The Beloved One (16 page)

By that afternoon, all of Newburyport came filing through Sylvanus's door.  Or so it seemed.  Some came merely to gawk.  Some, impressed by the fact that Lord Charles was not only known to General Gage, but the heir-presumptive to an English dukedom, asked him to plead their grievances to such men of power in the hopes of preventing more bloodshed and settling the differences between colony and Crown before things got even worse.  And a few — the hotheaded patriot Matthew Ashton included — were purposely rude to him, damning him for no other reason than the fact he was a "redcoat" — though their treatment of him improved when their insults and abuse failed to rouse anything from Lord Charles but polite sympathy for their complaints.  By keeping a firm hold on his temper, by behaving like the gentleman he was, and above all, by proving he was not a vicious and unfeeling enemy but a man who had sincere compassion for their plight, he managed to keep the Leighton family out of trouble for taking him in, and defused a situation that might otherwise have become quite volatile.

Sylvanus, greatly relieved, came to him after everyone had left.  "I can't thank you enough, Captain, for convincing me to tell them the truth.  I feel as though a great weight has been taken from my shoulders.  You were right all along."

Charles simply shrugged and sat on his pallet.  "It was for the best, Reverend.  Sooner or later they would have found out who I am, and then it would have been too late to save your reputation, let alone their trust in you.  Because you were honest with them, they will continue to respect and admire you."

"And
I
will continue to respect and admire you, Captain.  You may be 'the enemy,' but when it comes to courage, you've got more than any man I've ever met."  He reached out to grasp Charles's shoulder.  "After Lexington and Concord, I must confess that I didn't trust my neighbors not to do you harm."

But Charles had never had any fear of that.  Indeed, the only thing he feared was the harm he was doing himself.

The incident out on Plum Island had unnerved him.  If he'd thought his dreams were hot before, they were nothing compared to what they were now that he'd laid his hands on Amy's face and had as good idea as any what she must look like.  He certainly knew what she
felt
like.  Mornings found him hard with arousal.  His body jolted to life the moment
she
walked into the room.  Desperate to find escape, to find distance, to find the man he'd been before his life had been turned upside down, he gratefully accepted the walking stick Will made for him from the branch of an oak if only for the chance to get out of the house and away from the source of his distress.

"It's nothing fancy," the boy had said, "but maybe it'll help you get around some."

And it had.  Soon, Charles could navigate every room downstairs as well as the back garden.  He walked the route to the church, the road down to the river, and even the pier from which Mira Ashton had brought them on their calamitous escapade.  He spent as little time as he could with the Leightons, distrustful of his thoughts, his reactions, and his desire for Amy.  He was already engaged to Juliet, and he could not afford to make a mistake for which he could never, not in a million years, forgive himself.

