Page 28 of Miss Dignified
“You stayed with some widowed auntie for a time when you left the schoolroom, and she introduced you to all of her spotty godsons?”
“And their bachelor uncles. I was a rousing failure.” Her fingers smoothed the abused linen over and over, their rhythm entrancing.
“I was a failure as an officer. Bungled my orders regularly.”
She glanced up at him. “You did not.”
“Got stripped of rank for it at one point. You notice Goddard is a perishing colonel. MacKay is a major. I am a lowly captain. I was in consideration for lieutenant colonel, then I was ordered to lead my men into what I knew was an ambush. The ambush was intended to be a diversion, to keep the French distracted while some supply wagons meandered out from headquarters. I learned the supply wagons hadn’t even left yet, and still, my commanding officer told me to dangle my men before the French.”
“Why?”
“He wanted me dead or disgraced. I felt the same way about him, but I wasn’t about to desert my men.” Dylan did not speak of this to his cousins. He didn’t have to, and he didn’t want to.
“Your commanding officer was rotten?”
“Rotten to his soul. A great advocate of flogging the men over nothing. A fine one for keeping them drilling in the heat by the hour. He killed them with his version of discipline, and I desperately wanted to kill him, too, slowly and painfully.”
Dylan had never said those words before, but oh, he’d lived them.
“What happened with the French ambush?”
“I got lost then too. The day was overcast, so the sun wasn’t in evidence. I missed a turn so to speak.”
She nudged him with her shoulder. “You did not.”
“No, I did not, but nary a man in the company would betray me. They marched according to my orders and lived to march another day. I was given the option of a transfer or demotion, and I chose the demotion.”
“Because you would not abandon your men. You still haven’t. Has Will Brook abandoned his brother?”
The question of the hour. “I don’t know. He’s gone to his covert for some reason, and I am being warned not to meddle.”
“But meddling is what you do, isn’t it? I have been referred to as a meddler. A busybody. My uncle is probably pleased that I’ve removed to London.”
Dylan thought back to his call upon Jeanette, to the changes in her that she’d attributed to marrying a difficult, if doting, man.
“I am pleased that you removed to London. The whole time I was wandering around the battlefield of the stews, I thought, ‘Mrs. Lovelace will wonder what’s become of me if I can’t find my way out of here. Mrs. Lovelace will scold me for worrying her. She will bedisappointedif I cannot even manage to find my way to the river.’ One doesn’t disappoint a lady who is fond of one.”
“Are you teasing me?”
The kitten’s purring was so subtle as to be a mere whisper of warmth against Dylan’s chest. “No. I am not teasing.”
Mrs. Lovelace folded his handkerchief and held it out to him.
“Keep it, madam. I have, as you know, many others.”
“All plain. Tell me about the stews. You used the word ‘battlefield.’”
Words came, slowly at first, about how London’s downtrodden and inebriated reminded Dylan of battlefield casualties. They even sprawled in the same undignified positions. He spoke of how angry a simple walk through St. Giles had left him, how despairing. He spoke of Dunacre’s cruelty, never using that hated name, but using other words—evil,vile,disgusting,contemptible,dishonorable.
The recitation surprised him, as Lydia’s tears had surprised him. Perhaps the two were related. Mrs. Lydia Lovelace never cried, and Captain Dylan Powell never complained.
But he mourned, apparently. By the light of two candles, stroking a purring kitten, sitting next to his housekeeper on the bedroom floor, he raged and lamented and grieved.
The carrying candle guttered out before he fell silent, leaving only the taper to illuminate the room.
“You were right, Captain,” Mrs. Lovelace said. “I would have scolded you sorely had you spent the night on the streets. I know your men do that, or they have, but I do not keep house for your men.”
“You are not fond of them?”
