Chapter Seventeen

A s the dance continued, several older gentlemen came over and requested a dance with Caroline, men whom Hetty gleefully pronounced as widowers on the lookout for a strong young woman who could look after their broods of motherless children. No doubt they were after other things as well, but Hetty didn’t mention that.

Throughout all this, Caroline kept a careful eye on Hetty, who seemed to be very much enjoying herself. She introduced her two cousins, sons of her father’s two sisters, to Caroline, and Abel Nancarrow, the older one, took Caroline for a spin around the dance floor while Hetty danced with Thomas Polmear, the younger one, who was home from Oxford. Or was it Cambridge? Caroline hadn’t paid that much attention.

Both young men had a slight look of Nat about them, being tall and dark, but that was as far as any resemblance went. What they both had, but he didn’t, was a cheerful disposition. Both were jolly and fun to talk to, and after her dance, Caroline let Abel promenade her around the edge of the ballroom. This was mainly to keep an eye on Hetty, who was doing the same tour with young Thomas, whom Caroline had noticed had rather a wicked glint in his eye. She didn’t disclose her reason to Abel, who seemed more than happy to parade with her on his arm, despite the hard stare they received from Mrs. Treloar as they passed her.

Trefusis was no longer in attendance, but she seemed to have buttonholed poor Ysella, who had a hunted expression on her face.

“Shall we take a turn into the card room to see who’s hiding in there?” Abel asked. “I’ve a mind to see if my cousin Nat is lurking amongst the hardened gamblers.”

As Mrs. Treloar now had charge of Hetty for a while, Caroline allowed herself to be steered through the door and along a paneled corridor.

Nat was indeed in the card room, seated at a table playing Faro, with Trefusis and three other men, all of them with glasses of whisky to hand. Neither raised their heads at the advent of the newcomers.

Abel stopped by the Faro table, watching for a moment. It was well on, and there weren’t many cards left to turn over. Nat had a larger pile of chips in front of him than Trefusis, and the other two punters were betting recklessly, no doubt due to the amount of whisky they’d imbibed.

“Calling the turn,” said the man in the banker’s seat. Everyone placed their bets. He turned over the cards. The dealer won heavily from Trefusis.

“Play again,” Trefusis snapped, reaching for his wallet. “I’ll have some more chips.”

Nat stood up. “I’ve had enough. I need something to dilute this whisky.” He saw Abel and Caroline and a slight frown wrinkled his brow. “Abel, I didn’t know you were here.”

Abel grinned at him. “But I knew you’d be here . Many’s the time you’ve hammered me at Faro, whether I played punter or banker. You have the devil’s own luck, man.”

“Not so lucky as all that.” Nat’s hand went to his face. “But in luck tonight.”

A moment’s awkward silence followed, as no doubt Abel searched for something to say other than what the hell happened to you?

Best to leave them alone together. Caroline extricated her hand from Abel’s arm. “I think I should go back and make sure Hetty is all right, if you don’t mind. Thank you for the dance, Mr. Nancarrow.” She bobbed him an elegant curtsey, sure Nat would be glad of her departure, and returned to the ballroom.

Hetty was with her mother, drinking lemonade and talking to Ysella, who seemed happier to be talking to her than she had been with Mrs. Treloar.

Caroline, the oppressive heat making her a little breathless, went in search of refreshment. And was snared by a redoubtable matron, easily as old as Aunt Agnes, wearing what looked like an old-fashioned powdered wig. This lady, who turned out to be even deafer than Aunt Agnes, kept her occupied for a full half hour, by which time Caroline was even hotter and more breathless than before. Escaping when the lady’s equally ancient husband came in search of her at last, she decided to sneak out for some fresh air on the terrace.

Night had long fallen and only a few lanterns illuminated the almost empty outdoor space. A low wall surrounded the paved terrace, with steps leading down into the shadowy gardens, and at the top of the steps a lone figure of a man stood, silhouetted in the moonlight.

