Buried Secrets (18 page)

“Even the next day, when we finally emerged victorious, the nightmare did not stop. Our men—our fine, brave English troops—stormed into Badojoz and began a campaign of the most brutal, unbridled pillage and rape I’ve ever seen and never hope to see again. It ended only when Wellington arrived on the scene and put a stop to it.”

A sob escaped Gillian, and Cord at last turned to look at her. “I am so sorry, my dear. I had no right to inflict my own private hell on you.”

“No
... oh, no—”

“And I suppose you must be wondering,” he continued as though she had not spoken, “if there is a point to this long, distressing tale.” He drew a shuddering breath. “As I told you, I sold out after Toulouse, and came home to join a good many of my comrades-in-arms who had also just returned to the pleasures of the London scene. None of us would have admitted under torture that we were having difficulty readjusting to life as gentlemen of leisure. Instead, we buried our memories in drink—or gambling—or outrageous escapades—or in the arms of women of a certain sort—or in some cases, all of the above. Most of my fellow roisterers eventually regained their balance and returned to whatever had occupied them in their prewar existence.

“I was unable to follow their example. A night spent alone in my chambers in quiet pursuits inevitably resulted in unpleasant recollections and culminated in nightmares. I returned to Cordray Park and spent a few weeks attempting to familiarize myself with the running of the estate, to no avail. I thought that burying myself in work would be my salvation, but it brought me no solace. I was miserable in my enforced solitude, and even when I was busiest, images of death and destruction rose before me, almost overwhelming me. I bore the company of my worthy neighbors—none of whom had participated in the war and who had not the slightest inkling of what it had been like—with gritted teeth and false bonhomie until I thought I would go mad. It was borne on me at last—though not consciously, I realize now—that it was only in the most frenetic pursuit of pleasure that I could find a certain surcease from the pain of memory. I craved the glitter of the city and my life of frivolity there as a starving man might seek sustenance.” He smiled thinly. “A few weeks later, I gave in to my baser needs, and returned to London. I’ve been driving myself to hell in a handbasket ever since, as my relatives put it so succinctly.”

With these words. Cord’s face settled back into its habitual expression of bored amusement. Appalled, Gillian released her hand from fingers that still clasped them tightly. She leaned forward to grasp his arms.

“No!” she cried. “Not sustenance, but escape! Escape from memories that were too awful to bear.”

“A convenient theory, that, my dear,” he drawled. “But, I rather think—” He halted, arrested by the consternation in her eyes. He began again, this time in a serious tone. “I thank you for your concern, Gillian. If you will forgive what I know must sound like blatant self-exculpation, I will tell you that I wasn’t always so self-absorbed. My family—even when I was quite young—used to think of me as one of those chaps who strides into a problem, searches for a solution and then proceeds to try to fix things.” He smiled. “My efforts were not invariably successful, but it seemed I was always up to my eyebrows in some sort of commitment. If your sister was a wallflower, it was good old Chris— as I was called in my salad days—who would seek her hand for the next country dance. Your sow was stuck in her byre? Good old Chris to the rescue with pulley and hoist! Your punt was sinking? Why, young Chris would see to it in a moment—well, no, perhaps that’s not a good example, for as I recall, all concerned emerged from the River Cam soaking wet on that occasion.”

Gillian was forced to laugh through her tears. “Yes, I see what you mean.”

“But after the war,” Cord continued musingly, “I could not bear to turn my thoughts to serious purpose. It was as though only in the most frivolous pursuits could I avoid the depression that haunted me. I must say that for a long time I had a very good time. London provides fertile ground for the pleasure seeker. Friends from my army days eventually drifted away to get on with their lives, but they were replaced by a jolly set of fellows always ripe for a spree, always willing to accompany me on any lark.”

“Always at your expense, I would imagine,” Gillian murmured.

“Well, yes, there was that. I’ve endured my share of leeches and hangers-on, but I wouldn’t let that matter. Lately, however—well, I’ve become dissatisfied with my habits. Even pleasure begins to pall eventually, I suppose. I began to think seriously of marriage—though not to Corisande, for God’s sake. Still, I suppose that is why I wasn’t more forceful with Aunt Binsted. In addition, I felt guilty for being such a constant disappointment to her and the rest of my family.”

