The Beloved One (26 page)

~~~~

It was gray and gloomy when the ship dropped anchor in Portsmouth.  Charles wasted no time in rejoicing that he was finally back in his beloved England; he wasted no time in appreciating how lush and green its grass was in comparison to the brown, weather-beaten turf they'd left behind in frozen Massachusetts.  Now that he was here, he only wanted to get to Ravenscombe and to Blackheath Castle.

They hired a private carriage, and, with Contender trotting along behind, headed north.  The sun did not come out once, and, looking at Amy's enraptured face — which had been pressed to the window in delight and wonder ever since they'd stepped into the coach back in Portsmouth — Charles wryly decided not to tell her to expect it to.  At least, not until April.

That was the way of an English winter.

Thoughts of his family were paramount on his mind.  Had they received his letter?  What would his homecoming be like?

Unreasonably, a thread of nervousness coursed through him.  He turned his face to the window, gazing out at the downs as he tried to dispel it.  How silent they looked beneath the brooding sky — timeless, changeless, majestic.  A glaze of white frost cloaked them, and, bare of trees as they were, their noble brows blunted by time, they looked invincible.

Like Lucien.

His wiped suddenly damp palms on his breeches.  He had no reason to feel this strange anxiety, but he did, and it was growing stronger the closer they got to Blackheath.  At dusk, they passed through Lambourn with its familiar taverns, shops and buildings.  There, the carriage broke an axle, forcing them to hire another to take them the rest of the way.  Charles's apprehension settled in the pit of his stomach.  They continued on through the downs, and now he felt strange palpitations in his chest as his heart began skipping beats.  He told himself he was merely excited.  But he knew it was something else.

And there, far out across a darkening valley and commanding the countryside for miles around, was Blackheath Castle.  Even from here, Charles could see the pennant, tiny with distance, that flew above it.  Lucien was home.  In a few minutes, he would be reunited with his family — and the fiancée who had loved him so dearly and so well back in Boston.

Was that the reason for this strange, unfathomable nervousness?  The idea of seeing Juliet again?

Didn't he
want
to see her?

All too soon, the wheels of the carriage were crunching on the great drive of crushed stone . . . moving past the ancient walls with their ivy-cloaked crenellations . . . through the gatehouse and over the moat, past stands of copper beeches and now, pulling up at the massive door, its thick, medieval oak strapped with iron and looking as imposing as the castle itself.  Twin lamps burned above it, throwing a faint glow on the stone steps beneath.

The carriage came to a stop.

"Here ye be, sirrah!" called the driver from the box.  Charles stepped down, reached back inside to help Amy out, and paid the driver.  He was a local from Lambourn and his name was Paul Bosley, and Charles remembered the man's damp eyes when he'd sent his son John off to join Charles's regiment — but Bosley did not recognize him.  His gaze was blank as he took the fare, touched his hat, and sent the coach back off down the drive, leaving Charles staring after him in disbelief and no small degree of confusion.

Did he look that much different than he ever had?

Of course not!  He was not dressed as richly or as elegantly as the old Charles would have been, but he was neat and clean in his white linen shirt, knee breeches, and coat of dark blue frieze; his hair was carefully combed and queued beneath its black tricorn, and there was no reason why Bosley shouldn't have recognized him.

But he hadn't.

They stabled Contender.  "What magnificence," Amy was saying, jolting him from his thoughts as they walked back to the castle.  She had paused, and was now staring up at the twin crenelated towers that seemed to hold up the gloomy sky itself.  "Did you really grow up here, Charles?"

"Yes.  Though it seems a lifetime ago, now."  He picked up her trunk and carried it up the stairs.  "I daresay it has not changed as much in five hundred years as I have in twenty months.  Come.  Let's go inside."

The familiar door with its massive oak timbers and iron hinges loomed before him.  For one brief, insane moment Charles almost raised his hand to knock; but that was ridiculous.  He was the long-lost son, come home at last.  Everyone would be ecstatic to see him.  He, of all people, did not need to knock!

