Slightly Married (26 page)

It was a cheerful, festive dinner, with a smiling, blushing Thelma and a smiling, blushing Reverend Puddle, and Aunt Mari in fine form, happy for everyone and chattering away about the wedding that must be planned and the wedding assembly and a dozen other happy topics. She was as alert and tireless as any of them.

She was yawning profusely later when Eve went down to the drawing room after her usual hour of reading stories to the children and then tucking them into their beds and kissing them good night. Thelma had left after getting Benjamin to sleep, to walk the Reverend Puddle home—a sheer romantic absurdity, of course, since it must be perfectly plain even to an idiot that he was then going to have to walk
her
back home. Aunt Mari was alone with Aidan.

“The sun and heat today and all the excitement over Thelma and the vicar have quite done me in,” she complained. “I'm off to bed early. So you needn't remain indoors to entertain me any longer, Colonel. Here is Eve come back from the nursery. Why don't the two of you go out for a walk on such a lovely evening?”

Ah, she was matchmaking to the end, Eve thought as Aidan got to his feet, helped Aunt Mari to hers, and handed her her cane.

“A good idea, ma'am,” he said. “We will do it if Eve is not too tired.”

Aunt Mari smiled merrily as she lifted her cheek for Eve's good night kiss.

Muffin, who had appeared to be fast asleep by the hearth just a moment before, scrambled to his feet and wagged his tail hopefully. Someone had mentioned the word
walk
.

They strolled toward the dell, crossing the lawn to the lily pond, pausing there for a while to look at the lilies and trail their hands in the cool water, and finally wound their way among the trees and down the steepening slope toward the brook. Muffin bobbed along with them, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes coming to snuffle at Eve's skirt.

“What is the story of that dog?” Aidan asked when they were at the lily pond.

“He belonged to one of my tenants,” she said, “a man whose lease I refused to renew because he was violent with his workers. He left Muffin behind, horribly, horribly maimed and abused. One can guess from the look of him now some of what he suffered—though he looks very much better than he did when I first saw him. Everyone thought it would be kindest to shoot him, but I would not allow that. I wanted him to have an experience of gentleness and love first, even if it became necessary to release him later from his pain. But he recovered as much as he ever can recover. Certainly he no longer cowers and whimpers whenever someone strange comes near him.”

“One of your lame ducks,” he said, seating himself on the low wall. There was no harshness in the accusation.

“Yes,” she agreed. “One of my precious lame ducks.” She bent to scratch Muffin's good ear.

She could not erase from her mind the sight of Aidan this afternoon laughing with Davy and teasing him. And of Davy himself, helpless with childish glee. The two somber men of her life, laughing and playing.

“And is Ned Bateman another?” he asked.

“Ned? Has he told you, then?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “You are to buy land for him and an indeterminate number of maimed and wounded discharged soldiers so that they can set up their own farm and perhaps workshops too, and they are to pay you back in installments.”

“Not lame ducks, then,” she said. “They are going to pay me back. They are going to be independent. I only wish I could help more. There are going to be thousands of such men, are there not, now that the wars are over? Men without jobs? Men without their health and often without one or more limb?”

“Have you considered this thoroughly?” he asked. “Have you had a lawyer advise you? Are you having one handle the business and the details of the loan?”

“I trust Ned,” she told him.

“I am sure you do,” he said. “And it is certain he trusts you. But it would be better, and all concerned would be far happier if this thing were done properly and legally. Let me find a good lawyer for you.”

“No—” She frowned.

“Let me get Wulf to find you one,” he said. “Believe me, Eve, the men who will be part of this project will feel far more secure if there are papers, if they know exactly what is what.”

“Will they?” she asked doubtfully.

“Believe me,” he said. “Let me ask Wulf.”

She nodded. She knew so little about good business practices. Perhaps it would not hurt to turn for advice to men who knew more, especially when they were her relatives, one her husband, one her brother-in-law.