Caroline hesitated, a nub of unease rising. What if it was Trefusis? Instinct warned her never to be alone with him.

The man swung round at the sound of Caroline’s light footsteps on the flagstones and the nearest lamp illuminated his ravaged face in stark clarity. Nat Treloar.

Caroline halted. “I’m sorry, sir. I thought to have the terrace to myself.”

He had a glass in his hand, of something that probably wasn’t the lemonade the ladies had been imbibing, despite his earlier avowal to seek it out. “Miss Fairfield. Don’t let me put you off.” He waved his empty left hand. “There seems plenty of room out here for two. Or I can depart and leave you in sole possession.”

Caroline tried a smile. “You have the air of one who would rather be alone.”

He gave a shrug. “You have me right. I’ve grown tired of being the center of attention for all who long to stare at a monster. And there’s only so long I can lurk in the card room without either making myself unpopular by winning or in danger of returning home penniless.” He paused, perhaps conscious of what he’d just said, although it seemed unlikely he regretted it. “By that I don’t mean you. Just the rest of the rabble who can’t wait to whisper behind my back at how I’ve been transmuted into this.” His hand came up and almost, but not quite, touched his cheek.

Caroline nodded. “I noticed. There are many fools about who can’t wait to comment on another’s misfortune.”

Perhaps she’d allowed her own bitterness to shine through too much, for his eyes narrowed and he peered at her more closely. “You speak as though you know this to your cost.”

She nodded, the darkness between them loosening her tongue, for now he moved out of the light to stand a little closer to her, just a shadowy shape, featureless and without threat, despite his size. “I do.”

He was close enough that she could hear him breathing in the silence on the terrace. The muted music and chatter spilling out through the open doors seemed far away, as the night pressed in about her. They might almost be in another world. A world where terrible things had happened to them both.

“My father…” she began.

He held up his hand. “You have no need to tell me.”

“I’d like to.”

“Then walk with me to the summerhouse and sit a while where we won’t be interrupted.”

What would Mrs. Treloar say if she discovered Caroline had gone out by herself in the dark and encountered her son for what would seem like a secret rendezvous? Then walked with him into the gardens, to the shelter of the summerhouse. With any man, that would be bad enough, but with her employer’s son? Caroline stiffened her resolve. What did she care? She was beyond the age of giddy silliness and compromise, and if she wanted to talk to someone by herself, even if they were a man, then she would.

They descended the stone steps to the lawn and crossed it to where a small, white-painted summerhouse sat in an arbor of shadowy, overhanging trees. How like Ysella to have had this built. Nat pushed open the flimsy door and they went inside. The thin sliver of the moon showed the octagonal, glass-paned building to have cushioned seats around the edge.

Caroline sat down, careful to choose the darker side of the summerhouse where Nat would feel less exposed. He sat beside her, close enough that had she wanted to, she could have reached out and touched him.

Out here, no sound carried to them from the house, but somewhere in one of the nearby trees an owl called. The night was still and warm, and although this felt far away from the house and other people, Caroline felt no fear at being out here alone with Nat.

“My father,” she began again. “My father was a kind and generous man, not given to parsimony, but selfish in his own way. I loved him dearly, as did my mother. But he had one terrible fault that made him worse than selfish, and that was gambling.”

“Most men like to gamble. I do myself, as you saw.”

She nodded. “I know, and some will come in time to the straits my father found himself in, where they have wagered away their homes and livelihoods and still have gambled on.” She swallowed. “My father did that. Like all men in his position, he truly believed his luck would change if he kept on wagering. So that was what he did. And lost everything on the roll of a dice and the turn of a card.”

“And left you destitute?”

She nodded again. “My mother and myself.” Now came the hard part. “But he is not here to share our ignominy with us. It would have been easier, by far, had he chosen to remain, but he didn’t. He took the coward’s way and left us to face our fate alone.” She paused. “He was selfish to the end and shot himself in his study.” Her voice shook as she said aloud the words she’d so often thought inside her head but never spoken, not even to her mother.

