He was humoring her, though. Or something. “Do you frequently bathe in company?”
A beat of silence went by, while Esther wondered if perhaps that posset wasn’t truth potion after all.
“Miss Himmelfarb, this version of not-flirting holds a man’s interest. Whyever would you ask?”
He sounded amused and genuinely intrigued.
“I am appeasing my curiosity. Young ladies gossip almost as much as young men do.”
“They couldn’t possibly. To answer your question, it might have escaped your notice, but my dimensions are such that I rather take up the available space in most tubs. I am not in the habit of entertaining callers when I’m at my bath, despite what our hostess appears to have told half the women in the realm. You never did answer my question.”
Esther cast back over their short, odd conversation. “How do I endure house parties?”
“Without committing hanging felonies on your fellow guests, all of whom seem intent on mischief. It’s worse than an entire regiment of Scottish recruits on leave.”
He wasn’t simply tired, he was exasperated and not a little bewildered. Esther picked up the posset and handed it to him.
“Do you miss Canada?” This was what she should have asked him, not those other questions—the ones that Herodia, Charlotte, and Zephora would not believe the answers to.
He drank deeply from her cup and kept it in his hands. “I
Perhaps he was a little drunk, or a little homesick for somewhere neither Canada nor Kent.
“You could transfer elsewhere.”
“And it would be the same, Miss Himmelfarb, because it would still be His Majesty’s military, and I would still be the Moreland spare.” He fell silent, Esther’s cup held in his two hands on his flat belly.
“You were treated differently because your father is a duke?”
“I was. By some I was treated worse, by others better. At my last post, I was bitterly resented by my superior officer.”
This was far, far worse than flirting, or even that whispering-in-her-ear thing Percival Windham could do in a room full of people. Still, she asked the next question.
“What happened?”
He grew still, the darkness seemed to gather closer, and Esther caught a whiff of his cedary scent on soft night air.
“I will tell you, Esther Himmelfarb, because I am a just a wee bit in my cups, or perhaps it’s the moonshine loosening my tongue. In any case, we will both wish—and in the morning pretend—that I had kept my own counsel.” Another pause, another sip of her posset. “My unit was between posts—there are no roads worth the name—and we came upon an encampment of natives. There are all stripes of Indians in the Canadian woods, some friendly, some murderous, and some both, depending on the day of the week. We encountered not even a gesture in the direction of hostility from this group, which upon inspection turned out to be a function of their menfolk being off on a trapping expedition.”
“General Starkweather ordered the women and children rounded up, declared them prisoners, and started marching them through the woods. He did this to goad me, I’m fairly certain. We were not to provoke the locals without cause, and shivering in the woods while praying for spring did not constitute cause in the opinion of any man in that company.”
He set the cup aside, apparently having finished Esther’s posset.
“We got about two hours’ march from the encampment, and were not likely to make our billet by dark. The general ordered the prisoners lined up in a ditch and declared himself unwilling to be slowed down by such a lot of filthy, murdering savages when the weather might turn foul at any point.”
Murder now joined rape in the part of the conversation Lord Percival was not speaking aloud. Murder, rape, and offense to the honor of any officer, any honest man, present on the scene. Esther wanted to touch him, to stop him from speaking more words that would hurt him and forever haunt her.
“General Starkweather assembled a firing squad. He made sure I was directly on hand when the lads were given the command to shoulder arms. If I interfered, I was of course, guilty of insubordination of a magnitude that would earn me a conclusion to my troubles in the same manner our captives were facing.”
Rape, murder, dishonor,
While all around him, gossip wanted to accuse Percival Windham of frivolousness and debauchery.
“You did not give the order to fire. Not on helpless women and children.”
He sat up, set the cup on the ground, and peered over at her for a long moment before he resumed speaking, his words addressed to a patch of rosemary growing across the walk.
“There was an old woman, a stout little thing with a brown face as wrinkled as a prune. She’d been carrying an infant the entire distance, and the child had begun to fuss, likely from hunger. I sat there on my horse, wrapped from head to toe in thick layers of wool, while that old woman shivered, her own blanket given up to keep the child warm. I have never seen such fortitude before or since.
“The men figured out what Starkweather was up to, and the quality of their silence was as chilling as the wind in those woods. Picture this: snow all around us, two hundred of His Majesty’s finest poised to witness murder, and the only sound the wind in the pine boughs and that crying baby.”
Rape, murder, dishonor, hanging, dread, and no options.
“The old woman tickled the baby’s chin.”
Lord Percival reached over and brushed a knuckle twice over the point of Esther’s chin. “She tickled the baby’s chin, jostled him and jollied him, until he was laughing as babies will. Despite the cold, despite his hungry belly, despite the firing squad several yards away, the baby laughed. Starkweather gave the command to take aim then told me to take over.”
“You did not do murder. I know you did not.”
How did she know it, though? From the kindness in his eyes when he flirted? From the weariness he’d let her see by moonlight? From the fact that he’d even noticed an old woman with the courage to tickle a baby while death loomed?
“I did not give the order to fire, Esther Himmelfarb. I will admit to you I was insubordinate, and Tony was there to witness it. As I opened my mouth and gave the command to order arms, the air was filled with a shrieking such as I hope never to hear again. The trapping party had tracked us, circled around front and taken their position in the trees above the trail. I regret to report that though casualties on both sides were minimal, General Starkweather did not survive the affray.”
Had he killed his superior officer? Esther did not think so, but neither did she care if he had. “Good. The man was not fit to command.”
Lord Percival regarded her again for a long, long moment, until his lips curved up in a grave, sweet smile. “A court martial would not have rendered that decision, my dear.”
“Then a higher court intervened in a timely fashion, my lord. Surely you cannot argue my conclusion?”
“I cannot—I will not, given your insistence, but neither will I be romanticizing the appeal of the military. If I retain my commission, I’ll likely ask for and get an administrative position. I excel at recall and application of rules and regulations—I should probably have become a barrister, except the inactivity would have bored me silly.”
In the past five minutes, they’d gone from an uneasy discussion on a hard bench, to a conversation between two refugees from… life. “You’ll hate working at a desk, my lord.”
“I’d hate even more the vapid existence of a younger son dancing about on the end of Her Grace’s leash. My sister-in-law begged us to come home, and Tony and I could refuse Bella nothing.”
“You are fond of Lady Pembroke?”
“I was eight years old when I met her, and yes, she is the first woman I fell in love with, if you discount Mrs. Wood.”
He was perfectly, astoundingly serious. “Mrs. Wood was your governess?” This was safer ground, no awful words lurking unsaid, but in some ways the honesty he offered was equally dangerous.
“The very one. A dear old soul who made Latin and French into games and declared sums fit only for naughty