“Eve,” he said, “I have sometimes spoken with irritation and even contempt of your lame ducks. I am sorry about that. I honor your generosity and your love for all creatures, no matter their looks or their station in life or their history. Knowing you has been a humbling experience. I thank you for it.”

She did not know what to say though she stood and stared at him for some time. When had he become so very dear to her? Was there a single moment? But she did not think so. It had crept up on her unawares, this love, this pain. She turned without a word and led the way to the dell.

“This is where I was that morning,” she said when they were partway down the slope, “when Charlie came down from the house to tell me that I had a visitor—a
military
gentleman—and I thought it must be Percy. I was gathering bluebells with Thelma and the children while Aunt Mari guarded the picnic basket.”

The bluebells were all long gone. So were the azaleas. But the dell was beautiful at any time of the day or year. It was lovely now, all deep green in the early twilight, the sky a deepening blue above the tree branches, the brook golden with the rays of the setting sun.

“And you came,” he said, “not knowing what awaited you.”

“No.” She sat down almost on the spot where they had picnicked that day, and wrapped her arms about her knees. He sat beside her, and Muffin bobbed down to the brook and snuffled about among the stones.

“You are wonderful with the children,” she said. “I have never heard Davy laugh until today. I think you must have had a happy childhood, Aidan. Did you?”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” he said. “Our parents worshipped each other and loved us all unconditionally. We played and fought together with energy and abandon. We were hellions.”

She still knew so very little about him. She was hungry for knowledge—now, before it was too late.

“The duke too?” she asked. “Did you play with him too?”

“With Wulf?” He draped one arm over his knee and gazed down the slope at the brook. “Yes, the two of us were very close as boys. Almost inseparable, in fact. I adored him. He was bold and daring and mischievous. I followed him happily into every conceivable scrape.”

It was something she could not even imagine.

“What
happened
?” she asked him.

He shook his head slightly, as if coming out of some reverie. “Life happened,” he said. “I said our father loved us unconditionally. That is not strictly true, I suppose. He was the Duke of Bewcastle and therefore bound by the duties and responsibilities of his position. Wulf was his heir, and he was having health problems. Wulf had to be trained from the age of twelve to take over those duties and responsibilities after his death. And so he was separated from the rest of us to all intents and purposes and put very much under the strict control of two tutors and our father himself. Poor Wulf.” He had gone into his reverie again. “Poor Wulf.”

“Why so?” she asked softly.

“He hated being heir,” he said. “He hated the land and the thought of being bound to it and to the family as its head. He hated the idea of having no choices at all in his life. He wanted adventure and freedom. He wanted a military career. He pleaded and pleaded with our father—until he accepted reality.”

This
was the man she now knew as the Duke of Bewcastle? Could it possibly be true? But it must be.

“You both wanted military careers?” she asked.

“No.” He was silent for a while. Eve could hear birds singing an evening chorus from their hidden perches among the trees. “No, that was the irony of our lives. I was the one born for the military—the second son—but I fought against my fate all through my childhood and boyhood. I abhorred violence. I loved the land. I loved Lindsey Hall. We used to plot together, Wulf and I, when we were very young lads, to dress up in each other's clothes, to exchange identities, to exchange lives. We looked enough alike, we thought, to fool everyone. We must have been
very
young at the time.”

Eve suddenly remembered a moment from the morning, when they had approached a fallow field and Aidan had explained to Davy how and why it had been left uncultivated. He had stooped down and taken up a handful of freshly turned earth and shown it to Davy.
This is life, lad,
he had said.
This is the stuff from which all life comes.
And he had closed his hand about the earth, squeezed it hard, and closed his eyes tightly for a moment.

I loved the land.

“Did your father insist that you have a military career, then,” she asked, “even though it was against your wishes?”

“I believe I was his favorite,” he said. “I used to follow him around like a puppy, much as Davy has been doing with me. He was very involved with the workings of his farms. I learned from him and with him. I drank it all in. I wanted to spend my life doing what he did. I believe he was coming to realize that his choice of career for me was not in my best interests after all. But he died.”

