Chapter Ten

If Stanley were smart, he would excuse himself and find a place far from the magnetic pull of Marjie’s cheerfulness. He needed to learn to live without it. Yet, Pluck’s words echoed in his mind. “Steal a little of her heart.”

Heaven help him, he wanted just a piece.

“How are you today?” Marjie asked.

“I’m fine.” It was the response everyone expected and, therefore, the one he always gave. “How are you?”

“Splendid.” Another smile lit her face. “This is my favorite room in the entire house.”

“Is it?” Stanley very nearly returned her smile.

“In here, it is always spring.”

He absently pressed his hand against the outside of his pocket where her letter sat. Marjie had written that she longed for spring.

“A conservatory always feels very alive.” She glanced around the room, a contented smile on her face.

He gazed around as well. The place teemed with vitality.

“May I sit by you?” she asked. Hope sparkled in her eyes.

Her request was unexpected. “Of course.” The words sputtered a bit on the way out. He slid down the bench, moving to his right so she would be seated on the left. Though his right hand was encased in a glove, as always, and his artificial leg was beneath both his pantaloons and the thick leather of his boots, he felt less uneasy with her seated on his whole and unmangled side. No sooner had she sat beside him than Stanley realized having her that close undermined any sense of ease he might have felt, regardless of the side she occupied.

“Doesn’t it smell wonderful in here?” she asked.

All Stanley could smell was her, though he couldn’t begin to explain how he could distinguish between the rosewater scent she wore and the profusion of flowers blooming in abandon all around them.

“I came here every day before we left for Town.” Marjie seemed quite content to talk without a reply, which suited Stanley perfectly. He enjoyed listening to her and knew that if he had something to say, she would happily listen. “I always wanted a conservatory growing up so I could enjoy flowers year-round. My father, however, believed conservatories and succession houses and the like were blasphemous.”

“Blasphemous?”

She turned her head in his direction. Her smile had grown a little strained, though it had not disappeared entirely. “He had very decided opinions on God’s view of things—he considered himself something of an authority, in fact. I asked my father once if we might have a conservatory, even a small one. He said that God had made the seasons and that He had intended for the world to be bleak and despairing in winter, and it was not for us to override that decree by recreating the warmer seasons.”

“Did he object to warming the house in the wintertime?” Stanley asked.

“No.” Marjie’s expression grew just a touch ironic. “His condemnation of conservatories stemmed from the fact that their purpose was to grow things out of season. Also, he would have been remarkably uncomfortable in an unheated house, and I do not think he considered seeing to his own comfort a blasphemous endeavor.”

“What of the comfort of his family?”

Marjie looked away again, out over the sea of greenery. “We learned to stay out of his way.”

“He hurt you?” Every muscle in Stanley’s body suddenly tensed at the thought.

“He never struck any of us. But his words were invariably unkind, and his evaluation of us all was harsh and condemning.” Marjie took a deep breath, almost an inward sigh. “I envied Fennel’s opportunity for escape to Eton, then, later, Sorrel’s one Season in London. She had always been good at deflecting him. Those few months I spent without her were almost unendurable.”

“Did your mother never intervene?”

Marjie looked at him once more, a sadness in her eyes that cut at him. “You have met my mother. Did she seem to you the sort of woman who would make an effort on another’s behalf?”

Answering her question honestly would not be terribly gentlemanly of him.

“I tried to copy Sorrel’s air of indifference,” Marjie said, apparently not needing a response. “She would offer a slight shrug when his words stung, as if it didn’t matter at all. I was never quite as good at that as she was. Father would simply laugh at me because I acted like I was unaffected even as tears rolled down my face.”

If the man had still been alive, Stanley would have hunted him down.

“I used to pray that he would stop tormenting all of us. After Sorrel’s accident, he became positively barbaric. She was the only one he could never reduce to tears, and I honestly think he hated her for it. He gloated over her near-death and the painful crippling that followed. He declared it the will of God, a sign that the heavens disapproved of her.”

Stanley hadn’t realized he’d taken her hand until he felt it tense inside his grip.

“I prayed harder than ever after that. I feared she would die, that I would fail her in that. Father didn’t allow her to be seen by a physician, so I was all she had.”

“You were so young.”

“I prayed fervently, desperately pleading with God to just make our father stop terrorizing everyone so Sorrel could heal, so we could all live in peace.” Her brow furrowed, her eyes gazing ahead as though she was completely lost in her thoughts.

Stanley squeezed her fingers.

“One morning,” Marjie continued, “his valet came down to breakfast to inform us that our father had died during the night. The local physician believed he’d suffered a stroke. I told Sorrel; she had been confined to bed with a fever. That was the only time in my life I ever saw her cry.”

Stanley laid his right hand atop hers, ignoring the pain that seared through him at the movement. Her hand sat encased in both of his, shielded the way he wished she’d been during those difficult days.

“‘If I lived and he did not,’ Sorrel said, ‘then maybe God hated him more.’ That was all she said. Sorrel improved quickly after that. Fennel was almost instantly more cheerful. Even Mother was happier.”

“Were you?” Stanley asked.

“I tried very hard to be.”

“But if your father made you so miserable, why were you more upset by his passing than the rest of your family was?” He could not bear the thought of her having been unhappy. He gently rubbed her hand, hoping to give some comfort.

“I worried that I had prayed him into his grave. I still am not entirely certain I did not. I have struggled to reconcile myself to that fact.”

