Page 4 of Marquess of Mistletoe
Leo had bought his colors instead, and Marielle still kept him in her prayers. He’d never been named among the dead or the missing in battle, and she took comfort from that.
“Madam,” said a masculine voice. “You will please cease your tears.”
A widow in tears exercised a right no other woman in the realm had—to order men about. “Go away,” she said, keeping her back to the intruder. Her nose was likely red, and her eyes were puffy, and she was entitled to privacy with her regrets. “I mourn for a soldier lost to me years ago. You will leave me in peace if you’ve any charity—”
Bootsteps sounded on the plank floor, and the scent of damp wool blended with the other scents of the saddle room. A hint of vetiver joined the barnyard bouquet. Leo had worn vetiver…
“It’s Christmas,” the man said, coming around to stand before Marielle’s perch on the trunk. “Surely your tears can wait for some other day?”
He was tall, and his great coat swirled about him with the drape of fine tailoring. Other impressions—broad shoulders, dark hair, riding boots damp from the snow—registered beneath the timbre of his voice.
That voice.
“Leo?” Marielle said. “Leopold Drake?” His features had matured from adolescent beauty into a man’s rugged countenance. The years of soldiering were marked in the lines beside his eyes and mouth, and in blue eyes that had once been merry. Those eyes were chilly now, and guarded.
For a moment, Marielle fell silent. Her body was both hot and shivery, as memory and reality collided in the man she beheld.
“Miss Redford.” He bowed correctly, which was ridiculous given the setting, then produced a wrinkled handkerchief.
Marielle took it and dabbed at her cheeks. “What are you doing here, Leo, and is this a flag of truce?”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Happy Christmas to you, too, ma’am. You are looking well.”
“I look a fright. You look to be thriving.” Her splotchy cheeks and puffy eyes were his fault, for which she was grateful. The sight of him—the simple sight of him—well, whole, and healthy, threatened to turn her weepy again.
“I am well, if a bit chilled. How is your husband?”
The question was meant to establish some sort of picket lines, and that would not do. Leo’s abandonment had hurt, but Marielle refused to make an enemy of him—tempted though she might be.
“He’s dead, Leo. Gone three years, from a wasting disease. I’m a comfortably well off widow.” Without children, and Drew’s dying regret had been that they’d never had offspring. Marielle hadn’t understood the intensity of Drew’s sadness over that lack until she’d been wearing her weeds, listening to the bishop drone on about God’s will and faith and other platitudes.
Children were somebody to love, and without somebody to love, meaning in life was hard to come by. Remarriage loomed as a solution to the problem of the childless widow in society’s eyes, and lately, in Marielle’s too.
“My condolences on the loss of your spouse,” Leo said. “What of your father?”
Leo’s voice had deepened, and acquired an implied hint of command. He expected his questions to be answered.
“Papa died shortly after I married. He’d apparently been unwell for some time.” Drew had thought Marielle was mourning her papa, and she had been, but she’d also been mourning her first love.
Leo took a scowling visual inventory of the saddle room, as if rearranging his own view of the past.
“It’s cold enough to freeze Lucifer’s ears off in here,” he said. “May I escort you to the inn?”
That was Marielle’s turn of phrase, borrowed from a long-ago nanny. Leo had kept that much of her with him. Had he carried other memories of her into battle, and exactly what had prompted him to choose the constant threat of death to her hand in marriage?
“We’re going to talk, Leo Drake,” Marielle said, rising and dusting off her backside. “For Christmas, you will give me the answers I deserved ten years ago.”
He peered down at her—he’d not been this tall as a lad of seventeen—his expression unreadable. Ten years ago, Marielle had been able to accurately translate his sighs, the angle of his shoulders, his stride, his word choices, even his silences.
Now, he was a stranger inhabiting the person of her dearest, lost love—a handsome stranger.
“Perhaps you’ll favor me with a few answers too, madam.”
Not milady. Perhaps Leo hadn’t kept track of her, though what would a soldier care for the doings of a lord’s wife back in London? Marielle was tempted to ask if Leo was married, but she’d moved on with her life, made other plans.
Perhaps it was for the best that she and Leo had encountered each other like this. She could close the door to her past before stepping through the door to her future, all tidy and calm.
She preceded Leo through the door of the saddle room, waited while he stowed his gear—a half-pay officer wouldn’t expect the stable lads to wait on him hand and foot—and then permitted him to escort her across the frigid, snowy inn yard.
