Chapter Nineteen
Diana spent a wretched night, tossing and turning, tormented alternately with guilt and resentment. Guilt because she hadn’t been honest with Rupert, and resentment because he hadn’t been honestly forthcoming with her. She still hadn’t asked him the question direct. Was he there with Jem when her brother died? And she was too afraid of his reaction to ask him.
There was a dull ache behind her temples and her eyes felt dry and sore. Perhaps a ride in the park would clear her head. She rang for Agnes and climbed out of bed, her muscles resisting vigorously. Perhaps she’d danced too much the previous evening. A ridiculous thought, of course. It wasn’t possible to dance too much. She went into the bathroom to draw a bath.
“You’re up and about bright and early, Miss Diana,” Agnes observed, coming in with her morning tea. “Will you drink this in the bath?”
“Yes, thank you.” Diana accepted the cup and took a deep gulp. “I’m going for a ride before breakfast. Could you put out my habit?” She took another gulp, feeling marginally better as the hot, revivifying liquid burned its way down her throat. “And could you ask Billy to send a message to the mews to saddle Merry, please?”
Half an hour later, she was on her way downstairs when Rupert came in from outside, his complexion fresh from the early morning air, his eyes enviably clear and bright. He stopped in the hall, tapping his crop against his riding boot as he took in her appearance. “Going for a ride? It’s chilly out there.”
“I need the fresh air.” Somehow, she couldn’t arrange her features in an expression that seemed remotely normal, and it made her feel tongue-tied and awkward. She moved past him to the front door.
“Would you like some company?” he asked.
“But you’ve only just come in from a ride,” Diana pointed out.
“Nevertheless, I’d be happy to accompany you if you’d like me to.”
She swallowed. It sounded like an olive branch, and she wasn’t going to wave it away. “If you really don’t mind.”
“No, I don’t mind,” he declared calmly but firmly, stepping ahead of her to open the door. “We’ll walk round to the mews.”
Hyde Park was quiet this early in the morning, and they met only a few other riders on the tan. Diana was not in the mood for conversation and Rupert, it seemed, was happy to maintain a companionable silence as they urged their mounts to a canter. After one circuit, they eased their horses to a walk alongside the Serpentine.
“Shall we stop for hot chocolate?” Rupert suggested, pointing to a small structure on the banks of the lake. “An enterprising couple have set up a little café over there.”
“I never noticed that before.” Diana turned Merry off the main ride and onto a narrow path across the grass down to the lake.
“It’s a very recent innovation. But a welcome one, and a clever one too. The nursemaids and their charges will be out in force around midmorning and they’re reliable customers.” He turned his mount to follow her.
A few chairs were scattered on the grass in front of the shack, and Diana dismounted, fastening her reins to a conveniently placed hitching post. She looked out over the lake, gray under the cloudy September sky. In August it would have been busy with rowers and swimmers, women sheltering under wide-brimmed straw hats, young men handling the oars with various degrees of competence. The Serpentine was a truly egalitarian playground, attracting folk of every class on a Sunday, enjoying the freedom of a day of rest. Today it was deserted except for a trio of mute swans sedately paddling toward the bridge.
“Here you are, hot chocolate.” Rupert emerged from the shack, carrying two steaming mugs. He handed one to Diana and lightly clinked his own against hers in a mock toast. She sipped the rich, dark, sweet brew. “Do they have a Primus stove?”
“Several,” he answered.
A strained silence fell, far from their earlier companionable quiet. Diana knew the strain was coming from her; she could feel the need for answers bubbling within her until it could no longer be contained.
“Were you really at Jem’s side at Mafeking?”
“What?” He looked at her, his green gaze incredulous. “What are you asking me?”
“If you were at Jem’s side when he was killed.” She averted her gaze as she spelled it out finally, resigned now to whatever was going to happen. She needed the truth more than she needed peace with Rupert. The latter was not possible without the former.
