The Soldier's Poisoned Heart (True Love and Deception) (Victorian Historical Romance Book 1) (21 page)

This time he didn't drop the ring and slipped it onto her fingers, whatever anxieties having been shaken loose with the dropping of the ring. Things, he thought, could only improve from there.

The Reverend continued on; John Paul did not listen. Could not listen; his attention was pulled too-powerfully by the empty chair, still empty. The preternatural stillness, outside of this small circle. There was no one stirring in the house, no one coming out late.

Wherever Henry was, he wasn't coming. The colonel felt his anger beginning to rise, but he pushed it aside. There would be a time for reprisals, but this was supposed to be a happy occasion.

"You may now seal the promises you have made with each other with a kiss," he heard the Reverend say. He looked finally straight into Lydia's eyes.

She looked concerned; no doubt, she had seen him examining the crowd. Whatever she thought, he did not know, and he pushed his own concerns away. In a few more hours, he could be angry, but for now he was standing in his own wedding ceremony, beside the most beautiful woman in the world. He pushed himself forward and gently laid a kiss on her lips.

After a moment she pulled away, and he looked into her eyes. She looked into his, and then started crying and wrapped her arms around his neck. He smiled and let her lead him off to one of the tables they had set up for the breakfast that had been set for after the wedding.

The Colonel could feel his stomach twisting itself into a knot with hunger, but he ignored it. He needed to eat, of course, at some point, but he worried about the nature of his food. If he were to finally take enough of whatever Henry had been feeding him to lay him low…he worried about what would happen to Lydia.

She might move back in with her brother, of course. But that would mean abandoning the house, abandoning all of her Husband's things in it. The alternative was staying with Henry. John Paul knew how well he could be trusted, now. He felt his anger stirring, and tried to push it aside, but it would not be ignored.

Thomas had a large cake on one of the tables off to the side, and he passed out slices from it, each to a different guest, and then last of all he brought two small cakes to the bride and groom. John Paul cut his, but didn't eat it; he contented himself to watching Lydia eat hers. He couldn't say that he was afraid; that would be embarassing enough on its own, but neither could he take the risk.

Poisoning the food was a dangerous proposition. Everyone would be eating the same meal, dished out from the same dishes. Poisoning one would have meant poisoning them all, or worse, bringing the food personally to John Paul. No, Henry probably wouldn't have risked it. John Paul would not eat it all the same, but it was an unlikely suspect.

The cakes, on the other hand…it was the ideal option, and the Colonel avoided even touching it. He could nearly smell the taint on it, though he thought it was probably all an effect of the mind rather than any real taint on the food itself.

Lydia leaned over toward him.

"Is everything alright, dear?"

"Of course," he lied.

There was nothing wrong with her; nothing wrong that she could address. He merely worried about Henry's absence, about what sort of mischief he could get up to on his own. About his own safety, and the safety of his wife. If there was nothing that she could do, then he would keep her blissfully unaware of his concerns.

After a half-hour or so, with John Paul looking at the food rather than eating it, he saw a largeish man, nearly as heavy as John Paul himself had been though much rounder. The large man was General Smith, and he was making his way terribly slowly to the table where bride and groom sat together, looking out over the dining party.

"Ah, Colonel Foster. Missus Foster. A wonderful ceremony. Wonderful. You've got yourself quite a lovely bride, John Paul." He smiled, his eyes twinkling. "You should be proud of her, for dealing with you all this time."

"Lydia, this is General Reede Smith."

"A pleasure to meet you, General. Thank you for coming."

"Of course," he said. "Of course."

They came like this, one after the other. Next came Andy, and then Waldo, and then Simon sheepishly came and inquired if they were enjoying the food before going on to congratulate them himself. One after the other, like clockwork.

John Paul's anger nearly threatened to disappear altogether; everyone was being so kind. They hadn't mentioned his condition since the first day, had been terribly accomodating. He had to smile. There were times when he had been concerned that he had no friends in the world at all, but it seemed that he had been mistaken.

And then, as quickly as it had subsided, he saw his nephew. He was trying desparately not to make any commotion around the party, putting a finger to his lips as the servants opened their mouths to ask why he hadn't been at the wedding. He must have supposed that his uncle had not noticed him, or more, had not noticed his absence at all in the madness of the wedding.

Unluckily for Henry, he had noticed.

Chapter 21

John Paul could feel, in spite of his best efforts, his lips curl into a sneer. What sort of behavior was this? Was this how a civilized person behaved? He could smell alcohol on his nephew's breath when he came up to the table and began his own congratulations speech.

"Missus Foster," he began. "You are looking absolutely lovely today. A wonderful ceremony, absolutely lovely."

John Paul cut him off after only a few moments. "That's enough, Henry."

Henry could see the look on his face, read the mood. He started to step back.

"What did you think you were doing last night? With my wife?"

Henry didn't offer an answer. John Paul could see Lydia hiding her face from the crowd, but he ignored it. The boy had plenty to answer for, and if it was the last thing he did then John Paul would make him answer for it.

