Page 33 of Rescuing Lord Inglewood

A messenger came striding in ahead of the butler. The boy, no more than sixteen, if that, executed a hasty bow. “My lord, from the Home Office.”

Silas stood and held out his hand. “Thank you.” He broke the seal open and unfolded the letter, seeing it was from one of the general’s secretaries. As Silas read, his blood went cold.

…April 10, 1814, Wellington engaged in battle outside Toulouse. Soult unaware of surrender. I regret to inform you that the early casualty lists have included one Sir Isaac Fox, Captain…

Silas wiped a hand across his eyes, as though clearing them might change the words on the paper. He read them again, slowly lowering himself to his seat.

Isaac, dead? In a battle that never should have occurred. Ten days previous. What was wrong with the world? Why had it taken the news so long to reach him? And how did General Soult fail to learn of the Paris surrender? It was senseless.

The lists would be printed in the morning papers.

Silas came to his feet again and looked up, finding the messenger had gone. His butler remained.

“Thompson,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I must leave for Inglewood Keep at the earliest possible moment in the morning. I need a carriage at the door before first light.” He mentally calculated the distance between London and home; the overland journey would take three days with good roads and fair weather. Too long.

But by boat—if he could find a boat at the docks to take him, the journey might be made in a day’s time. “I need a small bag packed, only the most essential items, for my journey. Arnold can follow by coach with the rest of the baggage.” He swallowed and stared again at the letter, not really seeing it. “The countess’s brother has been killed. The household goes into mourning.” And he must go to Esther and tell her.

“My condolences, my lord. I will do as you ask.” Thompson bowed deeply and withdrew.

Silas saw again the painting on his desk. That open doorway had beckoned him before, and now it called more strongly, Esther’s quiet admission circling in his mind.

He is all the family I have left.

London did not matter anymore. Parliament could wait or figure out its own problems. His wife, whom he had promised to protect, care for, and cherish, would be in need of him.

He took himself to bed, trusting his butler to see to the final preparations. Sleep eluded him as he tried to determine what words to use, how to tell Esther the brother she loved would never come home. How did one deliver such life-altering news?

Silas stared at his ceiling, recalling the day he had been informed of his parents’ deaths. He had been at home, at Inglewood, and very young. It was before he had befriended Isaac or any of the others. His governess had told him and then he wept, for hours, and cried all the harder when told he would be sent to his grandmother. Even then, he knew the last person to offer him comfort would be the dowager countess.

At last he caught a few fretful hours of sleep, willing himself to rest so he could out race the news from London to his wife.

His heart ached fiercely, but he put his mourning aside. He had to be strong. Isaac would want him to bear up, for Esther’s sake. Yet when Thompson met him at the door, wearing a black band around his arm and offering Silas one as well, he nearly broke. Isaac had been much more than a friend, as was Jacob. They were like brothers.

He accepted the band for the time being, though he intended to wear full mourning as soon as Esther was told—

How was he going to tell her?

He climbed into the waiting carriage, one small chest on the seat beside him, and hurried through the dimly lit streets of London to the docks. The most difficult part of the journey would be securing a vessel for his purposes, but Silas had enough bank notes in his coat to make the trip lucrative for many a merchant or fisherman.

The docks were already busy, though the sky had only lit to a dull gray, and it did not take him long to find a man who would sale north along the coast, depositing Silas upon his very own beach.

“We’ll cast off in an hour,” the fisherman told him, bushy eyebrows and sun-browned face pulling together in wrinkles. “With a fair wind, we could be there this time tomorrow, goin’ about five knots to the hour.”

Silas paid the man without reservation, then climbed aboard. The boat was fair-sized with a crew of five men, all of them about their business and hardly glancing at him. He found a likely place to sit, his trunk shoved beneath his feet. Waiting was all that was left to do. His throat closed up and his mind drifted away, his thoughts divided between his wife’s coming grief and his own wounded heart.

Chapter Sixteen

The bitter wind coming off the sea kept Esther indoors. Though the spring had been cold, she hoped warmer weather had at last come—but her few days of sunshine had been a cruel trick. She took her breakfast in bed, a fire crackling in the hearth of her room, and she wanted to stay there with a book in hand. But lazing about seemed wasteful.

After Mary helped her dress, Esther made her way to the parlor full of her work. She had barely touched the handle of the door, however, when the butler sought her out.

“My lady,” he said with his usual deep bow, “Sir Neil has come. Are you at home to him today?”

Esther did not groan aloud, though several choice words flew through her mind. As she had not received the last two of his calls, it would be rude to turn him away yet again. Though she resented the intrusion on her privacy enough to hesitate, the cold day stretched before her with little enough to entertain or amuse her. She had met with the housekeeper and butler the day before to go over household matters and had answered the most pressing correspondence.

She had even sent Silas a new sketch, with her rendition of a clock next to a bowl of flowers. She wrote beneath it, “Time goes slowly in the country.” Not her cleverest work. Still, it might help get the point across and respond to his last letter in which he commented there were not enough hours in the day to get everything done. Indeed, he had hinted at remaining in London even longer than three weeks.

“I am at home,” she answered the butler. “Show him to the library.” Sir Neil had never been invited into her sanctuary of paints and charcoal, canvas and paper. He did not belong among her favorite things at all.