Nat stayed silent. The owl called again, the sound lonely and haunting, as though even the night bird were joining in with her mourning.

“You hold it against him?” Nat asked, his voice gentle. Perhaps for him, too, it was easier to talk like this when neither could see the other’s face.

“I did,” Caroline said. “I did for some time, but now, perhaps, I don’t. I see him for what he was—a weak and selfish man who could not say no to his vice. But I loved him and love him still, for he remains my father and I shall have no other. And as for me, now I am learning to pay my own way through employment. My mother, though, is with my father’s sister and her family. I could not bring myself to do that. I could not live on another’s charity.” She shook her head. “I just wish I could provide a home for my mother with me, so she needn’t remain my sainted aunt’s poor relation and charitable cause.”

“It does you credit that you don’t hold it against your father.”

She chuckled. “Oh, I did at first, believe me. I’m no saint despite possessing a saintly aunt. No daughter could have been more angry with a parent. I thought, perhaps rightly, that he’d not loved my mother and me enough to stay with us. Made worse because when he did it, he chose to do it in a spot where one of us would find him.”

“But I suspect he did love you in his own way, and you know it.”

“You are right. We were a loving family.”

“Unlike mine.”

What to say to this? Would it be rude to agree? “Hetty is very loving.”

A snort. “Oh, Hetty was always so. You would not think her my mother’s child. But then, my mother had no hand in her upbringing. From birth she was in the hands of nurses and nannies, fortunately for her, women with kinder natures to model herself on. I believe my mother only saw her but once a month or so. She is a woman with no feeling for her children although I’d hoped she might find some for Hetty.”

Caroline was not at all sure she should be having this conversation, but at least, as they were alone, she could deny it had ever happened were she questioned about it. Although lying was against her strict principles.

“I’m sure your mother loves you in her own way.”

Another snort. “You may choose to think that, but I have evidence to the contrary.”

Caroline frowned, secure in the knowledge that he couldn’t see her do it. If his mother didn’t love him, then why was she trying to kill her nephew? Because the person who would benefit in the end had to be Nat, who stood to inherit all that should one day belong to Yves, but only if Yves were gone. Unless it wasn’t his mother at all who was attempting to do away with Yves… But it couldn’t be Nat, could it, for he’d been hundreds of miles from home when Miss Hawkins had discovered the plot and been dismissed by Mrs. Treloar. No, it had to be his mother. Or Trefusis—although why he’d kill for another man’s benefit was a puzzle. Or was Nat lying?

“I’ve told you my secret,” Caroline said. “Will you tell me yours?”

Silence. His hand went up to his face again before dropping into his lap. “I imagine that to be a fair exchange.”

She waited.

“You know, of course, that I was a soldier?”

She nodded.

“My grandfather bought me a commission after I left Harrow. I began as an ensign but soon rose to lieutenant, captain and then to major in the 18th Hussars. We were sent to Europe to fight Boney. Not the whole time I was in, mind. I had time back in England too. Later on, I saw action in Spain and then in Southern France.” He held up his right hand, the lack of fingers evident even in the poor light. “I lost these at Corunna, five years since. That coincided with a period back in England so I was able to convalesce. They offered me the opportunity to relinquish my commission, hampered as I was without these fingers, and being right-handed. I refused.”

What had driven him to refuse? Out of instinct, Caroline reached out and took his hand in hers, much as she might have done had he been Yves, the stumps of his missing fingers against her palm. “Were they shot off?”

“They were.” He made no attempt to free his hand, his remaining fingers curling around hers as though she’d created a link that drew them together in their common suffering.

“Go on.”

