15. Four Months Later…

15

Four Months Later…

…his world topsy-turvied yet again.

Warrick sat inside the lush carriage that smelled of lavender and grief, body tensed, heart sickened, mind as numb as his nose. A biting breeze slapped his cheeks as he stared out the open window of Redford’s expensive equipage with glazed eyes at the newly carved headstone addition in the family plot off a tree-lined, overgrown section on the Warrick estate:

Here lies Richard Joseph Martinson of Warrick

who departed this life the 28th day of September 1791

Aged 32

Also his Beloved wife Elizabeth Martinson Feldon

who died the 9 th of April 1813

Aged 48

Forty-eight. Too damn young.

His teeth cut into his lips, so tightly did he bite down to stop their trembling.

He scrubbed at his eyes so he could read the rest.

Cherished wife of Sir William Feldon of Portsmouth and buried therein

Delighted mother to Richard, Beaufort, Bertram, Sophia and Julia

“I love thee all with love everlasting.”

He’d argued with Beaufort over that last line of names—said it was ridiculous to carve so much, that the stone would be bursting to house them all, but his brother was adamant. Upheld that Mother told him her wishes once, and that as the eldest Feldon—if even by twelve minutes—he had been entrusted to see them carried out since her true eldest—Warrick’s carcass—wasn’t around. And by then, Beaufort and his brother had ceased being Knight and King; had practically stopped being children at all.

“Did she know?” Without moving his head, Warrick braved asking the only other occupant in the carriage, Ed’s mother, the Dowager Viscountess Redford. “Did she know she was sick?”

“She…did. Confided to me last year, that she suspected something might be amiss when you boys first arrived in London.” Boys. As though he and Ed, both possessing upward of thirty years, were still in leading strings. “She was determined you wouldn’t know, not until the very end. Not with your own struggles.”

His…struggles, to use her word. Adapting to non-military life in England, after years in the army.

Adapting to life without legs .

Grief had been hard on his mother, aging her a dozen years in the last handful of months since her spouse’s riding accident and burial.

Much became clear: her nagging insistence for Warrick’s presence; her determination he would foster relationships with each of his siblings. Why she’d taken three brief trips recently, ordering his grumbling arse to the estate each time, though she and the children lived elsewhere…

She had been saying goodbye to friends. Keeping him close to his siblings—keeping them close to him—whether any of them were aware of it or not.

It explained why she’d looked so vastly wearied these last weeks—not just worry over him, and mourning her husband as he’d presumed. Nay, his mother had been dying and he had been too blind, too wrapped up in his own bloody problems to notice.

He swore. Didn’t have it in him to apologize for the foul language dirtying the air between him and the one person approximating parental caring and wisdom who remained in his life.

“Rich, you see now why she remained such a staunch advocate of Mr. Arbuckle, do you not?” The elder Lady Redford’s serene tones filled the carriage. Over the last week, all formality between them had vanished; he was no longer Lord Warrick to her but Rich, just as his mother had called him. “She was determined you grant him a true chance to see what he might be able to do for you.” Her gloved hand met his shoulder and squeezed. “For your family.”

And that was the crux of it.

What mattered : his family. The family that he was now the sole support for. Given how none of their parents had siblings who lived past infancy, he was the lone, “mature” adult shepherding four innocent souls.

His family. The sum total of his remaining blood relatives here on earth: two brothers and two sisters.

And he was responsible for them all?

What a disaster.

Dizziness assailed him. As though everything must be resolved that instant, the swirling plethora threatened to batter about his brain until he dealt with every myriad decision to be made.

What of the cozy two-story cottage in Thropmoor where the children had lived their entire lives, up until these last days? What of his dilapidated estate? Both of them drowning in debt, he’d been dismayed to learn, having previously been under the erroneous impression that the children’s father had modest but sufficient monies set aside to fund their educations and dowries. Monies that he’d just learned did not exist, thanks to a numbing solicitor’s letter found amongst his mother’s personals.

His mind spun till he was addled. Gut churned till nausea paraded about like an old friend. What in God’s name was he going to do with two sisters, each far too young to suffer the loss of both parents? Far too young to ship off to a women’s improving academy, not after these great losses. Definitely too young for him to care for.

What did he know of little girls? He and his—before Albuera—rollicking ways?

Do you not mean you and your rolling ways?

His hands started to shake.

And what of Bertram and Beau? Two brothers, old enough to realize what challenges they faced but young enough to expect Warrick, as the eldest, to know how best to deal with them.

It was up to him. Everything.

All-encompassing accountability for every aspect of their lives. The vastness of it smothered all that nausea into a tangled knot that swelled in his throat. Threatened to choke off his air as the water rushed over his—always seated—head.

So easily could he drown under the crashing waves.

But nay. He knew how to swim.

He looked down and unclenched the white-knuckled, still quivering, hands in his lap. Were his arms not stronger than ever before? Could he not find a way to use his strengths to his advantage?

Going to roll yourself down to Cornwall, take a go unloading pirate ships with those strong arms of yours?

Again, he let the nagging doubts go unheeded.

