Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

F ord huffed and strode away from the house across the river down to the island. This morning he needed to see the Beeson brothers who ran the apothecary shop.

He'd bathed and dressed early, going down for breakfast in hopes of finding Vicky at the table. She'd left him abruptly last night in the garden. Yet there was so much more he wanted to say to her. This morning, she arrived in the breakfast room with her aunt. As a result, conversation turned on the details of today's festival activities.

The frustration only added to the banging of twelve-pounders in his ears. The incessant sounds of pounding canon had often driven him to alcohol or opium tinctures. But to be at par in battle, he'd learned to avoid both drink and drugs if he wished to remain awake, aware, and logical. Since he'd been home, the Beeson brothers had created a powder that lessened the noises. Yesterday, the tension of trying to revive his relationship with Vicky was exacerbated by his mother's attempt to foist that Wingfield girl on him. Add to that, Vicky wished to leave tomorrow. He had little time to talk with her.

He hadn't slept well after Vicky had left him last night. He'd walked the floor in frustration watching the moon fade as light claimed the garden where he'd held her once more. There he'd traced his fingertips along her delicate chin. Kissed beneath her ear and along her elegant throat.

But not her lips. She'd left before he had the chance.

He'd rushed her.

Dammit. He clenched his fists. The war had done that to him. Made him quick to act, fast to grab the chance, the shot, the opportunity before all was lost.

He cursed his failure. She visited for two more precious days which gave him little time to claim her lips and her heart before she left him. Again.

He could not let that happen. He had to get her alone again, but he doubted she'd allow it. She never wanted scandal…and avoided the possibility at all cost. But by God, he had to talk to her, make her laugh again, make her melt again, show her that he still wanted her and had never wanted another.

This time, he had advantages. Now that the war was over and Napoleon headed for some more permanent obscurity than an island too near France, Ford's life and Vicky's were changed dramatically. He was home, healthy, save for the roaring headaches that could bring tears to his eyes. But now he was the earl. He had a future. Had it here. Knew how to make Barlow lands more fruitful, more profitable. And now Vicky was free. A widow who melted in his embrace as she had when she was twenty-four.

A widow. With a need for love. His love. His affection. Because her husband Charles Edmund Alton Wright, Baron Wright of Hampton, had been unable to give her what she deserved.

That he had died—poor bugger—was a tragic thing. All deaths, no matter the cause, brought tears and sorrows for acts and words and thoughts done and not.

The Good Lord knew Ford had killed a lot of people. Brought them to their knees, their last breaths soundless, their eyes wide open, their shock so visible upon their faces. He wished to kill no more.

He was so tired of war and the perversities of what it had done to people. Millions dead in nameless places. Millions of others, wounded, alive but not, yearning for home, hating it when they got there, trying to reconcile the art of killing others with the finer art of becoming tender and empathetic and loving. If ever there had been love in many soldier's lives, they needed it now in peace.

He'd had plenty of love in his. A doting father. An affectionate if domineering mother. Two older brothers who made him laugh, and yet made sure he realized as the third son, he should expect nothing from them. Not a house, not a penny, not a hope.

He'd tried to find another way to support himself. Trade was not for him. He knew nothing of products or shipping. The church was not for him, either. Being friends with Mr. Owen's son Thomas had taught him that counseling others about the triumphs and tragedies of life was not a role at which he could excel.

But he had always been friends and had playmates among the tenants' sons. As a result, he knew at a young age how to reach in to a cow's womb and turn a calf in breech position. He knew when and why to let a field lie fallow. He knew when to pick apples. And how to dress a pig for the smokehouse. But he also was a crack shot with a pistol. That too he had learned from his pals with whom he went hunting for rabbit and deer.

His choice to join the army was obvious. His decision to join the famous 95 th Rifles was natural. All he had to do was demonstrate to the recruiter in Chester how he could hit a bottle in the air every time the sergeant threw it, and he was enrolled.

He had considered the army long before his mother announced she and his father would give a house party to which his mother's oldest friend, Countess d'Vaux, and her two lovely nieces were invited. Little had he known when he met her that Vicky was betrothed. If he had, he might have had the good sense to stay away from her. But she could not ignore the attraction either. Their affair was quick, their kisses torrid and their one clandestine night together, unforgettable. Before he left her bedroom that morning, he had proposed. She had told him of her engagement. He was shocked. And in his naiveté, in his love for her, he had asked her to break her engagement.

She refused.

Two weeks afterward, he sailed off to his regiment in Portugal, a bitter man. He had not returned home until three weeks ago. His commission sold, his inheritance new and pressing, he had returned home to take up his duty.

When his mother told him that Vicky was a widow, he had asked her to invite Vicky and her aunt to the house for the festival. If his mother surmised that he intended to ask Vicky to marry him, the lady had countered by inviting a sweet young thing with connections, money and looks. But the chick held no candle to his first love.

