Chapter Eleven
Irina was relieved she’d brought her own mount to the house party at Peteridge. The Duke of Hastings’s country seat was a short jaunt from London, and though Lord and Lady Dinsmore had balked at her insistence that she ride there on horseback rather than inside their carriage with them, they had, in the end, relented.
It had been well over a week since the Kensington ball. Since Irina had called Henry a coward and stormed from the balcony. She’d tried to focus on anything other than the startled hurt she’d seen in his eyes, as if she had thrust a blade into his heart, but it had proven difficult.
True to her word, Irina had arranged for two thousand pounds to be delivered to Max in as discreet a way as possible, and had then reserved all her focus on waiting for news that he had officially entered the pot. When it had come, she had felt an initial rush of relief, quickly followed by one of nausea.
She was going to marry Max.
It didn’t seem real, but…it would be. She’d get used to the notion, she was certain, and they would both be better off together than they had been before—alone. They were a good team, Irina knew. Everything would be fine.
Packing for Lord Marston, the Duke of Hasting’s house party had thankfully consumed the last handful of days, and now that she was there, she could focus her attention on the diverting events the duke had planned, like the archery contest.
Lord Marston’s stables were not lacking in the least, but when he had announced an archery competition to be held on a course designed for a horse and rider, she was happy she would not have to compete on an unfamiliar mount.
The fact that Jules belonged to Henry only rankled a little.
The fact that Henry himself and his gorgeous bride-to-be were also in attendance at the duke’s annual midseason house party had rankled quite a bit more.
Though if she was being truthful, Irina was starting to like Lady Carmichael. She hadn’t expected to, and she didn’t want to, but when they’d been paired off for a game of shuttlecock on the first day of the house party, she’d found herself enjoying the older woman’s company. Lady Carmichael was fresh and direct, but not in as ostentatious a way as say, Gwen. What was more, she did seem to care very much for Henry. In fact, she reminded Irina much of her own sister, Lana. She’d even stood up to an inquisition from Gwen, which was a feat in itself.
How long had she known the earl? Since childhood.
For how long had she been a widow? Two years.
Did she know that her betrothed was once the Prince Regent’s secret spy? You can’t possibly expect me to dignify that with an answer, Lady Lyon.
The response had won Irina over, especially because Gwen had been fishing for gossip. But it was mostly the fact that Lady Carmichael seemed devoted to Henry…which Irina knew he needed, and despite her hurtful words about his apparent cowardice when it came to her, she only wanted for his happiness.
“You care for him, don’t you?” Irina had asked her over afternoon tea.
“Very much.”
“He deserves to be happy,” she’d said softly.
Lady Carmichael had stared at her with an odd, assessing expression. “Yes, he does.”
Irina adjusted her seat on her horse, pushing the conversation with Lady Carmichael from her mind as the man ahead of her forged forward for his turn at the archery contest. The bustle of her riding habit was ridiculously intrusive. It weighed heavy behind her, as did the pleated tweed skirts of her habit that obscured the pair of buckskin trousers underneath. There were only two other ladies participating in the contest, though they were sticking with tradition and riding sidesaddle, as good and proper ladies did. Irina, however, intended to win the contest, and so riding astride was the only fathomable option.
Beside her, several more contestants waited for their chance. Targets had been set up along a ribboned-in course lain out in the open field before them, and the rider to complete the circuit with not only the fastest time, but also the most accurate shots at the targets, would be the victor.
Lord Beechum was currently taking the course with all the focus of a drunken butterfly. He swerved along, readying his bow and arrow with such slow precision that he was not bothering to see to his mount’s direction.
“I’ve seen grass grow faster than this,” Max muttered. He stood beside Irina’s horse, his hands on the traces in an attempt to help calm and steady the animal as they waited. She was up next.
“It isn’t as if we have anything better to do,” she replied. The rest of the women were currently taking tea and painting portraits in the garden. She suspected that was where both Lady Carmichael and Gwen were. Irina turned in her saddle, and far across the grounds, near a pond, stood a grouping of men holding long-barreled rifles. They were waiting for the archery contest to conclude before lining up to shoot at their own targets, set up on haystacks across the pond. Henry was among them.
And he was looking at her.
