Chapter 24

Cordelia stared at the door. The painted blue panel still shook on its hinges, Jack had slammed it so hard. This couldn’t possibly be happening, could it? All the air vanished out of her lungs and her eyes burned. The colors in the room suddenly burned brighter, the cream of the walls blindingly white in the candle glow and the shade of the blue door vibrated. Even her heart beat with such an explosion of sound she was sure that Jack, now far out into the night, would be able to hear it. Surely, he would turn back, hearing that broken sound?

What had she done?

She’d been honest that’s what she’d done. She’d told him the truth. . . Except. . . Except she’d had the courage to tell him every little thing she’d seen about him and his father but she’d not had the bravery to admit she loved him. Him. In all his perfectly broken glory. She loved the man who had been betrayed by his family and his own heart.

A cry, loud and deeply unpleasant echoed through the room. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Good god, could she have made such a sound. Had it been her? It couldn’t have been.

But as her fingers slammed down over her lips, her ribcage began to shake with uncontrollable sobs. Sobs she had kept buried deep within her her entire life. They rolled through her, one after the other. Wave after wave of grief falling upon her.

Slowly, she lowered herself to the floor, her knees thunking on the wood floor. Never, in her recollection, could she recall a time when a solution had not immediately made itself clear to her. But struggle though she may through the tears making a complete mess of her face, she couldn’t think of one.

She’d not even had a week with him. Not one. Just a few days. And now he was gone.

“Madam?”

Cordy whipped towards the voice and spotted Harris peeping out from the hallway, his shoulders bent and a slightly embarrassed expression folding his brow into a myriad of wrinkles. She dashed her hand over her eyes, and then shockingly her nose.

“You look all of five years old my lady.”

“Do I?” she asked, her voice completely unrecognizable to her own ears.

“You mustn’t let him do this.”

She let out a shuddering sigh, which made her feel surprisingly better. “Do what, Harris?”

“Run from love, Your Grace.”

Cordy contemplated the short little man, wondering if perhaps this wasn’t another delusion the fellow had, rather like his certainty that Boney was still about, ready to take England by storm. “I rather think you’re mistaken.”

“Am I? I’ve known the lad for over a decade. Can you say the same?”

“Hmm. I cannot,” she conceded.

He nodded, satisfied. “You can’t give up on him so easily.”

“Easily?” She groaned, her own heart aching in a way she’d never known. “That was not easy, Harris. I’ve not cried in my life that I can recall.”

The older man tsked. “And isn’t that a tragedy in itself.”

She sniffed, tempted to wipe her nose with her sleeve but she wasn’t that far gone. “I beg your pardon?”

“Well, it seems to me you both need love.”

“I suppose, but Harris,” she swallowed, loathing to admit her deepest fear. “I don’t think he loves me at all.”

“But you love him?”

She bit down on the inside of her lower lip, horrified that she was about to admit such a thing at all, let alone to a man she’d known about three days. “Yes. Yes I do.”

“And I bet when things get tough down there in Africa you let your father handle it or mayhap your brothers.”

Her jaw dropped at outrageous assumption. “The very idea—”

Harris blinked, wide eyed. “You don’t run when things are a bit uncomfortable then, pretty lass like you?”

“I’ll have you know, that I pitch in with the best of them. Why just last winter I—” She stopped herself and a slow grin suddenly defying the remnants of her tears. “I see.”

He nodded. “I knew you were a quick one. Just imagine if we’d given up on the continent in those first years of the war. Looked like we were going to be beaten and beaten good, but old Wellington, he never shirked. He didn’t give up.”

“Are you comparing me to Wellington?” She had a feeling the fellow couldn’t give her a higher compliment.

“You love Jack don’t you?”

She blinked. It was astonishing but she knew the truth without a doubt. “Yes.”

Harris nodded, clearly pleased with her honesty. “It would take a general to survive his family.”

“But. . .” Her throat tightened. “He doesn’t want me.”

Harris rolled his eyes, crossed the room and offered his cracked and creased old hand. “Oh Aye, he doesn’t want you at all.”

She studied that gentle, offered palm, before taking it. He hoisted her to her feet and then, confident as you please, Harris headed into the drawing room. The clink of glasses drifted towards her, her feet still rooted in her own little puddle of most unbecoming tears.

“Come on then,” Harris called. “You’ll be in need of a drink.”

A spot of brandy did sound most appealing and she truly could use a medicinal restorative. . .Blast. If she would just admit it, she wanted to grab a bottle and do as Kathryn would have suggested; drink the lot.

Sighing, she followed Harris into the small room she’d spent next to no time in.

Harris held out a glass, shockingly full.

She took it and gulped down a swallow of whiskey, ready to fortify herself for the forthcoming battle as no doubt Harris would proclaim it.

“Flowery lasses who give up and don’t make a fuss, don’t drink whiskey.”

“I beg your pardon?” she asked before she took another healthy gulp.

He arched a shaggy brow. “I can see what’s turning around in your head, like I can see a storm comin’ in off the sea.”

“Can you indeed?” She gave him a tired smile.

“You’re thinking, how could such a staunch and no nonsense about her girl, be felled by love.”

“Well, yes. That was rather what I was thinking as I made a wet blanket of myself.”

Harris took a drink, handling the snifter with a good deal of ease, drinking the bandy as if he were born to it. “Look here, His Grace needs a special kind of love.”

“I’m listening.”

“He was the younger son of a duke, a duke what couldn’t keep his pants on, and got his jollies from being the most superior man in the room, if you get my meaning.”

“I think I do.”

“Well, Jack never lived it down. Not with his da. And it’s going to take more than a few words to bolster him up and make him see that he needs you.”

She gaped. “Needs me?”

“Aye, needs you,” Harris proclaimed. “I’ve not seen him come alive once in the years I’ve known him, not even on the battle field. He were just going through the motions. But these last days, he’s been alive. Do you understand that, my lady? You’ve woken him up and he’s trying to go back to sleep because its what he knows.”

She took another big drink and nodded, swishing the brandy about her mouth, savoring the delightful burn. “I see. But how do I go about such thing.”

“Hie yourself to London. Make a splash. Make it impossible for him to not encounter you. Make him see he can’t bear for anyone else to have you. That you belong to him.”

Belong to him.

The very words sent a shiver of anticipation down her spine. She did belong to him. She did and despite her fear that Jack would give her the cut or laugh at her attempts to win him, she was going to try.

Cordy raised her glass to Harris. “Cheers and thank you.”

“Not at all, my lady. You just needed to see it.”

Oh, she saw it now. Those silly tears were gone now, replaced by a clarity bestowed on her by an old soldier. For after all, was she not a woman who pursued what she desired at all cost? Indeed she was. And now it was time for battle. A thought that couldn’t cheer her more. After all, nothing was going to stand in her way. Not when love was so close to hand.