The Escape (Survivor's Club) (10 page)

“And she to you?” He was smiling again. “You will not go with her to your father-in-law’s home, then?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I lived there for a year after Matthew’s regiment was sent to the Peninsula.” She only just stopped herself from saying more.

He raised his eyebrows.

“I would not wish to return,” she said. “And I have no doubt my father-in-law shares my sentiments.”

“I do not have an acquaintance with the Earl of Heathmoor,” Sir Benedict said.

It was not surprising. When he went to London, that den of all iniquity, the earl divided his time between the House of Lords and his clubs. He rarely attended any of the entertainments of the Season, and his womenfolk were not permitted to attend any. As soon as the spring session ended, he withdrew to Leyland and stayed there until duty called him forth again. He attended the Church of England, but one would never guess it from his attitudes and behavior. He was the quintessential Puritan. Anything that smacked of pleasure must by its very nature be sinful. Anything that ran counter to his sober principles and rules must be of the devil, and anyone who disobeyed him was the devil’s spawn. He ruled his family with an iron fist, though to be fair, physical violence was rarely if ever necessary.

“I do not believe you would enjoy such an acquaintance,” she said.

“You may rely upon my discretion not to tell anyone you just said that, ma’am,” he said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. But he continued to look at her, and the smile faded from all but his eyes. “When I spent those years at Penderris Hall with my fellow Survivors, I had six confidants. They understood my thoughts and feelings because they were experiencing similar ones.
They knew when to advise, when to laugh at me or cajole, when merely to listen. They knew when to draw close and when to keep their distance. I believe it was only after I had left there that I fully understood how blessed I had been—and still am. I can say anything in the world to those friends, and they can say anything in the world to me without fearing censure and with the sure knowledge that what is said will remain confidential. We all need people to whom we can speak freely. I have my sister too. We have always been close even though she is five years my senior. The older we get, however, the less wide that gap appears.”

Was he telling her that he knew and understood all the things she had not put into words? That he understood her loneliness and sense of isolation? She only partly understood them herself. She had always been lonely and had always denied it, even to herself. To admit it would be to allow self-pity a toehold in her consciousness. And there was something almost shameful about loneliness, as if one must be unlovable as well as unloved.

“I envy you,” she said. “It must be lovely to have close friends.”

Too late she realized what she had admitted. For surely Matthew ought to have been such a friend.

“I am afraid,” she said, “that I must already have committed that dreadful social faux pas of outstaying my welcome. We must have been sitting here for close to an hour. Matilda will be having forty fits. Perhaps forty-four if she ever discovers that Lady Gramley was not here.”

She got to her feet and waited for him to rise too.

“Do you ride?” he asked as they began the slow walk up to the terrace.

“I learned as a girl,” she told him, “though I did not have the chance to ride often. My father owned only the
ancient beloved mare that pulled our gig at a speed roughly equivalent to a brisk stroll. Matthew insisted I ride more often after we were married, and I became quite proficient in the saddle, though it was not something that was encouraged when I was at Leyland. I have not ridden since I came to Bramble Hall.”

“There are several horses in the stables here,” he said. “Bea was commenting just yesterday that they are not exercised as often as they ought to be. She was indisposed over much of the winter and has only now been cleared for regular activity. Will you ride with me one day? Perhaps the day after tomorrow?”

“Oh,” she said. “I—”

She was about to decline—for all the usual and obvious reasons. But she remembered the fright and exhilaration of those rare rides in her childhood, and the wonder and joy of riding what she had called a
real
horse after her marriage.

She was overwhelmed by temptation.

What would Matil—No! She did not
care
what Matilda would say.

“I shall ask Bea to ride with us, of course,” he added.

“I would
like
to.”

They spoke simultaneously.

“I shall choose a horse for you, then,” he said, “and have a groom lead it over to Bramble Hall when we come.”

“Thank you.” She turned her head to look at his face in profile. She could tell from the set of his mouth that walking was not easy for him. It was very probably painful too, but he moved at a steady, though slow, pace, and he uttered no complaint.

She wondered what other injuries he had suffered.

She was so glad she had made this visit, she thought a few minutes later as she drove away in the gig, a groom having brought it up to the terrace for her. She was even
glad Lady Gramley had not been here, for it was unlikely they would have sat out in the garden in the brightness of the sunshine, feeling the heat of it on their faces and bodies.

And she was glad she had had the courage to agree to ride with Sir Benedict—and Lady Gramley.

She felt really quite restored in spirit.

Perhaps she was coming alive again.

But whatever would Matilda say?

“I
t is quite fascinating to observe how differently various people are affected by their infirmities,” Beatrice said over a late tea. “Some people are an inspiration. They remain smiling and cheerful while suffering the most dreadful afflictions. Others make one feel as though one were being sucked into a black hole with them, poor things.”

“You look exhausted,” Ben said.

“But glad to be back to my parish and community duties at last,” she assured him. “How did you enjoy your ride?”

“Very well indeed,” he said, “for the five minutes it lasted. I was just riding out when I spotted a gig coming along the road in the direction of the house. It looked to me as though the lone occupant was dressed in unrelieved black. So I turned around and came back.”

“Mrs. McKay?” she said. “Without Lady Matilda?”

“The lady has a head cold.”

“And so Mrs. McKay was able to escape alone.” She smiled at him. “You were not so lost to all conduct as to entertain her in here alone, I hope, Ben?”

“We sat outside in the garden for all of an hour,” he told her.