“Marjie, you couldn’t possibly—”

“I knew the only true escape for any of us would be his death or our own.” Her interruption was more heated than Stanley would have expected, although he did not think she was upset with him. She fidgeted, her brow furrowing under the influence of these memories. “Fennel, being the heir, is tied to the estate. Father would never have given his blessing to a potential suitor for Sorrel or me who wasn’t precisely like himself. I realized beforehand that begging the heavens for release was tantamount to praying for someone’s death. But I was infinitely glad in the end that he had died and not I.”

“Oh, Marjie.” The words were little more than a sigh.

He could not condemn nor dismiss her remembered concerns. He understood only too well the feelings she had described. He regretted every single life he’d taken as a soldier, and there were many. Yet he knew on an intellectual level that if he hadn’t taken the lives he had, he himself would have been killed.

There were two stark differences between their situations, however—the first being that Marjie was grateful to have been the survivor and Stanley struggled at times to feel that way. The second was that Marjie hadn’t actually taken her father’s life. Too many moments flashed regularly through Stanley’s memory for him to lay claim to that same innocence.

Marjie laid her head on his shoulder, her gaze out on the flora once more. “I do love coming here. It is so peaceful.”

Stanley kept her right hand in his left, though he pulled his right back once more. The throbbing of open wounds had become too painful to endure any longer.

The atmosphere was indeed peaceful as they sat there in the quiet of the conservatory, with her leaning against him. For once, the distant echo of the battlefield didn’t linger in the back of Stanley’s thoughts.

“Do you remember the day we met?” Marjie asked.

Remember? He thought of that day with increasing regularity. “I do.”

“You said your brothers had all refused to play backgammon with you and would I be interested in playing?”

Gads, he’d been nervous asking her that. He’d hardly been able to keep his eyes off her from the moment she’d arrived at Kinnley for Lord and Lady Cavratt’s Christmas house party. He had never been adept at the lighthearted flirting most young gentlemen used to gain a young lady’s attention. Like an idiot, he had grasped at the first opportunity to secure her company he could find. His shock and relief had probably been painfully obvious when she’d agreed, though she had appeared reluctant.

“You seemed a little wary,” Stanley said, still remembering.

“My father used to rage whenever he lost at anything,” Marjie said. “But if I lost, he would belittle me for my stupidity.”

Stanley laid his head on the top of hers. It was very nearly an embrace, though they were seated side by side and facing forward, their hands still entwined on the small sliver of bench that separated them.

“I worried that you would be as difficult a game partner as he had always been.”

“Then why did you agree to play with me?”

“There was so much kindness in your eyes. There still is.”

As compliments went, it was a good one. Perhaps Stanley had found the piece of Marjie’s affection that he could lay claim to—she saw kindness in him when he struggled to see it in himself. With Marjie near, he felt kind. He felt almost like a good person again. It was no wonder he had needed her so desperately during his time on the Continent.

He turned his head enough to look down at her golden hair. He knew she’d been partial to him before he’d left in the spring. Part of her seemed to care for him still; he’d felt it in the brief moment he’d touched her face the night before and again when she’d sat beside him just now. Obviously she was not averse to him.

There was a chance he might win her heart. Her engagement was not official, after all. Lord Devereaux was probably the better choice for her; he didn’t have a mind filled with memories of death and killing nor a broken, incomplete body. But Lord Devereaux didn’t need her the way Stanley did. Devereaux couldn’t possibly need her that much. Stanley had to go back. If Marjie was with him, he could feel whole and peaceful and good, even in the midst of violence.

The moment of soul-deep longing came to an abrupt end. In the midst of violence. How could he even think of taking her back there with him? Had she not just finished telling him of her suffering under her father’s cruelty? What he had seen in France, even just since the official end of the war, far outweighed the torment from which she had pleaded to heaven for escape.

Marjie would be unhappy in the life he could offer her. The senseless death and suffering would eat away at her sensitive spirit. She would ache for every person she saw in pain. She would be bewildered, burdened by the hatred that still permeated so much of the Continent on both sides of the conflict.

He could not do that to her.

But neither did he think he could endure that life without her.

Stanley heard Marjie sigh.

“I promised Mater I would help her sort through fabric swatches. She is redecorating the Dower House. I think she is hoping to move in and clear the way for Philip and Sorrel to fill the house with little Jonquils.” Marjie sat straighter and broke the contact between them. It was probably for the best, but Stanley regretted the loss immediately. “No one in the family discusses it, but I know everyone wonders if Sorrel is even able to carry a child, considering the extent of her injuries.”

Stanley had wondered the same thing, though he had never voiced the concern.

Marjie rose slowly to her feet, as if reluctant to leave. Hope stirred in Stanley’s heart, but he pushed it back.

“Why must life be so complicated?” Though Marjie whispered, Stanley heard.

“It seems to be the way of things,” he said.

Marjie looked back at him, her smile once again evident, though perhaps a touch less lighthearted than it had been. “I will see you later, Stanley.”

He nodded and watched as she left what was swiftly becoming his favorite room at Lampton Park. He knew the conservatory would forever remind him of her.

When he was once again alone, he rubbed his face with his more cooperative hand. He pushed out a difficult and audible breath. He desperately needed Marjie. He acknowledged the dependence he had on her brightness and goodness. Her faith in him, though given without full knowledge of his guilt and deterioration, gave him faith in himself. But she was not meant to live the harsh and often unforgiving life of a soldier’s wife.

He straightened his posture. He’d allowed himself to slacken, to lower his guard.

“Always a soldier.” The command had kept him alive many times. A soldier found the strength to endure and did what was best for the group as a whole. Marjie deserved better than he could give her. He would simply have to find another way to survive.