And so he turned the latch and pushed open the heavy door, and there was the Great Hall's high, vaulted ceiling of carved stone that he remembered so well; the tapestry on the wall, the suits of medieval armor, the primitive weapons and shields, the mullioned windows rising magnificently from floor to ceiling — and a liveried footman, already leaping to his feet at the sight of Charles and Amy.  His face was tight with disapproval and indignation.  "Sir!  This is a
private
home, the residence of His Grace the duke of Blackheath, and you have no business —"

Charles removed his three-cornered hat.  "Simmons," he said gently.  "Do you not recognize me?"

The footman came up short, frowning.  And then his eyes widened and he paled to the color of milk.  "Lord Charles!" he gasped, bowing deeply.  "Is it really
you
?"

Charles, relieved, smiled warmly.  "It is what remains of me, Simmons.  I have come home at last."

"You — you're several days earlier than the family expected you —"

"Yes, I know.  Is the duke about?"

"Well yes, he's in the dining room with your brothers and sisters —"

Charles smiled.  The man was obviously befuddled, as he had only
one
sister.  But he didn't wish to embarrass the poor fellow, or upset him any more than he'd already done by his untimely arrival.  "In the dining room, you say?  I shall go to him, then."

"Please, my lord!  Let me summon him for you!"

"Come now, Simmons — I hardly think that is necessary."

"B-but my lord, it is on His Grace's orders.  I will return for you in but a moment."

And with that he hurried off, leaving Charles staring after him in confusion and a slow sense of mounting anger.

Let me summon him for you . . . it is on His Grace's orders.
  There was no need for Simmons to
summon
anyone!  What the devil was going on here?  Why was Simmons treating him like a visitor in his own home?  And acting so damned nervous?  Bugger this!  He wasn't waiting for anyone!  Bewildered and upset by this strange treatment, this total lack of fanfare when he'd expected everyone to be joyous at his arrival, he offered his arm to Amy and strode across the polished marbled expanse of the Great Hall, the empty suits of armor staring silently at him through the black slits of their visors as though in silent disapproval.

"Charles," Amy murmured, hurrying to keep up with him, "Perhaps we
should
wait . . . after all, maybe your brother has a surprise in store for you and doesn't want you to spoil it by rushing in unannounced —"

"My brother is treating me with the formality due a visitor and I dislike it.  Come along, Amy, I wish to get this over with and I wish to do it
now
."

His buckled shoes beating a clipped tattoo, he strode down the shadowy corridors.  As he passed them, servants stared at him with wide eyes.  "Hello, Puddyford.  Hello, Rawlins," he heard himself saying, and though he greeted them warmly, the smiles they offered him in return were nervous, and there was an obvious apprehension in their faces.

By the time he reached the double doors of the dining room, closed, unwelcoming, and stiffly guarded by Cooper, a normally stone-faced footman whose eyes shot wide with surprise before he schooled himself back into the deference expected from a servant, Charles was quietly furious.  Why this tension in the air, this formal treatment, and this pins-and-needles behavior from servants with whom he'd always had an easy, informal relationship?

The devil take it, he would find out what was going on and he would find out now.

"Open the door please, Cooper."

"But my lord —"

"Open it
now
."

Visibly tense, Cooper turned and was just about to push open the great doors so that Charles could join his family, when the left one opened from within and Charles found himself eye to eye with the brother he hadn't seen in well over two years.

"Lucien!" he said abruptly, unable to keep the hurt from his voice at this treatment that had been bestowed upon him.  "By God, what the devil is going on here?  What is this business about my having to be announced, and to you my own brother, in my own home?  Why would you keep me from joining you all in the dining room?"  He clenched his fists, unable to keep the anguish from his rising voice.  "Do you all hate me now?  Am I so terrible that you cannot forgive me for the mistakes I have made?"

 His anguished cry echoed down the corridor. 
Mistakes I have made? . . . Mistakes I have made? . . . Mistakes I have made?

