“It seems too easy,” Edmund said, eyes on his brother who still stared at his lap.
“Perhaps not,” Will mused. “The stories are consistent that he died after a fall hundreds of feet from a cliff edge.” He also watched Ethan. “One rumor is that he jumped.”
Ethan looked up sharply at that. “Guilt?”
Will shrugged. “There were plenty of reports about despicable behavior before, during and after Cuidad Rodrigo and Badajoz, but Hartford didn’t strike me as man burdened by guilt.”
Ethan sighed. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
“Another rumor is that someone pushed him.”
“Who?”
“No one named names, but he was widely despised by his men, perhaps the very men you saw him with,” Will said.
“The ones who took Ethan to the surgeons?” Edmund suggested.
“Someone participating or someone who witnessed it, yes,” Will agreed.
“Or it may have been an accident,” Ethan murmured.
“Perhaps. The Almighty exacting His own justice?”
“At least I don’t have to fear what I would do if I encountered him in London,” Edmund said. He studied his brother, who seemed lost in his own thoughts. “Sorry you can’t exact revenge?” Edmund asked him.
Ethan shook his head. “This is tidier. I can’t say I’m sorry the toad is dead.”
“He didn’t get a funeral. I gather they left him to the predators in the mountains. Perhaps you can bury him in your memories,” Will suggested.
Not bloody damned likely.Yet, the ugly memories felt a little less raw knowing Hartford died, as so many brave men did on the walls of the city. Something else hung in his mind though. “The girl—I suppose we’ll never know what happened to her.”
“Probably not. I spoke with everyone I trusted who was at Badajoz and heard nothing.”
“Thank you for trying,” Ethan said. He tried to force a smile, “and thank Lady Flora for this.” He held up Volume Three of the novel he had been reading.
Edmund walked Will downstairs. Just as they parted, Will pulled something from his coat. “I almost forgot. The ladies most specifically asked me to give this to you, Penrhyd.”
“A charity auction on the ice?” the viscount laughed. “We’re invited to the Haverford Ball of course, but this is something else entirely.”
“All of London will be there. They are bound to raise quite a bit. Will you come?”
“Father can sit with Ethan, so I suppose I’m free to come,” Edmund said.
“You can’t keep treating him as if he’ll fall apart—or disappear.”
“We’re just happy to have him back. Sooner or later, he’ll pursue his own life again, but for now we want to be close.”
“Fair enough. Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow.” He left with the nod of his head.
CHAPTER8
The sun peeked dimly through the fog the morning of the Ladies' Society Venetian Breakfast. The people of London watched in awe as an army of Haverford servants, augmented by those of various great houses, erected a sumptuous marquee on the ice at one end of the makeshift town that had grown up along the Thames. The tent dwarfed the booths and shelters around it, as it was as large as the Haverford ballroom with a ceiling almost as tall.
Lady Flora and her companion arrived to watch just as men began carrying in rolls of carpeting to cover the ice. Her brother had abandoned her to Georgie's company as soon as they arrived, mumbling something about a message from the Marquess of Glenaire.
She watched more men follow with chairs, and tables, and crates that Flora knew contained linen for the tables, cotton to drape the walls, furs and woolen shawls in which to snuggle, and much, much more.
Around the marquee, a score of other tents, large andsmall, sprouted and grew under the ministering hands of a swarming army of workers. Mrs. Miller and a newly hired footman arrived from Chadbourn house with two overflowing hampers of food, one labeledLady Flora Landrumand oneLady Georgiana Hayden, and carried them into the waiting tent.
