Chapter Eight

“Remind me to always bring Stanley along when I travel,” Sorrel said as their carriage rolled up the drive to Lampton House. “He managed to orchestrate the closing of Lampton House in mere hours, something that usually requires a week or more.”

“He didn’t reach the rank of captain by being inefficient, my dear,” Philip replied.

That was most certainly true. Marjie had never in all her life seen anything as efficient as Stanley’s oversight of their departure. With only twelve hours’ notice, he had arranged for breakfast to be delivered to all of their rooms on trays and for the carriages—one for Philip, Sorrel, Marjie, and Stanley, and the other for their personal servants—packed and ready to depart an hour after their morning meal. A hot brick had already been placed inside, leaving the carriage interior comfortably warm. A basket of food had been provided for their journey. The London staff had been left with very specific instructions for packing those belongings left behind and sending them on to Nottinghamshire. He had drafted a list of individuals to whom Philip’s social secretary would send regrets and notices of the family’s removal to the country in lieu of the usual calls of farewell. Everything had been seen to.

Stanley was certainly efficient, though magnificent felt like a better word.

Philip walked with Sorrel up the front steps of the manor house at Lampton Park, and the butler and staff greeted them. Stanley remained behind to issue directions to the footmen and stable hands. Marjie hovered in the doorway, watching him, worried.

Stanley rolled his right shoulder as if to work out a tight spot in it. Whatever injury he had sustained to his right leg had rendered his gait a little stilted and caused obvious stiffness in his ankle, but the effects of long hours in the carriage had not intensified his limp nor really changed it in any way. She hoped that was a good sign.

“Miss Kendrick.”

She turned at the sound of the housekeeper’s voice. Mrs. Beck, who oversaw the running of the Jonquils’ country seat, smiled sweetly and indicated the maid waiting to divest Marjie of her coat and bonnet.

“His Lordship asked that you come along to the drawing room, Miss Kendrick.”

Marjie nodded and looked one more time out the front windows at Stanley before walking down the corridor toward the drawing room. She had lived at Lampton Park for a month before going with Sorrel and Philip to London. Her mother had decided shortly after Sorrel’s marriage that she did not at all like living at their home in Kent and, having declared herself free of the burden of caring for her crippled daughter—not that Mother had ever expended an ounce of energy on any of her children—wished to enjoy her freedom. She had taken up residence in Tunbridge Wells, where a childhood friend lived. Marjie had been sent to live with her sister. Fennel, their younger brother, was away at school.

Philip stood at the mantel in the drawing room. His mother, the Dowager Countess of Lampton, sat on a nearby sofa. She was remarkably unpretentious for a woman in possession of more titles and social standing than most anyone Marjie had ever known. Sorrel was not in the room, owing to her ailing state of health, no doubt.

The dowager looked up as Marjie entered. “Marjie, how wonderful to have you back.”

“I am very happy to be back, Mater.”

The dowager countess had insisted Marjie call her Mater, just as all her sons did. Marjie had come to think of the kindhearted woman as a surrogate mother. While in London, she had truly missed Mater’s quick wit and humor, her affectionate nature, even the perpetual black she wore in mourning for a husband who had been dead for a decade. Marjie’s family had not mourned their father at all in their hearts and had put aside their mourning clothes the very day convention had allowed them to.

She sat beside Mater, contentment settling over her like a warm blanket.

“Now, Philip.” Mater exuded a fierce focus, her gaze not shifting from him in the least. “Where is my boy? I was specifically told by you, you will recall, not to come to London when he so unexpectedly arrived. You have brought him with you, have you not?”

Philip snapped his fingers. “I knew we forgot something. Maybe Sorrel remembered to stuff him in the boot with the luggage.”

“None of your jesting, I warn you.”

Philip smiled kindly. “Of course we have brought him home, Mater. He is outside playing general. He’ll be in by and by.”

Mater laughed lightly. “I remember the lot of you playing soldiers down by the Trent for hours on end when you were young, even including some of the neighborhood children on occasion. Little Arabella Hampton was always willing to join in the fun. Though you were the one playing general then.” Tenderness filled the dear woman’s eyes. “Your Father and I watched more reenactments of the War with the Colonies than I can even recall.”

“Yes, but we actually won,” Philip said. “It’s amazing what one can do when historical accuracy is not a consideration.”

Mater’s smile remained only a moment before slipping noticeably. “How is he, Philip?” she asked. “Truthfully.”

Philip hesitated. His brow furrowed. “He is not well, Mater,” he finally answered. “He has sustained some sort of injury to his right leg, though I do not know the details.”

Marjie saw Mater pale, so she took the woman’s hand in her own.

“And if I am not mistaken, something has also happened to his right hand.”

