“But where was your wife?” Miss Westcott asked.
“Gone to a series of house parties,” he said. “Soon to be dead. I was soon gone too. From there, from home, from England. I believe the general, Caroline’s father, must have had something to do with my posting to St. Helena. Nobody else from my regiment was sent there. I wrote a letter from the island demanding that my daughter be returned to me the moment I came home. I wrote another after word reached me of Caroline’s death, threatening dire consequences if they refused to give my daughter back to me when I returned. There was no reply to either letter. I wrote a third on the boat back and would have mailed it as soon as I set foot upon French soil. But— Well, someone in whom I confided during the voyage—he was a chaplain, though why I started talking to him I have no idea, just as I have no idea why I am telling you all this now. The chaplain advised me strongly not to send the letter but to hire a lawyer instead. He urged me to do the thing correctly and rationally and according to law. The law, after all, was—is—on my side. So I did. An agent of mine in London engaged a lawyer on my behalf. He is supposedly the best there is. My troubles were supposedly over. I knew they were not, of course. When he advised me to leave everything to him and to say nothing to anybody until he had the matter settled for me, I knew there was only trouble ahead.”
“But surely,” she said, “your mother- and father-in-law must realize that you were distraught when you came home after the Battle of Waterloo and discovered your wife and daughter missing. Surely they understand that you could have physically assaulted someone during that second visit—one of the servants or even Lady Pascoe herself—but chose not to. Surely they know that you could have forced your way upstairs and snatched your child away but did not do that because she was crying and you did not wish to frighten her further. What exactly is your lawyer trying to accomplish?”
“At the very least visitation rights,” he said. “I need to see her. Imustsee her. At best full custody. She is mydaughter, mychild. I am herfather. Indeed, mere visitation rights would be in no way adequate. It istheywho need to negotiate visitation rights withme. And I would not be unreasonable. They are her grandparents, after all. I suppose they love her. I must believe that they do or go mad.”
But he was not entirely ignorant on that score. Six months after he arrived on St. Helena he had received an unexpected letter that Katy’s nurse, Mrs. Evans, had written him the day after he tried to force his way into the general’s house to take back his child. She was the nurse he had hired after the baby’s birth. Her letter had been sent to Rose Cottage and from there to his agent in London and from there to St. Helena. In the letter Mrs. Evans assured him that Katy was safe and well and that Lady Pascoe had an affection for her though she spent very little time in the nursery. Mrs. Evans knew very well that what her ladyship believed about the lieutenant colonel was untrue, but he must not despair. She, Katy’s nurse, would lavish all the love of her heart upon his daughter until he could take her home to love himself. She hoped it would not be long. Shehad asked him please not to reply to her letter. He had not done so.
Caroline had not spent much time with their baby either. Apparently upper-class mothers did not. They had other, more important things to do with their time. And what were servants for? Yet—the Westcott family had spent a good deal of time with their children when they were here a few weeks ago.
Miss Westcott had turned her face away again. Her forehead was resting on her knees. Sunlight and shade danced over the delicate arch of her neck.
“I do beg your pardon,” he said, pushing away from the tree. “I have not told these things to anyone before now except my lawyer—and that chaplain. Even Harry knows no more than that I was married and have a child who is staying with her grandparents until I feel ready to take her home. I suppose he believes I am still too battle weary to deal with the challenge of being a father on my own. You caught me at a raw moment, Miss Westcott. Or rather you were forced into encountering me at a raw moment. I had no business burdening you with my nightmare. I will not bother you again. In fact, I will not bother you at all for much longer. It is time I went home. Procrastination can be excused for only so long.”
She lifted her head to look at him once more, a frown between her brows. Beauty was whining again.
“You have a home to go to, then?” Miss Westcott asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
She waited, perhaps for more detail, but he gave none. Rose Cottage was his private domain, his only real possession apart from Katy—and he never thought of her as apossession. Rose Cottage was his anchor, his own little piece of this earth. He was afraid to go there. Afraid offinding a dead dream. He did not know what would be left to him if his dreams had died.
“Are you indeed being charged with assault?” she asked him. “Or are you merely being threatened?”
“Threatened,” he said. “Just as we have threatened them with a charge of unlawful confinement of a minor child and the unlawful refusal to release her into her father’s care.”
Yes, it had become that ugly. And that ridiculous—a mouse squaring off against a lion. With him playing the part of mouse.
“But would you not be able to fight the charge against you?” she asked him. “Your behavior immediately after discovering that your wife had disappeared and your child was being withheld from you was probably unwise, but it was understandable.Iunderstand it. You were distraught but not actually violent.”
“I have spent the last twenty years killing more men than you can possibly imagine, Miss Westcott,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“That was in battle,” she said. “Surely General Pascoe—is that the name of your father-in-law? Surely he more than anyone else understands the difference between a man’s behavior in war and his behavior in his personal relationships.”
“You forget, Miss Westcott,” he said, “that I am a guttersnipe. And my looks are not exactly reassuring. I can only imagine what any judge looking at me and hearing about those visits I made and reading the letters I wrote would be prepared to believe.”
“You were upset,” she said, “because your child was being denied you. You did not actually do anything violent. Did you? Did you hit anyone?Touchanyone?”
“Not on that occasion,” he said. “But I did slap Caroline and caused her to flee in terror when she believed I would be coming back home after Waterloo.”
“Oh,” she said, and turned her face sharply away again.
“Or so she told her mother,” he added. “Whom would you believe in a court of law, Miss Westcott?”
He heard her sigh. She hid her face against her knees again.
“I really did not intend to spoil your quiet seclusion here,” he said, taking a step away from the tree. “I trust your letters were happier ones than mine?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice muffled against the fabric of her dress.
“Beauty,” he called. But he did not have to order his dog to heel. She was already scrambling to her feet and coming toward him. She pushed her cold nose into his hand. Again there was that almost soundless whine. He let her lick his hand and turned to walk away.
“Lieutenant Colonel Bennington,” Miss Westcott said.
He looked back at her. She had raised her head again.
“Stay at Hinsford,” she said. “I daresay your lawyer is still negotiating with the general’s lawyer. The threats from both sides were an opening gambit, I suppose?”