"For a blind man," said the people of Newburyport, amazed at his determination to overcome his handicap, "he sure does get around!"

~~~~

Three weeks after his letters had been posted, the first reply arrived.

It was Amy who brought it to him, part of her excited for his sake, part of her dreading its contents.  She hadn't seen much of him lately, and she almost wondered if he was avoiding her, so much time did he spend away from the house.  And now this.  She knew he wouldn't be with them forever, that he had a life beyond their little house in Newburyport, but still, the idea of saying goodbye to him — a rare friend who had somehow managed to make her sisters share the cooking, a friend who defended her, encouraged her, made her feel a little better about herself, and didn't judge her for the circumstances of her birth — filled her with unbearable anguish.

She heard him calling out as she entered the house.  "Amy?  Do you have the post?"

How hard he tried to keep the eagerness and anticipation from his voice.  And how sad it made her to know that in a few days he might be gone.  Taking a deep breath, Amy carried the letter into the keeping room.

There, Lord Charles, ever conscious of how his healing scar must look to those around him, ever careful not to offend others' eyes, sat on his pallet, tying the shining gold waves of his hair back and over the wound with a black ribbon.

"Is there anything for me?"

"Oh, just a letter from Boston," she quipped, hoping the forced playfulness in her voice would keep him from guessing how low she suddenly felt.

He was on his feet in a heartbeat.  "Go ahead, Amy, open it.  Tell me what it says!"

Amy broke the seal, opened the letter, and began to read:

My dear Captain de Montforte,

I am sorry to hear of your fate, and am much aggrieved by the loss of your sight.  I am sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, when I point out that an injury of this nature renders you unsuitable to the army that you have previously served so well.  Given the tumultuous situation here in Boston, and the fact that you seem to be in very good hands where you are, I would advise you to stay with the Leighton family in Newburyport until such time as you might recover your sight, and your value to us.  In the meantime, I convey my best wishes for a complete and timely recovery.

"Signed, Lieutenant Colonel Maddison," Amy murmured, her own guilty gratitude that Charles would be staying with them a bit longer, dashed to ribbons when she looked up and saw the look of devastation, of stunned betrayal, on his handsome face.  Immediately, she hated herself for her selfishness.

"I'm sorry," she said, instinctively reaching out to touch his hand.

He jerked back.  And then he just stood there, not moving, not saying a word.  He blinked, once, that slow, studied lowering of long lashes that was so oddly characteristic of him, and turned away, trying to hide the myriad emotions that shadowed his face — confusion, denial, hurt, and finally anger.  Head high, he moved to the window, placing his hands on the sill and turning his face up to the warm sunshine that streamed through the panes.

"Well," he said, quietly.  "I guess that's that, then.  It seems that you and your family are to be burdened with me for a few days longer."

She went to stand beside him.  "No, Charles.  You are never a burden.  Please don't even think such a thing."

"I should have known they would do nothing to help me.  I should have known that my value to them was determined only by my physical ability.  I should have known . . . and yet, I had hoped otherwise."  He gave a humorless little laugh and shook his head.  "Silly me.  Silly, silly me."

"
They're
the ones being silly, not you!  Blind or not, I'll bet you're the finest soldier in the king's army!  Why, if your Lieutenant Colonel Maddison knew you half as well as we do, he'd realize you're not 'unsuitable' a'tall!  He's abandoned you, and I know you'd never have done such a thing to one of
your
men!"

"I would have died first," he admitted softly, and Amy knew then that he was thinking of the young soldier he'd been attempting to rescue, the bullets flying all about him, on that terrible day that had rendered him blind.  "But you must not judge Maddison so harshly, Amy.  He is merely seeing to the needs of his troops."

"What about
your
needs?"

"My needs cease to matter."

"This isn't fair!" she cried, her heart aching for him.

"What in life, is?  I brought this on myself, Amy.  It is my fault, not Maddison's, that I find myself in this predicament.  Therefore it is I, not him, who must pay the cost for my clumsiness and stupidity."

"You
weren't
clumsy and you certainly weren't stupid!  For God's sake, you spared the life of a child!"

His mouth tightened and with a little shake of his head he turned away, already weary of the argument.  He would hear no more about it.  And Amy knew him well enough to understand that to his mind, which tolerated nothing less than self-perfection, he was the one at fault, the only one to blame.  He did not see his actions in saving Will as heroic.  All he considered was that he had stepped backwards, lost his balance, and wiped out the rest of his life.

"I refuse to allow you to blame yourself for this," she said heatedly, wishing she could give this Maddison fellow a piece of her mind.  "I refuse it!"

Very gently, and without facing her, he murmured, "Though you have been of great help and comfort, there are some things, Amy, that you cannot do for me.  Clearing me of blame is one of them.  I am sorry."

And with that he walked away, leaving her standing there all alone with the letter burning a hole in her hand.

She hurled it into the fire and watched the flames consume the offending vellum.

Take that, Maddison!
she thought angrily. 
He's worth far more to me than he is to you, anyhow!

