Lord Perfect (36 page)

He ought to be relieved, for her sake at least.
Childbirth was a risky business, even for the privileged. The
Princess Charlotte, heir to the throne, had died in childbed four
years ago.

The trouble was, he had never developed the skill of
lying to himself. He knew he was too selfish to be relieved. He knew
he was disappointed. Worried, too, because he was running out of
acceptable excuses.

"You cannot go away," he said. "It is not
good for Olivia."

"I have considered this," she said. "It
can be good for her if I take her to the right place: one of the
German states, where teachers are very strict."

"Bathsheba."

"I see a dark blur," she said. "Someone
is coining."

Benedict went to the window. He discerned a single,
large blur. He went to the door and opened it before the arrival had
time to knock.

Rain dripping from his hat and cascading down his coat,
Thomas stood in the narrow entryway. He carried a large, wrapped
parcel.

"Which it looks like the rain means to keep on all
day and night, my lord," he said. "Which is why I went to
the house and laid up supplies. They'll send a proper dinner later,
but meanwhile I've brought sandwiches and tea and a flask of
something stronger in case of cold, which it is, the temperature
dropping considerable since morning."

THOUGH THE MAN was not dressed like a Bow Street,
officer, Olivia had seen enough thief-takers to recognize the type,
even in a downpour. She watched him slither out from the darkness of
the stables. Then he stood in the doorway and waited while Gaffy gave
his horse into the ostler's care.

Olivia and Lisle were waiting for him under the inn's
gallery, out of the rain. As soon as the strange man appeared,
though, she grabbed Lisle's arm and dragged him back into the
shadows.

"What?" he said. "What?"

She pointed to the stranger. He was speaking earnestly
to Gaffy. The peddler frowned, took off his hat, and scratched his
head.

Then the thief-taker held up a coin.

"Run," said Olivia. "Just run."

Chapter 16

BENEDICT WATCHED BATHSHEBA MAKE A PREtense of eating the
sandwiches and later, a pretense of eating dinner. In between, she
sat at the window, watching, though the rain never abated, and it
remained impossible to see anything.

When she returned to the window after dinner, though, he
decided enough was enough.

"It is night," he said. "Even if the rain
stops, you will see nothing."

"Lanterns," she said. "If Lord
Northwick's men find the children, they'll come to tell us. They'll
carry lanterns."

"If they come to tell us,
they'll knock at the door," said Benedict. "Come, sit by
the fire in a comfortable chair and drink your tea. Stop fretting
about the children. Stop
thinking
about the children. Lord Northwick has scores of competent persons
out combing the countryside as well as Bristol."

"A search party," she said, still staring into
the darkness. "Exactly what we had tried to avoid."

His uneasiness returned. "What ails you, Mrs.
Wingate?" he said. "Where is the belligerent woman who
refused to let me search alone? Pray do not tell me that disagreeable
meeting with your relatives yesterday morning crushed your spirit. I
refuse to believe you can be so easily vanquished."

She turned, and to his relief, the blue eyes flashed up
at him. "Certainly not," she said. "They were merely
cold and distrustful, which is precisely what I expected. Really,
Rathbourne—as though such a thing would depress my spirits."
She rose. "You seem to have confused me with those fragile
creatures who populate your social circle."

"They are not all so very fragile," he said.
"You ought to meet my grandmother."

She settled into one of the two thickly cushioned chairs
Thomas had placed by the fire.

"I have met Jack's grandmother, and that was
enough, thank you," she said. "After my encounters with his
family, a merely unfriendly reception is nothing."

She poured tea.

Benedict took his cup and settled into the empty chair
by the fire. "I should have guessed," he said. "When
they couldn't make Wingate change his mind, they worked on you."

He had not thought of that. The collision with her
estranged relatives must have awakened old memories, unhappy ones. No
wonder she brooded.

