Bonnie squealed with delight when she saw the gowns Trace brought with him.
Elizabeth frowned at her young cousin’s exuberance, but there was no repressing Bonnie.
The girl whirled around with a lovely pink silk dress hugged to her chest. “Oh, look, Lizzy! Is it not the most beautiful thing you have ever seen?” An instant later, her joy transferred to a pale blue damask, which she held up to Blythe. “This one is perfect for you.” She dragged her sister to the mirror in the hallway and demanded her twin concede the statement.
Elizabeth touched Trace’s arm. “Thank you for bringing the gowns so quickly. They could talk of nothing else last night.”
“You’ll need to alter them quickly. Lord Mulvern plans to hold the ball as soon as possible. He has already sent to London for musicians. Oh, that reminds me.” He pulled a small note from his chest pocket. “He sent this. For Lavinnia. An invitation, I believe, to help him decide upon the menu.”
Elizabeth arched her brow in mock awe. “An invitation to the manor. I daresay Aunt Lavinnia will be in alt. We will have to pull her down from the ceiling.”
“He means well, Lizzy. Always did far better by me than duty required. He’s just preoccupied sometimes. Ever since mother—”
“I didn’t mean . . .” She laid the note by the clock.
“I know.” Trace turned to the stack of remaining dresses. “Which of these will you choose?” He lifted the edge of one of the gowns, briefly caressing the soft silk between his thumb and forefinger. “I thought this gold, against your dark hair. But, I see, you look very well in purple.”
“Thank you.” Elizabeth glanced down at her best dress, a plain, violet mourning gown. She had covered the worn hem with a darker purple ruffle and put a bow of the same color on each of the sleeves. This morning, she’d fiddled for far too long with her stubborn hair, trying to pin it up in loose curls. It probably looked more like a jumble of flapping crow’s wings than anything else.
Foolishness.
She returned the conversation back to the business at hand. “The vicar only sent two baskets today. Shall we be on our way?”
The day was fine and clear, birds twittered happily, and only a few white clouds dawdled in the blue sky. Trace helped Elizabeth step up into Lord Mulvern’s dogcart, pulled by a beast far superior to the ladies’ tired old nag.
“This will be a rare treat. Daffodil, our mare, only trots under threat of death. Poor old thing.”
Trace settled himself beside her. She could not help but breathe in deeply, savoring his shaving soap, the starched freshly pressed linen of his cravat, and a dozen other tantalizing scents that were uncommon in a house full of women.
He flicked the reins and the cart rolled briskly away from the dower house. “How bad is it?” he asked.
The question startled her. “What? How bad is what?”
“I’m not blind, Lizzy. You must tell me. How far has Mulvern’s parsimony stretched? I will speak to my stepfather. Do you have enough to eat?”
Her hand lifted as if she were going to make a point and then dropped into her lap. “We get along well enough.”
“Oh yes. So I see. Marvelous tea yesterday. Not everyone can afford such lavish—”
“Yes, well, it is not entirely his fault. He and Nana Rose are forever carping at one another. You may have forgotten.”
“Ah, let me see if I recall.” He pinched his mouth into the exact prune shape Nana Rose liked to use. “Not since Cain slew Abel, and Joseph’s brothers threw him down the well, has a brother behaved so brutally. . .”
She laughed. “You do remember.”
He steered adroitly around a puddle of rainwater. “Of course, I remember. It is you who are forgetful.”
She sensed he was setting a trap. A gentle breeze blew pleasantly against her face before she answered. “I? What have I forgotten?”
“Promises.”
Her stomach twisted uncomfortably.
An officer used to commanding his men, he laid the charge directly to her. “Why did you not answer my letters?”
Why? Because it would hurt too much if you never came back. Because dashed hopes are worse than no hope.
Or, at least, she had thought so. “I did write.”
“Oh yes.” He nodded sternly. “One letter, Lizzy. One letter.”
She looked away, out into the trees.
He pulled a folded page of parchment from his pocket and set it on her lap. “One letter to warm a man’s heart through all the trying nights of war. Here. Perhaps you would like to read your masterpiece.”
She rubbed her thumb against the worn edges of the folded letter. She didn’t have to read it. She knew the paltry sums included there. Just as Sir Godfrey had hidden his real purse, so Elizabeth had hidden her true thoughts, years ago, and handed Trace false words. Bland watery words, like weak unsalted soup. It pricked at her conscience, as sharply as if Trace held her at sword point. “I didn’t think you would come back.”
“What? And these were the sentiments you sent a dying man?”
“No. Not that!” She crumpled the letter. “I never thought you would be killed. I couldn’t bear to think such things. No, I didn’t believe you would ever come back here. To Claegburn.” Or to me. I thought you would break my heart. As if, when you left, the wretched thing didn’t shatter anyway.
“Uncle Adrian said you might aspire to great things. He explained that you had a brilliant future ahead of you.” A future that didn’t include me.
Trace held out his palm. “My letter.”