“Then what happened?” She frowned.

“I was fifteen when he died,” he said. “Wulf was seventeen. I was still at school for a few years, but when I left and went home, I carried on where I had left off before our father died. I busied myself about farm business. I considered Wulf's steward unimaginative, even incompetent. I offered—” He stopped abruptly and Eve thought he would not continue. “Foolish boy that I was, I thought that if I explained everything to Wulf, everything that was wrong with the running of the farms, and offered to take the steward's place, he would be grateful. One week later he called me into his library and informed me that he had purchased a commission for me, as our father had always intended.”

“Oh,” Eve cried. “What unspeakable cruelty!”

“Cruelty?” he said. “I think not. It was Wulf's way of telling me what I needed to know, that there was not room for both of us at Lindsey Hall. Had I stayed, we would have been at daggers drawn for the rest of our lives. He was quite right, you see. There is room for only one master on any estate.”

“But you did not want the commission,” she said. “Why did you not refuse it?”

“I might have,” he said. “But what was the alternative? I had to leave Lindsey Hall.
That
was clear. And I was a Bedwyn, you see. I had been brought up with a strong sense of duty. One of my duties at the age of eighteen was to be obedient to the will of the head of the family. Wulf was not just Wulf, you see. He was the Duke of Bewcastle.”

“And so you went.”

“And so I went.”

All was suddenly very clear to her. Two brothers, very close as children, had been driven asunder by circumstances, leaving one with power over the other. Each of them had wanted the other's life, but circumstances had made it impossible for them to make the exchange. And so life—the realities of life—had driven an irrevocable wedge between them, destroying or at least submerging the love they had once felt for each other and making one of them cold and dutiful, the other harsh and dutiful.

If she had ever thought of the privileged life of the aristocracy as easy—and she probably had—she changed her mind at that moment. Aristocrats were perhaps less free than anyone else in England. It was a strange realization.

“But you became reconciled to your life?” she asked him.

He turned his head to look directly at her. The twilight was deepening, but she could still see the harsh angles of his face quite clearly.

“Oh, yes, of course,” he said briskly. “It has been a good career. It still is and will be for years to come. I will end up a general, I daresay.”

“Are you looking forward to going back?” she asked.

“Yes, of course,” he said again. “It is always pleasant to take leave. I look forward to it—to the relaxation, to seeing England and my family. But I am always more than ready to go back. There is a restlessness that comes from being idle too long. Yes, it will be good to go back.”

She felt deeply, horribly wounded. He was ready to go back. He was restless. It would be good to leave her and get his life back to normal. What had she expected?

What had she expected?

She got to her feet and walked down to the brook, now more silver than gold. Muffin rushed around her for a few moments before going off on his own explorations again. Aidan came to stand beside her.

“This is a beautiful part of the park,” he said.

“Yes.” It seemed dark in the dell, but looking up she could see that the sky was still blue.

“What happens now, Eve?” he asked her. “After I leave, I mean? Will your life here satisfy you?”

She stooped to pat Muffin's head though he had not demanded the attention.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I will be wonderfully happy. I have my children, and now they are officially mine. Ringwood and my fortune are indisputably mine. I have my aunt and my friends and neighbors. And you have made all this possible, Aidan. I will always remember you with deep gratitude.”

She could no longer see his face as he looked back at her, tall and broad, with very upright military bearing.

“With gratitude,” he said softly. “Well, then, I am amply rewarded.”

His voice sounded very much as it had that first day and the days following it. She could not detect in it the voice of the man who had laughed with Davy and teased him this afternoon, or the voice that had called Becky sweetheart a few days ago.

She swallowed, her throat and chest suddenly sore with unshed tears. What if she were to blurt out the truth? she wondered.
I love you. Don't leave me. Come back to me. Have children with me. Live happily ever after with me.
She bit her lip lest she give in to the horrifying temptation.