“Don’t you think that young man there should make a wonderful suitor?”
Felicity Merriwether tried to ignore the her mother’s unsubtle hint and gave only a cursory glance at the man descending from the carriage in front of them.
Felicity answered by rote. “I can’t marry yet. It would be utterly improper.”
Her plain outside, plush inside carriage inched forward, then stopped in front of the wide stone staircase. A liveried footman opened the door.
“To marry now, yes.” Esmirelda Greyston raised her Chinese fan in front of her face as if that should keep the servants from knowing she was scolding her grown daughter. “But one doesn’t bring a gentlemen up to scratch in just a few weeks. If you wait out the full year to cast your lures, the end of the season will be upon us.”
“Charles will need a father to guide him,” added her father.
A twinge of guilt made Felicity wince. Would Charles suffer if she remained unmarried? That was the one area where she suffered any qualms about her decision. However, Layton, during his life, had done little more than provide her son with a name.
“Actually, as I remember,” Felicity said as she was handed out of the carriage, “if one is quite determined, a few weeks is more than enough time to convince a gentleman to hang up the ladle.”
Felicity was determined to be quite irresolute this time around. She didn’t want a new husband. One had been more than enough, but her parents were of the opinion that insisted a woman without a man’s guidance and protection was like a ship without a rudder. It was just a matter of time before she crashed into a rocky shore.
“Felicity, if you are not going to let me assist you, you really do need to find someone to look after Layton’s business interests. You can’t postpone that forever,” said her father in an attempt at reasonableness.
She bit her tongue rather than try to make her parents understand. If she kept from responding, the discussion would die a natural death once they entered the assembly rooms—well, were it not for her mother’s insistence on pointing every eligible man out to her, as if being a widow made her blind to their preening.
Men, most specifically one man, had caused her no end of trouble. The last thing she ever wanted to do was invite one back into her life. So that was why, when she entered the ballroom and realized he, the father of her only child, was there, she averted her head.
Major Anthony Sheridan felt her gaze the minute she arrived. For just an instant her liquid brown eyes met his and erased six years. Then she turned her back on him and reminded him of the chasm of betrayal that separated them.
“I say, are you all right?” asked Lieutenant Randleton. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
No, Tony had just been given the cut direct by the woman who’d once promised to be his wife. She was supposed to be his reward for surviving the war. And he had survived. His memories of her warm brown eyes, the softness of her skin, and the supple curves of her untutored body intruded on his thoughts at the oddest of moments over the years away. She’d made him the gift of her innocence, and the gift haunted him, at times made him reckless or made him cunning and made him want both to die and to live in the mud on the Peninsula.
He should have come home and taken back his place in society with her by his side. But she must have known much sooner then he did that he couldn’t fit in here.
But he’d be damned before he let her force him out until he was ready to go. His voice cut across the idle chatter of the ballroom. “Felicity.”
She swung around. Her gray dress swirled around her slender form and shimmered down into place, causing a shudder to course down his spine as he remembered the beauty of her body without any adornment at all.
Jewel-toned skirts swept back, parting before him like the Red Sea as he lurched across the floor toward her. His limp made him impatient with his painstaking progress.
Her smooth white brow furrowed as he advanced. Her sable hair was wound in a simple topknot at odds with the elaborate curls and crimping of the women around her. Her gaze dropped to his wounded leg. He said her name again to draw her attention away from his infirmity.
Flanked by her both her parents, he considered how best to separate her from her regiments. He didn’t have to when she stepped forward and held out her hand.
“Major Sheridan, it is a pleasure to see you again. Have you been home long?”
He stopped, his gaze jerking to her face. She had circumvented his confrontation.
“It has been forever,” she continued blithely in a singsong voice. The frown lines etched deeper into her forehead with every word. “I’m Mrs. Merriwether, now.”
She had changed. No longer the impulsive, reckless bride-to-be he had left behind, she was a married woman with her own strategies. Her clothes and demeanor were simply elegant and gave him the impression of an understated determination to deny the passionate part of her nature. An aura of maturity and restraint enfolded her, right down to the fingertips of her gray gloves.
Obviously, a discussion of the past wouldn’t be tolerated in the middle of a ballroom with the half the ton looking on. Years ago she’d begged to join him in her last letter, and then he learned she’d married another man. He wanted to know why. He wished he’d kept the letter, but it had been bloodstained and torn. He hadn’t known it would be the last.
He smiled slowly.
He had always admired a worthy adversary and gave due respect to one who had outmaneuvered him. If he made the attempt tonight, he would fail to get to the bottom of why she had betrayed him. The reckoning would come, though. No one ever got the better of him.
“Not quite forever, Felicity.”
Felicity swallowed hard. Tony was back. He was back and at the same ball she’d been persuaded to attend.