When he said nothing, she continued slowly, still without looking at him, “I can discount Cartwright’s malice, but Tim Granger said he didn’t see you there, and Victor Marchant, the agent in Kimberley, said it was common knowledge you hadn’t been beside Jem during the attack, and he said everyone was surprised at your absence. So, I’m asking if you were there, because if you were, I don’t understand why all these people believe you weren’t.” Her eyes remained on the dull gray lake and the white swans.
Rupert turned away from her, his own gaze seeking the peaceful anonymity of the lake. His mind had gone back to that morning on the 12th of May, two years earlier.
* * *
They heard them before they saw them in the pitch-dark moments before the African dawn. A rustle in the bush, a hiss that could have been a whisper, and they smelled the smoke. The shouts and yells of triumph came a few minutes later, lifting goose bumps on the back of his neck. He knew what was happening: after seven months of siege, the town of Mafeking was under attack. The Boer farmers outnumbered the British garrison seven to one and the surprise attack had caught them off guard.
Jem raised his rifle to his shoulder. He squinted through the dark and smoke. “Can you see anything, Rupert?”
“Not yet.” Rupert, standing next to him in the line, spoke curtly, trying to make out any shape in the obscurity ahead. Behind them, their fellow soldiers moved into readiness to meet the oncoming assault, but there were only ten of them, and they knew the odds were way against them.
“The gunpowder,” Rupert murmured to Jem. “The damn gunpowder. We have to do something.”
“Where are the police reinforcements from the village?” Jem muttered as if he hadn’t heard his friend.
Rupert crept swiftly away from the line at the front of the redoubt, his one thought to get to the pile of ordnance in the makeshift shed behind the redoubt. It was packed with gunpowder, and if it went up, the entire garrison would go up with it.
The smoke came from the thatched huts in the village that housed the native African troops just beyond the garrisoned walls of Mafeking. Something flew past his ear with a nasty whine. Behind him, someone cursed and slapped at his neck as if at a mosquito.
And then the sun came up, a great golden ball in the African sky, and the enemy came out of the dawn, bayonets fixed, rifles blazing, and for a disbelieving moment it seemed to the British soldiers they were facing the entire Boer army in this one little place. Rupert hesitated. Jem was in the front line, his place was beside him, but if a stray spark caught the explosives, the entire garrison would be massacred. He ducked low and ran to the shed. Behind him, the sounds of shots, screams, the war cries in the attackers’ barbaric Afrikaans tongue bombarded him as he hurled buckets of water from the line kept as a precaution outside the shed, drenching the gunpowder, desperate to render it useless before the attackers breached the front line.
He could only imagine the chaos in the redoubt, but he had one task to do. Jem was an excellent shot, he told himself. But he didn’t see the moment the giant figure flung himself at Jem with a great bellow. And afterward he could only imagine what went through Jem’s mind as he realized that Rupert, his oldest and closest friend, his comrade in arms, was not beside him. He could only imagine what happened when the giant Dutchman came down on him, Jem trying to roll sideways away from the thrusting bayonet, no one to support him, to fight for him because in that ghastly melee every man fought for himself. He could only imagine what it must have felt like as the enemy’s vicious point plunged into Jem’s body beneath his right arm and the darkness engulfed him.
* * *
“I carried Jem’s body to the rear,” he said finally, his voice without expression. “I tried to staunch his wound, but there was nothing to be done.” He turned back to his horse. “I trust that satisfies your curiosity.”
Diana had no words against the wall he had thrown up, the wall she had experienced before on the banks of the Orange River. She had questioned his word, his honor, whatever it was Rupert held so dear, and now she would pay the price. And it wasn’t just. She wanted to scream the words at him, to penetrate the wall, but she couldn’t.
They rode home in silence, leaving their horses in the mews. “I’m going to Horse Guards. Can you take yourself back to the house?”
“Yes, of course.” Diana watched him stride out of the mews, a great emptiness in her heart. He had been there, whatever others might say. And she had doubted him.
She went back to the house and was wrestling with the household accounts when Fenella and Petra were announced. She greeted the diversion with relief. “Are you feeling better, Petra?”
