England's Perfect Hero Page 3

  “I have a quadrille left on my dance card,” she said to his back as he turned away, “if you’d care to join me.”

  He stopped. “Give it to Henning,” he murmured over his shoulder. “They’re blackballing him.”

  “I know, and I was going to. I just thought you might want…” Before she could finish speaking he was gone, out of sight again, though for all she knew he might be standing directly behind her. Lucinda glanced over her shoulder. No one. “Hm.”

  When she’d had her London debut six years ago, twenty-one-year-old Robert Carroway had danced a quadrille with her. She wondered if he remembered. He’d only been an occasional visitor to London that Season, when he’d come down from school at Cambridge. She remembered him as a fine dancer, a devastatingly handsome, popular young man with a great deal of wit and a promising future. Then, however, he’d joined the army to go to war against Bonaparte.

  “Lucinda?” Georgiana said, reaching her side. “Is everything well?”

  “Yes, perfectly.” She shook herself. “He thought he’d offended me yesterday, and wanted to apologize.”

  “Had he? Offended you, I mean.”

  “Heavens, no. Just a difference of opinion.”

  “ ‘Opinion,’ ” Georgiana repeated.

  Lucinda took her arm, smiling. “Yes. And now I would like a glass of Madeira. I’ve conversed with Robert Carroway twice in one week, and we should make as much a mystery of it as possible.” She chuckled, steeling herself for the noise and crowd of the ballroom, when she really just wanted a few quiet moments. “Maybe it will even make Lord Geoffrey jealous.”

  “Speaking of,” her friend muttered, gesturing with her chin.

  The golden Adonis emerged from the crowd and separated her from Georgie. “Our waltz is beginning,” he said, all charm and good humor.

  “Oh! I’m sorry. I hadn’t realized.”

  “Understandable, considering.”

  His arm slid around her waist, and she hid her slight smile. She’d only been joking with Georgiana about making anyone jealous—though Robert Carroway was a sight to please any woman’s eyes. “Considering what?”

  “Well, first the mute’s appearance, and then the fact that he spoke—and to you,” he clarified, bending his fingers around hers as they swung into the dance. “I half thought he’d died, and Dare had buried him in the cellar or something.”

  “That’s nonsense,” she said, annoyed until she realized his insensitivity—shared by most of the ton as it was—merely provided her with a further example of his need for her lessons. “He’s simply a wounded soldier.”

  “I took a ball in the arm myself, at Waterloo,” he countered, then offered her a jaunty smile. “Stung like the devil. Shall I tell you about my heroic actions?”

  Lucinda knew he’d been shot; everyone did. She’d even heard the tale before. Still, as he smiled his dazzling smile at her, she decided that having him regale her with one of his amusing, heroic stories would be a good way for her to judge her starting strategy—and to forget the haunting gaze of a quite different soldier. “Please do,” she said.

  Robert detoured on his way back to Carroway House, stopping for a long moment at the edge of Hyde Park. At past midnight no one reputable would be on the grounds, and with a slight exhalation of breath that fogged the cold night air, he loosed the reins of his gelding and tapped him in the ribs. Muscles bunched beneath the sleek bay hide, and with a leap they were off.

  Tolley charged at a dead run along the dim moonlit foot path, and Robert leaned forward along his withers, half closing his eyes at the wind on his face. Everything around them felt still and silent—the creak of leather and the pounding of hooves and the grunt of Tolley’s breath seemed the only sounds in the world.

  On nights like this, when he rode out from the dark, silent house to the dark, deserted park, he could forget. He could be nothing but a solitary rider on a fast horse, wind in his face and the world open around him. No walls, no bars, no quiet weeping or screams or death. None of that could catch him. On a night like this, none of it could find him.

  Finally, when he felt Tolley’s breathing become more labored and his stride shorten, he slowed and turned for home. The grooms were asleep, but he preferred that, anyway. In silence he rubbed down the bay, gave him an apple, and returned him to his stall. The front door would be unlocked, awaiting Tristan, Georgiana, and Shaw, and he slipped through noiselessly.