He had changed in so many ways. His brown hair was shorter than it had been, and laced with gold where the sun had kissed it. She’d noticed that in spite of that noticeable limp, he walked with command and authority in every step. But it wasn’t until he stood directly in front of her and finished his slow perusal of her that she noticed his winter-cold, dead eyes.
The lack of small talk made her jittery. But Tony had never been one for idle chatter. A man of action, he was more likely to do something forceful and unexpected, like sweeping her into an embrace.
Though he wouldn’t sweep her into his arms. She knew that. The thought—wish, really—was bizarrely out of place. He’d made it clear in his last letter that he didn’t want her with him.
Yet, why had he called out her name? Twice?
She couldn’t help but look at him, his bearing at once military-straight and noble, squint lines etched in white against his tanned skin.
She stared straight into the pale blue eyes that had once held hers with such warmth. Now they appeared so light and menacing, they seemed almost inhuman. He stood towering over her, too close yet not close enough. Her heart pounded in a mad battle rhythm.
She glanced down at the leg he favored. “You were wounded.”
“Twice in the same leg.”
His delivery was so flat she marveled that he had even acknowledged her statement.
She heard her mother’s gasp behind her. Tony was breaking all the rules. Calling her given name out loud in a crowded ballroom, referring to his limb with an accurate word like “leg.” Next thing, he would be asking about his son—did he even know that her pregnancy had resulted in a son?
Felicity couldn’t let that happen. She shook her head and stepped back, ready to end this charged encounter.
“Captain Lungren always says I lead with my right . . . foot, therefore this limb”—he patted his thigh with a slight wince—“always bears the brunt of the attack.”
His lifted eyebrow spoke volumes. One shouldn’t have to be so circumspect with vocabulary with a woman he’d known intimately. Or perhaps he hated to admit to a weakness, any weakness. She stared at him, trying to discern a betraying emotion in his icy-cold eyes.
The corner of his mouth lifted in a wry way. “Did you think I wouldn’t return home?”
Suddenly she wanted to blurt out that Charles was well and a lively child in spite of Layton’s constant rebukes. She wanted to shout out that she was now a widow. She wanted to cuff Tony and demand to know why he had treated her so shabbily.
During her indecision, his gaze had dropped to her mouth, and suddenly she knew why he had called out her name.
“There was always that possibility,” she answered coolly.
His eyes flickered with a coldness that made Felicity want to escape.
He didn’t care about his son, didn’t care if she was married, didn’t give a fig about her well-being. He just wanted what she had so foolishly given him years ago and paid for every day of her life since.
That night had been one of the most special in her life, and he cheapened it by revealing that it was nothing more than a sensual encounter to him. She hated him for that. If he thought she would fall back into his arms, he was sadly mistaken.
She would not make that blunder again. She searched desperately for an expression to mark her vehemence. Not unless pigs flew—that was it; she would sleep with him again when pigs flew. Tony was a nasty piece of work, and she had been too naive to realize it years ago. “Well, it has been lovely seeing you again, Major. I—”
“I arrived home yesterday. I was delayed in Brussels.” He had finally deigned to answer her first question.
He wasn’t going to let her walk away. Fine. A jolt of fresh anger stabbed her. She’d just chat him into madness. He’d always detested idle prattle.
“I hear Brussels is packed with tourists. My niece was to visit there and see the battlefield at Waterloo before she returned home. But she took ill and had to book passage on a ship directly bound for England.” She opened her fan and began waving it. Why did they keep these assembly rooms so warm?
“She wouldn’t have enjoyed it. It is a gruesome place.” He looked away.
Felicity waited, caught uncomfortably by the odd matter-of-fact tone of the conversation. She was thinking of pigs, and he was talking of war, however indirectly. “Well, then—”
“I though only of home.”
There was something so stark in his words that Felicity wondered if that battle—the whole ghastly war—had robbed Tony of compassion. She fought the urge to lay her hand on his arm. He may be a hard, ruthless man now, but there had been moments of tenderness before. She couldn’t have been so wrong about him then. “Well, you are home now.”
“Not for long.” His eyes held hers steadily. “What niece?”
“My niece by marriage, Diana Fielding.” What did he mean, not for long? “She attended finishing school in Switzerland and is finally coming home after a dozen years there. She should have come home sooner but for the war and both her parents passing away. Now I shall give her a season. I’m quite looking forward to her arrival.”
“When?”
Tony couldn’t be interested in this. Felicity glanced over her shoulder, looking for her parents, who had discretely moved across the polished wood floor. Could they think Tony was an acceptable suitor now? “Her ship is due to arrive two days hence. I’m sure she is a lovely girl. She writes me the sweetest letters.”
Tony’s gaze dropped, and Felicity realized that her agitation was making her breathing rapid and her chest was rising and falling in a distracting cadence. Underneath it all was this spreading heat that her fan was doing little to combat.