“Much. I discovered whiskey, honey and lemon,” Petra said cheerfully. “It’s a miracle cure. What are you doing?”
“Accounts. Cameron’s stable bill is huge, but I suppose that’s only to be expected with a Thoroughbred.” She closed the books decisively. “So, anything interesting to impart?”
“Not really.” Fenella drew off her gloves and tossed them onto a table. “We came to persuade you to come to Fortnum’s for lunch.”
It was the last thing Diana felt like doing, but it would take her mind off the morning and maybe give her some space to decide how she was to face Rupert. She was determined not to let silence rule again. He had to accept that she had had legitimate concerns, and they warranted an answer. It wasn’t as if she had actually accused him of anything.
* * *
She returned to Cavendish Square in the late afternoon, determined to have it out with Rupert as soon as he returned, but when she walked into the house she knew something was wrong. It was in the air, an unsettled feeling. Barlow’s expression was a study in neutrality, which in itself was unusual. He always had a smile and a pleasant greeting.
“Will you let me know when Colonel Lacey returns, please?” she asked, heading for the stairs.
Barlow coughed. “Colonel Lacey left some two hours ago, Miss Diana.”
She spun around, a prickle of foreboding on the back of her neck. “Did he say when he would be back?”
“No, ma’am. He left a letter for you in your parlor.” The butler coughed into his gloved hand. “He took rather a lot of luggage, so I would imagine he was expecting to be away for some time.”
Diana felt the color drain from her cheeks and she turned hastily back to the stairs lest Barlow see her dismay. “I expect he explains it in his letter,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Lord Roberts has probably sent him on a mission of some kind.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s so, Miss Diana.”
Diana ran upstairs and along to her parlor. The letter, in its white envelope with the familiar black script, seemed to shout at her from the escritoire. She picked it up carefully, as if it would burn her fingers, and sliced through the seal with the dainty silver paper knife. Slowly, she unfolded the single sheet.
My dear Diana, I yield. You’re right that it’s not possible for us both to live under the same roof. Both Jem and I had hoped that maybe proximity would naturally lead us back to the time when we loved and trusted each other. But I realize it was a fool’s hope. So I leave you in possession of the field, my dear. I have talked to Muldoon and explained the situation. He will handle my financial interests from your brother’s inheritance and you will not be troubled. As far as the world is concerned you may say that I have gone abroad. I’ll come up with a more permanent arrangement and explanation in a few weeks. R.
She read and reread the letter. She could hear his hurt and anger in every syllable. He had given her what she had wanted, what she had fought for with increasing frustration. But she didn’t want it. Not anymore.
Talk about a Pyrrhic victory. She flung herself down on the couch, the letter still in her hand. What did he mean about Jem, that he had hoped proximity would bring them back together? Was that why Jem had left his inheritance to Rupert?
It seemed obvious now. It was so typical of her brother. He had never made any secret of his sorrow and disappointment that his beloved sister and his greatest friend would not, after all, make a match. Jem would always do everything he could to achieve a desired object, and in this case, he’d made provision in the event he couldn’t bring about that object himself. What would be more natural in Jem’s view than if the two of them were thrown together, forced to negotiate; they would once again find that passionate connection.
And they had come so close . . . so very close.
Where would Rupert have gone? He had friends, colleagues from the regiment, but knowing him as she did, she couldn’t imagine him seeking help from anyone. It wasn’t in his nature. Rupert wasn’t like other people. Whenever he was hurt as a boy, he would hide it, would go off on his own, and she and Jem had learned to leave him alone until he had healed himself. He would be licking his wounds now, somewhere alone.
No, no, no. Not this time. She scrunched up the letter and hurled it against the far wall. She was not going to let him hide, dwelling on the angry resentment gnawing at him. This time she needed to find him, to compel him to let her in, to help her understand what caused him to withdraw at the slightest hint of mistrust. She accepted he was hurt, and that without intention she had inflicted that hurt. With or without just cause, she had caused him pain.