She looked down at the wrinkled folds of paper in her lap, a humiliating testament to her stingy soul. “I would rather you didn’t keep it.”
He took it away from her and stuffed it back in his pocket.
They rode in silence to the Turners’ hut and Elizabeth climbed down from the gig before he could help her. She carried the basket, making sure the small bag of coins stayed tucked securely under a loaf of bread.
Mary, the Turner’s young daughter, ran out to greet them. The child was barefoot and clad only in a plain white shift in dire need of laundering. “Miss Whizzabess! What has you brung us?”
“Miss Elizabeth,” Mary’s mother corrected. Mrs. Turner straggled out of the house, her belly round as a melon, a lock of hair stringing down across her cheek, and a small boy clinging to one leg.
Elizabeth looped the basket through one arm and scooped up the eager little girl. “Good morning, Miss Mary.” She smiled and tucked some of Mary’s wild curls behind the child’s tiny ears. “I’ve brought you fresh bread, and sausages, and lots of other delicious things from the ladies in the village. How is your mama today?”
Mrs. Turner chuckled from the doorway. “As well as can be expected, with one babe about to spring out and another one still wrapped around my leg. Tom is out in the fields, but he’ll be back midday. Come in.” She glanced quizzically at Trace.
Elizabeth performed the introductions.
The hut was small and dark. When Trace ducked under the lintel and entered, there seemed very little room left. Obviously, he would find no sign of the highwaymen here, only a cramped room, children in need of bathing, and a bench in the midst of repair.
“I’ll finish this, shall I?” He took the rough-hewn leg and checked to see how snugly the new leg fit into the vacant hole on the bench. As she unpacked the sausages and chatted with Mrs. Turner, Elizabeth watched him covertly. He went out and dipped a cup into the rain barrel, and then returned to trickle water into the hole and around the edge of the joint. When the water penetrated the wood of the leg, it would expand, causing it to stay firmly in place.
She and Trace stayed only a short while longer, time enough for Elizabeth to finish unloading the basket and discreetly hide the velvet bag behind the salt in Mrs. Turner’s cupboard. She finished her work and handed little Mary a bright yellow lemon drop.
When they left, Trace turned north on the road through Claegburn Wood.
Elizabeth pointed the other way. “The Bernard farm is in that direction.”
“A small detour.”
“Through Claegburn Wood?”
He smiled. “So, you haven’t entirely forgotten.”
She said nothing, as the dogcart meandered deeper into the forest of beech trees with thickly twisted trunks and tall birches, creaking and bending in the slight breeze, leaves shivering and catching the sun like green-gold guineas.
“It hasn’t changed much. Still beautiful.” He glanced sidelong at her as if he included her in the compliment.
She took a deep breath. He didn’t belong here. These were her woods now. He was a trespasser.
He spoke as casually as if they were sitting in the dower house parlor. “Sir Godfrey told my stepfather he heard music the night they were robbed. A flute, or so he thought.”
Or was this simply casual conversation, or was he on the hunt?
She glanced at him. “A flute? How very odd. It must have been his imagination. This is one of the old places. People are afraid druid spirits still roam these woods. It was dark. You know how the wind whistles through these trees.”
Thou doth protest too much.
Elizabeth clamped her lips together and grimaced. She’d babbled worse than a guilty six year-old.
“Yes.” He answered slowly, pensively, watching her carefully. “Those were my very thoughts, until I heard Blythe play that haunting melody yesterday, a tune very much like the one Godfrey described.”
Elizabeth fought to moderate her breathing. “What can you mean? How can someone describe one tune enough to set it apart from another? It must be heard.”
He shrugged, as if it were nothing. “I wondered if perhaps she plays the flute at night in the woods.”
“Nana Rose would never allow such a thing.”
He laughed to himself. “It wouldn’t be the first time a young girl slipped out of the dower house to play in the woods at night.”
She took in a quick breath. “I . . .you . . . that was different.”
“Was it?” He turned the rig down a small path, overgrown from lack of traffic. “She might be meeting someone. A rendezvous.”
“Blythe meeting with highwaymen? Bandits? I think not. She’s far too shy. The poor girl has scarcely ever spoken to a man aside from you and Lord Mulvern, and you’ve seen how reluctantly she speaks even then.”
“Perhaps she only speaks to one particularly charming bandit. Someone who could ease her discomfort.”
“No. Never. Blythe is not that sort of child. She would never—I know what you are thinking. But she is not like me, not nearly so reckless, or so foolish.”
He stopped the dogcart by a tree. Saints above. Their tree.
She knew every tangled branch of that old beech by heart. Boughs had begun their life as separate fingers of the same root stretched upward seeking the light, twisting and coiling around one another until they all melded together to form one thick-knotted trunk.
Trace jumped down from the driver’s bench and came for her, holding her too long as he lifted her down. “I promised I’d come back, Lizzy.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but clasped her hand, pulling her beside him toward the thick old trunk, until they stood face to face, as they had so many years ago. He pressed her palm flat against the smooth white bark and covered it with his. “We promised. You should have believed me.”
