Debt of Honor (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

Soon after breakfast, Letitia set out to sketch for a painting that was just beginning to take shape in her head. But as exciting as this new idea was, her thoughts kept stubbornly circling back to the unexpected events of the previous day.

She had stayed in the library until it was time to change for dinner, scrutinizing the watercolors and drawings of Wycombe Oaks not only in that first album, but also in the portfolios Percy pulled for her.

The ruin had gradually become alive in front of her eyes. To her horror, she recognized a number of objects now placed in her father’s homes. Three Italian Masters in his London house. A Poussin gracing the saloon at Fratton Hall. And a couple of Wilsons she had studied so carefully at his Hampshire estate. She recognized a few busts too. They might be another set of copies brought from Italy, of course, but if her father removed the paintings, there was no reason to believe he would not remove the busts.

And then there were the two magnificent chandeliers she had always admired in their London ballroom. They had once lighted Sir George Hanbury’s great hall in the old castle.

Percy had made no comments about any of the drawings and watercolors, beyond explaining what part of the house they showed, and she did not tell him about her discoveries. But the persistent feeling of unease was impossible to shed.

Why had her father stripped Wycombe Oaks of its possessions and let it go to ruin? Shouldn’t Percy have back what was once in the house, now that the house was his again? Would her father return anything if she asked? God knew she had no influence over him.

A small grove tucked on a gentle slope and with a good view of the surrounding fields caught her eye. Letitia had no idea how far she had walked. She had never come this way before. But it had to be a good distance; she could feel the weight of John’s knapsack on her back. To her delight, right at the edge of the grove, a sizeable tree with a misshapen trunk bent low, parallel to the ground and forming a bench before it took off again toward the sky.

From that perch, she spotted a group of laborers working in one of the fields. This was exactly what she needed. Pleased with her discovery, she pulled the knapsack off her back and took out the sketchbook and crayons.

Inexplicably, instead of drawing the men wielding their scythes, she began to sketch Percy’s face—the way he’d looked at her in the library. She would never forget his face, even if she was thousands of miles away. Faces like his, strong and expressive, handsome—no, beautiful—in their masculine strength, did not happen every day. She had studied too many faces not to appreciate his.

Then a movement on the road caught her attention. A rider trotted unhurriedly in the direction of the grove.

Although he was still too far to see his features, the highwayman’s coat gave him away. If it were made of a fabric in the brightest pastels, it wouldn’t be more recognizable. Her husband was perfectly right; he stood out among his tenants in that horrid thing.
They
would probably never wear such ugliness. One day she would have a new one made for him and would put that one in the fire with pleasure.

Letitia quickly flipped the page and began to draw the horse and the rider. Meanwhile, Percy noticed her and raised his hand in greeting. Stupidly, she felt disappointed when he disappeared from her view.

Wherever he was going, she did not expect him to stop and waste his time on an idle chat with her. But soon the thumping of the hooves on the soft ground reached her ears. She quickly turned the page again and began to draw the fields.

There were no more than a few lines to show for her efforts when Percy halted his horse a few trees away and slid off the saddle. No reason for her heart to skip a measure. He tethered his mount to a nearby tree before loosening the girth to let the horse nibble on the grass.

“Good afternoon,” he said, coming closer to her tree. “Did you walk all the way here? It is nearly three miles from the house and about half the distance to Wycombe Oaks.”

“I like walking,” she replied. “It gives me time to think.”

“Given the distance, it had to be a productive promenade.” His mouth quirked into that quick smile, annihilating any underlying sarcasm. He rested his shoulder against the trunk of her tree. “Are you planning to paint these fields?”

“I may use part of this view in one of the paintings I am thinking of now.”

Percy nodded. His gaze landed on the knapsack lying on the ground next to her feet. He must have recognized its military origin.

“It was my brother’s,” she said.

“I guessed so,” he replied. “You were close, weren’t you?”

“He was always a good friend, despite our age difference and his often-prolonged absences, first at schools, then in the army. But we had a few good summers together.”

She gazed at the field. The line of haystacks, along with the men in white shirts, their scythes resting against a wagon, made a perfect grouping for her purpose.

