The lake looked cold as a small cloud moved over the sun, and he wondered if it would freeze over this winter. It did sometimes. They used to go out there and skate and slide though they had always been warned to stay close to the edges, where the ice would be thickest. He and Nick—rarely Ben—had always tested those limits, of course, when there were no adults close enough to bellow at them. Or save them if they fell through. Children were often idiots by their very nature.
“You are not planning to come with Steph and me this evening?” he asked her. “She wants to learn to waltz.”
“No,” she said.
“Are you going to the assembly tomorrow evening?” he asked.
“I suppose I will feel obliged to,” she said, “since it is to be held here. Though you are not going to be the master of ceremonies, are you?”
“No,” he said. “That will be Colonel Wexford. It will not be in any way a family affair. There are committees and subcommittees planning everything. I think people are enjoying themselves. I believe they felt a bit stifled for a number of years.” They had feltcondescendedto, he thought, though he did not say that aloud.
“Yes,” she said. “Maybe I willnotgo.”
Could this young woman with the lackluster voice possibly be the vivid, eager girl who had twirled for his approval in her new gown on the evening of that fete? The girl who had sparkled on the brink of womanhood and all it promised in the way of parties and beaux and courtship and marriage?
“There were men out on the Peninsula, both officers and thosein the ranks, who cracked,” he said. “Not for any discernible reason, in most cases. Some would rave, out of their minds, and have to be hauled away in a straitjacket. A few ran away. Others curled up on the ground somewhere, covered their heads with their arms, and refused to move. Any threat of punishment—a whipping for the enlisted men, court-martial in the case of the officers—had no effect whatsoever. There were no physicians for them as there were for those who were physically wounded. Their condition was considered shameful. It was attributed to cowardice or to weakness—to not being aman.”
He paused for a moment, but she said nothing.
“They were just the few, though,” he said. “There were many more who did not crack but were nevertheless shattered inside. They kept the facade of manliness. They carried on. They followed orders and did their work. They often showed great courage and were held up as an example to other men. But inside they were lost and empty. Even if there had been physicians able to treat their condition, they would not have appealed to them for help. They would have denied that anything was wrong at all.”
Still the silence from behind him. Though no, she had broken it.
“As you did,” she said. “And do.”
Oh, hell! That was not where he had been leading. He spun around to look at her. She was gazing back, her eyes large and blue in a pale face.
“Pippa,” he said. “You were fifteen. I think it was probably worse for you than for anyone else. Nicholas was able to set out for the new life he had been preparing for. Owen and Stephanie were still children. Mama was an adult with an adult’s experience and maturity. You were betwixt and between any of those things. Our father was no longer a rock upon which to lean. Ben and I wereboth gone. I see in you what I saw in some of my men. Differently manifested, of course, but essentially the same thing. Life has been too much for you, and there has been no one to give you the help and support you need.”
She was half smiling at him, a ghastly expression. She shrugged but said nothing.
“What in particular has overwhelmed you?” he asked. “Or is there no single thing?” There probably was not. And that was the whole trouble. With his men it had often been the guns. The incessant pounding of the cannons.
“Nothing,” she said. “I adored Papa and then I hated him and then he died. And I was glad.”
The brevity of her story, especially its ending, chilled his already cold heart. But she was not finished.
“You think you were the only one who noticed,” she said, “because you were out there on the hill when he was there with that woman. I saw her at church and a few times in the village before that day, and I was afraid because she looked at him and he looked at her, mere darting glances, but I felt like vomiting though I did not understand why. Andthatday. She came to dance about the maypole while Steph and I were there and then you. And Papa stood and watched and laughed and clapped for everyone. But she was dancing forhim, and he was there to watchher.Oh, they were very careful all day long, and I triedveryhard just to enjoy myself and not even see them. I hoped and hoped she would not return for the ball, but she did, and hedancedwith her, smiling and laughing as he always did, though it wasdifferentwith her. And then after supper he took her outside and did not come back and every minute as I danced I felt like screaming and screaming without stopping. And then... it started. I heard raised voices and realized one of them was yours. I knew before you came close what must havehappened, and I wasgladthat at last someone else had found out and was doing something about it.”
He bent over her and took her ice-cold hands in his. He drew her to her feet and into his arms. He held her tight. Good God! Where had this come from? She hadnoticedeven before the day of the fete and been uneasy? Just as he had noticed when he was in London with his father? But she had denied it, just as he had, and bottled it all up inside. That bright-eyed, happy girl. Was there no end to the illusion under which this family had lived?
“The one thing we could never seem to do,” he said, “was speak truth to one another. Yet we considered ourselves the happiest family in the world. Pippa! This has to change. For all of us.”
“I wasglad,” she said again, her voice muffled against his neckcloth. “But I left it all to you to deal with. I did not say anything—at the time, or when everyone was in the drawing room afterward, or when you were leaving. I only begged you to talk to Mama. I was horrified thatyouwere the one being sent away and that Ben was going with you. But I did notsayanything. I did not have the c-c-courage.”
“Pippa,” he murmured against the top of her head. “You werefifteen.For God’s sake, you were still just a child. You were absolutely, totallyinnocent.”
“I never did say anything,” she said. “Not until— Oh, never mind. I never said anything.”
“Until...?” he said. “Tell me. Please tell me, Pippa.”
She tipped back her head to look up at him.
“Until after the Marquess of Roath came here with James Rutledge for Easter the year I turned eighteen,” she said. “The year I was supposed to go to London with Mama and Papa and make my come-out. He came with James to watch a practice of the maypole dancing. I had joined the group after my birthday. Mr. Johnsonsuggested that the marquess partner me for one dance, and James nudged him and waggled his eyebrows and told him I wasLadyPhilippa, daughter of the Earl of Stratton. The marquess looked at him as though he had just had the shock of his life and said something like ‘Stratton? I do not dance with soiled goods, Jim.’ And they both left. I heard he went away altogether a day or two after.”
Devlin gazed back at her, thunderstruck. “And no onedidanything?” he asked her. “No one knocked his teeth down his throat? He was allowed just to...leave?”
“They were in a group of men,” she said. “I was in a group of women, all chatting and laughing. They did not know I had heard. I probably would not have done if he had not been so handsome and I had not fallen in love with him as soon as he walked into the barn with James. I was so...ridiculousin those days.”