Their eyes met, clashing with a jolt Irina felt in her spine.
She turned away first.
“Finally,” Max sighed as Lord Beechum let his last arrow loose, the arrowhead striking the outermost rings on the target.
Max snorted.
“Be polite,” Irina chastised, trying not to laugh as well.
Laughter behind them at the pond drew her attention, and again she glanced toward the men. Henry was no longer watching her, so she allowed herself a moment to look her fill. He was the only one not holding a shotgun, and as he swung up onto his mount—a borrowed gray, she noted—she realized he wasn’t going to participate. Lord Thorndale was there, however, and the two of them seemed to be in conversation.
She still couldn’t believe she’d called the earl a coward. Every time she thought of it, she wished for the chance to take it back. He was a war hero. He wasn’t a coward, not truly, and yet…he was running. For whatever reason, he was running from her.
“Darling, have you fallen asleep up there waiting for Lord Beechum to complete the course?” Max said, tugging on her skirt. She blinked and looked toward the starting line. The others were waiting for her to begin.
“I’ll be but a minute,” she said confidently, turning the reins and trotting forward.
She had her bow in hand and a sheath filled with six arrows slung over her horse’s neck, the cardinal fletching feathers waiting for her to grasp as she rode the course.
“Your Highness,” one of the footmen said, his eyes on a pocket watch. He raised a small tea towel, and when the second hand clicked at the top of the watch, he brought the linen down.
She took off, racing along the course entrance while pulling the first of her arrows from the sheath. Holding the reins while taking the shot would be impossible, so she clenched her legs, pressing her knees into her mount’s sides to stay straight in the saddle as she nocked her arrow.
Irina let it fly, rushing past the first target before she had the chance to see it bury into the bullseye. She just trusted that it had, and taking the reins again, steered for the turn in the course and the second haystack target. Without slowing, and rising slightly in the saddle, Irina released her second arrow to hit the target dead center amidst wild cheering before racing for the third.
A gunshot cracked through the air, and she faltered, her concentration ripped away. Irina twisted in her saddle, slowing her pace and no doubt seriously damaging her time. But when she saw a horse and rider barreling in the opposite direction, around the pond and toward a stone wall, she brought her mount to a complete stop.
The group of men near the pond were shouting at the one who’d fired the shot; the man holding the smoking shotgun wore a look of surprise and chagrin, and Irina knew right away it had gone off unexpectedly.
Her heart spluttered as she looked to the horse and rider again, riding wildly toward the stone wall. It was the borrowed gray. It was Henry. And something was wrong. He wasn’t sitting right in the saddle, but bouncing around, as if he had lost control. He seemed to be hunched over, too, his head turned down.
Good Lord. Had he been shot?
Irina dropped her bow and tugged the reins, redirecting Jules until his nose was pointed toward the periphery of the ribboned-off course. She gave him a firm nudge with her heel and he was off, rushing toward the hip-high ribbon. With a cry of alarm from the crowd looking on, Jules jumped the ribbon and bolted away from the archery course. She thought she heard Max calling after her to stop, but she could only concentrate on Henry’s slumped back. She swallowed a scream when his gray hurdled over the stone wall far ahead, and his figure swayed perilously to the side, as if he might fall off. But he stayed seated, his horse continuing to flee.
The men near the pond shouted after her as she raced past, Lord Thorndale roaring instead to a footman for him to bring his bloody horse at once. None of them had mounts at the ready, but they all seemed to know what Irina did: that the Earl of Langlevit was in trouble.
The wind took her hat as she passed the small pond, and as she leaned over Jules’s neck, her backside out of the saddle, her grip loose on the reins so Jules would only go faster, she felt as if she were flying. And yet, not fast enough.
She jumped the stone wall, and as she came down into the green grass on the other side, spotted Henry and his mount at the bottom of the hill below. The gray seemed to have slowed, thank heavens, but it was still cantering toward an outcropping of elm trees.
“My lord!” she shouted, swallowing air and knowing her voice could not possibly have reached him.
However, the gray seemed to have heard it. It slowed further and with agitated shakes of its head and mane, came to a prancing halt just before the trees.