"I was sixteen years old," she said, studying
the contents of her cup as though the memories lay within it. "They
all had different tactics. The grandmother told me I would never be
accepted in Polite Society. Meanwhile, Jack would live to regret his
decision. If I was lucky, he'd abandon me. If I was unlucky, he'd
stay on, and I would share his misery and bitterness until death did
us part. His mother wept and wept. His father tore my conscience to
pieces. There were aunts and uncles and great-aunts and lawyers. I
was ready a dozen times to give Jack up, only to make them stop
tormenting me. But he said his life would not be worth living without
me, and I was only sixteen—a girl, Rathbourne, a mere girl—and
I did love him so."

What was it like, he wondered, to be loved so?

What sort of man would seek to be loved so, knowing it
could only lead to her enduring more of the misery and abuse she'd
borne as a defenseless girl?

"Sixteen," he said, careful to keep his voice
light. "How long ago that seems. I was someone else altogether."

"Were you in love?" she said.

"Oh, yes, of course. Who ever is so much in love as
at that age? Was that not Romeo's age?"

She smiled. "Tell me about her," she said.

He had not thought about the infatuations of his youth
for a very long time. He hadn't allowed himself to do so. He
considered it unwise to compare the excitement and idealism of those
days to the bored discontent that seemed to permeate his adulthood.
One might begin to brood. One might even become so irrational as to
long for what was gone forever.

Yet the memory had not vanished. It only waited to be
let out. He let it out for her, as he had done so much else.

He told her of a schoolmate's pretty sister, who stole
his heart when he was sixteen, and broke it, and took away all his
reasons for living… until a month or so later, when he met
another pretty girl.

As he told the tales, his mind cleared.

Love, in that long-ago time, had been a grand,
terrifying, bewildering thing. And so painful. Since he had not let
himself dwell upon his youthful experiences, he'd forgot- • ten
about the pain. The memories remained, but the feelings were vague,
distant.

His schoolboy infatuations now seemed as insubstantial
as dreams, though at the time they'd been real enough.

Everything faded, though.

Young love. Youthful dreams.

Grief faded, too, as did the guilt that so often
accompanied it.

He had not loved Ada. By the time he wed her, he'd
convinced himself that romantic love was the stuff of poetry and
drama but not real life. Now he wondered whether he'd stopped
believing because, in adulthood, he had failed to find anyone who
stirred strong feelings in him.

Still, in his insufficient way he had cared for his
wife, and her death was a shocking blow that left him completely at
sea for a long time.

He had been so angry—at her at first, then at
himself— as he began to make sense of what had happened between
them. Yet in two years' time, even that searing guilt had dwindled.

What he felt for Bathsheba Wingate
would fade, too, he told himself. This time with her was a dream,
merely a moment of his life. A few strange and thrilling,
out-of-the-ordinary days. An aberration.
A
brief affair
, she'd called it. A
passing fancy. A peccadillo.

He must view it that way, for her sake.

And so he looked and sounded amused as he confessed his
handful of youthful infatuations. Then he went on to entertain her
with Alistair's much more numerous and exciting romantic
catastrophes, and Rupert's mad escapades. In contrast, there was
sober Geoffrey who, unlike the others, had made up his mind when he
was a boy and never changed it, and wed his cousin, to nobody's
surprise.

Benedict was speculating about Darius's recent behavior
and his future when a log shattered in a sputter of sparks, startling
him out of his reveries. He wondered how long he'd been talking.

"You are too good a listener," he began. Then
he paused to look at her. Her elbow rested on the arm of her chair,
and her cheek upon her hand. Her eyes were closed. Her breathing was
even.

He smiled ruefully. He had planned to put her to sleep.
But not this way.

He rose and went to her. Gently he gathered her up in
his arms. He carried her to bed and laid her down. He took off her
shoes, and drew the bedclothes over her. She scarcely stirred.

She was tired to death, poor girl, he thought. Tired to
death with watching and waiting and worrying, about everything and
everyone, including him, especially him.

He bent and kissed her forehead. "Don't fret about
me, sweet," he murmured. "I'll do well enough. I always
have."

* * *

IT WAS THE quiet that must have wakened her, the end of
the steady drumbeat of rain. Or perhaps it was the light. It was not
daylight, that silvery glow. The sky had cleared, and she lay in a
pool of moonlight.