His hand? Why did Philip think something was wrong with Stanley’s hand?

“He is right-handed, but he now eats exclusively with his left and puts on his hat with his left. The few times he has shaken a gentleman’s hand, I’ve seen him wince, as if the gesture is painful. He tries to hide it, but I’ve noticed.”

Marjie hadn’t been as observant as Philip had been. What else had she missed?

“And otherwise?” Mater asked.

Philip pushed out a long, strained breath. “I think he is very unhappy.”

Marjie’s heart plummeted. Philip had quite succinctly expressed what she had been trying to identify ever since Stanley’s return. He seldom smiled. He did not spend time in the company of other people. When in public, his rigid posture never eased into anything resembling comfort.

Marjie felt Mater squeeze her hand. How embarrassingly ironic. The dear lady’s son was struggling and she had to comfort Marjie.

“He is home now,” Mater said. She had straightened her spine and pushed back her shoulders. Marjie saw a little of a general in Mater as well. “We will see to it that he is well again.”

Philip smiled and leaned against the mantelpiece, not far from where they sat. “I have already recruited Marjie to help in the effort. With the two of you joining forces, I don’t see how we can possibly fail to pull our Stanley out of this state of blue devilment he’s in.”

Mater nodded her emphatic agreement.

An echoing click made its way in from the corridor.

Marjie was well acquainted with the sound of a walking stick and recognized it instantly. “I believe he is coming,” she said to Mater.

A moment later, Stanley stood in the doorway. Marjie couldn’t help thinking he looked apprehensive, nervous even.

“Oh, my dear boy.” Mater’s watery words accompanied her very sudden dash across the room. Her arms were around her son hardly before Marjie realized she had moved.

For just a moment, he looked like he might lose his balance, but he remained upright. Slowly, uncertainly, his left arm made its way around his mother, his right still grasping his walking stick. All the Jonquil brothers were tall—it was one of their more identifiable traits, one they quite obviously had inherited from their father. Mater’s head did not even reach Stanley’s shoulder.

“Oh, Stanley.” Mater’s words were muffled, her head pressed into Stanley’s chest. “Forgive me for turning into such a watering pot. I have simply missed you so horribly.”

“Don’t you know a soldier likes to have a pretty lady cry over him?” Stanley’s arm could not have been applying more than the lightest pressure against his mother, as if he was avoiding actually embracing her.

“Pretty lady? You boys and your glib tongues.” Mater pulled back, her head moving as she looked him over, though she did not entirely release him. “You have come back to us whole,” she said. “I prayed and prayed for that. The heavens must have listened.”

Stanley nodded, his eyes moving away from her.

“Oh, my sweet Stanley.” Mater touched Stanley’s cheek. “Promise you will stay with us for a while.”

“Until I am required to go back.”

“Then let us hope that is not for a long while yet.” Mater might very well have been speaking on Marjie’s behalf.

Suddenly, there was a look of such intense sadness on Stanley’s face that Marjie’s lungs compressed painfully at the sight of it. What was he thinking of? What had upset him so entirely?

“Stanley?” Mater pressed.

As quickly as it had clouded, his expression emptied, and he stepped back. “I am a little fatigued from the journey,” he said, his words halting. “I would like to retire for the evening. If you will excuse me.”

He didn’t wait for a response but moved quickly from the room. Marjie looked from Mater’s surprised face to Philip’s concerned one.

“He is not well.” Mater still stood where Stanley had left her, looking in the direction of his departure. “I have never known him to be so distant and unaffectionate.”

“I wanted to see how he would interact with you,” Philip said. “I knew it would be more telling than almost anything else.”

“He was always so attentive, caring to the point of being a bother at times.” Mater turned back to face her eldest son. There was pain and worry etched in every line of her face. “The embrace he offered just now hardly counted as one. He said not more than a few words, none of them personal.”

“Something happened to him, Mater.” Philip looked weary, weighed down. “Mariposa said the war was destroying Stanley’s soul. At the time, I thought she was exaggerating—she does have a tendency toward the dramatic.”

Mariposa’s flair for the dramatic was one of Marjie’s favorite things about that particular Jonquil sister-in-law. Mariposa had known Stanley while she had lived in Spain and later in France. She had seen him as a solider and had lived through battles herself.

“I am beginning to think the newest Mrs. Jonquil was spot on the mark,” Philip said. “I very much fear we are losing him.”

Marjie would not allow Stanley to slip away from them all. His soul was worth fighting for. She would help him, whatever it took.

As if placed there by some invisible messenger, an idea formulated in her mind. Marjie excused herself and made her way from the room. She caught up with Stanley in the corridor leading to all the family rooms. She had been given the bedchamber she was told had once been Jason and Corbin’s and was, therefore, very near Stanley’s. Though she would have denied it had anyone asked, she had sat in Stanley’s bedchamber during his absence, feeling closer to him by simply being in a room where he had spent so much of his life.

