Reid was still sleeping when Letty retired at ten o’clock. She sent Green to bed, and left the door open between her bedchamber and Reid’s, but Reid didn’t rouse in the night. He was still asleep when she rose the next morning.
“Is he all right?” Green whispered anxiously.
Reid wasn’t flushed, he wasn’t shivering, his breathing slow and steady and quiet. “I don’t think he has a fever,” Letty whispered back. “He’s just tired. Will you sit with him, please? And let me know when he wakes?”
It was past eleven when Reid finally woke. Houghton brought the news. “No, don’t go to him, ma’am—Green’s got everything in hand.”
“How is he?”
“Well enough,” Houghton said. “But he says he’ll take his breakfast in bed.”
Letty pondered these ominous words. Breakfast in bed? Reid? But when she entered the bedchamber half an hour later, Reid didn’t look ill. He was sitting up in bed, his face shaved, his hair combed, and from the evidence of the depleted tray Green was removing, he’d eaten a good breakfast.
She studied his face. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” Reid said, and yawned. “Tired.”
“You slept twenty hours.”
“So Green tells me. I feel like I could sleep twenty more.”
“Then do! Lie down. I’ll read for a bit.”
Letty rearranged his pillows, and pulled up a stool, and opened Herodotus. Even without brandy and valerian, Reid was asleep after six pages. He woke again in the middle of the afternoon, ate soup and bread-and-butter, played one game of backgammon with Houghton, and fell asleep again. “Is he all right?” Houghton asked worriedly, over dinner.
“I think so,” Letty said. I hope so. “He’s been under immense strain the past few months. I think his body needs to rest.”
“He told me he was dying. You don’t think . . . He’s not . . .” Houghton took a deep breath. “This isn’t the end, is it?”
Letty shook his head. “I think he’s finally healing.”
“I hope you’re right, ma’am.”
So do I.
Reid woke at nine that evening, ate, played another game of backgammon, listened to four more pages of Herodotus, and slept the night through, thus setting the pattern for the next three days. Green, whose attachment to Reid bordered on worship, sat with him whenever he slept during the day; when Reid was awake, Houghton played backgammon with him and Letty read Herodotus. The days slipped by lazily. Each night, Green left out brandy and valerian and Letty opened the adjoining door, but Reid had no nightmares.
On the third day, Letty wrote a letter to her putative chaperone, Mrs. Sitwell, telling her that she’d decided to stay longer in Andover, and to not to look for her for another two weeks. Yet another lie to add to her tally—and she felt a pang of guilt—but how could she leave Reid now, when he was deciding whether he wanted to live or to die?
She posted the letter, and hoped Mrs. Sitwell wouldn’t examine the postmark.
During the daytime, while Reid slept, Letty walked out with Eliza or Houghton, rambling alongside the river, exploring the ruins of Okehampton castle, climbing up onto the moor. The more time she spent with Eliza, the more she liked the girl. Eliza was barely seventeen, but she was cheerful and stoic and possessed an unexpectedly shrewd intelligence—and now that she’d lost her overawed shyness, she showed glimpses of an impish sense of humor.
I shall be sorry to send her to the lying-in hospital, Letty thought, as she strolled on the moor one day with Eliza. She’d have to ensure the girl found a good position afterwards, somewhere safe. But safest would be with me. And then she fell to wondering whether she could employ Eliza in her own household. But that would mean confessing that she wasn’t Mrs. Reid, and would the girl wish to have a liar for a mistress?
Letty sighed, and gazed unseeingly across Dartmoor, and saw the balance scales in her mind’s eye. The weight of her lies was substantial, but the weight of the deaths was far greater. Not merely three deaths, as she’d once thought, but many, many deaths. All of Lieutenant Pereira’s deaths, all of Reid’s deaths.
She regretted the lies she had told, wished they hadn’t been necessary—and knew that she’d do the same again if she had to.
“I think that’s Dinger Tor, ma’am.”
Letty blinked, and discovered that she was staring at a distant outcrop of rock.
“Jeremy says one of the villagers told him a giant used to live there.”
“Jeremy?”
Eliza flushed a pretty pink. “Sergeant Houghton, I should say, ma’am. He’s teaching me to play backgammon.” And then she said, anxiously: “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not.” It wasn’t Houghton’s one arm that made him safe company for Eliza; it was his integrity.
The very next day, Sergeant Houghton himself brought up the subject of Eliza’s future. “I know it’s not my place, ma’am, but what exactly do you plan for Miss Marshall?”
Letty abandoned her perusal of the ruins of the Okehampton castle bailey, and examined Houghton’s face instead. “What has she told you?”
“Everything.” He paused. “At least, I think she’s told me everything.”
Letty surveyed him. “And what’s that?”
“That she was raped,” Houghton said bluntly “And turned off, and her aunt wouldn’t take her in—and you rescued her.”
Letty nodded. Eliza had told him everything. “My plan is to send her to a lying-in hospital in Holborn, a clean, well-run place. She doesn’t wish to keep the child, so it shall go to a good foundling home. And then I’ll see to it that Eliza finds a respectable position. I should like it to be in my own household, but . . . that would mean telling her I’m Miss Trentham, not Mrs. Reid, and if she knew that I doubt she’d wish to be employed by me.”
“You think not?”
“I have deceived her, Sergeant.”
“And saved her. Your kindness to Miss Marshall must make her forgiveness certain.”
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Letty eyed the sergeant, remembering Eliza’s pink blush yesterday. “Do you like Eliza, Sergeant?”
Houghton went faintly pink himself. He looked away. “I’m not courting her, if that’s what you mean, ma’am.”
“You may, with my good wishes.”
Houghton studied the remains of the bailey for several seconds, and then met her eyes. “I’m twelve years older than her, and I have only one arm.”
“So?”
“So, I’m not a good husband for her.”
“Nonsense! It’s a man’s character that determines whether he’ll be a good husband, not the number of arms he has. And as for your age, if Eliza doesn’t care, then I don’t see why you should.”
Houghton’s lips compressed. He looked down at the grass growing where flagstones had been hundreds of years ago.
“Eliza needs a good friend,” Letty said gently. “And perhaps, in time, that good friend can become her husband.”
Houghton’s lips compressed further. He dug the heel of his boot into the turf, gouging out a clod. “I’d like to see him flogged, the man who raped her. If I had both arms, I’d do it myself.”
“Then it’s just as well you don’t have both arms!” Letty told him. “For he’s a squire’s son and you’d end up in gaol, and how would that help Eliza?”
Houghton glanced at her sharply—and then acknowledged the truth of her words with a wry grimace.
“Come.” Letty held out her hand. “Let’s climb the motte.”
Houghton dutifully offered her his right arm. They strolled up the incline of the old motte to where the ruined keep stood, its crumbling turret sticking up like a warped gray finger.
Letty gazed out towards the village, her hand tucked into the crook of Houghton’s arm. A very strong arm, thick with muscle, warm and alive. “Does your left arm pain you, Sergeant?”
Houghton didn’t answer.
Letty glanced at him. Had she offended him? No; Houghton looked pensive, not angry.
“Not so much now. The worst part is, I keep forgetting it’s gone. I go to use it, and . . . it’s not there.” He smiled crookedly at her. “I’ll get used to it. It’s already a lot better than it was. In time I’ll forget I ever had two arms.”
No, Sergeant, I don’t think you will. And neither do you.
Letty released his arm, and impulsively hugged him. “I do like you, Sergeant. Very much! And I hope you will marry Eliza!”