As Lady Abigail expected, the Duchess of Wintercrest did arrange a way for Lady Abigail to confront Lord Gilchrist. Unlike before, when he had stayed hidden in his office, he had no choice but to join the guests when a dinner party was thrown once again at his house in his own honor.
The duchess had used his trip to America as a reason to have one last dinner party before he left. There would be no way that Lord Gilchrist could escape a party held in his honor. It was Lady Abigail’s chance to confront him and hopefully mend the bond between them.
Lady Abigail dreaded the thought of Lord Gilchrist traveling far across the sea and all the while holding in his mind that she was nothing more than a silly little girl who had no faith in his judgment.
As Lady Abigail dressed, she took a painstaking amount of time to make sure she looked just right. She had never cared to impress a gentleman with her looks, knowing her natural way was sufficient for her needs. But seeing Lord Gilchrist for the first time in so many weeks made her heart stir with nerves.
She smoothed the folds of her blue velvet dress that contrasted perfectly with the rich, red ringlets she had asked her maid to place in a waterfall effect. She had even taken the time to have a matching blue velvet ribbon woven through her hair along with some pearls.
“Oh, you look lovely,” the duchess cooed upon entering Lady Abigail's room. “That dress does wonders for your complexion.”
“You don’t think it brings out my freckles too much?” Lady Abigail asked, covering the rusty colored specks along her nose. “Mother always said that dark colors only make one’s blemishes pop out more.”
“You look enchanting in it,” the duchess said with eyes full of truth. “Colton couldn’t ignore you, even if he wanted to.”
Lady Abigail was about to respond, but just then, the duchess grabbed the folds of her dress under her swollen belly. Lady Abigail rushed to her side and sat the duchess down in a chair while she took some steadying breaths.
“Nothing to worry about,” Isabella said, but she still gratefully accepted the small glass of wine that Lady Abigail poured for her.
“Just this little one reminding me the end is near,” the duchess said after a sip. Her tone was very ominous.
Lady Abigail knelt at her sister-in-law's feet. She should have cared how it might wrinkle her gown, but she had no thought for it at the moment.
“Are you scared?” Lady Abigail said, placing a soft hand on the belly. She giggled when a kick replied.
“No, not really. It was much scarier the first time around. I didn’t know what to expect then,” the duchess replied, though she was far off in the memory of her twins.
“I would think this would be worse, though, now that you know what is coming?”
“Actually,” the duchess replied with a dreamy look to her eyes, “I think I am more excited because I know what is going to happen. At the end of all the discomfort, I will have a beautiful little angel in my arms.”
Lady Abigail was so mesmerized by the duchess’s words and the impending life that she forgot for a moment what she had planned for the night. Just as the dream began, however, it disappeared, and Lady Abigail was again wakened to her mission.
The dinner party was only for the most intimate friends. When Lady Abigail first arrived at Lord Gilchrist’s house, he was not in sight, but it was not long before she found him. He was sipping an amber liquid from his glass by the warm hearth, while talking with a portly man in a thick mustache.
Lady Abigail later learned that the man was the Mr. Henderson who facilitated the work for Lord Gilchrist’s property in the Americas. He seemed a kind-hearted, jovial man. Lady Abigail, however, had one mission that night and she wouldn’t let her mind lose focus of it.
She had to wait, however, until the end of the meal. Lord Gilchrist was seated at one far end of the table, while she was at the other. He seemed to look over the whole crowd with his eyes passing right over her.
No matter how hard Lady Abigail tried to catch his attention for a moment, Gilchrist was adamantly against it.
Lord Gilchrist was going to suffer this last night with Lady Abigail. He was reluctant to accept Isabella’s idea of yet another dinner party, as the previous one had turned out so horribly. Why she thought another one would be better was beyond him.
He had to hold onto the hearth when Lady Abigail walked into the room. He was sure he had never seen someone look so stunning as she did that night in her rich, royal blue gown and hair alight in the fire’s glow.
Though he could sense she was desperate to get his attention, he couldn’t bear it. He would have this night pass as quickly as possible, so he could be on his way and out of her life permanently. Only then was he sure he could release the tension her presence created in him.
As the meal finished and all retired to the drawing room for light entertainment, Lady Abigail was sure that this was her time to confront Lord Gilchrist. It was as the night was drawing to a close and she saw Gilchrist try to slyly make his escape from the room that Lady Abigail blocked his path.
With a sharp intake of breath, Lord Gilchrist found himself looking down on the lovely face that belonged to such a vexing angel. He had hoped to make his escape before anyone noticed him, but it had not escaped Lady Abigail.
“Could we please speak for a moment,” Lady Abigail said before Lord Gilchrist managed to side-step her.
“I can’t possibly imagine you or I have anything left to say to each other.”
“Please, just wait,” Lady Abigail said, holding up her hands to stop him. “I cannot bear the thought of you leaving with these feelings between us. There must be a way to make amends.”
Lord Gilchrist faltered in his determination to avoid her at all cost.
“Lady Louisa also spoke of some, well, internal struggles you have. I would hate to think that I might have upset you and made things worse.”
