The Short and Fascinating Tale of Angelina Whitcombe Read online

  “And as for my work, I’d best return to it. Please feel free to stay, come and go as you please.” He repeated the invitation though he half wished she’d forget he ever made it, would decide she’d had enough of Auldale. He wanted her, and that desire itself was a reminder of everything he wanted to forget.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  She came every day that week. By Saturday, he looked forward to that moment when the sun was high above, when she’d appear around the curve of the village path bearing nuncheon and her sketchbook.

  He met her halfway across the clearing and reached for the heavy basket and then kept pace with her as they walked back toward the castle.

  “I told you, you don’t need to bribe me with food.”

  “That’s what you say,” she said with a laugh. “But I prefer not taking the chance.”

  Admittedly, he enjoyed the food. While he’d grown used to his simple fare, he was not immune to the charms of a well-cooked meal.

  “I wonder what the innkeeper prepares for Sunday dinner. Do you work on Sundays?” she asked.

  “No. Actually, I go to church and then join my mother for dinner at the manor.”

  “John, you shock me!”

  He stopped in his tracks, just outside the door of the castle. He felt the warm brush of Jasper’s body against his leg as the dog passed him.

  “That I don’t work on the Sabbath?” There was merriment in her eyes and he struggled to find the joke.

  “That you are positively sociable on Sundays.” Sociable. The word stayed with him even as she continued talking. “Here I thought you were a misanthropic hermit, and all along, you’re simply an eccentric.”

  His shoulders tensed with irritation. “Perhaps I’m both.” He crossed through the threshold, stalked toward the area of the hall that had become their makeshift dining table, and deposited the basket there. He knew more by scent than by sound that she’d caught up to him.

  Yes. He knew her scent. He’d likely know it for years, be able to pick her out in the middle of a crowd, even blindfolded.

  “I suppose that today being Saturday, sociable isn’t in the cards. Shall we settle for roast duck?”

  He laughed at that, despite himself. Helped her spread the thick blanket over the cool, time-worn stones.

  “Actually, I had thought to invite you to join me tomorrow.”

  “Had you?” She was smiling at him. As always, that first brilliant flash of teeth, of sparkling eyes, stunned him. “And have you stopped thinking?”

  He reached for the loaf of bread. She was in one of her teasing moods. She’d continue this way for a while, he’d learned. Twisting whatever he’d said until she was bored or satisfied.

  “Will you?” he pressed. “I can promise you a meal at an actual table. With chairs, tablecloth, and servants.”

  “Servants, too?” she quipped. “How remarkable.”

  He sighed. Something had bothered her. He cut a thick slice out of the small truckle of Wensleydale.

  “It sounds lovely, John,” she said finally, not a tremor of humor in her voice. “But you know I cannot.”

  He looked up.

  “Don’t stare at me as if you don’t understand,” she exclaimed. “You aren’t that dense.”

  She thought him dense? He’d been one of the best at Woolwich. Nonetheless, he did at that moment feel like he was missing something.

  “I’m an actress. Not a lady. I hardly think your mother wishes to break bread with Lord Alverley’s former mistress.”

  His cheeks burned hot.

  He knew, of course, her history, but it was simply part of who Angelina was. His companion in hiding away from the world. In misanthropy and eccentricity. He laughed.

  “It isn’t funny.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “It’s just, I don’t think of you that way.”

  Her face went still, wiped clean, as if she had donned a mask of Angelina and not the expressive woman he’d come to know.

  “I know.” She made it sound like a failing that he didn’t.

  He dropped his food down on the napkin. He was losing track of this conversation. She was upset with him now, for more than one reason, it seemed.

  “Does anyone else in Auldale know anything about you?” he asked, pushing aside everything else that was unimportant.

  She stared and then finally shook her head. No.

  “Then come to dinner.”