Lucien only stared at him, as though he could not quite reconcile this desperate, emotional stranger with the crisp and confident officer who had taken his troops off to America.  And though Charles knew he was coming apart before Lucien's very eyes, he couldn't recover himself, couldn't stop this spiralling freefall into pathetic behavior, couldn't ignore the deep and indescribable pain in Lucien's black and suddenly sympathetic eyes which told him that his brother no longer admired, but pitied him.

"My dear Charles," he said gently.  "My long-lost and much beloved brother."  He reached out as though to embrace him — paused — and instead, laid his hand on Charles's arm.  "It is not a question of whether or not I can forgive you," he murmured, "but whether or not you will forgive
me
."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Prepare yourself," Lucien said simply, and turning, pushed open the great carved door that had swung shut behind him.

Chapter 19

But nothing could have prepared Charles for what he found in the dining room.

The first thing he saw was the candelabra, glittering at the ends and center of the table and drawing the eye away from the friezed ceiling he remembered so well, the carved mantlepiece of Italian marble, the centuries-old portraits, the drapes that fell in great sweeps of burgundy velvet from ceiling to floor, all of which seemed impossibly dark in comparison to the faces, glowing in the flickering light, that turned toward him in stunned surprise.  It took Charles a moment to recognize each one.  He never knew that Lucien came quietly up behind him.

In that brief, fleeting moment that would remain amongst the most shocking of his life, ranking right up there with when he'd woken to discover himself blind, he saw Nerissa, the sister for whom he'd always had a soft spot, looking up at him with tears of sympathy in her pretty blue eyes.  He saw Andrew, tall and handsome now, his brows raised in surprise before he slowly put down his napkin and looked nervously toward Gareth; and there was Gareth, for once not smiling, but looking almost sick with uncertainty and embarrassment as he stared at Charles and then, with a subtleness that did not escape his keen gaze, reaching out to cover the hand of the woman beside him with his own.

A woman with dark hair and fine green eyes.

A woman Charles had not seen in nearly two years.

A woman who, as she slowly rose to her feet and stared mutely at him, her face paling, one hand pressed to her lips, could not conceal the fact that she was heavy with child.

"
Juliet
?" Charles whispered, his stunned brain trying to absorb what he was seeing and sort it out into something he could understand . . . trying to reason why she was still pregnant when she should've delivered the baby months and months ago . . . trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle that made absolutely no sense.  "Juliet, will you not come and greet me?"

As though for approval, she glanced toward Gareth, who had also risen and now stood almost protectively beside her.  And as Charles's confused and uncomprehending gaze went from Gareth's hand, which now supported Juliet's elbow, to his fiancée's swollen belly and finally, to the high chair drawn up beside her which contained a toddler whose curling hair was as bright a gold as Charles's own, he began to understand.

It felt as though God had slammed a fist into his stomach.

"No," he murmured, shaking his head in denial and stepping backward, his gaze still fixed on Juliet's gently rounded abdomen.  Involuntarily, his fists clenched and he was suddenly afraid that he was going to call out Gareth, his own brother, right here in front of everyone, for what he had done to her.  "No, I . . . this cannot be —"

And then Lucien was there, his hand like a vise on Charles's arm as he firmly turned him around and began dragging him out of the room.  Charles resisted, trying to twist his head around, unable to take his disbelieving stare from Juliet's belly, from her face, from her eyes, which met and held his in a silent plea for forgiveness, but Lucien only tightened his grip and pulled him away from the table.  Away from the others.

Out the door, which he shut behind him.

"Now you know why I did not want you to charge unannounced into this house," he said quietly, as Charles walked a little distance away and leaned his brow against his forearm, and his forearm against the cold stone wall.  There he remained, head bent, totally undone by the confusion and despair of his discovery.  "I am not angry with you, and there is nothing to forgive.  But since you were unaware of the situation, and Juliet is obviously in a delicate condition, you can be sure that I would do everything in my power to protect you both from shock and upset.  I am sorry that you had to learn of things this way."

When Charles made no move to acknowledge him, he turned to Amy.  "Who are you?"

Amy had stepped up beside Charles, who stood with head bent, shoulders quaking.  "My name's Amy Leighton," she answered.  "I'm a friend of your brother's."