Henry remained in the saddle, his head bent forward, his body stiff and hunched as he rocked forward and back. Jules descended the hill, and she reined him in, coming to a stop just beside the gray.
“Henry?” she said. He didn’t appear to be injured, or shot, but he was muttering to himself, his lips moving over words she couldn’t make out.
Irina recalled the stupor he’d been in on the road to Essex, after the tree branch had fallen. Lying there in the road, his eyes closed, it had been like watching someone unable to wake up from a nightmare. The crack of the gun had likely startled his horse, but it might have done something worse to him. Unlike the last time he’d gone into shock, his eyes were open now. Whatever he was seeing, she guessed, it was not their current surroundings.
“It’s Irina, Henry. I’m right here,” she said, reaching over to touch his arm. Her hand settling upon the rigid muscle of his bicep. “Look at me, Henry. You’re in a field. You’re home, in England. You’re safe.”
She felt silly, talking to him this way, keeping her voice purposefully calm when her heart was thrashing madly in her chest. But she knew that whatever he was seeing right now was painful and frightening. She needed to bring him back.
A sound from the top of the hill where the stone wall was caught her attention. She turned and saw Lord Thorndale and two other men had acquired their mounts and were approaching.
“Henry, please,” she said, turning back to him. He would be humiliated if his peers found him this way. “People are coming. Wake up!”
He stared blankly ahead, his brows furrowed. At least he was still upright in his saddle. Irina grasped his mount’s reins and tugged them, leading the gray beside her as she turned to face the riders, one of which was Lord Marston, the Duke of Hastings.
“Langlevit, what the devil?” Marston asked.
“Is he shot?” Lord Thorndale asked, his eyes roaming over Henry with concern.
“No,” Irina answered. “He might have…hit his head.”
“Upon what?” Thorndale asked, his keen eyes coming to rest on her.
“I’m…not sure, however, he’s just told me his temple is paining him. Lord Marston, does that path over there lead back to the main house?”
Irina pointed toward a trail through the field, cutting up the opposite side of the hill and into the trees.
“Why yes, but, Langlevit, you’re sure you’re not shot? I’m going to thrash young Bucksley with that blasted shotgun of his. I don’t know what he was thinking, walking around with it primed like that. He could have killed someone!”
“Oh yes, yes, he’s perfectly fine, aren’t you, Lord Langlevit?” she asked, quickly leading the gray toward the path and continuing her babbling to try to cover for the fact that Henry was completely unresponsive.
“Just a headache, isn’t that right? I’ll go with him to the house, and you men can return to your competition. Tell everyone all is well! Good afternoon!” she called, before kicking Jules into a trot and praying Henry did not slide off his saddle, straight into the grass. It was absurd, and she knew Thorndale at least had not bought one bit of her blabbering, but for the moment, they were alone again.
“Henry, you must say something,” she said, quickly leading him out of the field and into the tree line. Once they were in, obscured by the thick elm trunks and canopy of leaves, she let the muscles in her back go slack. “I cannot return you to the house like this.”
She slowed their mounts and turned to him again. Removing her glove, she reached across the divide and cupped his cheek, recalling the way she’d done so that day on the post road. When he did not respond as he had then, Irina felt a flutter of panic.
“What can I do?” she asked, suddenly worried that he might be stuck like this forever.
Irina brushed her thumb along his skin, tracing his lower lip. He’d stopped his incoherent murmuring, at least. She released his cheek and took up his hand, resting limp on his thigh, though his fingertips were pressed hard into his leg. She softened each finger and held his hand, bringing it to her lips.
Irina removed his glove and kissed the ridge of his knuckles, her heart aching. “Tell me what to do.”
She stroked his hand, tracing the tracks of his veins with her fingertips and brushing her lips against his skin in their wake. It was like he was a statue, made of human flesh and bone, but inhabited by nothing. His complete lack of response and catatonic state frightened her.
His demons, the ones she knew tortured him, were much like hers—dormant most of the time, but when they struck, they came with a vengeance. She had never fully recovered from being kidnapped by her uncle’s men. Though it took years before she was able to sleep comfortably, night terrors still came once in a while, their grip inescapable. Much like the state Henry was in right now.