He rose again and began to pace once more, this time seemingly in a burst of nervous energy.

“But today I felt really alive for the first time in years. The flood created a horrendous mess for all concerned, but, you’re right—I enjoyed it. I relished the need for action—the sensation that I was needed and that I was accomplishing something worthwhile.” He flung himself into his chair again and looked at Gillian. It seemed to her that his jade-colored eyes had taken on the fire of flawless gems.

He laughed.

“You see what you have done to me. Miss Gillian Tate? I fear that my life as a professional hedonist is ruined.”

“I?” Gillian hiccupped in surprise. “What on earth had I to do with your volte-face?”

“My dear, who do you think it was who caused me to embark on my tedious self-examination? I have enjoyed your company since we met. I have come to look on you as a friend--a real friend, not my usual sort of fair weather companions. You, in turn, have been more than kind—but do you think I have not sensed the mild contempt you feel for—’my sort’ as I think you phrased it? You may have chosen to hide yourself in a backwater, which I think the height of folly-” He flung up a hand to halt the protest forming on Gillian’s lips. “But you have made something of that choice. You have made yourself indispensable to two people whom you love, and who love you in turn. You are busy almost every minute of every day in some useful enterprise, whether it’s organizing a church fete or gathering materials for the village school. You made me ashamed of my lack of purpose and my mindless adherence to a life of frivolity. I was forced to take stock of myself—or at least to begin to do so. Today was just the kick in the behind I’ve been needing—almost searching for, I think.”

Gillian was almost afraid to breath. Was he being truthful—with her and with himself? Was he saying that he planned to change his life from this moment forward? Could a man make such a profound decision in the course of one short day? The questions whirled in her brain, with more joining them every moment. Cord had said that the need for change had been growing in him for some time, but had she truly been an influence in this final revelation? Even if he was serious in his purpose, could he remain steady on his path to reform?

“B-but the memories . . .” she began.

“Mmm, I see what you mean—but it’s the oddest thing. If I’d been paying attention, I might have noticed that time has at last begun to do its work. Oh, I still think of the bad old times now and then, but they have receded. I find that now I can bear to contemplate the ghastliness without becoming physically ill. My emotion is sadness, chiefly, for all the young lives wasted.”

“Cord, I ... am so very happy for you,” choked Gillian.

Cord placed his hand under Gillian’s chin. His laughter was soft, when it came, but held a genuine joy, which Gillian had always felt absent before.

“Now, my dear, no more tears. They are surely wasted on ‘my sort.’ I am not about to become a monk, after all. I imagine I might indulge in the odd orgy now and then. I can only promise that I look forward to a more productive future—and I have you to thank for it.”

Before Gillian could utter a blushing rejoinder. Cord rose to his feet. “It’s getting late,” he said abruptly. “Your aunt and uncle will think I’ve kidnapped you.”

“Why, so it is!” exclaimed Gillian in surprise, glancing at the darkened windowpanes. She stood as well, brushing sandwich crumbs from her skirt. She felt suddenly awkward, and when, a few moments later, they stood in front of the house, bathed in moonlight, waiting for their horses to be brought around, she sought refuge in bright, empty chatter.

“Yes,” agreed Cord somewhat bemusedly, “I do think the weather will hold fair for the fete next week. They rode in silence during the short journey to Rose Cottage, and when they arrived and had dismounted, Gillian would have turned quickly into the house. Cord placed a gentle hand on her arm, and Gillian experienced a shock of awareness.

Oh, my, she thought, her heart beginning to pound. Here you are, alone with him again. In the dark, in the moonlight, and you, you wretched idiot, stand here waiting—hoping he will take you in his arms again and . . .

And he did. With what sounded like a moan, he gathered her to him. For several moments, he simply held her close. She fancied she could feel the beat of his heart through the layers of cloth that separated them, and she imagined that the heat from his body might consume her. He brushed his lips against her temple in a soft whisper of a kiss. But then, when his mouth came down on hers, she opened to meet him.