~~~~

Most of Newburyport had good cause to hate the English army over the following weeks, each one devoid of letters for Lord Charles, but full of news from Boston that was downright horrible.  Boston was a seething hotbed of horror, under blockade.  And in June, the patriots made a stand on Breed's Hill, and hundreds of men on both sides — including the gentle, renowned Dr. Joseph Warren of the Americans, and Major Pitcairn of the King's forces, who had made a name for himself during the Concord expedition two months past — were lost.  It was a long, bloody battle, and one that sent reverberations of hatred, sorrow, and grief rippling across the Atlantic and down through every one of the thirteen colonies.

What had began as complaint had become conflict, and what had become conflict was now downright war.

Upon hearing the news about Breed's Hill, Charles sank even further into the depression that he'd been unable to throw off since receiving the letter from his commanding officer.  Amy knew he was worried about Juliet, but she also suspected he was mourning the loss of friends, for rumor had it that the Americans, eager to wipe out enemy leadership, had focused their sharpshooting skills upon the bright coats of the British officers, dispatching those who wore them with deadly accuracy.  Hearing this, Amy had shuddered violently, for it wasn't hard to imagine Charles out there with his peers, calmly giving orders one moment — and lying dead on the ground the next.

For the first time since he'd arrived here, she was almost thankful for his blindness.

And almost thankful that Lieutenant Colonel Maddison now found him "unsuitable."  Although his pride had been dealt a stinging blow by the army's rejection, at least he was safe, and far away from the fighting that was tearing Massachusetts apart.

But the days passed, and no letters came from either Juliet Paige or his family in England.  Though it was still early to expect a letter from the latter, Charles was sick with worry about his fiancée, tormenting himself with visions of her in a besieged and war-torn Boston, carrying the bastard babe of a hated English soldier and suffering the abuse of her patriotic neighbors.  Sylvanus tried to relieve his distress by reminding him that Boston had been shut off from the mainland by the British troops, so surely the post going in and out of the town must be hampered as well.

But even such a rational explanation could not ease Charles's mind.  Everyone noted the bleakness in his eyes, the pallor of his skin, the fact that lately, he would only pick at his food, and leave most of his meal uneaten.

And each and every one of them began to worry.

"He can't go on like this," Will told his father one day, striding purposefully into Sylvanus's study and shutting the door behind him.  "We've got to do something, Pa."

Sylvanus, keeping his voice low so that Charles, who seemed to have very keen hearing, could not hear their conversation, murmured, "I can't make the post go any faster, Will."

"No, but you could let me go down to Uncle Eb's and bring him back a surprise."

"A surprise?  What are you talking about, son?"

"Well, this mornin', when the captain and I were out walking, Mira Ashton went past on El Nath, that mean-tempered black stallion of hers.  She stopped and good-naturedly harassed the captain, as she usually does, about his being 'a Brit,' and while Lord Charles was a-standing there, stroking the horse's neck, I saw such a look of sorrow come over his face as you wouldn't believe.  Next thing you know, that horse was rubbing its head all up and down his arm, and Mira was hollering about the horse being a traitor to the rebel cause, and Lord Charles was smiling a sad little smile and saying he never met a horse that didn't like him, whether it was a rebel horse or not."  Will took a deep breath, looked his father in the eye, and said, "I think I know of a way that might make him happy again, Pa."

"Well, you've got
my
attention," said Sylvanus.  "What do you have in mind?"

"Remember that day he got hurt, and I took him to Uncle Eb's before bringing him here?  Well, there was one thing that belonged to him that I had to leave behind, one thing that was so big I just couldn't fit it on the boat."

"Don't tell me," Sylvanus said, taking off his spectacles and rubbing suddenly-weary eyes.  "His horse."

"Aye, Pa, his horse."  Will squared his shoulders and lifted his chin.  "I'm a-wondering if I can go down to Uncle Eb's and bring it back.  Besides a letter from his fiancée, there's probably nothing that'll cheer him up more than having his horse back."

"But he can't ride it, Will," Sylvanus said gently.  "Having it here will only remind him all the more of the things he can no longer do, and make him feel worse than he already does."

"But he doesn't
have
to ride it, Pa.  Amy can — Mira taught her how, and she can give it all the exercise it needs."