Buried Secrets (17 page)

“I’m that sorry, my lord,” declared the agent. “Every bridge between here and Trumpington is either under water or washed away altogether. I had to travel several miles upstream before I could find a place to ford the river.” He looked around in some astonishment. “I see there was little I could have done that you have not already accomplished.”

Cord flashed a grin. “One does one’s humble best,” he said, pausing only momentarily in hitching a farm horse to one of the wagons already on the site.

Lunch was provided by Mrs. Moresby from the manor house and Aunt Louisa, and eaten standing, sitting in wagons and even perched on low-hanging tree branches by the workers. Cord gobbled a hasty sandwich on the move, as did Gillian some distance away.

By the end of the day, matters were under control. The lower floor of each cottage had been emptied and families temporarily relocated to the estate barns. Ned Gudge’s ninety-year-old grandmother screeched a running stream of direction to the men who carried her from her tiny bedchamber to a comfortable accommodation at Rose Cottage.

It was just an hour or so short of sunset when Cord and Gillian and Silas Jilbert collapsed in the drawing room at Wildehaven. Aunt Louisa and Uncle Henry, who had both served as far as their abilities would allow had taken themselves off to Rose Cottage for a well-earned rest. Gillian would have accompanied them, but stayed behind at an unwontedly earnest request from Cord.

“I have some ideas I wish to discuss with Jilbert, and I’d like your opinion as well. Please stay.”

His words were accompanied by the very lightest clasp of her hand. His green eyes were unreadable, but she thought she detected a barely suppressed excitement there.

“Of course,” she said simply.

Now the three sat before the fire. Gillian had sent for a change of clothes from the cottage, and felt herself in reasonably prime twig. The cinnamon habit in which she had started out the day now reposed in the Wildehaven trash bin, and she wore a becoming walking dress of dark blue kerseymere. Her feet were dry for the first time in hours and were unexceptionably shod in a pair of jean half boots.

Cord, too, had changed into dry clothing; thus Mr. Jilbert was the only one among them who remained damp and bedraggled. His coat hung over a chair by the fire, gently steaming.

“I shan’t keep you long, old man,” promised Cord. “I just want to set one or two things in motion before you head off for home and hearth. Do sit down and share a bite to eat with us.”

Mrs. Moresby had bowed to Cord’s orders that she put her feet up for the rest of the day, but insisted on first preparing a light supper, which she brought in at that moment on a tray.

“Now then, Jilbert,” began Cord, “how soon do you think it will be before we can get the new bridges up over the river? What was it you said—three of them will need replacing?”

“Yes, my lord.” Mr. Jilbert then added somewhat anxiously, “I wish to take this opportunity to assure you, my lord, that the bridge near Rose Cottage is the only one to have collapsed under the rush of water. All three were well maintained, and I feel it is only that the torrent was so—”

“Devil take it, man,” interposed Cord impatiently. “I certainly do not fault you for this turn of events. You have done an excellent job here—all the more remarkable for having performed your duties despite a lack of direction from the top—so to speak.”

Gillian gazed at him, her brows lifted. Was this Cord, actually admitting that he might have been lax in his duty?

“No,” continued Cord, “I’m merely asking what needs to be done now.”

Mr. Jilbert ran a hand over his thinning hair. “I shall check on the condition of the remaining bridges, of course, before proceeding with any necessary repair. As for the cottage bridge, the river has crested and has already started to recede. We should be able to contrive a temporary span tomorrow or the next day. A more permanent structure will take more time, of course, but I shall set men to work as soon as possible.”

Cord nodded. “Good. Now, about the cottages.”

Mr. Jilbert drew a deep breath. “I should think the water will have drained away by next week, but the houses themselves—well, we shall have to look at the foundations, and at the condition of the wattle with which they are sided. In addition . . .” He paused. “I believe they will require extensive work to be rendered habitable again.”

“Actually,” said Cord slowly, “I was thinking of rebuilding the whole lot in another location.”

Gillian uttered a small gasp, and Mr. Jilbert’s eyes grew round.

“Apparently everyone save myself has known for years that the homes should never have been built there in the first place. Even if this flood was an unusual event, the tenants tell me that the whole area becomes a morass every year.”

