“Oh, I see. Quite a distance from Shields, then.” The old man sounded a little downhearted. Then he smiled at her. “Shall we go? This weather cannot last.” He bowed to Emm and the two girls, assured them he was very much looking forward to seeing them at the wedding on the morrow and offered Lily his arm.
A smart landau waited outside, pulled by a pair of matched bays. A liveried driver doffed his hat to Lily. Lord Galbraith waved away the groom who was waiting to assist them, helping Lily into the landau himself. He climbed in after her, fairly spry for a man of his age.
As soon as they were settled, he signaled the driver to move on.
“Now then, Lily—you don’t mind if I call you Lily, do you?—tell me how you and my grandson met.”
She told him how she’d met Edward first, at her brother’s wedding and liked the look of him then. Lord Galbraith smiled, nodded and waited. Lily hesitated, not knowing whether she should tell him the story of her abduction. They’d all worked so hard to keep it secret.
“I understand he was able to help you when you got into difficulties recently,” the old man said gently. “Of course, if you don’t wish to talk about it . . .”
“No, it’s quite all right.” Relieved not to have to prevaricate, she explained how bravely Edward had driven off her abductor and rescued her, and how he’d turned back from his house party in order to take care of her.
When she’d finished, the old man said delicately, “I understand this is a somewhat hasty marriage. My grandson didn’t—”
“No!” She was distressed that he could even suspect such a thing. “He was—he is—the soul of honor.” She explained in great detail how he’d looked after her, and ended by reiterating how noble, brave, heroic and kind Edward had been.
When she’d finished there was a short silence. Then he took her hand in his. “You love my grandson, don’t you?”
Lily nodded, unable to speak.
“Thank God, thank God,” He pulled out a large handkerchief and blew fiercely into it. “Forgive an old man’s foolishness, my dear. It is just that”—he wiped his eyes and blew again—“I’ve waited so long for my boy to find the right woman; I even tried to force his hand once, and that would have been a disaster.”
“Please, don’t say anything to him about what I just told you,” Lily said anxiously. “It isn’t that kind of marriage. He, he doesn’t love me and I would hate to embarrass him with . . . unwanted declarations.”
“Every marriage is unique, my dear. Don’t let anyone tell you what yours is—no matter what the original motivation.” He squeezed her hand sympathetically. “But it’s a rocky path you walk. My grandson is a hard nut to crack these days.”
“These days?”
He nodded. “He came to me as a young ’un, six or seven years old. A quiet little chap I thought him, sickly and undersized.” He gave a reminiscent smile. “Well, that soon changed. I let him run wild at Shields—and he thrived on it.”
“He told me he used to play at being Robin Hood with his merry men in the forest behind the house.”
“Did he now, did he indeed?” He eyed her thoughtfully. “I’ll take that as a promising sign. From all I can make out he never talks of the past.”
“That’s really all he told me,” she said apologetically.
The old man sighed. “He left home when he was not quite eighteen, an openhearted, mischievous boy, a little wild, to be sure, but good-hearted . . .”
“He’s still good-hearted.”
He patted her hand absently. “I don’t know what happened to change him—well, I do, of course—war is full of horrors, and whatever he faced over there, fighting against Boney’s forces, when he came home—well, came back to England—there was nothing left of that wild, merry boy of mine.”
“He didn’t tell you what his war was like?”
“Not a word. He never came home again.”
“I don’t understand.”
Lord Galbraith turned to look her full in the face. “He hasn’t set foot on Shields land since he left to follow the drum.”
“You mean he hasn’t visited you? Not since he was eighteen?” Lily was horrified. She’d been certain Edward loved his grandfather.
“Don’t look at me like that—there’s been no split between us that I know of. He writes to me regularly—he always has, since he went away to school. He’s an excellent correspondent, as long as you don’t want to know anything personal. But if I want to see him I have to come to London, or meet him in Bath, as we did once. Never at Shields.”
Lily didn’t know what to say. There was a world of hurt and bewilderment in the old man’s eyes. “He fought very bravely in the war,” she offered hesitantly.
“Oh, yes, mentioned in dispatches a number of times—not that he’ll ever speak of it.” He glanced at her. “His commanding officer—General Aldenworth—once congratulated me on my grandson’s bravery, then added that it was his considered opinion that the reason for my boy’s acts of heroism was that he didn’t much care whether he lived or died. Cut deep, that did.” Lord Galbraith gave a heavy sigh. “I think the fellow might have been right.”
They were passing a marketplace. Lily gazed out over the colorful stalls, seeing nothing. Could that be true, that Edward didn’t care whether he lived or died? And if it had been true during wartime, surely it wouldn’t be true now, when everyone was at peace and he was back, safe in England.
Then again, there was that bleak look she’d noticed several times, when he thought himself unobserved and his thoughts were miles away . . .
But he’d never gone home again. Why?
“Gracious me, what am I doing, sharing such gloomy thoughts with my grandson’s lovely bride-to-be on the eve of her wedding? Forgive an old man’s maundering, my dear. Let us