"Answer me, Henry Roche, or I swear in front of the Lord—"

"Nothing, uncle, nothing. I did nothing!"

"I saw you, Henry, and you dare to lie to me? I saw everything."

Henry turned and looked at the crowd behind them for a moment. Several of the men had pushed their chairs back. All eyes were on the three of them, several guests looking uncertain as to how to respond to all of it.

Henry turned back. He was sneering, and he took two rapid steps toward the table where the newlyweds sat. The silverware made a clattering sound as he put his full weight on the table and leaned across it toward John Paul.

"And what if you did?"

John Paul's hand darted up and slapped the boy hard.

"I'll kill you," he said, plainly. Henry looked at him with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

"And how do you intend to do that, then?"

John Paul glowered at him.

"Tomorrow morning. Six on the clock. You have your choice of weapons, but I'll warn you that if you don't choose, then I will."

Henry looked at him. His eyes were wild. He was incensed, and John Paul felt the same as well.

"Very well. Agreed."

He pushed himself away from the table and stalked off through the garden. The door slammed behind.

Andrew came up to the table. "Did I hear you correctly?"

"What did you hear?"

"A duel? How terribly old-fashioned." John Paul nearly spat a sharply-worded retort, before he saw the smile crossing his old colleague's face. "If you needed a second…"

John Paul thought about it for a second and nodded. He was tired. There was a general commotion after Henry's hasty exit, after the gossip of what John Paul could possibly have been referring to. He ignored them as best he could; there was nothing to be done for it, and he wanted to spend at least one last evening with Lydia before he put his life on the line.

John Paul went to bed early. It was hard to push Lydia away, now that he had a sense of things moving forward, but he needed to rise early. He was naturally inclined lately to rise at all sort of unreasonable hours and he needed to rest if he were going to do anything other.

Lydia laid in the bed beside her new husband, watching him sleep. Why did he have to do this? There was certainly some easier solution to his problems, she thought. But she knew there was nothing she could do to stop him. She settled eventually into an uneasy sleep.

In the morning John Paul was roused by Andy; he helped the Colonel dress and led him out of the room. Both of them endeavored to be quiet, to avoid waking Lydia. There was no place for women in a fight like this, they silently agreed. She woke anyways, but kept her eyes closed and pretended to sleep.

The sun was starting to rise already when they met Henry a few miles down the road; streaks of pink were beginning to cut through the black sky. Andrew laid out a selection of weapons; pistols, sabres, rapiers. No one asked where he'd gotten them, though they seemed well-used.

John Paul hoped against hope that the boy would choose pistols. He was a good enough shot himself, and it would not tax him overmuch, but it was too much to hope for, he knew. The choice would have to be one of the swords. Henry examined the entire table, even picking up one of the pistols as if to tease John Paul with hope.

But eventually he picked up the long, slender rapiers and gave it an experimental thrust. "This one," he announced.

John Paul was helped to his feet; there would be no cane for him, here, and he knew that the fight could not last very long if he were to have any chance at all. He took the blade in his hand and then pushed himself up and away from Andy, who dashed out of the way. The fight was underway.

Henry resisted his temptation to immediately rush in; John Paul hated him for that. If only he'd been the same fool he'd been before. He knew the score here; Henry only had to wait a few moments and then John Paul would lose all by himself; he hadn't the energy to stay upright for more than a few minutes. The only answer, then, was to force things.

As John Paul thought it, he took a heavy step forward and made a thrust at Henry's thigh; it was knocked away easily, but he had expected that, and at the last moment dipped the point of his blade. He could see the opening in Henry's side. All he had to do was lift the point and ram it through the meat of his nephew's exposed arm as his blade sailed by.

But his hand wouldn't bring the blade around fast enough. He made the attempt, but Henry slapped it away. He kept the tip on target this time and made a quick riposte. John Paul saw it all happen, as if in slow-motion. All of it was better fencing than Henry had ever shown him. There was some small degree of pride in the fear that struck him. He'd done this, taught Henry the first thing about fighting with a blade. And now Henry used it against him.

He pushed back with his feet and leaned away from the thrust that threatened to poke a hole in his chest. Henry left the point there, threatening, as he stepped forward to press the point against his uncle's chest. John Paul brought his weapon around in a wide arc and knocked it off-line, but his move had been too big and he was out of position to make a response.

Henry took another step toward him and started to thrust again, and again John Paul stepped back and tried to slap it away. Henry dipped the blade and let John Paul's fly past in a too-wide arc.

John Paul was too tired to keep his hands in a good position. He had, he saw, vastly overestimated the time that he had to win this fight; his movements were too vigorous, even as they were not quick enough to defeat his nephew.

He had to pray for a miracle, then; whatever happened from then on, he would be at a sore disadvantage. He had, he guessed, a scant few movements of his blade before he passed out completely. Henry saw the exhaustion on his face and made a testing thrust.

John Paul saw it coming, but couldn't do anything to stop it. He was going to die, he realized. Not some day; not in a matter of days or weeks. Henry would jam a length of steel through his shoulder, and then his throat, and he'd be dead.