So she must help him heal, but she had to fight her own battle too. There could be no future for them on Rupert’s terms alone. Diana knew now that a future with Rupert was the only one she could contemplate. He was an impossible, controlling, stubborn man, but they shared a passion for each other that transcended ordinary emotions. He understood her as only Jem had, and she understood all his contradictions, except for this one puzzling obsession.
But before there could be talk of a future, she had to find him. Where would he have gone?
Deerfield, perhaps? She considered this possibility and then dismissed it as too obvious. Perhaps he had really gone abroad. That was a depressing possibility. Abroad was a big place. He’d presumably obtained a leave of absence from Lord Roberts. Perhaps they knew at Horse Guards where he’d gone. But she could hardly go there and ask if they knew where her husband was. The gossip would spread like wildfire.
And then it came to her with absolute certainty. Rupert would have gone to his estate in Yorkshire. On his grandfather’s death several years earlier, he had inherited the estate, but the place held such grim memories for him, he never visited if he could help it. But his former mistress was still there, still able to offer him comfort, presumably. He was still in touch with her, still gave her money; he had said as much.
Diana swallowed the unpalatable image of Rupert taking comfort in the arms of Margery Ordway. It was silly to let her imagination run wild, she told herself firmly. There was no reason to suppose any such thing.
Thwaite. That was the town. The Lacey estate was outside Thwaite. So how did one get to Thwaite? She needed a Baedekers, and there was a copy of the traveler’s bible in the library. With a surge of energy, Diana flew downstairs to the library. But in the doorway, she stopped. Rupert permeated the room, the sense of his presence almost overwhelming. She could smell the stuff of his uniform, the tonic he used on his hair, the freshness of his skin. The image of him sitting at the big table as she had so often found him filled her with longing. How could she have wanted so desperately to get him out of her house, out of her life?
Resolutely, she put all such useless thoughts behind her and went unerringly to the shelf where she would find Baedekers. She took down the red leather volume and carried it to the table, skimming the index until she found Thwaite in the Yorkshire Dales. It looked to be in the middle of nowhere, but Mr. Muirhead M.A., who had compiled the travel guide, had not been troubled by something as unimportant as nowhere. He described exactly how to get there, which trains to take and which hotels would be most suitable for a lady traveling alone.
Diana drew a sheet of paper toward her, dipped the pen nib in the inkwell and began to write, copying Mr. Muirhead’s directions. She would change trains at Kendal for the branch line to Hawes Junction. She would leave the train there and spend the night at the King’s Arms, which was considered a suitably decorous hostelry for a single lady. Presumably, they would have a horse and trap, which would take her to Thwaite, or rather to Lacey Manor.
Satisfied, Diana closed the book and returned it to its shelf. Then she went to her bedroom to instruct Agnes about packing for her journey to the Yorkshire Dales.
Agnes didn’t hide her surprise at Diana’s instructions. “It’s a rough part of the world from all I hear, Miss Diana. Full of sheep and hills, and the folk speak a different language. Why do we want to go there?”
“We don’t, Agnes,” Diana replied. “I’m going alone.”
“Dear Lord, not if I have anything to say about it,” Agnes protested, reverting to her nursemaid ways. “A young girl alone in those wilds. Lord only knows what the folk are like up there, but stands to reason they’ll not be like any you’re used to.”
“Nevertheless, Agnes dear, I intend to go alone. I’m not exactly a young girl anymore and I will be quite safe, Baedekers tells me so.” She flourished her sheet of written directions. “Besides, I’m rather assuming Colonel Lacey will be there, so you need have no fears for my safety.”
Agnes didn’t look mollified. She sniffed her disapproval and said, “You’ll be needing warm clothes. Are you taking the dogs?”
“No, I can’t manage them on such a long journey. I’ll have to change trains several times.”
“Well, on your own head be it,” Agnes declared. “What your sainted mother would say, I really don’t know.”
Neither did Diana, but she kept a prudent silence, acceding meekly to Agnes’s statement that she’d find her dinner in her parlor, and she’d best get to bed early if she was to make an early start the next morning.