Jane Feather - Valentine

Major Gilbraith's head wound had kept him lingering between life and death in a foul French prison for a twelve-month, until he'd been exchanged and brought home to face a court-martial. Had there been a renewed French attack before Captain Gerard could come to his aid? Or had he yielded his colors prematurely?

No one had an answer. Sylvester could remember nothing of the minutes before the bayonet had driven into his skull. Gerard said he'd seen nothing and could have no opinion on the issue of honor. And there the matter lay. There was no concrete evidence to convict… but neither was there concrete evidence to exonerate.

And people believed what they chose. It was clear enough what Gerard believed. His shoulder had been the first to be turned.

That ominous feeling crept up the back of Sylvester's neck, the little prickles, the weird surge of unfocused energy in his head, tightening his scalp. His hand went to his forehead, to the slash of the scar, as he tried to relax, to will the promise of pain to disappear. Sometimes he could divert the coming agony if he caught it at the very beginning and was able to be still, close his eyes, change the seething thoughts, defeat the rise of this hideous panic.

But he was standing in hot, bright sunlight, far from the cool darkness he would need. A jagged flash of light appeared in the corner of his vision, and he knew it was too late. He had perhaps twenty minutes before the ghastly, degrading pain took over… twenty minutes to reach his room at the inn.

Theo Belmont stared. What was happening to him? He looked as if he were standing in a graveyard alive with spirits. His face was deathly white, his eyes suddenly dulled, his shoulders sagging. It was as if muscle and sinew, his very life-blood, had been leached out of him. Abruptly he turned from her and stumbled over to his horse tethered at the stand of trees. He mounted clumsily and rode off, slouching in the saddle, his head lowered almost to his chest.

Who was he? Not that it mattered. Strangers passed through Lulworth often enough, rarely causing a ripple on the surface of tranquil village life. Generally, though, they kept to the roads, not straying onto other people's property.

She shrugged and bent to wring out the dripping folds of her smock, thrusting her feet into her sandals. Absently, she rubbed her backside… it had been a very hard fall. The stranger clearly made no concessions when it came to avenging himself – but then, he'd had a pretty hard fall himself.

She grinned, remembering the neatness of her maneuver. Edward would be proud of her.

Theo made her dripping way along the bank toward the stone bridge. She crossed and hurried up the hill toward the house, shivering as a stiffening sea breeze pressed her wet clothes against her skin.

"Theo, whatever happened to you?" Clarissa appeared on the long stone-flagged terrace outside the drawing room. "I saw you coming up from the stream."

"I fell in, if you must know," Theo said, for some reason reluctant to give a full account of the encounter. She hadn't exactly come out of it bathed in glory, and honesty forced her to admit that she had been playing a game that could have given the stranger the wrong impression.

"Fell in?" Clarissa persisted. "How?"

Theo sighed. Her sister never let go until she was satisfied. "I was leaning over, trying to tickle a trout, and I lost my balance." She stepped through the open doors into the drawing room.

"Theo!" Emily squeaked. "You're dripping all over the carpet."

"Oh, sorry." She looked down at the puddle forming at her feet.

"Theo, dear, I'm not going to ask how you come to be in that condition," her mother said, laying down her embroidery. "But I think it would be best if you were to go out again and come in through the side door. This carpet is not ours to ruin."

"Of course… it belongs to a Gilbraith now. I was forgetting. Forgive me." Theo turned on her heel and marched out again.

Lady Belmont sighed. There was no point ignoring the facts. They were going to have to get used to it eventually – and the sooner they were reconciled, the happier they would be. But she was under no illusions about Theo, who was going to have the most difficulty. The house and the land were in her blood. A most powerful spiritual legacy from both father and grandfather to the girl child they'd adored.

"A messenger came from the village, my lady."

"Oh, thank you, Foster." Lady Belmont smiled absently at the butler as she took the envelope from the silver tray. She didn't recognize the hard black script and frowned, having expected a message from one of their neighbors – an invitation to some quiet function, probably. The late earl's dictates on mourning were known to everyone, but the countryside, nevertheless, knew she would accept only discreet invitations.

"Ask Cook to come for the day's menus in half an hour, would you, Foster?" Elinor took the message into the small parlor where she dealt with household matters and her own correspondence. She broke the wafer with a slim paper knife and unfolded the single sheet.

Lord Stoneridge would do himself the honor of calling upon Lady Belmont this afternoon. If it was inconvenient, perhaps her ladyship would suggest an alternative time. His lordship could be reached at the Hare and Hounds.

Well, it had to come sooner or later. Elinor folded the sheet again, unaware of her restless fingers repeatedly pressing the crease. The move to the dower house wouldn't take more than a day or two… they would have plenty of help. She would go down to the house this morning and walk through the rooms again. They were furnished pleasantly enough, but she would need to decide where to place her own personal pieces that she'd brought with her to Stoneridge Manor on her wedding day…

Elinor blinked rapidly and stiffened her shoulders. The sense of loss was always with her – the futile anger that she'd had so little married life, that Kit's life had been snatched from him so violently and so early… too, too early! That French monster bore the blood of half a generation on his hands.

"Mama, we're walking to the vicarage. Do you have any messages for Mrs. Haversham?" Emily came in, looking fresh and elegant in a walking dress of crisp cambric, a chip-straw bonnet on her glowing brown curls, jean half boots on her narrow feet.

"I asked Cook for the calves'-foot jelly you promised Mrs. Haversham," Clarissa put in, peeping over her taller sister's shoulders. Her eyes sharpened suddenly as she saw her mother's face.

"What is it, Mama? Has something upset you?"

Elinor smiled and shook her head. Clarissa was the most sensitive of her daughters, quick to feel and respond to her mother's moods.

"Nothing really, but I'm afraid we must be prepared for a difficult interview this afternoon. Lord Stoneridge is to call."

"Oh, why can't he leave us alone!" Clarissa wailed. "Why does he have to come and call? He could just say he wanted to move in and we could move out… and we'd never have to see each other."

"Don't talk nonsense, Clarissa," Elinor rebuked sharply. "The proprieties must be observed, as you well know. We shall be neighbors, and we shall be courteous at all times. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Mama." But Clarissa's eyes were mutinous, and her soft mouth hardened.

"I don't suppose he'll be here much, anyway," Emily said with practical reassurance. "He's bound to be in London during the season… and I'm sure he'll be at the hunting box and in Scotland a lot of the time. Lulworth's too sleepy a place for an out-and-outer."

"Emily! Such vulgarity," her mother protested, but she was laughing. "How do you know his lordship is an out-and-outer, as you so inelegantly put it?"

"I don't," Emily said. "But I'll lay odds he is." Her lip curled. "Probably a dandy, like that awful cousin Cecil."