“My, yes,” sighed Mr. Jilbert, his prim mouth pursed in dissatisfaction. “I don’t know how many times Mrs. Clearey has complained about her ruined laundry, or Mrs. Matcham about the mud her husband and their sons track inside. And, of course, the tenants can never plant a garden until June or thereabouts because the soil remains too damp. But,” he continued, his eyes widening again, “to rebuild them?
All
of them? Why, that would take a fortune, my lord.”

“Yes,” replied Cord gently. “But, as it happens, I have a fortune. Several, in fact. So, I think the estate could run to—how many is it?—twenty-two cottages without plunging me into ruin.”

Mr. Jilbert exhaled gustily. “My lord, I don’t know what to say!”

“And while we’re at it, perhaps we could incorporate some improvements. Cook stoves? Gardening sheds out back? Ask the tenants what they require.”

At this, Mr. Jilbert’s features took on the expression of one experiencing a beatific vision. “I shall consult with them, my lord. They will be ecstatic!”

Cord rose. “I’m pleased to hear it. Now, Mr. Jilbert, it’s time I let you go. Get yourself home and into some dry things. Your good wife will no doubt have your pipe and slippers at the ready.”

The agent jumped to his feet. Donning his still-damp coat, he departed with multitudinous expressions of gratitude and good will.

Cord sank back into his chair. “I’ve never been so ‘my lord’ed in one afternoon before, I don’t think.”

“I’m not sure,” responded Gillian, her eyes twinkling, “that they were not capital L’s. At any rate, your tenants will have elevated you to sainthood by tomorrow evening.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Cord, startled. “May I hide out at Rose Cottage for the duration?”

“Of course. For as long as you like.” Gillian sighed contentedly, finishing the last of her chicken sandwich. “Goodness,” she declared. “I was famished at lunch and I quite stuffed myself on Mrs. Widding’s cold roast beef. I didn’t think I would be ready to eat again until tomorrow, but I seem to have managed quite nicely.”

Cord cast her an affectionate glance. “From the way you worked today, I should think you might have downed twice as much.”

“I worked no harder than everyone else.” She smiled. “You, for example, literally saved the day.”

Cord stared at her for a moment, his sandwich suspended in midair. He grinned then. “I guess I did phase into my military character, rather. It’s been a long time since I did that,” he murmured.

Gillian had pondered all day on Cord’s seeming reversal of personality. The man she had seen today—decisive, efficient and energetic—was not the Earl of Cordray with whom she had been acquainted for the past two weeks. Which, she wondered was the real Cord? What had happened to his almost trademark indolence?

“You did appear in a different light today,” she began carefully, placing her empty plate on the table before the fire. She poured a cup of tea for herself and one for Cord. “Indeed, at times it appeared you were almost enjoying yourself.”

Cord looked at her, startled. “Yes,” he replied musingly. “In a way I was.”

He stared off into space for several moments, and Gillian became aware of the intimacy of the scene. She knew that Moresby and his wife were busy about their duties in another part of the house, and that various other servants toiled nearby as well. However, she heard only the silence that surrounded them, broken by the muted crackle of the hearth. She watched a progression of emotions play across on Cord’s features, and it seemed as though they were, at that moment, alone in their own universe.

She searched Cord’s face. What was it she saw there? A certain intensity, she thought, and an awareness. But—awareness of what?

“You know. Cord,” she said, again choosing her words with care. “I cannot help wondering if today I saw the real Earl of Cordray, and that the careless, pleasure-seeking rake I’ve known up till now—charming though he may be—is a lie—a role you’re playing.”

Cord glanced up. “Pleasure-seeking rake!” He laughed. “Somehow, I don’t believe you mean that as a compliment.” He sobered almost immediately. “No, of course you don’t, and why should you? I have hardly presented an admirable character, have I?”

He rose and paced the carpet in front of the fire. “However, you are right. Actually, I did not realize until today how changed I have become from the man I was when—” He halted abruptly.

Gillian said nothing, but gazed at him with a calm expectancy. Cord stood for some moments, staring into the fire. Then he flung himself into a chair near Gillian. His emerald gaze seemed to bore into her.