“They sent it back from Egypt,” she added quietly. “I’ve had it ever since. I suppose I should put it away one day, before it is completely ruined, but it has been a part of me for six years now. But then, if I keep using it, one day there will be nothing left, just the shreds.”

Percy bent to pull a blade of grass. “It will probably last a very long time,” he said. “This coat you dislike so violently belonged to my father. My aunt told me he used to wear it when he was riding about with my grandfather. I think my mother must have shared your opinion of it. I found another newer coat with it. But this one was what I wanted when I returned here ten years ago. And it has been a part of me since. I’ve probably abused it much more in those ten years than my father ever did in his time. Yet it still holds together.”

Letitia looked at the fawn-colored fabric, then at Percy’s dark hair whipped around his face by the increasing breeze, and his strong profile. He chewed on the grass absentmindedly, his gaze fixed somewhere on the horizon, as if he’d momentarily forgotten about her presence. If he had, she was not sorry. His account resonated familiarly with the feelings she carried along with John’s knapsack.

Then Percy glanced at her and smiled. “Did I frighten you that day on the outcropping?”

“You did,” she admitted. “I thought you were a highwayman.”

He paused for a second before throwing his head back and laughing heartily. His laughter was loud and carefree and somehow transformed him. This was the first time she’d seen him so relaxed.

Some residual stiffness seeped out of her too.

“I beg your pardon,” he said after a moment. “Had I known I gave you such a fright, I would have introduced myself properly.”

“Why didn’t you? Surely you knew who I was.”

“I did. It wasn’t difficult to guess. Are you still upset about that?”

“No, though I was at the time. I wouldn’t have had a prayer if you’d turned out to be a real villain. You must grant me a reprieve. I’ve never faced a highwayman before.”

“Gladly.” He chuckled.

Gradually, the amusement fled his face, but he didn’t avert his gaze. Its intensity made her powerless to turn away from him too. He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.

Letitia squirmed on her perch, uncomfortably aware of the fluttering butterflies in her chest. She forced herself to break the spell he was casting over her.

“Why did your father sell Wycombe Oaks to my father?” she asked.

Percy stiffened. How could he answer that?

He turned away from her lovely face, toward the sea of wheat swaying in the wind, and thought of the night twenty-five years ago when his father sat in the Wycombe Oaks library, crying like a child, holding Percy in his arms, and desperate for the consolation his six-year-old son could hardly give him. He remembered his father’s unbrushed, loose hair framing the haggard face, his bloodshot eyes full of tears and his voice broken with misery.

“Percy.” The words came out in gasps between the sobs. “I lost Wycombe Oaks. Oh God, I lost our home, your home. We will have to move out on the morrow.”

“What do you mean, Papa?” he asked, frightened by the fierceness of his father’s suffering. “How did we lose it?”

“Oh, son, I can never forgive myself for what I did to you.” Sir George wept, his forehead on his son’s small shoulder, his breath sour with gin. He was hugging him so hard Percy could barely breathe. “I put Wycombe Oaks against Lord Stanville’s stakes at cards yesterday and lost it! He now owns this house and everything in it.”

At six, Percy had a very vague idea what
card games
meant.

“But why?” he asked, a little teary himself, giving in to his father’s violent despair. “Cannot you give him something else instead? Why does he want our home? If Lord Stanville doesn’t have one, maybe he can come to live here with us?”

His father shook his head still resting on Percy’s shoulder.

“No, son. I can only give him what he won. I
must
give him what he won. It is a debt of honor, and a gentleman always pays his debts of honor, even if that means he is ruined.”

“Are we ruined, Papa?”

“No, Percy. We still have Bromsholme and Windborough. But Wycombe Oaks has been the seat of the Hanburys since King Edward IV. It is a shame to lose it the way I did.”

“Don’t cry, Papa, we will go to Bromsholme.”

“Percy?” Letitia’s quiet question brought him back to his present surroundings.