He cleared his throat. “We were dispatched back to Portugal some eighteen months ago. We landed in Lisbon and battled our way through Northern Spain—I fought at Morales, Vitoria, Sorauren, then across the Pyrenees and into France. My men fought at Nive and Orthez, then on to Toulouse, and that was my downfall.” His fingers tightened on hers. “A Frenchman’s saber. We were fighting hand to hand, saber to saber.” He stopped and she heard him catch his breath. Was he remembering the blow, the slicing open of his face? The pain, which must have been terrible?

“I stumbled. He was quick. But it was the last thing he did. Even as his saber did its damage, mine was running him through.” He fell silent again.

She didn’t push him. What must it have been like to have your face ripped open like that from forehead to chin? He was lucky to have kept his eye. And what had happened after he’d killed his man? How long had he waited to see a doctor? It didn’t bear thinking of.

“The military doctors in our field hospital tried,” he said, almost as though he’d read her mind. “But they had little to work with. I’m lucky not to be worse scarred… or dead from an infection. They did their best.” The bitterness was back in his voice.

No wonder his mouth possessed that discontented downward curve. Life had dealt him a terrible blow. Had he ever wished he was dead instead of maimed like this? Better to have lost an arm, perhaps, or even a leg, than to have had his face, that must once have been so handsome, mutilated in this way.

“You’re wondering how I can bear to live with it,” he said, his voice low.

She shook her head. “Not about how you live with it now. I was wondering how you coped in the weeks after it happened. Here and now, I can see for myself how you cope. You turn your head away to stop people seeing. You stand in corners in the shadows, play cards when you fear you’ll frighten the ladies, or they will stare, and lurk outside like tonight, keeping the world at bay.” How to tell him he didn’t need to? That he should wear his scar with pride as it showed how he’d fought for Britain against that Corsican despot and helped procure the hard-won victory. Words her father would have echoed.

He stayed silent.

She reached out with her other hand and covered his so she was clasping his mutilated hand between her two. “You have no need to hide, Nathaniel. You are a hero, like all the other soldiers back from France.”

He snatched his hand from hers as though she’d stung him. “Never call me that. I’m no hero. None of us are.” His voice rose. “I’ve seen atrocities that would make your blood run cold in your veins, atrocities I’ve taken part in. I’ve seen women and children dead in the streets, and boy soldiers disemboweled, dying in agony. We are not heroes who have stood for that, so never call us by that name.”

Stunned, she searched for something to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

He was in full flow now, as though she’d unplugged a stopper in his brain. “I’ve seen men with their arms and legs blown off by cannon’s grapeshot. I know firsthand what cannonballs can do. They’re slow, you know, and they bounce along the ground causing maximum destruction. I’ve seen men who’ve spotted a cannonball coming and thought to stop it by sticking out a leg or arm, only to have that limb ripped off and the cannon ball to keep on going, reaping death to everything it touches. I’ve seen horses with their legs broken screaming in pain. I’ve seen young soldiers who’ve run in fear at the sound of battle stood up before a tree and shot. We did that. To our own soldiers. To boys who should have been walking behind ploughs in England’s rain-washed fields.”

“I didn’t know.”

“No one does. No one tells. We soldiers keep it to ourselves.”

He fell silent. She sat beside him for a while before reaching out a hand again and finding his. “I’m glad you told me.”

He didn’t pull away this time but instead hung onto her hand as though it were a lifeline. “I had to tell someone or I’d have died inside.” He paused. “No. I am already dead inside and could not be made more so. Yet it’s in me, screaming to get out. I’m sorry to have burdened you with it.”

An overpowering urge to put her arms around him and comfort him as though he were Yves washed over Caroline, but the laws of propriety held her back. What might he think if she tried to do that? What might any man assume, out here in the dark garden? That she was an easy conquest? Not worth the risk, no matter how much she wanted to.

Instead, she patted his hand. “You can tell me anything.”

He shook his head. “I think you’d best go back inside now before anyone remarks upon your absence. My mother in particular. She has the eyes of a hawk and its claws as well. I wouldn’t wish you to lose your position because of me.”

He was right, but somehow, she didn’t want to relinquish his hand.