Page 52 of The Ones Left Behind
“Breeches-less buff?” Kitty added with a giggle.
“Enough!” Waverley dropped his head into his hands.
Matthias did not care if Kitty were angry with him for his antics. He would do anything to have her back like this.
“I do not know how you managed. There were five of them and only you?” the Duchess asked Kitty.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Although I was used to being with Matthias and Peter. I was more of a tomboy, getting into mischief with them, so perhaps it was harder for me to learn to be a wife than for them to be soldiers.”
She looked down at her plate, evidently sad suddenly, and Matthias longed to take her in his arms for comfort. He was thinking of Peter, too, and even though Peter had been her husband, he had been Matthias’s best friend. Many times Matthias had thought it would have been easier for Kitty if he had been the one to die that day.
After the covers were removed and the ladies retired to the drawing room for tea, the gentlemen relaxed with some port.
“She seems to be getting on with Meg and Amelia,” Waverley remarked.
“I think this is just the tonic she needed. She has not been able to be a proper lady in some time,” Matthias said reflectively.
“What is the next step in your campaign?” Philip asked.
“I thought, perhaps, a picnic by the lake. And your daughter can join us.”
“Ah, appealing to her maternal instincts?”
“Hopefully yearnings,” Matthias conceded. “I would love a brood of children. She used to feel the same way.”
“I have heard tell of your brother’s duel,” Waverley said as he swirled the thick red wine around his glass. “It was Worth’s heir, Lord Preston, and he was not expected to live out the week.”
Matthias clenched his jaw. It was worse than he feared. He had not known who the opponent was, nor his condition. He had almost let it slip from his mind, so consumed with Kitty and his own plight as he was.
“I did not know who it was,” he said quietly.
“It certainly makes your campaign with Kitty more urgent. Henry will not be able to step foot in England again so long as Worth lives,” Waverley warned.
“No indeed. ’Tis why I need your help.”
* * *
Kitty awokethe next morning long before most ladies of the aristocracy would. She had been used to waking up to perform her duties and she would still do what she could. It was likely there would be a few hours before she would see anyone other than servants. She felt excited, despite everything. Last night had been a pleasurable escape and, for a few hours, she had forgotten her woes. It was not quite as if she had gone back in time, because she was with friends who she had shared with Peter, and they had talked about him and remembered him fondly. It was the first time in the two years since his death that she had been able to do that… had had the luxury of doing that. Somehow it made her feel more free, as if his spirit were with her and telling her everything would be well—except she knew this was only a brief holiday from reality, and it would be all the more painful when the friends left. Nonetheless, she had promised Matthias and she might as well enjoy it.
The Duchess and Lady Amelia had not been pretentious or cold to her at all—indeed, quite the opposite. They had been kind and friendly and had put her at ease.
She dressed in one of her housekeeper’s gowns that she could fasten by herself, and went downstairs to tend the garden. She smiled. Lady Thackeray had ever been the same, despite being a grand lady.
There was little to be done, unfortunately. The garden was thriving and besides weeding, most of it was out of her control. The key to a healthy garden was rain, sunshine and patience.
The still-room was in order and she had prepared enough of the herbs for Matthias’s treatments for another month. Kitty did not know how to be idle anymore. She was debating taking a walk when she heard voices just on the other side of the hedge from where she kneeled beside a bed of marigolds.
“Are you sure about this?” she heard the Duke’s voice ask as boots crunched along the pebbled path, one gait less even than the others.
“I need to try. Perhaps riding will strengthen my leg. Look at it, man, it is smaller than my arm!” Matthias said.
“No need to exaggerate,” Philip drawled. “We will see how you do.”
Matthias was going to try riding? He had lost his mind. She began to stand up, set to scold him, and then stopped herself. Who was she to protest? Two of his oldest friends were there to see him through it and they would not let him come to harm. This was the very thinking she must cease if she wanted him to allow her to stay.
Yet she could not simply walk away. Following at a discreet distance, she attempted to keep out of sight, smiling with remembrance of that day she thought she had hidden on the terrace. Hopefully, he would be too consumed with the small matter of staying on his horse to notice her.
She found a perch behind the grand old oak trees they had been used to climb as children. It was certainly wide enough to hide her. If she had been able, she would have climbed up to rest on one of the large branches, but Matthias had always boosted her up because of her lack of height. Although she could hear their voices in the distance, it was difficult to make out the entire conversation.