“I’m here, Henry,” she whispered, brushing the heart of his palm with her thumb. “Find your way back to me. I’m not going anywhere. Listen to my voice, please.”
Irina kept distractedly stroking his hand with her fingertips, and after a while realized she’d been drawing her initials and then his, over and over, but the motion was calming. It helped her to focus on something even as she continued to repeat her whispered pleas for him to hear her voice. It seemed like hours had passed before she finally felt his fingers flex against hers.
“Irina.” His voice was a dry croak.
She looked up at him, wanting to sob in relief. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
Henry licked his lips and blinked, as if trying to get his bearings. “I’m…there was a gunshot. After…what are we doing here?” he asked, glancing at the woods around them and blinking in apparent confusion.
He didn’t remember any of it?
“Where did you go?” she asked, frowning slightly. “France again?”
Henry rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his shoulders, his lips pressed tight. Not looking at her. His body had gone rigid again, but this time it was discomfort and not some repressed memory that held him in bondage. Taking the reins of his mount, he fiddled with them a bit, as if trying to decide whether or not to trust her. She waited in silence.
“Yes,” he whispered finally.
“What do you see there?”
Irina was certain he would not reply this time. But he surprised her. “Someone I cannot help. A young girl who suffered because of me. Because I would not give in to save her.” His voice grew quiet and Irina sat still, knowing if she moved or uttered one word, he would stop. “In my mind, I hear her screaming. Begging for mercy and never receiving it. What she endured was worse than hell, and I was the one to condemn her there. Sometimes, in my memory, the girl has other faces…faces of those I—” He cut off then, his breathing ragged, his fingers convulsing on the reins. A muscle throbbed in his neck as he visibly struggled to compose himself.
“I am sorry,” Irina said gently, knowing he might pull away, but needing to comfort him nonetheless. “There is nothing I can say that will lessen the pain you both endured, but horrible things happen in times of war. You must know that it’s not your fault.”
A flare of self-disgust lit his eyes. “I know that. Logically, I know.” His expression shifted to frustration as his posture loosened a little. His stare dipped thoughtfully to their joined hands, but he made no move to pull away. “It’s just…some part of me won’t accept it. A part of me forgets.”
Irina couldn’t begin to imagine what he’d seen or the pain and suffering he’d borne. Nor could she imagine what it had taken to remain silent under the brunt of such barbaric torture. The poor girl’s suffering wasn’t on him; it was on them. His vile captors. But Irina also understood the power of guilt all too well. There was precious little she could say that would absolve him of his demons. Instead, she defied all modesty and pretense, and pushing the leather strap of the rein out of the way, threaded her gloveless fingers between his. Sensation flooded her at the meeting of their hands, making it difficult to draw in air as his eyes met hers. The skin of his bare palm sliding against hers was warm and rough. He needed comfort and she would offer it, without giving a damn to who might see and judge her scandalous behavior. Irina simply did not care. And neither did he. Henry’s thumb grazed over the back of hers, brushing back and forth in a caress so tender it took her breath away.
“Come,” she whispered after a while, breaking the spell and retrieving her glove. She handed him his. “We should return to the house before Lord Thorndale sends out a search party, and I wouldn’t want to cause any gossip to endanger Lady Carmichael’s reputation.” His eyes shot to hers in surprise, but Irina meant it. Though she didn’t care a whit for the ton’s views of her, she didn’t want her actions to have any impact on Rose.
Oddly, Henry’s expression lightened. “Thank you,” he said.
Nodding, Irina turned her horse to travel along the path and forced a careless shrug despite the considerable lump forming in her throat. “Think nothing of it. Though you might need to convince Lords Thorndale and Marston that you hit your head upon something to make yourself so…uncommunicative when they saw you.”
He trotted alongside her. “Saw me?”
“They followed when your horse bolted. I covered for you.”
Henry’s gray caught up to Jules, bringing her knee and his into contact. “It seems I am once more in your debt.”
“You owe me nothing, my lord.” And it was true. There was nothing she wanted from him. Nothing she could now have from him without hurting another. She sucked air past the growing brick in her throat. “It is the least I could do in return for everything you’ve ever done for Lana and me.”
They rode onward, both of them quiet. Both of them, Irina suspected, suppressing words that could never be spoken.