“Yes, I used to be different. Not that I was a model gentleman, by any means. I was a hey-go-mad youth when I badgered my father into purchasing a pair of colors for me. I thought it a glorious adventure to participate in the crusade against the Corsican monster. My father thought I needed steadying, and a stint in the army would be just the thing to accomplish that goal.

“But it wasn’t a glorious adventure,” he whispered. “It was a sojourn in hell, and when I returned to England, I was another young man altogether.”

Chapter Thirteen

“You know,” said Cord haltingly. “I never thought of myself as one of your exquisitely sensitive fellows—the ones who cry over a violet drooping in the woods or blanch at a cut finger, but in my first battle at Ciudad Rodrigo—” He gazed directly at Gillian. “I was frightened—almost out of my mind.”

“But surely that is normal, particularly for a very young man.”

“Yes, I suppose, but, of course, I was ashamed of my terror and strove to overcome it. And I did—or at least managed to stuff it far enough back in my soul so that I could function. No,” he continued in a low voice. “It was not so much my fear of dying a horrible death that made the war a living hell. For me it was watching others die. To see men killed—many of them my friends—with unspeakable brutality . . . Arms, legs, even heads were shattered in nightmare explosions of blood and tissue. It seemed sometimes as though I swam through the battle in a sea of blood. Men did not always die instantly, of course, and the air was always filled with sounds of screams and moans—death rattles and pleas for help. Sometimes they cried out to be put out of their agony with a ball.”

He stopped suddenly, his face pale. “Forgive me, Gillian, I don’t know what caused me to talk of such things to a female.”

Gillian could hardly speak for the tears that had gathered in her throat, but she reached for Cord’s hand. “Please, Cord. This is not a time for social niceties. I think you need to talk about this, and ... I am here. Please . . . please go on.”

Cord caught her fingers in a painful grip. He did not look at her, but stared once again into the flames. He continued as though he had not broken his chain of thought. “Once—at Orthez—a man ran next to me. He caught a ball in the stomach and fell. He lurched against me, and I grasped him as he crumpled to the ground. I cradled him in my arms for what was probably only a few moments, but seemed like an eternity. Gillian, his guts spilled out into my hands, but he could not die. He screamed and screamed. There was nothing I could do.” Cord’s breath came in harsh spurts. “I could not even stay with him until he expired. The battle was in full spate, and I was forced to rejoin the fray.”

“Dear God,” whispered Gillian, tears hot on her cheeks.

“Of course, being proper English gentlemen, none of us could ever display our grief or our horror. When someone was killed, it was, ‘I say, where’s Simpson? Haven’t seen him about this evening.’ ‘You didn’t hear? Old Simpers snuffed it today. Some frog got him with a bayonet.’ ‘Ah. Pity. He’ll be missed the next time we’re out to hounds. He was one of our best front men.’ After that, his name would rarely be mentioned.”

“In how many battles were you involved?” asked Gillian brokenly.

“I never counted, but I suppose seven or eight—not counting the skirmishes and ambuscades.” He paused, still staring sightlessly before him. He kept Gillian’s hand imprisoned in both his own, clutching her fingers as though he gripped a lifeline. He continued at last. “The worst was Badajoz. God, if ever the devil spent a night above ground with all his fiendish minions, it was there. And he brought all the pain and anguish of hell with him. It was blood and fire and bedlam from beginning to end. From the time the French began firing on the Forlorn Hope creeping up the glacis, all through the siege of the escarpment through a booby-trapped, water-filled moat, to the pounding the men took as they scaled the walls, there was never a moment of respite. Every kind of punishment known to man and a malevolent God was flung at us from the ramparts. For hour after hour, we fought our way up those damned walls, through musket ball, exploding grapeshot and a hundred other missiles of sure death. Our eyes stung with smoke from the artillery and from the oil spilled into the moat by the frogs and set ablaze. Men—both French and English—fell from the ramparts, some lodging on top of us, some clinging to us as though we might prevent them from plunging to the death that awaited them at the bottom. I heard of one fellow who spent the night in the foul, flaming cesspool that was the moat, trapped by one of the siege ladders that fell on him with three dead men still attached to it. He lay there with fire and the stink of death all around him, forced to watch his best friend drown two feet away because he couldn’t move to reach him.