In his last moments, some animal instinct caused his left hand to come around and grab the blade. John Paul could feel the blade digging into his fingers, but he gripped it as tight as he could in the hopes that he would manage to keep it held for just a few moments; just long enough to make his last play. He brought the tip of his own blade up and pointed it at Henry's chin and pushed it up.

He felt, a moment too late to stop, Henry pulling his blade free. He wouldn't have time to push the blade home and win the fight before Henry deflected the thrust. He had lost.

John Paul took a desparate step forward and fell onto his nephew, dropping the pair of them in a massive tangle of blades and limbs. His vision was dimming; he could only make out general shapes and colors.

He pulled his sword-arm back and readied the point, feeling for Henry's face, and when he had found it he pushed the blade point forward until he couldn't any more, and Henry stopped struggling.

John Paul, unable to support the weight of his body, slumped down onto his nephew. He could hear, very lightly, that the young man was still breathing. Somehow John Paul had made some error in his final assault, and the boy hadn't been killed outright. He could see, from this distance, that the wound was ugly and in his neck.

That he would die, then, was not in question, but in those last few moments Henry tried to speak.

"Uncle," he whispered. He could tell that it was as loud as his nephew could speak.

"What is it," John Paul gulped down air as best he could, but it seemed the air wouldn't come into his lungs. "My boy?"

"Damn you for a fool," his nephew replied between shallow breaths. "You must have known."

"It was Simon," John Paul protested.

"It was never Simon, you damned fool," Henry said softly, and then he died.

John Paul rolled off the limp body of his nephew and tried to breathe. His breaths were coming slow and hard. He could feel a hurt in his chest where he'd thought that he had turned Henry's blade away. A red spot was spreading out of it, and it hurt when he took a breath. Andy came rushing up and knelt over John Paul, checking his wound.

Whatever he found, he wrapped John Paul's arm around his neck and hefted him up into something approximating a standing position. The Colonel tried to take a step, leaning hard on his old friend, but his feet wouldn't move properly. He went limp and let Andrew carry him. By the time they were back to the road, a scant hundred meters, Andy saw, the colonel was unconscious.

Andy returned to find Lydia standing on the porch with a lantern, waiting for them. She panicked when she saw John Paul draped so over his friend's shoulder. She guided Andy immediately into a bedroom, where they laid him down and she pressed a compress against the wound in his chest.

She could see his chest moving up and down as he breathed, but that was the only indication she could find that he had not already passed on; he could not be roused. He'd opened his eyes for a few minutes that evening, said a few words, and passed out once again.

Lydia sat in the front room reading. John Paul watched her reading instead of looking at the book laying open in his own lap. He had recovered well in the months that passed afterward. Between his divided attention and her mild way of acting, he almost hadn't noticed it. She was very decidedly not saying something, though. He could only ignore it for so long before the wound would begin festering.

“Lydia, what is it?”

“What is what?” She didn't look up from her book, but she pursed her lips.

“Why are you angry with me?”

“Angry with you? Whatever do you mean?” Still, she did not look up to him. Her eyes had stopped moving across the page.

The Colonel closed the book in his lap and stood up.

“Since the wedding.” He imagined feeling tired after so many months being very nearly unable to stand unaided. “You've been cross with me over something, and you won't tell me what it is.”

Lydia looked up at his remark. He had only seen her angry a few times, but it was easy to recognize. She wasn't furious; he wasn't sure that she could be that angry. Her expression was more subtle than that, but it was clear.

“Where should I start?”

Her chin jutted forward and Mr. Foster thought his wife looked very pretty when she was angry.

“At the beginning, my darling, and then proceeding to the end.”

“Very cute, John Paul,” Mrs. Foster answered in a voice that said it wasn't. “Very well, then. The beginning. You didn't trust me, and that's the worst part.”

“I know,” John Paul answered.

He had been racked with guilt in the days that had followed. He was absolutely unable to leave the bed for several days. They said he had a tiny puncture to his lung, and he believed it. Lydia came and sat with him more often than not, but when he was alone, the madness of the past year returned to him.

How had he been such a fool? It had stared him right in the face from the beginning. He should have known that his nephew was not trustworthy. He should have trusted his first impressions of Simon. He was too simple and eager to please to formulate such a plan. In the moment, it had all made good sense. Even now, the shame and guilt over his own foolishness was never far from his mind.

Lydia saw something in his eyes, then, and he saw her face soften.

“And that foolishness afterward. Dueling your nephew? You could have died, John Paul Foster, and left your poor wife alone.”

“I'm sorry.”

She marked her place in her book and set it aside.

“You'll just have to make it up to me.” She stepped up to him and put a hand under his chin. She pulled it up until their eyes met. He could see a joke twinkling in them that threatened to come and play.

“How can I ever make my foolishness up to you?”

Lydia pressed her lips into his.

“I have been hoping,” she said, a devilish grin crossing her face. “Perhaps you would help me start a family.”

“Oh?”

She pressed herself into him and he wrapped his arms around her. They stood there a moment, their faces only inches apart.

“I love you, John Paul Foster.”