“Stanley,” she called out to him.

He stopped only a few steps from his doorway and turned. She came to a stop directly in front of him. She stood close enough in that moment to smell his shaving soap, a scent she had become familiar with during her time spent sneaking into his empty bedchamber.

“There is something I have been meaning to give you.” She rushed her words, attempting to get them out with what little air she could manage to press out of her suddenly tight lungs. “Would you wait here, please, while I retrieve it? I know precisely where it is and shan’t be but a moment.”

“I—” He looked uncomfortable. “I rather need to sit, actually.” Was he blushing? “One would think after two days of sitting, I wouldn’t have to do so again, but—”

“Of course.”

His injury, whatever it might be, had begun to bother him again, and she was keeping him standing in the corridor. What a widgeon she was!

“I will bring it to your room. You can sit in there.” She happened to know that a very comfortable armchair sat near the fireplace.

Not wishing to cause him any further inconvenience, Marjie hurried into her own bedchamber and directly to the portable writing table she’d brought back with her from Town. She opened the lid and shuffled around the stack of stationery, pulling out the sealed envelope beneath: her most recent letter to Stanley, the one she’d written in the hours before his unexpected arrival.

How she had longed for a letter. Had she ever received one from him, she was certain that would have brightened her spirits on even the darkest day.

She rushed back down the corridor. Stanley’s door stood fully open. She knocked lightly before stepping through. Though being in his room with him, alone, was pushing the bounds of propriety almost beyond bearing, his door had been left wide open, and she meant only to be there for a brief moment. He hardly had the strength to stand; she couldn’t be faulted for not insisting he suffer in the name of strict acceptability.

He was inside, just as she’d imagined him so many times. His presence changed the room entirely. Where she had once felt peaceful and filled with longing, she now felt anxious and as tense as the strings of a harp.

She pushed out a quick breath. She would not lose her courage.

He rose as she approached. She opened her mouth to insist that he need not but stopped herself, convinced that saying as much would only wound his pride. “I wanted to give you this.” She handed the letter to him, feeling terribly uncertain. Was she doing the right thing? Would it even help?

He looked perplexed. “A letter?” he asked.

“I had intended to send it to you, but you returned before I could. I sent one every week you were gone. I am not certain how long they took to reach you or if they reached you at all—one can never be sure. It is probably silly to even give it to you. I doubt you actually want it.” Why did she always ramble when she was nervous?

“Why would you think I would not wish for a letter from you?” Stanley’s eyes were on the folded parchment he held, an intense look on his face.

“I—” She swallowed against the thickness in her throat, dropping her gaze to her hands. “I never could be certain you didn’t find my letters more of an annoyance than anything else.”

“An annoyance?”

She felt the softness of his glove on her chin and the gentle pressure as he tilted her face upward. Their eyes met, and her heart lurched inside.

“I was the envy of my entire regiment, I will have you know. Not a single one of them had such a faithful correspondent.”

“But you never wrote back,” Marjie whispered. That had hurt more than she had ever let on. Why would he not write if he truly cared for her?

“Life for a soldier is either excruciatingly dull or too horrific for a lady to read about,” Stanley said.

“I would have been happy to receive a single line to say you were well.”

“And if I wasn’t well?” he asked. His hand had moved to cup her face, his gloved fingers lightly touching her jaw.

“I would have liked to have known that too.” She closed her eyes, wanting nothing to interfere with the memory she was creating of the feel of his fingers on her face. Even through his gloves, the touch was magical.

“You would have only worried,” he said.

She could feel the warmth of his breath against her face. He must have moved closer. She kept her eyes closed. Her heart raced. “Worrying could not have been worse than not knowing.”

“Some things are better left unknown.” His hand dropped away, and the warmth he’d offered fled.

She opened her eyes. He had, indeed, moved farther from her, and not just physically. His expression had closed off; his eyes were focused out the windows and away from her.

Some things are better left unknown. That admission held tremendous significance: an acknowledgment that he purposefully didn’t speak of the things he’d experienced. Marjie felt to her very core that if he would just speak of and share his burden, he would improve. He would heal.

“Good night, Stanley,” she said, wishing he would reach out to her again.

His gaze returned to her. “Good night.”

Marjie turned and walked toward the open door. Her “quick” visit had lasted longer than she’d expected and had proven, for a moment, quite personal. The scheme, it seemed, had been a rather foolish one.

“Marjie.” Stanley’s voice stopped her in her tracks, though she didn’t look back. “Thank you for the letter.”

The tiniest whisper of a smile tugged at her mouth. Perhaps her idea had not been futile after all. “You’re welcome.”