More courtesy, more gentlemanly consideration. His polite gestures wrapped her in warmth as substantial as any hug.
“Good night, Colonel.”
“Good night, Miss Pearson, and thank you.”
He would wait in the night air until Domesday, a conscientious sentry, so Ann slipped into the Coventry and traded her cloak for an apron. She had the oddest sense that the colonel had been thanking her for attending the girl and also for feeding him, sharing a meal with him, and perhaps—maybe—for hugging him.
Chapter Three
The Aurora Club was not in St. James’s proper, nor was it in the first stare of fashion. Members joined for the decent cooking, the quiet ambience, and the company of men who were honorable, but not too virtuous. Not all were former military. A few were younger sons seeking respite from the more fashionable venues patronized by older siblings and papas.
Rye was joined at table by two men he would cheerfully have taken a bullet for—his cousins, and much more than mere cousins—though explaining Benny’s situation even to them had to wait until the brandy was making the rounds.
“Bit of a contretemps on the domestic front,” Rye said, offering the decanter to his companions.
“Putting your handsome foot in parson’s mousetrap, are you?” Captain Dylan Powell asked, shaking his head at the proffered libation.
Powell was the sweetest of men, his voice imbued with the musical signature of the native Welshman. He was above medium height, blessed with rakish dark hair and a dimple, and could flash a smile to melt the reserve of the sternest dowager.
Powell was a dissenting preacher’s son sent to the army to sow his wild oats, and he often made the sentimental declarations other men didn’t dare even think. He was easy to like, but his temper—slow to ignite, terrible to behold—made him not as easy to befriend.
When he got to muttering in his native tongue, prudent men located the nearest exit.
His friends at the Aurora were not particularly prudent.
“I’ll have a nip,” Major Alasdhair MacKay said. “Or more than a nip. The English weather makes a man old before his time.” MacKay was what the regimental ladies had called a braw, bonnie laddie, with dark chestnut hair and Viking-blue eyes. As a younger man, he’d been a dedicated flirt, and like Powell, he had a temper. Unlike Powell, MacKay’s wrath was often a function of nothing more serious than an empty belly.
Drunk or sober, wielding a Baker rifle, MacKay could also hit the epaulette on a galloping cuirassier from three hundred yards.
A desultory rain had begun as Rye had made his way to the club, just enough wet to turn the cobbled streets slick, not enough to deter him from the prospect of an excellent beef steak. Sandwiches with Miss Pearson had made a fine appetizer—exceptionally fine—but only that.
Rye passed the brandy to MacKay, who took only enough to be polite.
“The Scottish winters make a man dead before his time,” Powell observed. “If you want well-behaved rain, come to Wales. You can’t see it coming down, it’s so gentle, and the rainbows are magnificent.”
“And you can’t keep the Welsh rain from soaking your entire kit,” MacKay replied, swirling his brandy. “You getting hitched, Goddard?”
The question was casually put—both times—but an unspoken tension had arisen at the table. To break ranks was bad form, while to lead a charge showed memorable courage. The first of Rye’s circle to marry would do a little of both.
“Who would have me?” Rye asked. “My problem is Benny.”
“The nipper who wears the cap?” MacKay asked. “Delicate lad. Is it his lungs?”
Rye rose, drink in hand. “Let’s take this to the reading room.”
The reading room was predictably deserted, also poorly named. Little reading happened here, but for the occasional newspaper perused of a morning. The Aurora’s members more often read their papers in the dining room, each man for the most part at a solitary table. An occasional comment would be offered to the room at large about the latest scandal or feat of government stupidity, but the object of the exercise was to be alone together.
The reading room was for drinking not-alone together.
“Has the lad run off?” Powell asked. “Boys and mischief can’t seem to resist each other.”
Rye took the wing chair closest to the hearth. MacKay took another, while Powell wandered the room.
“The lad is a girl,” Rye said, small words to describe a large problem. He took off his eye patch, stuffed it into a pocket, and scrubbed his brow.
“And how,” MacKay said carefully, “did you stumble upon that revelation?”
A slight menace underlay the question. MacKay was nothing if not protective of the ladies. Rye suspected a matter of the heart drew MacKay to London as winter approached, for clearly, the man was homesick for his chilly Highlands.
“The female indisposition befell Benny,” Rye said, “and I gather she had no idea what was amiss. Poor lad—nipper, girl—thought she was dying.”
Powell said something in his native Welsh.
“I heard that,” MacKay replied, tacking on something unintelligible in the Highland tongue. They could mostly understand each other, which was fortunate when Powell’s temper flared. MacKay would offer some terse guidance in Gaelic, and Powell would regain his composure—sometimes.
“Helluva thing,” Powell said, “to find a female lurking undetected among the infantry.”
“But it happens,” Rye replied. Sometimes the ladies joined up to avoid starvation, sometimes they took the king’s shilling to pursue the man who’d stranded them at the altar, but it did happen, and became the stuff of late-night camp stories. “Benny was miserable.”
“’Tisn’t fair, what the ladies endure,” Powell observed. “Eve offered Adam the apple, and so every woman is relegated to suffering. If Adam had been a better husband, he’d have told her, “Evie, me love, I’d rather have your kisses than that stupid apple.’ He’d have chucked the fruit and kept paradise for us all. But no, he was useless to her when she needed him to show some sense, and what was he thinking, allowing her to wander off on her own in Eden?”
“Dissenters,” MacKay muttered. “Goddard has a problem, so please don’t start spouting Scripture.”
“My problem,” Rye said, “is complicated. If the other boys know Benny is of the female persuasion, then I can intimate that I knew, too, and was waiting for Benny to say something. If they didn’t know, I have to extricate Benny from the household without anybody’s feelings being hurt or secrets being betrayed.”
“I care naught for secrets,” MacKay said. “But you can’t blame the wee lassie. London is—”
“Hell’s privy, for an orphaned female,” Powell finished for him. “We know, MacKay.” He took the chair between Rye’s and MacKay’s. “What does young Benny have to say for herself?”
“I’m giving her time to sort that out.”
Powell shoved Rye’s shoulder and sank into a reading chair between Rye and MacKay. “You’re at a complete loss and stalling your arse off.”