“I also learned,” she added, “never to try to describe all that to anyone else lest they think me mad. I supposeyouthink me mad.”
“I do not,” he said. “I believe I even almost understand.”
“Almost?”
He stopped walking and tapped his right temple with his forefinger. “Not here,” he said. “It makes no sense at all here. But... yes, I understand. One is not defined by the circumstances of one’s life even though they shape one’s destiny and character and give one a place in the world. They shape how other people see one. Other people never see the real person.”
“Ah,” she said, smiling warmly at him and forgetting entirely for the moment that he was someone she found both unapproachable and strangely attractive. “I have alwayslongedto meet someone who understands. And someone I can understand.”
He gazed back at her with dark, inscrutable eyes and a bearing so military that he might almost have been on parade. And she wished the terrace could open up and swallow her. He could not possibly understand. She barely understood herself.
“I believe,” she said, “thatifyour suggestion that I go with you was a firm invitation, andifI wanted to go, I would defy the whole world in order to do it. The world—the world of people and society, I mean—really means nothing to me any longer. But they are two very hypotheticalifs, Lieutenant Colonel. Now, if Harry knows we are still out here, he will be thinking you are telling terrible tales about his physical weakness and his poor horsemanship.”
They walked the short distance to the door without speaking.
“Damn Harry and his bright ideas,” he said as they made their way up the steps.
Abigail blinked at his choice of language.
Twelve
Over the next week Miss Westcott was invited a few times to take tea with friends and neighbors. Once she was asked out to dine and was escorted home late in the evening by the husband of the friend who had invited her. Gil too went visiting a few times with Harry. It was clear to him that the family had been well liked when they lived here years ago. Their change in status appeared to have made little or no difference to the respect and affection in which they were held. The late Earl of Riverdale, on the other hand, hadnotbeen well liked, Gil understood. Neither had he spent much time at Hinsford.
Harry was getting noticeably stronger, and he seemed happy enough at least for now to be here at his old home. He was comfortable being waited upon by servants, most of whom were old retainers, with his personal needs served by an excellent valet, whom he had known all his life. He was surrounded by neighbors and old friends. He was beginningto take an active interest in the running of the home farm and in the life of the neighborhood.
Gil could see clearly that Harry no longer needed him. It was time to go. Especially as he had almost invited Abigail Westcott to go with him and she had almost accepted and it would be a disaster for both of them if that happened. How could he even bethinkingof it—except that Harry had put the idea into his head, and hers too, and he could not seem to dislodge it. It was utter insanity and must be put to rout in the only truly decisive way. He must leave.
Then came another letter from his lawyer, a little more than a week after the first. Nothing more had been said about charging Lieutenant Colonel Bennington with assault, Grimes reported, and he had made no further threat about charging General Sir Edward and Lady Pascoe with unlawful confinement of Miss Katherine Bennington. The general’s lawyer, on behalf of his clients, seemed rather to be pushing for an early court date in which a judge would decide the child’s fate. Since they seemed determined to keep her and raise her themselves, it would appear they were confident of winning such a case without going the ugly length of charging the child’s father with a crime.
In the final paragraph his lawyer had suggested that Lieutenant Colonel Bennington seriously consider making a bold move to improve his chances of winning the case. Had he thought of retiring from the military in order to demonstrate that he was ready to settle down and personally take on the raising of his child? And had he considered remarrying so that the child would have a mother to return home to as well as a father? Grimes respectfully recommended that he make both moves without delay.
Rather than going up to his room to read the letter as hehad done the last time, Gil had chosen to read it at the breakfast table. Miss Westcott was there reading a letter of her own and Harry was glancing through a London paper that had been delivered with the mail.
“From your lawyer again?” Harry asked. He had closed the paper without Gil noticing him do it.
“Yes.” He folded the letter and set it down beside his plate while Miss Westcott looked up. “It seems you have a lawyerly mind, Harry. Grimes suggests exactly what you recommended to me last week.”
“That you marry Abby?” Harry said. “Intelligent man.”
“Not Miss Westcott specifically,” Gil said. “But he does advise me to retire from my military career and remarry if I am to hope that a judge will look favorably upon my bid to reclaim my daughter. God damn it, I— Oh, the devil. Pardon me, Miss Westcott. But it boils my blood to discover that I have to fight for my own child when I never consented to giving her into her grandparents’ care. She had a perfectly decent nurse in my own home as well as several competent servants. She would have been safe and well cared for there even with Caroline gone. Does a father have no rights in this country? Must he—”
“There is no point in ripping up at Abby and me,” Harry said, cutting him off. “We are already in your corner, Gil. The thing is, are you going to follow your lawyer’s advice? Are you going to give up your commission?”
“I think I might,” Gil said cautiously. “In fact, I most certainly will. I had been intending to go home within the next few days in any case. I need to be there, to settle, to have my own place of belonging again. I need to see that it is ready for Katy. I have already missed more than two years of her life. And it has been clear to me that I cannot pursue a military careerandbe a good father.”
“There is no better feeling than that of being in your own home to stay,” Harry said. “And are you going to marry Abby?”
“God damn it—”
“Harry!”They spoke simultaneously.
“Well?” Harry looked from one to the other of them. “Areyou? Or let me put it another way. Abby, are you going to marry Gil?”
Instead of snapping out an angry denial, she drew a deep breath and released it on an audible sigh. Instead of speaking, she closed her eyes.
“I think, Harry,” Gil said, scraping his chair along the floor with the backs of his knees as he got to his feet, “indeed, Iknow, there is much truth in that old saying that three is a crowd. This may not be my house, but I have been severely provoked. So has your sister.” He pointed at the door of the breakfast parlor. “Out. As fast as your legs will take you.”
Harry looked toward the sideboard as he stood. “I daresay that order includes servants too.”
