“He did not divulge his secrets?” he asked her after what seemed like a lengthy pause.
“Never.” She smoothed out the creases. “No, never.”
“They did not try to get information from you?” he asked.
“I knew nothing,” she told him. “They understood that. It would have been a waste of their time.”
“And they did not use you to pry information out of him?”
And he understood too much. Her skirt pleated itself between her fingers again.
“He never told them anything,” she said again, raising her eyes to look at him. He was looking a bit pale and grim about the mouth. “And they never . . . did anything to me. They never hurt me. After his . . . death, a French colonel escorted me back to British headquarters under a flag of truce. He even had the soldier’s wife accompany us for propriety’s sake. He was gracious and courteous. And of course he was all surprise and regret when he was informed that I was indeed the wife—the widow—of a British officer.”
“You were present when your husband died?” he asked.
Her eyes were locked with his, it seemed. She could not look away.
“Yes.” She spread her fingers, releasing the creased fabric.
He stared a moment longer and then got abruptly to his feet. The dog scrambled to his, and Blossom eyed them both without raising her head, saw that her ownership of the chair was not about to be disputed, and closed her eyes again. Lord Hardford set one forearm along the mantel and one booted foot on the hearth and gazed into the fire.
“He was a brave man,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And you loved him.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes and kept them closed.
She opened them with a start of alarm when he spoke again. He had crossed the room to the love seat without her realizing it and was leaning over her. His face was not many inches from her own. But his intent was not sexual. She realized that immediately.
“War is the damnedest thing, is it not?” he said without either apologizing for his language or waiting for her answer. “One hears about those who were killed and feels sorrow for their relatives. One hears about those who were wounded and winces in sympathy while believing they were the lucky ones. One imagines that once they heal as far as is possible, they continue with their lives where they had left them off before they went to war. One scarcely thinks of the women at all, except with a little sorrow for their loss of loved ones. But for everyone concerned, dead or alive, it is the damnedest, damnedest thing. Is it not?”
This time he waited for her answer, his face pale and grim and almost unrecognizable.
“It is,” she agreed softly. “It is the damnedest thing.”
“How did they know you were there?” he asked.
She raised her eyebrows.
“The French,” he explained. “They were behind enemy lines when they took you, were they not? Your husband thought it safe enough to take you that far. How did they know you were there? And how did they know he was important enough to take? He was not in uniform.”
“It was a scouting party,” she said. “The hills were full of them, theirs and ours, on both sides of the line. The line was not a physical thing, like the wall between the park here and the land beyond, and it changed daily. There is nothing tidy about war. Even so, he was assured that that particular part of the hills was safe for me.”
He straightened up and turned, all impatience and arrogance once more.
“There is that evening of cards with the Quentins tonight,” he said. “Shall I have the carriage wait for you? I will take my curricle. Or would you prefer that I make some excuse for you?”
“The carriage, please,” she said. “I may choose to live alone, Lord Hardford, but I am not a recluse.”
He looked at her over his shoulder. “Are you ever tempted to be?”
“Yes.”
He regarded her in silence for a few seconds. “One ought to consider the women,” he said. “Your husband was not the only brave one in your marriage, Lady Barclay. Good day to you.”
And he strode from the room, the dog trotting at his heels. A few moments after the sitting room door closed behind him, Imogen heard the outer door open and close too.
Your husband was not the only brave one in your marriage. . . .
If only she had died when Dicky had, the two of them together, just seconds apart. If only they had killed her, as she had fully expected they would—as Dicky had fully expected they would. Courage, that last look of his had said to her as clearly as if he had spoken the word aloud.
Courage.
She sometimes forgot that that was the last word his eyes had spoken. Me had come a few second before it. Me, Imogen. And even those unspoken words she sometimes forgot—or did not trust because they had not been spoken aloud. Though she and Dicky had always known what was in the other’s mind. They had been that close—husband and wife, brother and sister, comrades, best friends.
Me. And then, Courage.
She sat where she was while a grayish film formed over the cold tea in her cup—and the Earl of Hardford’s.