Tony latched on to her elbow, and Felicity nearly squealed in alarm. Her heart pounded harder, if that was possible. With a firm and sure grip, he tugged her across the floor.
Memories of the last time she’d seen him, his naked body bathed pale gold by the moonlight, rose unbidden in her mind. His touch, then so firm and purposeful yet tender and caring. By the time she realized he was forcing her to go with him to some unknown destination, it was too late to refuse.
“Tony, where are you taking me?” she hissed.
“It must be cooler by the windows, or there might be a balcony. You are overheated.”
She yanked her arm free of his grip and nearly smacked herself in the face. Quite likely she hadn’t needed to pull so hard, as his grasp wasn’t tight enough to be bruising—just controlling. However, she might need the smack to bring her to her senses. What was she doing, letting him lead her off to a garden path? “No.”
“No?” He seemed taken aback as if no one ever told him no.
“That’s right, no.”
“No, it isn’t cooler by the windows?” He faced her with a deceptively placid expression. “Or no, you are not overheated?”
“I don’t wish to be dragged across the room like a half-wit.”
“I wouldn’t have bothered with a half-wit.”
“If I am overly warm, I should prefer something to drink.” She wagged her fan faster.
He leaned close to her and whispered, “Are you overwarm?”
Felicity realized that she’d made a poor choice in words. “Overwarm” could mean too daring, which was not her meaning at all and not quite what she had said. She snapped her black-edged fan shut with an attempt at nonchalance. “Not in the least.”
She wished he would take his low voice and his tall, lean form elsewhere. The challenging lift of his eyebrow invited her to remember that night long ago in far too much detail. She needed to find a balcony or a cool drink.
Alone.
Before she melted into a complete idiot and forgot the damage that one wonderful night had done to her life.
“Shall I fetch you a glass of lemonade?”
“That would be lovely, Major.” Did he remember that as her preference? Or was it just a lucky guess?
He bowed and then limped away.
A half hour later she still didn’t have her glass of lemonade, and Tony was nowhere to be seen. And where was the surprise in that?
Suicide. It couldn’t have been suicide. Tony stared across the dimly lit drawing room at the body stretched out on the trestle table, brought in by the undertaker. Yet there was no doubt that his captain, who had survived six bloody years in the war to defeat Napoleon, was dead. Over thirty thousand men had fallen at Waterloo; Captain Lungren hadn’t suffered a scratch. Had he returned home only to blow his brains out?
It didn’t make sense.
Tony hadn’t believed Lieutenant Randleton until they had arrived at Lungren’s estate. Randy had waylaid him after he walked away from Felicity at the ball. His reddish-brown hair mussed as if he dragged his fist through it, and his freckled face creased with concerned when he gave Tony the awful news.
“If I had been here, I could have prevented this,” Tony said to Randleton.
“What could you have done?”
Tony rubbed his face. “Talked to him, put his mind at ease. I am sure I could have done something.”
Across the room Lungren’s three dark-haired sisters huddled together like a row of black crows on a hedgerow, fluttering and swarming around the emaciated undertaker and a barrel-shaped Lord Carlton, the local justice of the peace.
A wave of pity washed through Tony. The women hadn’t even had time to leave off their mourning for their father and two older brothers, and now they would continue without a head of the family.
“Was it too much for him? The responsibility?” Why had Lungren done himself in? “It doesn’t make sense.”
“He didn’t seem the type, did he?” Randy shook his head and seemed to take great interest in rubbing his toe across a bare spot in the faded rug.
What had happened? What had prompted a vital young man, full of life and with a bright future, to this end? “Had you seen him? Did he seem of sound mind?”
“I saw him last week. He seemed fine, as carefree as ever. He was off to stake his fortune with Bedford. Joked about now he actually had more than captain’s wages with which to wager.”
“Who is Bedford?”
“William Bedford, of the Devonshire Bedfords. Bit of a Captain Sharp, I’ve heard. He and Lungren got along famously.”
“Birds of a feather?”
“I should think so. They seemed rather fast friends.” Randy scanned the gaggle of women. “Should we do something for them?”
“We ought to marry them,” muttered Tony, mulling over what could be done to assist the family of his captain.
“Good God, no!”
“Then marry them off. Find suitable candidates.” Tony turned to his lieutenant.
“Not me.” Randy backed away, shaking his head.
“Come, now. I’m sure they’re not so bad when they’re not dressed in black and all Friday-faced.” Really, Lungren’s sisters, while not diamonds of the first water, weren’t hideous either.
“Your command doesn’t extend so far as to include telling me to marry anyone.”
“Oh, give over, Randy. I’m just roasting you. But seriously, we should make sure that they are settled properly since Lungren isn’t here to do it.”
“I don’t think that Lungren would have put much effort into seeing them settled.”