He kissed her, not with the urgency of their last encounter, but with a yearning tenderness that, oddly, made her want to cry. His mouth moved over hers as though tasting her, absorbing her very essence. She felt herself opening to him, inviting him to explore the very depths of her being. His hands moved slowly along her back as though he were memorizing the contours of her body. She pressed into him, her body limning his as well.

His mouth moved away then, to press warm, slow kisses along her jaw and throat, leaving little rivers of fire in their wake.

“Dear God, Gillian,” he whispered, “I don’t know what is happening to me. I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”

He drew back to look at her, and in the moonlight his eyes were green flame. He laughed softly. “Lord, that was original, wasn’t it? But I mean it. I’ve spoken many pretty words to many pretty women, but you are unique—and so are my feelings for you.”

All the while he spoke, his hands caressed her hair, her cheeks, the tender nape of her neck until she thought she would simply dissolve in a puddle of mindless desire. At his next words, however, she came to herself with jarring abruptness.

“Gillian, I have never said this before—and I really don’t know how to say it so that you will believe me, but I think I’m fall—”

Panic surged through Gillian in an icy wave, and she thrust herself from Cord’s embrace. “Falling under my spell?” she asked brightly. “Goodness, Cord, you’re right. For a man of your charm and experience, you are being dismally trite.”

Cord stepped back as though she had struck him.

“Do not discompose yourself, however. I am, of course, flattered by the attention of a man of the world such as yourself, but I fear that if I do not take care, I shall become another in one I am sure is a long line of your conquests. I shall therefore bid you good night, sir.”

With those words, still spoken in that light, brittle voice, she whirled from him and darted into the house. Cord was left staring at the closed door, his eyes dark pools against the whiteness of his face.

Chapter Fourteen

Cord’s first reaction to Gillian’s incomprehensible behavior was anger. He stood before the house with clenched fists for a long moment, until the groom came around to claim Falstaff. He mounted Zeus then, and cantered away from Rose Cottage in a fog of wrathful bewilderment. Good God, he had told her things he had never revealed to another living soul. He had poured out the anguish that had festered within him for years. His pain had moved her, he was sure. Later, the mood of that soul-sharing still upon him, he had kissed her with an ardor more sincere than any he had ever experienced before. He had spilled his heart into that embrace. And she had responded with a sweetness and an innocent passion such as he had never known. Then, when he’d tried to tell her of his feelings for her, she had turned him off like a spigot. No. She had drained cold water from that spigot and dashed it in his face.

To be sure, he had spoken awkwardly. He had never before, after all, tried to reveal his deepest emotions to a female—emotions he had not even been fully aware of before he began to speak.

He could not say when he had come to want more from Gillian than either a temporary liaison or, later, a simple friendship. He had been attracted to her physically from the first moment of their acquaintance, of course, but it was only later that he had come to realize that she had taken up permanent residence in his heart.

The full force of this reality had not become apparent to him until he began to speak, but he knew as soon as the words formed on his tongue that they were true. He was falling in love with Gillian Tate!

How many women had he known? he wondered sardonically. He had enjoyed them all—some for their beauty, some for their charm, others simply because they wanted him. But none of them had inspired in him a desire to protect—to make them a part of his life. Gillian had become part of the fabric of his being. He felt somehow empty when he was not with her, and complete when he was.

He had begun to think she felt the same way. Surely, her lovely eyes took on a special sparkle when they laughed together. Her smile seemed to hold a warmth that was just for him. And she had welcomed his embraces. She had responded to his kisses with what he was sure was a genuine passion.

What, then, had caused her to speak to him just now as a hardened flirt might address an importunate swain?

By the time he rode into the Wildehaven stable yard, Cord’s anger had subsided into a cold melancholy. He could only conclude that he had been mistaken in Gillian’s feelings for him—her seemingly ardent response to his embrace. Apparently, she wanted no more from him but a mild friendship, and when he left Cambridgeshire, her memory of him would be no more than that of a pleasant interlude.