No one did.

He stopped at the sight of Vicky crossing the market square toward the bridge and approaching Gwen Hughes' house. Ah yes, identifying the baby was this morning's agenda.

See him. Decide.

Then I will make my own case.

Vicky swung around, the prickle on her neck alerting her to Ford's eyes upon her. His attentions always did warm her skin and make her look for him. This morning, he stood in front of the apothecary shop, hands on his hips, staring at her. Rolling her eyes at him for his obvious perusal, she caught the delight in his silent chuckle and duplicated it.

His black brows darted higher, and his eyes with all those new crinkles at the corners widened in the sunlight. He silently asked her if she was angry with him.

Never.

How could she be?

He'd graced her with the tenderness she craved, the affection only he had bestowed on her.

She gave him a little wave of adieu , while passing townsfolk would think her silly for waving to her host. The farrier's workshop was attached to the stone cottage where Gwen Hughes lived with her father on the outskirts of the town. Last night, Gwen had mentioned she would be out all day, since she planned to take her portable forge to the market square to serve whatever walk-by customers had horses or small smithing jobs that needed her attention.

A cart stood before the open doors of the workshop, a horse between its shafts. A man was working in the workshop. No. Not a man. As Vicky approached, she realized it was Gwen herself.

"Good morning, Lady Wright. You're up early."

Vicky had been to the farrier's workshop six years ago and the smell of hot metal and dying ashes was just as warming now as then. "I thought I'd catch you before you left, rather than try to talk to you while other people are around. If you are busy, you go do as you must, I can wait."

Gwen wiped her hands on a frayed white towel and hooked it into the huge pocket of a brown leather apron that covered her tall frame neck to ankles. "I'm finishing an order of nails for the Vicar's new chicken coop before I take my portable forge to the market square. Come in. Sit down. I have a chair against that wall which is safe from falling sparks from the fire. I promise to be ready in a few minutes."

Vicky took the wooden chair and the opportunity to admire once more the industry of Gwen Hughes to run this business by herself. Gwen bustled about using tongs to pick up long black nails and let them cool on the ledge far from the forge.

"Gwennie! Gwennie!" An older man thrust wide the connecting door to Gwen's cottage. His grey hair was wild and sparse, his pale face contorted in pain. "I've lost your mother. She's not in the bedroom. She told me she'd not come home again! Gwennie, we must find her, you and me."

"Da!" She rushed to the man's side. "She'll be home again. She's just gone to the church for the festival meeting."

Jack Wrath, Gwen's suitor appeared in the doorway, and shook his head at Gwen in apology. "I took my eye off him for one second…" He stepped forward to take Mr Hughes's arm. "Come, now, Griffith. Your tea is ready, man."

Gwen shot a wild-eyed look at Vicky and shook her head in apology. "I'll take you in and you can have your tea."

"I'd like my tea, yes, I would." He glanced at Vicky and pointed a palsied finger at her. "Ah, that's that French girl. Hello! Celeste, yes?"

"Victorine, Da." Gwen said as Mr. Wrath coaxed him backward to the cottage. "Celeste is her aunt."

And the two of them disappeared behind the door.

"I'm sorry," Gwen said, wiping her hands on her towel. "He is…My father has spells when he is not aware of himself."

Vicky put up a hand. "Please don't apologize to me. He is aging. It happens to a few. My father was one it affected."

"It's…he's getting worse." She stared at the closed door and worked at that towel in a furious fret. "Please don't say anything to others. I try to contain him, and Jack is wonderful with him. He's harmless but others do not understand and?—"

"I do. I won't say a word. But for now, I have a request. May I call you ‘Gwen' and you please call me ‘Vicky'?"

Relief ran over Gwen's tense features. "I would like that very much."

"Makes this next bit easy. Doesn't it?" She knitted her brows. "I hope so. I worry so about this child. Do you? You haven't seen him yet, have you?"

"No. I haven't had time. But I am glad we go together."

"You miss Evan," Vicky said because she saw the sorrow linger in Gwen's eyes.

"Yes. But I console myself with his loss knowing that he and Yvette were happy together. I never had any letters from him, but I remember how he looked at her and she at him. That was love."

"It was. I will be honest with you, Gwen. I didn't think Yvette did the right thing to marry Evan. For both their sakes, I thought society would shun them for their choice. But Yvette did not care for what others thought. Though she had never seen a French mob attack her, she'd heard stories from Papa and Aunt Celeste and me of how brutal people could be to each other. She did not care that others might think Evan and she were not equals. She loved him and he, her. That was all she needed."

Gwen hung up her apron on a large iron hook on the far stone wall and sent Vicky a shy smile."I always swore that if I ever found a man who looks at me like Evan did at your sister, I would keep him if I can. Jack is that man."

Brave Gwen. A woman who takes what she wants.