“I promise my sanity is not based on your value of my character,” Lord Gilchrist shot back.
“I am trying to find a way to make this better,” Lady Abigail said, sensing Gilchrist’s irritation.
“Are you still choosing to take Heshing’s supposed character over my own witness?” Lord Gilchrist asked, cutting straight to the point of their difference.
Lady Abigail opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her situation with Heshing was a very complicated one. When she was alone with Heshing, the world seemed so simple and free to enjoy. When she was away from him, it seemed everything around her was pitted against them.
Perhaps it was only for that reason that she felt so connected to the man. Her mother had always teased her, as a child, for loving the wounded and hopeless. Once, when Lady Abigail was a child, she had found a chick that had fallen out of its nest.
Her mother had insisted she leave it be. Lady Abigail, always determined and stubborn, instead put the chick back in the nest. Again the next day, she found it on the ground. The Dowager Duchess had explained that because Lady Abigail had touched it, the mother had rejected her own baby.
Still, Lady Abigail wouldn’t give up on the little thing. She took it into the folds of her gown and brought it home with her. It was Lady Abigail’s greatest wish to nurse it to health. Her mother told her it was of no use as the chick would almost surely die.
Lady Abigail was the one for impossible causes. She hoped that this need to help others who seemed to have no hope of their own was not the only reason she found herself holding on to her relationship with Heshing so tightly.
“It is only that…” Lady Abigail started. She could see the cool look in Gilchrist’s blue eyes. It was not what he wanted to hear. “Please, if you will just let me explain.”
“Then explain,” he said waving a hand to two chairs in a small alcove at the side of the drawing room.
They both took their seats in silence. To any onlooker, it would seem like they were mending what was once broken between them. The storm inside Lady Abigail, however, told her that might not be a possibility.
“It is not that I don’t trust your judgment or your witness,” Lady Abigail started once they were seated. “I just feel that Heshing is seen in an unfair light. He is all alone with no family to support him.”
“Choosing to be alone doesn’t make one rude, irresponsible and reckless,” Lord Gilchrist retorted.
Lady Abigail couldn't help but smile at his words.
“Forgive me,” she said when he was taken aback by her look, “but I sometimes picture you like Heshing. All the stories that Isabella and your sister told me. I just see a lot of those same stories in him.”
“Well, I am not that man anymore,” Lord Gilchrist said, stiffening in his chair.
He didn’t want to have this conversation, and he certainly didn’t want it to become about who he used to be compared to who he was now.
“Would you tell me?” Lady Abigail asked. When he didn’t understand her meaning, she tried again. “Would you tell me what happened to you? We used to tell each other anything. Even the things we said to no one else.”
Lord Gilchrist had shared things with Lady Abigail what he could never form into words for another. He was surprised that she had done the same. She had seemed so at ease and her normal self with him. How much of herself did she keep hidden from the rest of the world?
Gilchrist thought the request over as he massaged his temples. It was a scene that played in his head over and over again. That alone should have made it easy enough to say. It was a picture forever in his memory but stuck behind an invisible wall.
He hoped bringing it out and sharing it might help relieve the burden, even slightly. If there was one person who he could share this intimate tale with in his life, it was Lady Abigail. Though they had their differences, they also had a bond of secrecy.
“It was a fire. I was in a tent with a private. He had been injured badly and was seeing the surgeon. I promised to stay by his side. I don’t exactly remember how the fire started. It engulfed the tent fairly quickly. I was attempting to get the private out when there was an explosion.”
He rubbed his thigh without thinking.
“I am told that some of the chemicals used by the surgeon can be quiet flammable. I assume that is what caused the blast. It threw me back and knocked me out. My left side was severely burned, as I’m sure you have noticed,” he added with a wry smile, “and several fragments embedded in my leg. That’s why I have the cane.”
“And the private?” Lady Abigail asked softly.
“He was just one of the many I couldn’t save.”
Lord Gilchrist hung his head low. There had been many casualties of his choice to go into battle. He had tried not to dwell on all the men under his command who would not come home to their families, but to be in the same room as one and unable to save him had been too much.
Then, when he had come to the hospital, burned on half his body and unsure if he would even live, he had been informed that his father too had succumbed to his deadly choice to join the Regulars.
He knew you couldn’t prevent all deaths in a war, but maybe, had he stayed home, another one would have done a better job in his place. One thing he was sure of, had he not gone, his father would still be alive.
He wasn't feeling better at all for telling his tale. If anything, it only brought it all back to the surface. The feeling of the fire, the inability to breathe in the smoke-filled air, the sizzling crackle of his own flesh. Worst of all were the blank eyes of the private laying on the floor next to him.
Lady Abigail reached across and took Lord Gilchrist’s hand. It wasn’t entirely proper, but she didn’t care. It was easy to see he was racked with not just the torment of his own injuries but also the weight of all the men who had been in his care.
Gilchrist looked up at Lady Abigail in surprise when she slipped her hand into his. It was as if a window had been opened to let light into a darkened room. In her eyes, he could see her take a portion of his pain and suffering on herself. It was like getting a lungful of air for the first time in years.