  “Where the devil have you been?”

  He flinched, forcing tensed muscles to relax again as he recognized the young voice. “What the devil are you doing out of bed?” he returned, facing the stairs and the slim figure straightening from his seat on the bottommost step.

  “I asked first,” Edward stated, with every ounce of authority his ten years could command. “I’ll have you know I’ve been sitting here for over an hour, while you were off who knows where, doing who knows what.”

  If it had been Tristan or Bradshaw or even Andrew standing there interrogating him, Robert would already have been upstairs with his door locked behind him. But Edward, shivering in his nightshirt and clutching a metal soldier almost hidden in one fist, was a different story.

  “I had an errand, Runt,” he said, sweeping the boy into a hug and steeling himself against the tightness of the thin arms that wrapped around his neck.

  “Well, I was worried about you. I’m really not old enough to be the man of the house, you know, but everyone else is gone.”

  Robert slung his brother over his shoulder and climbed the stairs, refusing to wince at the additional strain on his bad knee. One brother still saw him as undamaged, and he’d be damned before he let that change. Deeper down he knew he’d be damned if that changed. “What woke you up?”

  “I dreamed that Shaw’s ship sank.”

  “Shaw’s dancing at the Wellcrist ball right now. Yell at him tomorrow for not waking you up when he got home early.”

  “I will yell at him,” Edward returned sleepily as they reached his bedchamber. “You’re not going out again?”

  Robert set him on the bed and pulled up the covers as the boy snuggled against the pillows. “No. Good night, Runt.”

  “Good night, Bit.”

  As he closed Edward’s door and went down the hall to his own bedchamber, Robert wondered why the Runt had settled on him, of all people, to rely on for comfort. Yes, he was there most of the time, but he’d hardly characterize himself as reliable. Still, the other brothers teased Edward for his fear of being alone in the house—after all, how could he think himself alone in a building full of servants, plus the aunties when they were in town?

  Five years ago, Robert wasn’t certain he would have been able to answer that question, either. But then five years ago he’d never heard of Chateau Pagnon—or of le comte General Jean-Paul Barrere.

  As he shed his jacket he paced to the window and shoved it open. The nearly dead fire glowed deeper red behind the stone hearth and then faded again in the rush of cold air, but he ignored the sudden chill. Unless it was snowing he needed the fresh air to sleep—even what passed for fresh air in London.

  A short time later he lay back in his soft bed, arms crossed behind his head. So Lucinda Barrett had been serious about setting her sights on Lord Geoffrey Newcombe. He’d stayed to watch, and the two of them had looked good, waltzing together at the Wellcrist soiree. She’d looked good, smiling and chatting with her many friends, a diamond among gemstones.

  Robert sighed. He shouldn’t have ridiculed her choice of student, talking as though he had any grasp on what made someone acceptable, any longer. She’d been kind and had accepted his apology, and she’d even asked him to stay. Just the fact that he’d been able to force himself to attend the soiree and talk to her with some measure of decorum surprised him.

  He turned on his side, facing the window. A day ago he wouldn’t have been able to imagine himself voluntarily attending a meaningless, crowded waste of time like that. It had been difficult, very difficult, b
ut he’d managed it. And he knew why.

  He hadn’t been thinking of the close walls and the crowd and the heat and the blathering nonsense. He’d been thinking about Miss Barrett. And now he was thinking about talking to her again. He’d watched her from behind the gates of his private hell for three years, but now they’d spoken. She hadn’t realized it, of course, but she’d drawn him a little toward the light. And now everything felt…different.

  For the first time in three years he fell asleep thinking of calm and serenity and a quiet smile, rather than of terror and death and whether he would live to see daylight.

  Chapter 3

  You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I—I have lost everything and cannot begin life anew.

  —Victor Frankenstein, Frankenstein

  Lucinda leaned into the doorway of her father’s office. “No, Papa, I don’t think Lord Milburne is an anarchist. Why?”