  She could imagine that scene. Arriving at the manor and John introducing her to his mother. Mrs. Martin would certainly not be pleased. She’d hired a courtesan for her son, not for Sunday dinner.

  “But I know, John. Your mother will hardly thank you if she ever does discover.”

  “I find your company pleasant and restful. Why shouldn’t she?”

  He was just being obstinate now. There was surrender in his voice, acceptance.

  She turned to the food. To the slices of roast beef still wrapped in paper.

  He’d called her pleasant. Restful. All adjectives that served to make her genderless and asexual. She wasn’t a threat to his self-imposed celibacy.

  The novelty of it all had its own pleasure. When had she ever spent this many hours with a man with whom she hadn’t yet slept? Other actors, she supposed. Or her neighbor in London, Mr. Baswick. He was the fellow who had informed her of the advertisement in the paper. But even that was over the course of months, not days.

  At some point, however, this little platonic idyll would end. It had to. She could hardly live forever off the ten pounds Mrs. Martin had advanced her. Really, she should have bargained for expenses paid as well, because the price of the inn and food did add up.

  “I didn’t mean to offend,” he said suddenly, and she realized then how long the silence had dragged on.

  She opened her mouth automatically to deny any offense but he continued, not looking at her.

  “When you thought me a misanthrope, you were right. I do prefer my own company. Jasper’s company.”

  She had been teasing before. Hadn’t meant to hurt him, but he was so serious now, as if her words had had an impact.

  “War . . .” He fell off. Took a breath that seemed to physically shake the morose thoughts away. “I enjoy your company too. I appreciate that you make no apologies for your life. Have no shame for your actions. And you have no reason to feel shame.”

  He stopped but there was so much more in what he didn’t say.

  “Why do you feel shame?” she asked.

  He sucked in air sharply. The scar that twisted the left side of his face seemed more pronounced, as if there lay the story, even if he kept playing with the remnants of his food. Even if he never looked at her again. War. He’d started to say it earlier.

  The man’s realm. She knew nothing of battlefields, other than the fake battles staged with wooden swords on the boards—jealous, spiteful competitors who worked like assassins and puppet masters, doing their damage in shadows.

  What had he seen? What had he experienced?

  What had he done?

  The last thought shocked her.

  She’d taken for granted that this man before her was good. His mother’s word, his own restraint. The increasing kindness he’d shown her over the week.

  But he’d killed men. That was the nature of war. That’s how England had vanquished Napoleon.

  What else had he done? How had he done it? Why?

  He glanced up. Brown eyes dark, pained, even as his lips smirked at her.

  She blinked against the stinging, embarrassed by the sudden damp against her eyelashes.

  He looked away again, brushed off his pants and stood. Jasper was there instantly in his master’s place, scarfing down the remains of lunch as if he thought he only had a moment before Angelina would push him away.

  “Running away won’t help,
” she said mildly. She closed the basket and rose to her knees.

  “A strategic retreat.” His voice was taut, the words an attempt at humor even as he fought against himself. But he wasn’t retreating very far. He simply stood there, unmoving, staring at the wall.

  She stood as well. Stepped toward him. Touched his arm.

  His shirt was made of sturdy cambric, but under her fingers it pressed down and molded to the shape of his muscled arm, which in turn twitched under the press of her hand.

  “Tell me,” she whispered.

  His lifted his right hand, closed it over hers, and looked down at her.

  “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything. That’s exactly the problem, Angel.” The sweetness of hearing him use the diminutive of her name struck her before she understood the import of his words. And then he continued, “there wasn’t anything I could do.”

  He could see that day as clearly as if it were the present one and he struggled to explain. After the long nights of marking out the ground for the batteries, trudging through rain and mud during the maddening storms, on the night of the attack, he hadn’t been in the first assaults on the town. No, it had been other engineers who had led the charge to the breaches by the inky darkness of night. Instead he’d been in the camp, and had seen the blazing lights, heard the distant clamor, the reports that hundreds of British soldiers had fallen.