Richard Andrew Martinson, eighth Earl of Warrick, sixth Viscount Tawton, who felt ill-prepared and ill-equipped now had to take his beggared title and debt-riddled estate and find a way to provide a home and a future for the only remaining family he could claim.

One day , he promised himself?—

Then stopped. Clapped his palms together, steadied them and his raw nerves, both.

Swallowed that hard knot and said it out loud. Proclaimed it. “One day, I vow, I will step foot out of this carriage and walk over to that stone myself. One day, I will pray over it, for her” —for my father— “and the rest of us.”

But not today. Today, he had to suffer?—

Nay, not suffer.

He sat up straighter, lifted his shoulders, tensed his brawny arms—the ones that had gained such strength since Spain. Today, instead of suffering anything, he would brave it all. Brave the humiliation of being lifted out of the carriage and placed upon his chair. Brave the embarrassment of being carried about whenever stairs were involved. Brave meeting with townspeople and merchants his estate owed money to. Brave facing neglected tenants that had worked his land for years, and the past twenty or so without any in-person appreciation, or any appreciation at all, for that matter. How many of them were even still around?

Since her decline and swift death, no longer able to hide behind his mother or his idling ways, he’d learned the soul-crushing extent of how very much Father’s old steward had stripped what little remained of the coffers and the dignity the Warrick title previously claimed. He’d known it was bad. But had assumed when he was ready, he could apply himself and make something of what was left.

But when the only thing left was dust and mouse dung? Easy to imagine dunking one’s head in a latrine and never coming back up.

But no more.

No more wallowing. No more excuses.

Instead of acknowledging mortification over his weakness, he would begin by being grateful that he was still surrounded by people willing to cart his sorry hide about. He would be grateful that he had a home to go to, a beautiful one at that (if one discounted the worn and barren aspect cloaking every room).

Most of all, he thought with a strange pang hitting his heart and thickening his throat anew, he would be especially grateful that when he and the elder Lady Redford arrived home, he had four siblings to embrace and comfort through the grief they all shared.

Well, three, depending upon whether Julia was hiding or not, still very much withdrawn and wary. Worse now than before, understandably so. Barely had she begun to thaw, to grace him with a word or prized grin when her mother disappeared into the ground. Leaving the distraught sprite a silent shell of a child.

But after he exchanged words with his brothers and sister Sophia—and a hard candy for a prayed-for half-smile from Julia—his first order of business? Time to pen and post a pleasing, pleading letter to the ornery, cantankerous yet supposedly skilled Mr. Arbuckle.

A slight touch across the back of his hand startled him. “Rich. I can...” Lady Redford breathed deep, the ragged sound loud in the quiet carriage. She removed her hand, swept one bent finger beneath her eyes, drying her own grief. “If you would like, I could share the list of appropriate ladies, the one your mother?—”

“Nay! Please, not yet.” He could not stomach the thought of staring at a piece of paper in his mother’s hand listing names of pitiful females that might be constrained to life with him—a life of serving him and his useless legs, wanting for things he could never provide; children, not the least of which.

If he could not discern the proper way forth from here, a way to save either home—not to mention himself—then he had no business seeking a wife. None whatsoever. Better to let the title die with him than to sentence an innocent to death by dearth of love. And with four precious souls to care for, he no longer had a dram of love to spare.

“We will revisit this in a few months,” he told her, postponing any argument. “I will not shirk my duties any longer; not those to family nor to land. But neither am I ready to pursue shackling myself to someone—or them to me. Not quite yet. I need to heal my fractured family before introducing another into our lives.”

What he needed to do was find a way to make Julia feel safe enough she would start talking again.

“When you are ready and whatever you may need, I am always here for you.” Her fingers returned to his, granting a brief “hug”. The quiet yet unwavering strength in her presence was a balm to every jagged edge cutting his insides. “Ward, Anne, all of us, Rich—we are willing?—

“Nay, we remain compelled to help you and yours any way we can.” Her hand slid away and she retreated to the opposite side of the carriage, settling back against the squabs and giving him a few more private moments to mourn. To accept.

As they sat there, hearing the occasional, hardy bird chirp, feeling the slight lurch to the carriage whenever an impatient horse stomped… As the sheen blurring his sight grew thicker and the sting from the breeze sharper, she waited until he re-fastened the window and knocked on the carriage above his head, indicating to the coachman that they were ready to depart.

Neither spoke as they clip-clopped toward the others, who had gone ahead to the meal waiting—thanks to generous townspeople and, no doubt, the younger Lady Redford’s efforts—at home.

Home. Would the cold, desolate rooms of the Warrick estate house ever, ever feel like home again?

“I may not spend much time in London,” she said quietly as they approached the front drive, “but I still have my lovely cronies from my early Seasons; ladies I remain quite close to and communicate with regularly.”

Ladies. Mature ones, no doubt, with knowledge of rich, desperate Diamonds or mushrooms’ daughters—with equally desperate papas—ready to say vows and become his countess.

“Whenever you are ready, my boy, I remain ready to assist. Whenever you are ready.”

The knot turned into a rock. He made a strangled grunt.

Acceptance could only take him so far.