Timeless Desire (15 page)

But Adderly knew better. The woman spoke in that same flat, guttural accent as Clementina. If she had come with the intention of confronting him about what he’d done or even blackmailing him, she would soon wish she hadn’t.

On the other hand . . .

He considered what the information from Clementina had done for him. The battle had played out just as she’d described. It had been an easy matter for him to order the regiments to the fields using precisely the strategy history had recorded and watch it unfold like a chess game from his post in the rear.

He’d been a fool to not have extracted more from her when he had the chance, especially now that the means to do so had been taken away from him.

Mrs. Carnegie, or whatever her real name was, represented both an opportunity and a threat. If she had access to the same sort of information as Clementina, he had the tools to ensure that she gave it to him willingly. If she had come to expose him, to call into question his reputation as a military hero or, worse, to offer her information to another, he would destroy her. Either way, he would start by gaining her trust.

“Has the queen given us permission to attack?” Adderly asked, turning his attention to the army’s problems for a moment. He would dearly love to receive another promotion from all of this.

“She has not.” His father picked up the queen’s note, its large red seal catching the morning light. “According to my latest orders, we are to enter into a fight only if ‘a reasonably injurious attack is made on the people of Cumbria or Northumberland.’”

“‘Reasonably’?”

“Defendable. The queen will have to justify it to Parliament, and they are in no mood for another war.”

Adderly groaned. He hated the Scots. Hated their thieving, lying ways. The sooner England could put the bridle in Scotland’s mouth, the better. But clan chiefs like Bridgewater’s grandfather, Hector MacIver, refused to bend. And MacIver controlled enough of the other clans to keep a surrender from ever happening.

“They killed two men near Bowness three days ago,” Adderly said.

“
Someone
killed them. It could have been the Scottish army, the rebels here, Clan MacIver, or your great-aunt Joan. We have no proof.”

Adderly considered the castle in the distance. “Do you suppose Bridgewater is in league with his grandfather?”

His father leaned back in his chair. “I don’t think so. There’s only one person Bridgewater hates more than me, and that’s his grandfather.”

“Of course, there the hatred at least has some basis in logic. The man banished Bridgewater’s mother from his home, though I might have done the same in similar circumstances.”

The older man shifted.

“Why do you insist on keeping the man in our regiments? It’s an embarrassment to the family. The way he fawns over that crypt . . . Do you suppose he built it and had her moved there just to stick a thumb in the eye of the Bridgewater family?”

His father gazed out the narrow window as if he hadn’t heard. “Bridgewater’s an excellent soldier.”

“As well as a traitor.”

His father pushed the queen’s note away from him. “Bridgewater does not support England’s policy in the borderlands, but so long as a man in my army keeps his mouth shut and executes his orders, I cannot fault him for his beliefs. And Bridgewater is the most capable officer I’ve ever seen on a battlefield.”

Though his father’s eyes had maintained their affectionate gaze, Adderly was quite certain the earl had
not
excluded present company when he’d said that. Adderly tossed the remaining hazelnuts into the bowl, brushed his hands on his breeks, and left.

T
HE MOMENT HE CLOSED THE DOORS OF HIS LIBRARY
, B
RIDGEWATER
tore into Panna. “What game are you at?” he demanded fiercely. “Do you know who you are playing with?”

“I thought I did,” she said, equally as angry.

“I don’t mean me. Though if I find you have crossed me, you will regret it.”

“Adderly seems fine. Polite and kind.”

“You realize, of course, he is the man who put this on my face.” He gestured to his purpled eye.

“Perhaps you deserved it.”

“Perhaps it is time for you to tell me exactly who you are.”

“I told you but you didn’t believe me! I’m from the future. I came in through your stupid chapel. I saw you there, praying. But it looked like you were”—she paused, remembering his pained face—“busy. So I ran to the first doorway and found myself in your library. Which is when you marched in and insulted me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“But you do. Admit it. I don’t talk like anyone you’ve met. I probably don’t look like anyone you’ve known.”

His eyes flicked over her like a geologist assessing a foreign rock formation.

“I could tell you what happened in 1812 or 1941 or 2001,” she said, “and you’d be shocked. But it wouldn’t matter because you wouldn’t know if I was telling the truth or not.”

“I told you to be careful, lass. Twas not too many years ago you’d be burned at the stake for such a claim.”

“I am telling
you
, damn it. It’s the truth. I have no interest in being here. And you have certainly done all you can to make me feel unwelcome.”

A guilty twitch of one eye told Panna the remark had hit home.

“‘All’ is an exaggeration,” he said after a moment. “At least, I hope it is. There were moments I tried to make you feel most welcome.”

“And I saved you twice,” she said hotly, refusing to be softened. “How much more proof of my loyalty do you need? Does anyone
ever
earn your trust? Or are you a man totally unto himself, with no need for others? That’s a pretty sorry way to go through life, if you ask me.”

He stood unmoving, though Panna could see the reverberations of her words in his face.

“My circumstances have not encouraged me to be trusting.”

“Your
circumstances
?” she cried. “You live in a castle—with a library fit for a king!”

He said nothing, though she could see the battle of emotions on his face. “You said you saved me twice. I know about the soup bowl. What else did you mean?”

“What do you think? I delivered a blank note to Clare.”

“That was
you
?” A look of such intense relief passed over his face, she thought he might weep, and he swept her into his arms. “I know the rebels dispersed from Carlisle before the army arrived, but I didn’t know why. You saved many men’s lives,” he whispered. “You saved
me
.”