  General Augustus Barrett glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression stern but his gray eyes lighting with amusement rather than with the fire and thunder that had terrified many a green recruit into reconsidering his choice of career. “Look at him, Lucinda,” he returned, gesturing her to join him at the window. “Red jacket, white waistcoat, and green trousers. He’s either an anarchist or the flag of Spain.”

  Chuckling, Lucinda stopped at his elbow to gaze down at the street. “Good heavens. At least Spain is an ally.”

  “They wouldn’t be if they saw an Englishman making such a mockery of their colors.” His scowl deepened. “Good God, now he’s waving at us. He’s not a suitor, is he? If he approaches the house I’m going to have to shoot him.”

  Stepping back from the window, Lucinda shook her head. “No, he’s not a suitor. I’m not going to marry anyone’s flag. Now, do you have another chapter for me?” She motioned at the dark mahogany desk, crowded with haphazard piles of notes and stacks of heavily inked pages.

  “Not yet. The notes I took at Salamanca are a bit worse for wear, I’m afraid. But don’t change the subject.”

  “Which subject?”

  He tapped a hand against the back of the chair facing his formidable desk. “Suitors.”

  Wonderful. “Papa, do not begin inviting your officer friends over again. You, me, and thirty men in red and white. I felt like the flag of France, under siege. I prefer peacetime negotiations. And you owe me a chapter. Stop stalling.”

  The general sank back into his own chair. “The notes are…much more of a mess than I’d realized. It’s a damned nuisance.” He hesitated. “And my memory’s not what it used to be.”

  “Hm. Considering the responsibilities the Horse Guards and the War Office keep heaping on you, I don’t think they believe your incapacity any more than I do.”

  “A little sympathy would be a nice gesture, daughter.”

  “Yes, General.” She didn’t believe that his memory was fading, but the claim could very well provide her an opportunity for lesson giving. A low buzz of excitement ran down her spine. “You know, I believe Lord Geoffrey Newcombe fought at Salamanca. He’ll be at Almack’s tonight. Perhaps I might ask him to stop by and see whether he can assist you in deciphering your journal.”

  “Ah, Lord Geoffrey. Brash young lad, full of vinegar. Took a ball in the arm at Waterloo. You waltzed with him last night.”

  His gaze slid over to her, but she pretended to be occupied with straightening reference books. “I danced with at least a dozen gentlemen,” she returned. “As I usually do. Lord Geoffrey mentioned the war, and I just thought he might be of some help to you.”

  “You know, you may just have something there, Lucinda,” he said after a moment of silence. “In fact, I think I’ll send a note over to him, and ask for his assistance.”

  “Splendid.”

  For the first time he seemed to notice the old blue muslin gown and straw hat she wore. “We have a gardener, you know.”

  “I know. I like tending the roses. And yes, I’ll wear gloves so I don’t get pricked.”

  The general dug into a drawer. “Just like your mother,” he muttered, abruptly occupied with sharpening a quill. “Marie and her roses.”

  Lucinda smiled. “I’ll make you up a bouquet for the office.”

  Retrieving her heavy gloves and pruners, she waited while the butler pulled open the front door. “I’ll be in the garden, Ballow,” she said.

  “Very good, Miss Lucinda.”

  Worley, the gardener, had already set out a weed bucket for her, and humming last night’s waltz, Lucinda strolled around the side of the house to the small garden. Her mother had planted one new rose per year after Lucinda’s birth, and since her death from pneumonia, Lucinda had tried to keep up the tradition. The twenty-fourth rose, a lovely double-petaled yellow with a scent like cinnamon, had arrived from Turkey last week.

  “How are you?” she asked it, kneeling on her skirts to check the soil. “You need some water, don’t you?”

  She hummed as she clipped a few bedraggled leaves that hadn’t survived the plant’s long journey. Using her father’s memoirs as an excuse to have Lord Geoffrey come calling—it was genius, if she did say so, herself.

  A watering can appeared beside her. “Thank you, Worley. You’re a mind reader.”

  In mid-reach to pick up the can, she paused. Worley wasn’t wearing his heavy work boots. Rather, he had on a very nice pair of Hessians. Lucinda looked up, and up, past tanned doeskin trousers, a black jacket, brown waistcoat, snow-white cravat, lean jaw, and a straight-set mouth, to a pair of azure blue eyes beneath overlong, black, unruly hair.

