Page 80 of Miss Delightful
“She’s protecting her father and brother,” Alasdhair said. “Mornebeth can ruin them. Saint Delancey the Younger was a wild young sprig who gambled indiscriminately and got up to who knows what else. Mornebeth goaded him into it and was on hand to witness the worst of it. He will trot out his recollections at the times of his choosing.”
More specific than that, Alasdhair need not be. Not even with his cousins.
Goddard made a face. “But the sprig is a proper vicar now. All he has to do is regret his youthful folly and wait out his penance. He’ll acquire a patina of humility—and maybe even some honest compassion for other lost souls—and eventually he’ll recover from ruin.”
Powell slanted Goddard a look. “You were nearly ruined, Goddard. All it took was persistent talk from an officer or two, and the flames of slander never died down for long. Your business was on the brink of collapse, and you were considering a permanent remove to France. Imagine how much easier targeting a preacher’s family would be.”
“We can talk the whole business to death,” Alasdhair said, “but that doesn’t change Miss Delancey’s choice of husband. Nothing will change her mind now that it’s made up.”
“You want to tear down London,” Goddard said. “Instead, you ferret out Melanie Fairchild’s bolt-hole. Will you confront her?”
I need more food.The thought was peculiar for being so sensible. Alasdhair ambled to the sideboard, retrieved the tray of sandwiches, and offered it to his cousins in turn. When they’d helped themselves, he took a sandwich for himself.
“I will confront her for John’s sake,” he said, taking a bite of ham, cheddar, mustard, and bread, “and also because Dorcas blames herself for Melanie’s ruin and supposed death. At least some of that guilt is misplaced, and that is a situation about which I have freedom to act. I will make a parting gift of the truth to my former intended.”
A wedding gift, damn it all to hell.
“You and your insistence on the truth,” Powell said. “Maybe Melanie Fairchild has reasons for remaining hidden.”
“Maybe she does, and I will respect those reasons when she explains them to me. I will also offer her any assistance I can, but Dorcas loves her cousin. With those who love us, there should be no call for dissembling.”
And maybe that, too, was why Alasdhair had come to Powell’s doorstep. Here, he could be hungry, angry, bewildered, and rude, and his cousins would offer him food, sympathy, and the best advice they had. Here was friendship, solace, and bodily sustenance.
No stiff upper lip, no battlefield bravado. Just a weary soldier with a broken heart.
Alasdhair demolished two more sandwiches and two cups of tea, while his cousins sorted out which former pickpockets or old soldiers could be dispatched to take the watch at Melanie’s door at what hours. The logistics of confronting Melanie, and of arranging for Dorcas to meet with her, wanted some strategy, and Alasdhair was frankly too tired and heartsore to think that through clearly.
That meeting had to happen soon, though, before Dorcas became officially engaged to Mornebeth—before Alasdhair yielded to the impulse to tear down London, or at least whatever corner of Town had the dubious honor of housing Isaiah Mornebeth.
“Please thank Mrs. Lovelace for the sandwiches,” Alasdhair said. “And my thanks to both of you for your assistance. I can see myself out.”
“A question,” Goddard said when Alasdhair would have pushed himself from the seductive embrace of the wing chair and subjected himself again to the chilly, gloomy weather.
“Ask,” Alasdhair said. He’d given them Melanie’s specific direction and was probably exhausted enough to actually sleep for a few hours. Of course, napping now would mean a sleepless night, but what was one more of those?
“You claim that with those who care for us, we need not dissemble,” Goddard said, “so tell us about Badajoz, MacKay. No matter what you did, failed to do, or suspect you might have done, we are still your family, and we always will be. You don’t have to carry the burden of memory alone, and we’d really rather you did not. We will tear down London with you rather than see you torn apart by the past.”
Cornering an unsuspecting cousin when he wasn’t at his best was an ambush, pure and simple, and typical of Goddard’s usual lack of fanfare.
Fortunately, long habit pushed the usual platitude into words. “It was just a few bad days, lads. You know how bad.”
“So,” Powell said, “everybody else is held to a standard of absolute honesty, but you get to fob us off with polite fictions. It was hell, MacKay. It was utter, unimaginable, inhuman hell.”
“Then you weren’t holed up somewhere waiting for the riot to end?” Alasdhair asked. “I made sure Goddard was minding his orders in the infirmary, but he’d not had word of you. Nobody had.”
“Clearly, I weathered the occasion in one piece. Goddard asked you a question.”
Actually, he’d issued more of an invitation, and Alasdhair was just tired enough—of London, of heartache, of the past—to part with a morsel of the truth.
“I was looking for you,” Alasdhair said. “We’d nearly lost Goddard to the bloody French artillery, and I was desperate to find you. I walked every street and alley, rolled over corpses without number, questioned anybody sober enough to give a coherent answer, and, Powell… I could not find you.”
Goddard rose and brought the decanter and three glasses over from the sideboard. “Tell us the rest of it, MacKay. Take your time, and don’t think to spare the details.”
Part of Alasdhair howled in protest.Not today, please. Not now, not this too.To speak the words, of sorrow and rage, bewilderment and regret, would hurt unbearably. Worse yet would be to acknowledge the shame aloud. Worst of all, though, would be to turn aside from the patient concern of the only two people who might understand the horror of that day.
They would not ask again. They would notinviteagain. They would go back to respecting Alasdhair’s almighty privacy and guarding his perishing dignity, as they had been for years.
As he had been for years.
