A Lady of His Own

for his apartments as he’d originally intended but to the widow’s walk.

High on the Abbey’s south side immediately below the roof, the widow’s walk ran for thirty feet, a stone-faced, stone-paved gallery open on one side, the wide view of the Fowey estuary framed by ornate railings. Even in deepest night with the moon obscured by cloud and the outlook veiled by rain, the view would be magnificent, eerily compelling. A reminder of how insignificant in Nature’s scheme of things humans really were.

His feet knew the way. Courtesy of the years, he moved silently.

He halted just short of the open archway giving onto the walk; Penny was already there.

Seated on a stone bench along the far wall, one elbow on the railing, chin propped on that hand, she was staring out at the rain.

There was very little light. He could just make out the pale oval of her face, the faint gleam of her fair hair, the long elegant lines of her pale blue gown, the darker ripple of her shawl’s knotted fringe. The rain didn’t quite reach her.

She hadn’t heard him.

He hesitated, remembering other days and nights they’d been up here, not always but often alone, just the two of them drawn to the view. He remembered she’d asked for time alone to think.

She turned her head and looked straight at him.

He didn’t move, but Penny knew he was there. To her eyes he was no more than a denser shadow in the darkness; if he hadn’t been looking at her, she’d never have realized.

When he didn’t move, when she sensed his hesitation, she looked back at the wet night. “I haven’t yet made up my mind, so don’t ask.”

She sensed rather than heard his sigh.

“I didn’t realize you were here.”

He’d thought her in her chamber; he couldn’t have known otherwise. She returned no comment, unperturbed by his presence; he was too far away for her senses to be affected-she didn’t, otherwise, find him bothersome to be near. And she knew why he’d come there-for much the same reason she had.

But now he was present, and she was, to o…she tried to predict his next tack, but he surprised her.

“You weren’t that amazed to learn I’d been a spy. Why?”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I remember when you returned for your father’s funeral. Your mother was…not just happy to see you, but grateful. I suppose I started to wonder then. And she was forever slipping into French when she spoke to you, far more than she usually does, and you were so secretive about which regiment you were in, where you were quartered, which towns you’d been through, which battles…normally, you would have been full of tales. Instead, you avoided talking about yourself. Others put it down to grief.” She paused, then added, “I didn’t. If you’d wanted to hide grief, you would have talked and laughed all the harder.”

Silence stretched, then he prompted, “So on the basis of that one episode…”

She laughed. “No, but it did mean I had my eyes open the next time you appeared.”

“Frederick’s funeral.”

“Yes.” She let her memories of that time color her tone; Frederick’s death had been a shock to the entire county. “You were late-you arrived just as the vicar was about to start the service. The church door had been left open, there were so many people there, but the center aisle had been left clear so people could see down the nave.

“The first I or anyone knew of your presence was your shadow. The sun threw it all the way into the church, almost to the coffin. We all turned and there you were, outlined with the sun behind you, a tall, dramatic figure in a long, dark coat.”

He humphed. “Very romantic.”

“No, strangely enough you didn’t appear romantic at all.” She glanced at him. He was concealed within the shadows of the archway, leaning back against the arch’s side, looking out; she could discern his profile, but not his expression. She looked back at the rain-washed fields. “You were…intense. Almost frighteningly so. You had eyes for no one but your family. You walked to them, straight down the nave, your boots ringing on the stone.”

She paused, remembering. “It wasn’t you but them, their reactions that made me…almost certain of my suspicions. Your mother and James hadn’t expected to see you; they were so grateful you were there. They knew. Your sisters had been expecting you, and were simply reassured when you arrived. They didn’t know.

“Later, you explained you’d been held up, and that you had to rejoin your regiment immediately. You didn’t exactly say, but everyone assumed you meant in London or the southeast; you intended to leave that night. But it had rained on and off for days-it rained heavily that night. The roads were impassable, yet in the morning you were gone.”

She smiled faintly. “I don’t think many others, other than I presume the Fowey Gallants, realized your appearance and your leaving coincided with the tides.”

Minutes ticked past in silence, the same restful, undisturbing silence they’d often shared up there, as if they were perched high in a tree on different branches, looking out on their world.

“You were surprised I didn’t return for James’s funeral.”

She thought back, realized she’d felt more concern and worry than surprise. “I knew you’d come if it was possible, especially then, with James’s death leaving your mother and sisters alone. Your mother especially-she’d buried her husband and two eldest sons in the space of a few years, something no one could have foreseen. Yet that time even more than the previous one, she didn’t expect you; she wasn’t surprised when you didn’t appear-she was worried, deeply worried, but everyone saw it as distraction due to grief.”

“Except you.”

“I know your mother rather well.” After a moment, she dryly added, “And you, too.”

“Indeed.” She heard him shift, heard the change in his tone. “You do know me well, so why this hesitation over telling me what you know you should?”

“Because I don’t know you that well, not anymore.”

“You’ve known me all your life.”

“No. I knew you until you were twenty. You’re now thirty-three, and you’ve changed.”

A pause ensued, then he said, “Not in any major way.”

She glanced at where he stood. After a moment she said, “That’s probably true. Which only proves my point.”

Silence, then, “I’m only a poor male. Don’t confuse me.”

Poor male her left eye. Yet revisiting her knowledge of him, talking matters through with him, was helping; she was starting to grapple with the new him. The irony hadn’t escaped her; she’d deliberately avoided thinking of him for the past thirteen years, but now fate and circumstance were forcing her to it. To understand him again, to look and see him clearly.

She drew breath. “All right-think of this. I saw you with Millie and Julia today. The charm, the smile, the laughter, the teasing, the hedonistic hubris. I recognized all that, but now it’s subtly and significantly different. At twenty, that was you-all of you. You were the epitome of ‘devil-may-care’-there wasn’t anything deeper. Now, however, the larger-than-life hellion is a mask, and there’s someone behind it.” She glanced at him. “The man behind the mask is the one I don’t know.”

Silence.

Charles didn’t correct her; he couldn’t. He knew in his bones she was right, but he wasn’t sure how the change had come about, or what to say to reassure her.

“I think,” she continued, surprising him, “that perhaps the man behind the mask was always there, or at least the potential was always there, and the past thirteen years, what you’ve been doing during that time, made him, you, stronger. More definite. The real you is a rock the years have chiseled and formed, but what smooths your surface is lichen and moss, a social disguise.”

He shifted. “An interesting thesis.” He couldn’t see how her too-perceptive view would improve his chances of gaining her trust.

“A useful one, at any rate.” She glanced at him. “I note you’re not arguing.”

He held his tongue, too wise to respond. She continued to gaze at him, then her lips lightly curved, and she looked out once more. “Actually, it will help. If you must know, I’m not sure I would have trusted the hellion you used to be. I wouldn’t have felt certain of your reaction. Now…”