“Yet she has been widowed almost five years and has shown no inclination to wed again.”
Damien’s brows rose. “I am informed that it is the existence of children that makes widowhood bearable for her, while you have no such consolation.” He sighed and returned his attention to his newspaper. “Which proves, of course, that her concern is truly for her own lack of grandchildren and not for your future happiness at all.”
Eliza poured her tea, marveling at the variation between her mother’s advice to Damien and to herself. “You could wed, sire a brood of children and ensure the future contentment of all of us.”
Damien snorted and refrained from comment upon this prospect. Evidently, he found it unlikely.
“True,” Eliza said, buttering her scone. “What woman would have you?” She felt his gaze upon her but continued blithely. Having grown up with three older brothers, Eliza had learned young how to tease them best. “Should there ever be a woman so foolish as to consider the possibility of accepting you, I must give warning that I will confess all of your dark secrets to her.”
Damien chuckled. “And what is your plan for learning them?” he asked in a low rumble.
“I know,” Eliza said, but he shook his head.
“You have not even begun to imagine the darkest of them,” he said, utterly at ease with the burden.
Eliza reasoned that she might have no better opportunity and dared to ask her question. “Why would Captain Emerson not wish to dream?”
Damien set aside his newspaper. “He said as much?”
“I asked him why he was consuming so much brandy and that was his reason.” She shook a finger at her brother, whose expression had turned thoughtful. “You should not aid him in this pursuit, Damien…”
“I have little choice,” he said flatly, interrupting her.
“Because he cannot afford such indulgence? Perhaps it would be better for him not to so indulge!”
“There is the parson’s wife. I wondered when she would appear at my table and must confess, Eliza, that I am disappointed to see her so soon.”
“Damien! Captain Emerson is your friend. It is irresponsible for you to so indulge him, and I cannot understand why you should be so short-sighted in your choice…”
“Because I owe him my life,” Damien said in a tone that brooked no argument. “And such a debt demands more than mere friendship.”
Eliza was shocked to silence. “I knew nothing of this.”
“It was not your concern. It remains a matter that is not your concern. But if Emerson had not hauled me out of the…mire at Badajoz, you would have lost three brothers in rapid succession and I would have more than a limp to show for my military service.”
Eliza could not consume another bite. “Tell me,” she insisted, pushing her plate slightly away from her.
Damien studied her, his expression unfathomable, then nodded once. “I will not tell you of it, for the taking of Badajoz is not a tale fit for a lady’s ears. Know, however, that we lost five thousand men in a single night in that battle and I was nearly one of them. It was Emerson who saw me pulled from the pit where so many breathed their last, and I am forever indebted to him for that.” He snapped his newspaper. “He can ask me for anything and if it is in my power to bestow it upon him, I will do so without hesitation. Similarly, if he declines an offer of mine, I will not press it upon him.” He frowned. “I am curious to learn his plans for the future.”
Eliza crumbled the remainder of her scone “Could you not return Southpoint to him?”
Damien gave her a quelling look. “Do you imagine I have not offered? He declines such charity from me—that is his choice of word. I cannot force him to undertake a responsibility.”
“What will he do?”
“I hope to hear as much this very day. He won last night at Brooks’s, and won quite handsomely.”
“Damien! First you indulge his taste for brandy and then you take him gambling. You are a poor friend.”
Her brother chuckled. “Emerson is infernally lucky but determined not to repeat his father’s errors. He was as sober last night as I am this morning, and he won eighteen thousand pounds.”
Eliza gasped.
“He even won Greenhaven from the Earl of Queenston but declined to take it, for the sake of honor.”
Eliza considered the remains of her breakfast, marveling at these tidings. Would Nicholas be tempted to return to the tables to add to his gains, and lose it all—if not more—following in his father’s footsteps? “I still cannot understand why he would not wish to dream,” she said, almost to herself.
“‘To die, to sleep—to sleep, perchance to dream,’” Damien recited quietly. “‘Ay, there’s the rub! For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.’”
