung on the side of the well, filled it from the bucket, and handed it to him.
“Here, drink this. When you’re feeling strong enough, I’ll take you inside and find you somewhere more comfortable to sit. If you are very good and refrain from swearing at me, I might even find you a drop of brandy.”
Marcus grunted and drank thirstily before handing back the dipper.
“More?”
He shook his head.
Miss Foxworthy perched on the well beside him. “I take it this visit means you have decided about the portrait. For or against, I wonder? I assume you would not put yourself through such an ordeal merely to reject my services.”
Marcus shook his head. “No. Though I wonder if you want to accept the commission now. I’m hardly heroic material, am I?” he said with a breathless snort.
“I thought that’s why you chose me, to show that there is a real man, a flawed, flesh-and-blood creature behind the legend of Hamilton of the Hollow Road.”
“Oh, Christ, save me from such bloody claptrap,” he said savagely. Reaching up a hand, he grasped the edge of the well, pulling himself upright.
“Let me help you. No, you will not bat me away like an annoying fly, you wretched man. Not this time.”
Much to his discomfort, Miss Foxworthy insisted on sliding her arm around him, lending him her support.
“I know you’re a big, strong fellow who needs no help from a silly female, but humour me, just until you’ve had a cup of tea and something to eat.”
“Coffee,” he grumbled, ungracious to the last.
“Very well, coffee it is,” she said with a laugh as she helped him inside.
Eustacia carried the tray of coffee and cake back into her studio, certain Colonel Hamilton would not thank her for allowing her housekeeper to view him in such a state.
He already hated her for seeing him brought so low.
Not that he’d been exactly friendly the first time they’d met either.
The Colonel seemed to resent her or at least regard her with the kind of suspicion that suggested accusations of witchcraft might be forthcoming.
She understood it, even as it vexed her. For a man who did not want the heroic reputation that had attached to his name, he was equally terrified of anyone uncovering the man behind the legend. He feared her for that reason. Painting him would be a battle of wills, that was certain.
Fury simmered inside her still and it was all she could do not to shake the bloody man.
Not because he was horribly rude—though he was—but because she could not shake the world.
She could not shake everyone who had undermined him or made this infuriatingly brave man feel less than whole.
His fierce pride stood like a barricade around him, tall and impenetrable, refusing admission to anyone who might care for him, who might offer him a word of comfort, or a helping hand.
Well, it would be interesting at any rate, she thought wryly, though she feared she might as well try painting the brick wall of the house because finding the emotion, the story, behind this man’s eyes would not be easy.
“Here we are, coffee and cake as promised. I hope you like it strong, for that’s how we drink it in this house. I have also borrowed my brother’s flask if you wish for a tot of brandy too. You see, I am as good as my word.”
She set the tray down, studying him surreptitiously and pleased to remark that his colour had returned to a degree and he looked less ghostly than he had. His breathing appeared to have returned to normal, which was a relief.
“Cream and sugar?”
He shook his head, and she wondered if he truly did not like cream and sugar or had simply denied himself for so long, he’d grown used to the absence.
Was that life in the army, or an aversion to anything resembling comfort and indulgence.
To her keen eye, he seemed to offer her a landscape of harsh lines and formidable terrain, yet that was only the surface, the face he showed the world.
Eustacia’s fingers itched with the desire to pick up a pencil and sketch him, to discover a way to get beneath that unforgiving exterior.
She poured the coffee and handed it to him before making her own, adding a liberal splash of cream and a large piece of sugar.
Eustacia took a sip, grateful she had something to occupy her, for his keen gaze had finished sweeping the room and had settled upon her and she felt entirely unequal to meeting it just yet.
Colonel Hamilton may not consider himself a hero, but his presence was a powerful one.
He was a man used to giving orders and being obeyed, and he was clearly ill at ease in a social setting.
No doubt he’d rather be off fighting somewhere in foreign climes, but those days were over.