  Thousands, he’d seen later, when, after the city’s fall, he’d approached the town.

  The trenches were full with those dead and those dying. Death, he was used to, although one never fully became inured to the hell of war, the blood, scent and volume of the violence. And though there had been many sieges, he had not seen devastation such as that at Badajoz.

  But it was inside the town that his life changed.

  The soldiers had been given leave to pillage, again, a common-enough occurrence in war, but this was different. These were inebriated soldiers fighting each other, murdering civilians, terrorizing and raping the women. After two hours of trying to protect the innocents who were screaming for help, he stood in the middle of the street, feeling as if the houses spun around him. The world spun, and with it the hideous expressions of men he had thought heroes.

  Was winning the town worth this?

  At least under the French, the townspeople had been spared. Who, then, were the villains?

  Sometime during his recitation, they’d moved to the fire, sat down again. Jasper lay by his legs, and he rested his hand on the dog’s back.

  “These were my friends, men with whom I’d drunk wine and broken bread. Men I had respected and liked.”

  He glanced at her again, out of the corner of his eye. The horror had faded from her expression. She looked . . . thoughtful.

  “You were right. You could have saved one person, perhaps, or two, but not hundreds.”

  “Thousands,” he corrected. But he could see the numbers meant little to her. He saw them in the rows of dead that littered fields or the crushing melee of battle. “And we’re the ones who were fighting for what’s right. And yet . . .”

  “No one protected the innocent.”

  He nodded.

  “That was four years ago, nearly. Why didn’t you come home then?”

  “Engineers were in demand. I had a duty to England. But when peace came, at last . . . I took my chance.” He took a deep breath. “This castle . . . in Spain, on the continent . . . I destroyed things. Here I can build.”

  “Ohh.”

  Her eyes were wide, luminous, as if she were looking deep into him. Understanding.

  A trick of the eye, or more likely, what she wanted him to think. He knew, after these last few days, that only rarely did Angelina reveal any thought or emotion she didn’t wish known.

  But he wanted her to understand. He wanted someone to. That, after the last three years, and all these months back home, it would be Angelina, seemed natural. Inevitable.

  She reached out, placed her hand over his. Her small, delicate hand. After a moment he turned his own hand and folded his fingers over hers.

  CHAPTER SIX

  She hadn’t intended to go to church. She’d hoped to spend Sunday as she’d spent every other day this week, at the castle. With John.

  Who was different from anything she had expected when she’d embarked on this journey. He was a hero. A man who was tall and strong and looked invincible. As if he’d weathered storms. Could make the wind bend to his desire.

  But inside, he’d walled himself off as much as he had sequestered himself within the ruins of the old castle fortifications. To protect himself from the ugliness he’d seen at war and the unwelcome knowledge that people were animals and that duty and country and honor could fall away in an instant.

  His expression, the language of every curve and line of his body, made the horrors she’d passed over in newspapers into reality.

  It wasn’t a mistress he needed, but a friend. Someone who would be as solid and true as the rock that surrounded him. As straightforward as Jasper.

  Who didn’t lie to him. Or intend to seduce him for money.

  He’d hate her if he ever knew.

  Her chest constricted at the thought.

  From a seat in the second to last row of the church, she caught sight of John entering. The ache in her chest grew until she realized she’d been holding her breath, nearly gaping at him.

  Half naked, he was a stunning man but this was the first time she’d seen him fully clothed—complete with waistcoat, cravat, coat, and hat.

  Devastating. Every man should look like that in his clothes without need of artifice.

  His head turned to the left. His gaze caught hers and then he nodded, a slow smile curving the far side of his lips. She wanted those lips. To tease them, run her tongue over them.

  She was in a church, for goodness sake!

  Oh, Lord. There was his mother standing next to him, watching Angelina leer at her son. Mrs. Martin’s eyebrow raised slightly in question but Angelina schooled her features into a neutral expression and looked vacantly through the other woman.