She felt a tremble pass through him and held him as tight as she dared. “I’m glad you’re well—and free,” she said when they broke apart. “What happened last night?”

“As I said, I had an errand to run.”

“The boy? Thomas?”

Bridgewater met her eyes. “Aye.”

“Is he all right?”

“He will be. He was beaten. They broke his arm. Twas my fault.”

She touched his hand.
What a burden to carry.
“And you?”

“Once I freed him, I returned here. My absence had not been discovered. This morning I was told I was free to leave. Reeves told me that by the time the soldiers arrived in Carlisle, the rebels were gone. Which meant the grounds under which I was being held were no longer valid.”

“I’m glad. I arrived at Clare’s house late last night.” She gave him a look. “Clare is an odd name for a man.”

The tiniest glint appeared in his eye. “I’d suggest you not mention that to him.”

“I got that impression.”

“Twas in honor of an Uncle Clarence, I believe.”

“In any case, once he got your message, he sent Aphrodite to warn the rebels.”

She pulled the ribbon on her wrist free and dropped it in his hand.

He gazed at the length of satin, eyes downcast. “I apologize. Twas ungentlemanly to use you in such a way. Sometimes I . . . I don’t know who to trust.”

“Who
do
you trust?” She was intensely aware that Adderly would be arriving shortly. “It would help me to know.”

“Clare,” he said. “Completely. Reeves. A few men among the rebels.”

“Any in the army?”

He thought for a moment, then shook his head.

Servants and a few colleagues? “Surely you have some family.”

“None.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

“No. My mother is dead. She died before I even knew her.”

“And your father?” She would make no more assumptions.

The blood beat in the hollow of his throat. “My parents never married. My father does not acknowledge me.”

Bridgewater was a
bastard
! Worse, he was an unacknowledged bastard. She began to offer her sympathy, but those proud, wounded eyes told her it would be a mistake.

“He is an industrious man whose work is important to the country and at which he is much skilled,” Bridgewater said, then added sadly, “but he is also weak and vain.”

The conflict on Bridgewater’s face as he uttered these two very different sentiments was heart-wrenching.

“It
is
the general, isn’t it?”

Bridgewater straightened, struggling not to give in to the shame of the situation. “Aye.”

Which explained the general’s behavior toward Bridgewater as well as Bridgewater’s behavior in return. What a horrible situation: To spend your life in constant contact with a man who denies his fundamental tie to you.

“How can he not acknowledge you?” she said. “For God’s sake, you look so much like him.”

Bridgewater sighed. “Men choose what they wish to see. He chooses not to see it.”

“But the other officers? The people of the town?” If
she
could see it, surely everyone else could, too.

“I know there are men among the officers who believe he is my father. I can see it in their eyes when they look at me, the mixture of pity and jealousy, though how they might be jealous of this empty life, I do not know. But what good would it do them to gainsay a general? He is their commanding officer. And as for the people of the town . . .” He gave her a look. “You are on your way to convincing me you are not of this time, for only a person who had not lived in eighteenth-century Europe would wonder at the falsehoods one will pretend to swallow from a wealthy nobleman.”

“Then Viscount Adderly . . . ?”

“My half brother. Not that he acknowledges it.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “Though, in his case, I do not fault it. I truly think he does not believe it. Twould be impossible in his world for a man such as me to be related to him.”

“Yet you carry your father’s surname.”

A wry smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “My mother was an optimist, I suppose. It has not served me as she had hoped. The people of Cumbria find my use of it rather foolish, and the officers . . . well, let’s say ‘foolish’ would be a kind word for their thoughts on it.”

Panna gazed at their opulent surroundings, which had, as Adderly indicated, been put almost to right, except for some missing panes of glass in several of the bookcase doors. This was a rich man’s home, and yet Bridgewater was not the acknowledged heir of a rich man—that is, unless the money that had purchased this place had come through his mother from his grandfather. “Your mother had her own means?”

Bridgewater laughed bitterly. “Hardly. My grandfather disowned her when she found herself carrying the young earl’s child. They never exchanged another word. She was but sixteen.”

Panna blew out a long puff of breath. Sixteen, pregnant, and abandoned. Panna wouldn’t have survived.

“So she had you . . . where?”

“A priest in a small village outside Carlisle took pity on her. He allowed her to earn her living by cleaning the church—but not to take the sacrament,” Bridgewater added with evident resentment. “She died a few weeks after I was born—some sort of fever. He put me in the church’s orphanage and served as a sort of father to me.”

From orphan to army officer in possession of a small castle. An amazing rise in circumstances. It was impolite to ask, but she couldn’t help herself. “How did you find yourself here?”

“In the castle? Or the army?”

“Either. Both.”

“The army was easy. I enlisted as soon as I was able and earned my way to captain with exemplary service.”

She thought of Adderly, the man whose likeness stood in her library. Both brothers had served their countries, but of course only the son of the earl would earn the lasting tribute of a statue.

“You enlisted in your father’s regiment?”

Bridgewater made a self-conscious shrug. “As I said, he is an excellent officer, and I could not have chosen a better man to serve under. Twill do us no good for you to refer to him as my father. He was most angry the one time I rather foolishly approached him about it.”

Panna thought it very likely Bridgewater was drawn to the earl’s regiment for reasons that went much deeper than his admiration of the man’s achievements. Every man longs for validation from his father, even if the only way to gain it is through success in one’s career. But what could drive a father to deny his child?

“Is it possible the general didn’t know your mother carried his child?”