The ancient beech bark was the color of ashes burnt to whiteness, spent and dry, like her dreams. She slid her hand out from under his. “A child’s promise. We were children.”
“We were friends.”
Yes. It was true. They’d been friends. Amidst all the turmoil, two lonely children clinging to their games and secret places, as if the ravages of death did not exist in these woods. “Companions in sorrow.”
“More than that.” His gaze pierced her through, sharp and knowing, spilling all her secrets into the air between them. “Much more than that.”
She felt the need to run away and hide, as she had in the games they had played as children. “You left. You went away.” Her accusing tone sounded harsher than she would have wished.
“To school. I had no choice. But at harvest-time, before my commission, do you not remember?”
Remember? Was he mad? How could she ever forget?
She might try. But Lucifer and all his demons would torment her eternally with the memory of that one luminous moment. One kiss that still scorched her soul. A kiss that meant everything, and then nothing, a kiss that smashed her heart to pieces when she heard the truth behind his urgency. He was leaving. Going off to war. Leaving her to serve king and country. She would only ever have that one kiss. “You left. Again.”
“I told you I’d come back. And you promised—”
“That was four years ago, Trace.” She turned away from him, leaning her forehead against the cool bark.
“You didn’t believe me.”
“Should I have? At one and twenty, I was already on the shelf. Most women of that age are married and have children. You left. You went away to build a life without me. Don’t chide me for not waiting here under this wretched tree.”
“I wrote to you. We were friends. I thought someday . . .”
“Someday?” She laughed softly. “Someday is a Banbury tale we tell children to lull them to sleep. You cast off Claegburn and all its grief. I couldn’t fault you. If I’d been a man, I’d have done the same.”
He toyed with the obstinate hairs at the base of her neck. “When you didn’t write, I thought, perhaps, you’d met someone else.”
She closed her eyes, pressing her head harder against the smooth bark, as if the old beech might hold the comfort of a mother’s shoulder. “No. I’ve said my last prayers, Trace. I’m a spinster. I have my family to care for. The twins are the closest thing to children I will ever—”
“Lizzy, don’t be foolish.” He stroked the sides of her shoulders as if trying to warm her cold thoughts. “You’re still vibrant and even lovelier than—”
“Don’t.” She spun, to face him. “I’ve heard all about the camp followers and the beautiful women in Spain.”
He pressed his hands on the trunk on each side of her head, trapping her, bearing down on her. “I’m a man of my word, Lizzy. The intrigues of Napoleon’s strategy occupied my nights, and the lives of my men consumed my days. I had no interest in camp followers. You should have written.”
His mouth was a pawn’s length from hers. She held her breath, unmoving. Afraid to hope. Afraid not to hope. Heaven above! Where was her sword when she needed it? If she had her sword, she might hold him hostage and extract everything she desired from him, all the lost words and missed touches. She would rob him of every kiss he owned, if only she had her sword. Instead, she was his hostage. Held captive by his nearness, his lips, his intoxicatingly masculine smell, and startlingly blue eyes that made long dead flames burn again.
His lips moved in a husky whisper. “I believe I will collect, now.”
“Collect?” She gulped air, breaking the simple word into too many throaty syllables. Heat crawled up her neck and blazed onto her cheeks.
“Yes.” His dimples deepened. “On your part of the bargain, of course.”
He did not give her a chance to debate. He covered her mouth with his, softly stealing away four years of want. She opened to him, allowing him to fill her miserly heart with warmth. And now, she would have one more memory with which Lucifer would taunt her when she made her final journey to Hades.
Trace hugged her to his chest. “Lizzy, Lizzy, how I’ve missed you.”
A tear escaped its mooring and glided down her cheek, sliding, falling, like the last leaf of autumn. Glistening, it twirled down to crumble and rot beneath the tree, alongside the dreams that had fallen there four years ago. She’d made her choice, chosen a path that would divide them forever. Good from evil. He was an honest man. A gentleman of his word. She was a criminal. A thief. A liar. She had no future, save that which rightfully belonged to a hangman.
Sadly, gently, she pressed her hands against Trace’s chest, separating them. “We have one last basket to deliver, and then I must return home. The twins ought to attend to their French lessons. Cook wants menus. The garden needs weeding.”
Trace frowned, not an ordinary frown, but hard and intense, suddenly the soldier. She saw in his eyes questions roiling through his mind, questing for possible explanations.
If only he weren’t such a strategist. Life is not a game. It does not come with a reliable set of rules. The knight doesn’t always move two out and one over.
Trace hadn’t.
And who in the blazes could ever predict what the queen would do? She climbed up into the rig and sat, hands folded primly in her lap.
Without further discussion, he maneuvered the dogcart back to the road. They delivered the basket to the Bernard family, and he helped her down at the dower house.
She was afraid to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry there weren’t any signs of the Frenchman.”
“Far more than you might think, Lizzy.” He tipped his hat and left her standing at the door.