It was a bit surprising, actually, that he had even turned back from his ride, since he might easily have escaped without her seeing him. And he certainly could have stopped her from staying. It had not been her suggestion.
But then he was the one who had suggested that she call at Robland. He had felt sorry for her, cooped up in that gloomy manor with the battle-ax.

“Poor lady,” Beatrice said. “I do not suppose her sister-in-law is good company even when she is in the best of health. Mrs. McKay must be very lonely. I wish I had been here.”

“If ever the topic should arise, Bea,” he said, “you have been complaining just recently that the horses in the stables are in need of more exercise than they are getting.”

“Oh?” she said in some surprise. “
Have
I been so slandering my grooms? I am obliged to you for reminding me, Benedict, as I have no recollection of saying any such thing. And why
should
the topic arise?”

“I said as much to Mrs. McKay before she left here,” he explained.

“Oh?” Her cup paused between the saucer and her lips.

“I asked her to ride with me the afternoon after tomorrow,” he said, “but I suspect there is no suitable mount in the stables at Bramble Hall.”

“I do not doubt you are right.” She placed her cup back in its saucer and set both aside. “And she agreed?”

“Yes.”

She rested her elbows on the arms of her chair and regarded him with a slight frown. “I doubt her sister-in-law will allow it,” she said. “
If
she has power over Mrs. McKay, that is. But is it wise anyway, Ben? I can see no reason why a recently bereaved widow ought not to take the air on horseback if she so desires, but in the lone company of a single gentleman?”

“I did say I would persuade you to join us,” he said. “Will you, Bea? Are you feeling up to it?”

“I certainly will be,” she said, “if the alternative is for
you to ride out alone with a lady, Ben. It would not be at all proper, even if she were not in deep mourning.”

“She is lonely, as you just observed,” he said, “and restless.”

Though why he should have taken it upon himself to try to alleviate that restlessness, he did not know.

“It is hardly surprising,” she said. “She has been virtually incarcerated at Bramble Hall ever since she arrived. I suppose it was a labor of love, poor lady, nursing Captain McKay, and clearly he was desperately ill, but I always thought it selfish of him not to insist that she go out occasionally, even if only to take tea with a neighbor. She never did. It is perfectly understandable that by now, with the first wave of her grief passing off, she would be longing to flutter her wings.”

“Yes.”

She fixed him with a direct stare. “You are not making a flirt of Mrs. McKay by any chance, are you, Ben?” she asked him. “You have not conceived a tendre for her? I have been hoping for some time that you would recover your interest in women and in courtship. You have been a hermit for too long. I have been hoping you would marry before you turn thirty, though you have only a few months left in which to make me happy on that score. But I am not sure a recent widow is a wise choice, especially given the identity of her father-in-law. Of course, she is quite astonishingly lovely. She must have foreign blood to account for her dark coloring.
That
would not endear her to the Earl of Heathmoor, I daresay.”

“Beatrice,” Ben said in some exasperation, “I have met Mrs. McKay four times, including our disastrous encounter in the meadow and our brief meeting at church. We are to take a ride together the day after tomorrow—in your company. I do not believe we will be having the banns called this week or even next.”

She laughed. “She
is
very beautiful. Though the black clothes she wears are unbecoming, to say the least.”

“Agreed.”

“If you sat outside in the garden,” she said, “I suppose she kept that hideous veil over her face.”

“She pushed it back over the brim of her bonnet, actually.”

She regarded him in silence for a few seconds longer and then shrugged. “I know,” she said. “You do not need to say it aloud. You are no longer nine years old or even nineteen. You are quite capable of living your own life, and even if you are not, you would not thank me for trying to live it for you. Very well, I will not. But what
are
you going to do with your life, Ben? You have appeared to … to drift aimlessly in the years since you left Cornwall. I have sworn to myself that I will say nothing, but here I am saying it anyway and annoying you.”

He
was
irritated by the question, since he still did not know the answer. And he hated that in himself. He had always used to think of himself as a firm, decisive man. He had planned out his life when he was fifteen, and he had not deviated from that plan until a bullet and other assorted catastrophes had stopped him almost literally dead in his tracks six years ago. Now he felt as if he had been set adrift without a compass on an ocean that stretched vast and empty in every direction. He had come here with the firm intention of making plans and then launching them into effect. He was still determined to do it—tomorrow. Was it only recently he had made the discovery that tomorrow in fact never comes?

But Beatrice was someone who had always genuinely loved him. Her concern was real. She had a right to ask and a right to be answered.

“For the first year or so,” he said, “my whole focus was upon surviving. Then it was upon the monumental
task of getting up from my bed and somehow becoming mobile. And finally, and until very recently, it has been upon walking again and getting my life back as it was before so that I might proceed to live happily ever after according to the original plan. I must be very stubborn or very dense or both. I have only recently faced the truth—that neither my body nor my life will ever again be as it once was. I was a man of action, a soldier, an officer. Now I am none of those things. The trouble is, though, that I do not know what I am instead or what I will be. Or what I will do. I am in a bit of a bleak place, Bea, though I do not even know where that is.” He laughed softly.

“You will return to Kenelston after you leave here?” she asked him. “You will make an effort to settle there at last?”

“I thought I might travel first,” he said, plucking out of the air one of the ideas he had half considered. “I have done a little of it in the past few years. I have spent time in Bath, at Tunbridge Wells, in Harrogate, in other places. I thought I might see something of Scotland, the Lake District, Wales. I have even thought I might try writing a travel book. There are plenty of them for walkers. As far as I know there are none for people who cannot walk or who cannot walk easily or far. Yet there must be any number of people who would travel if they could do so without having to be ruggedly fit and healthy.”