“I often asked myself why it happened.” He attempted a smile, though it probably was only a grimace. “My father never recovered after my mother’s death. He became restless and began to spend more and more time away from home. He drank heavily in those days. Sometimes he was absent for weeks before returning, looking as if he had been questioned by the Inquisition. We moved to Bromsholme about a year and a half after my mother died. My aunt and uncle came from Devonshire and stayed with us to take care of him. But he didn’t want any help. He drank himself to death within months of their arrival.”

He glanced at Letitia, suddenly mad at himself for saying things he had never told anyone, not even Sarah. Whatever possessed him? He didn’t want Letitia’s pity. He didn’t need her sympathy. And she certainly did not need to carry her father’s burden the way he carried his.

And yet, he could not turn away from the beautiful green eyes bewitching him with warmth and compassion.

“I’m sorry…” they said simultaneously and stopped. “I didn’t…” The same thing happened again.

Before either of them could say anything more, a distant rumble of thunder rolled over the swaying tops of the trees. The skies in front of them were still sunny, but one could sense the darkness creeping over the grove. Percy walked away from the trees. Behind them, heavy, black clouds rode on high wind, sliced by lightning.

“Make haste,” he said. “We don’t have much time to get home. The storm is heading this way.”

Letitia was already packing her things.

“I can walk very quickly,” she assured him, picking up her knapsack, but he took it from her and put it over his shoulder instead.

“You’re riding with me,” he said, going for the horse.

The stallion was already dancing nervously, pulling on the reins.

“With you? Oh no, that is certainly not necessary,” she said with a hint of panic. “You can take my knapsack if you wish. I will thank you for keeping it dry. If you get to Bromsholme first, do give it to Josepha.”

She walked away briskly while he was still tightening the girth.

But she didn’t get far. Within a minute or two, he caught up with her, his horse prancing along the narrow road.

“You will never reach the house before the storm if you walk.”

Letitia continued without slowing down, focused on the road ahead, but it was evident that she was carefully avoiding the large animal to her right. Was she afraid of horses?

“I cannot ride in this dress.” She shot him a glance over her shoulder.

“And you cannot run in it either. I will do the riding. You will sit in front of me.”

“No.” She stubbornly continued putting one foot in front of the other, although she had to know it was a lost cause. She couldn’t expect him to abandon her here. The darkness was growing fast, and the intermittent lightning was gaining in intensity.

“We can reenact Nessus’s kidnapping of Deianira, if you prefer.” He raised his voice against the wind lifting swirls of dirt off the road. “Luckily for me, Hercules is nowhere in sight to come to your rescue. But it is more convenient to get in the saddle from a standing position, instead of being tossed across it in full gallop.”

Letitia stopped and glared at him indignantly. He halted slightly in front of her.

“You wouldn’t dare!” she almost shouted.

“Do we have a wager, then?” he shouted back, and before she could step away, he leaned down and snaked one arm around her waist. “Put your foot on my boot and get up here,” he commanded.

Letitia obeyed, though not without a huff of displeasure that for some reason made him feel lighthearted.

She was slim. Lifting her did not require much effort. He almost laughed when he saw her face screwed in fear. So he pulled her up as gently as possible and deposited her on something much more comfortable than the horse’s withers. Right on his lap. Then he pulled her tightly into him.

Letitia shifted uneasily at the realization of her present whereabouts. He could see the blush creeping up her cheeks.

“Oh.” She seemed uncertain how to react. Then her forehead creased with exasperation. “That wasn’t fair!”

“What?” he asked, pretending not to have heard her and doing his best not to laugh. “Put your arms around me. We do not have much time.”

The wind proved him right as it suddenly picked up in its fury. A deafening thunder erupted somewhere close behind the grove, and the stallion stepped sideways nervously. Her arms tightened around him, as instructed, at first reluctantly, and then so fiercely he almost lost his breath.

He held her tightly too, not because she was in any danger of sliding off, but because it felt good. She did not protest, just leaned against his chest and half buried her face in his horrible coat. Percy smiled above her head and would have given over to the full enjoyment of the swaying motion of the horse’s canter if not for the underlying annoyance at his body’s treacherous reaction to her soft curves. He hoped fervently that her inexperience and several layers of clothing were to his advantage.