  Then John, his mother, and the entire moment moved on. As she had requested, he didn’t approach her, nor force an awkward (and unnecessary) introduction.

  But seeing him with his mother was enlightening. They shared the same coloring, although Mrs. Martin’s dark brown hair was lightened by gray. And as she had the first time they met in London, Angelina itched to suggest coloring it to hide that telltale sign of age. The gray made her nervous.

  But where John was tall and broad, with strong, defined features, his mother was petite and wispy, fragile-looking.

  Not that Angelina would make the mistake of thinking the woman actually fragile. No woman without iron for her bones would advertise in the paper for her son’s mistress. Or perhaps it was foolishness. Yes, if John ever found out, it wouldn’t only be Angelina he’d resent. At least the ties of blood might let him forgive his mother.

  The church grew crowded. A woman with two children pushed past Angelina into the pew. A farmer’s wife, perhaps. The woman gave her a brief, curious look but made no other acknowledgement.

  Angelina stifled a sigh and shifted slightly in her seat to catch another glimpse of John where he sat a dozen rows in front of her.

  Sunday was always exhausting. John joined his mother in the front right pew. In the front left pew sat Mrs. Ellis and her three young daughters. As usual, John went through the motions, made the necessary comments and noises. But whereas the last two dozen Sundays he’d focused inward, thought of measurements and supplies, today he thought of Angelina. Counted the different shades in her hair, from near white to a sunny gold to a very pale brown. Today, when he’d passed her as he walked down the aisle, that shining mass was pulled up into one of those knots ladies loved. He imagined it down. Wondered how long it was
, where the last curl would settle. He looked over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of her. Admired the way she sat, back straight but relaxed, the way her lips moved to shape the words of a hymn or prayer.

  A sharp pain pierced his knee and he shifted away from his mother’s hand.

  “Attend,” she hissed.

  But the memory of Angelina’s pale eyes stayed.

  After the service was over, the reverend stopped them, chatted with John’s mother. John looked around the emptying church but didn’t see Angelina. Disappointment struck him hollowly.

  John joined his mother inside the carriage that stood outside, as he did every Sunday, and looked out the window at the familiar landscape passing by as if it were that of Spain or France.

  “You are acquainted with that Whitcombe woman who is staying at the inn?” He tensed at the question. Yet, talk about Angelina was inevitable. Gossip traveled quickly in small towns.

  “She came to draw the castle,” he said, thinking of Angelina sitting on the damp grass, bent industriously over her sketchbook. He still hadn’t seen any of her work.

  “Ah, just the once?”

  “No . . .”

  He finally really looked at his mother. There was nothing about her that appeared unusual, but he remembered the earlier sting of her hand against his knee. Her nonchalance was too studied.

  “She must be a great artist. You seem to admire her?”

  “She’s quite lovely,” he said carefully.

  The gaze that met his was suddenly very sharp and he shifted uncomfortably, as if he were a boy of five and had done something wrong.

  “Are you having an affair with her?”

  He choked on air.

  “Mother—”

  “What? How do you think you were born? Your father might be gone these last ten years but I still remember that look. That is the look you were giving Miss Whitcombe.” She sounded very satisfied. “It is also the look she was giving you.”

  “Miss Whitcombe is conducting an artistic study of Yorkshire ruins—”

  “No.” His mother cut him off with a gratingly knowing laugh. “What she is, is an unmarried woman—as I can best tell—who is traveling scandalously alone.” He wanted to deny it but the words were truth. Of course, what he truly wanted to deny was the tone of his mother’s voice, the insinuation that demeaned both him and Angelina. “And while I believe the company in Auldale is all that can be desired, I don’t imagine there is much for an unknown, unmarried woman traveling alone”—the emphasis his mother placed on those words left no doubt as to what she thought of such a thing—“to find of interest for a week.”