  “Mister Carroway,” she exclaimed, lurching to her feet. In her haste to rise she stood on her skirt, and toppled toward the rosebush. “Oh!”

  Robert stepped forward, catching her beneath the arms. As soon as she regained her balance he released her, moving back and sweeping his arms behind himself, as though touching her bothered him.

  “I don’t bite, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered, brushing at her skirt as much to give herself a moment as him.

  “I know.”

  Be nice, she reminded herself. If he’d come to see her, he had to have a good reason. Georgiana had spoken little of him, but both her friend and his public absence over the past three years had made it quite clear how difficult venturing out of doors was for him. “I didn’t mean to snap at you,” she said. “It’s just that you startled me.”

  “I was practicing being stealthy,” he returned in his low voice. “You seemed to appreciate the skill.”

  She looked at him sharply. His expression remained quiet, but the azure of his eyes held the veriest hint of a twinkle. So he still had a sense of humor. “Well, you’re obviously much better at it than I am. I think we need to make a pact that we won’t do any more sneaking up on each other, before we do permanent damage.”

  “Agreed.” He shifted, his gaze moving beyond her toward the house. “I had a thought last evening,” he said, the words coming slowly, as if with great reluctance.

  “And?” she prompted.

  He drew a breath. “You’re wasting your time with Geoffrey Newcombe.”

  Lucinda lifted an eyebrow. “Really? In what way?”

  He paused, studying her face. “I’ve offended you.”

  Well, if he could be direct, then so could she. “Yes, you have. But please explain.”

  “He’s arrogant and spoiled.”

  Lucinda couldn’t decide whether she felt annoyed or intrigued. “Hence the necessity of teaching him a lesson. I couldn’t very well select a student known for his perfection of manner, now could I?”

  He didn’t look terribly impressed by her logic. “I—”

  “Besides, I thought gentlemen didn’t speak ill of one another in a lady’s presence.”

  Robert nodded. “No, they don’t. I’m not a gentleman, though, and you’re Georgiana’s friend. I just thought you should keep in mind that while Tristan and St. Aubyn might have been arrogant and misguided, n
either of them was spoiled. Whatever lessons you plan to impart, I doubt he’ll listen unless it’s to his benefit to do so. He thinks the world should bend to his whim.”

  “For someone who shuns his fellows, you seem to think you know a great deal about them,” she snapped, making a definite slide from understanding to annoyance. “Which conclusions have you drawn about me, pray tell?”

  That stopped him. “You?”

  “Yes, me. Surely if you’ve analyzed the character of Lord Geoffrey and St. Aubyn and your own brother, you can tell me about myself.”

  She bent down to retrieve her dropped pruner, surprised to realize that she was curious to hear what Robert Carroway had to say about her. Perhaps she was being a bit too direct with him, but she hadn’t asked him to come over and pronounce his opinion of her possible, potential, future spouse.

  “You deserve better than Newcombe,” his quiet voice came. “I know that about you.”

  “Well, I thank you for your concern,” she said, straightening, “but we’ll have to agree to disa…”

  He was gone. Lucinda turned a circle. He’d completely vanished, as though he’d been nothing more than a specter conjured by her imagination.

  “For goodness’ sake,” she muttered, snipping off an errant leaf. “I could tell you a little something about your character, you rude man.”

  “Talking to yourself?” Her father turned the corner of the house to join her amid the rows of roses.

  Sneaking was evil, she decided. “No. I was…just conversing with the new rosebush,” she stammered, feeling her cheeks warm.

  “Ah. And did it answer?”

  “I believe it to be shy.”

  “If it ever does answer, you will inform me, won’t you?”

  “Very amusing.”

  The general held out his hand, a letter gripped in his fingers. “This just came for you by messenger.”

  She took the note from him. “And you decided you must bring it to me yourself because all of the servants have broken their legs, I suppose? I know it couldn’t be because you’re procrastinating and don’t know how to end chapter three.”