“The matter wouldn’t have been so urgent if he were here to head up the household, now, would it? Besides, Lungren was most resourceful. If his sisters wanted for husbands he would have scrounged up a willing sacrifice or two.”
“He needed three. He couldn’t have persuaded that many men to agreeing to marriage.”
“Now there is just you and me.”
Randy cocked his head, regarding Tony skeptically. “You have first choice, sir, but count me out.”
“I can’t marry. I’m bound for India once this leg mends. Wouldn’t be much of a life for a wife.”
Across the room one of the sisters raised her hand in front of her mouth and choked on a sob. Another spun away from the group; only the glassy-eyed eldest stood her ground, but she swayed back and forth on a nonexistent breeze. They were till in shock, reasoned Tony.
He and Randleton had grown far too inured to death. They were here to help, not make light of the situation.
The undertaker pursed his lipless mouth.
Tony strode forward. “What is it?”
“It is customary for the family to wash and dress the body. I am not in the habit of—”
“Now, now,” Lord Carlton, with the assurance of long-held authority, cut him off. “Just because the lad did himself in doesn’t mean these young ladies should suffer for it.”
“We’ll take care of him.” Tony turned to the glassy-eyed sister. It was something they could do.
Tony turned to his lieutenant and issued a one-word command. With the ease of many years of working together, Randleton began arranging the furniture so that they would be able to wash and dress the body in something other than the stained breeches and blood-soaked linen shirt Lungren wore.
Addressing the eldest sister, Tony removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “Miss Lungren, I’m sure he has his uniform. Bring it to me.”
The undertaker looked as if he might object to a suicide being buried wearing a uniform of His Majesty’s army, but Tony quelled his objection with a single glance.
Lord Carlton reached out to steady Miss Lungren, and she jerked away, giving Tony an abrupt, tight-lipped nod. “I’ll get it.”
In a far gentler manner than Tony managed, Randy sent the other two sisters off to fetch basins, washrags, soap, and towels.
“You will be back with the casket in the morning, sir.” Tony made sure his tone to the undertaker implied an “or else.” “Captain Lungren was a worthy soldier and served me and his country well.”
The undertaker touched his forehead in a gesture of abdication and slouched off to take his leave.
“He’s a bit squeamish about suicides.” Lord Carlton had a don’t-cross-me tone to his voice. “But I’ll see to it—he’ll do what needs to be done.”
Tony glanced at the bullet wound in the forehead of his former captain. “Will there be an inquest?”
“I see no need. I’ll have the doctor fill out the death certificate. No need to drag these poor gels through any more hell. What with their unfortunate mother and everything else.” Lord Carlton shook his head. “Two brothers and a father taken by wasting diseases, and now a third brother dead by his own hand. Perhaps the losses were more than the captain could bear.”
“An inquest would settle any doubt,” said Tony.
“There is nothing to settle. He was alone in the library. The servants were all in their hall having supper. No one else in the house but his sisters, and they were in their rooms.”
Tony rubbed his forehead. He had no real reason to object to the baron’s conclusion. Tony had just thought his men were safe, their futures secure, once they returned to England.
Lord Carlton had drawn himself up but slowly relaxed when Tony made no further objection. “I’ll just take my leave of the family. It’s getting quite late.”
Lord Carlton was no doubt anxious to return to his fire. He’d had the situation well in hand when they arrived. He seemed a capable man, perhaps a bit used to having his way, and not willing to expend a great deal of effort to confirm what on the surface seemed obvious.
Damnation, if Tony hadn’t lived and fought by his lighthearted captain, he wouldn’t have questioned the foregone conclusion either. But he still wondered how could Lungren have sunk so quickly and totally into despair?
He walked the middle-aged gentleman to the door, assuring him that he and Randy would see to the deceased and put themselves at the service of Lungren’s sisters .
When Tony returned to the drawing room, his lieutenant was alone with the body. Randy had begun the task of washing away the dried blood from Captain Lungren’s wound. “Major Sheridan . . .”
The formality of Randy’s addressing him by his rank made Tony brace.
“. . . would you take a look at this?”
Tony stepped forward and clearly saw the oblong, not round, not star-shaped wound. The world tilted under his feet. Reaching out, he braced himself against a chair back. He drew himself up. A superior officer never showed weakness, never admitted to pain.
He heard himself asking the question and watched Randy raise the head so they could both confirm what the shape of the wound already told him. The bullet had not followed the course it should have taken if Lungren had pulled the trigger.
Randy angled his finger to the wound. “There aren’t the powder burns I should expect. Didn’t Casey . . .”
“Yes.”
“. . . have flash burns?”
“Yes.” One of his officers had taken his own life during one of the protracted campaigns. There was absolutely no doubt that supposed path of the bullet was all wrong, but also, the pistol had not been pressed against the captain’s skin, which made the presumed method of death impossible. “Lungren didn’t kill himself.”