The Baronet's Bride (Midnight Quill #1.5)(19)

Edward held out his own hand. Miss Chapple saw the missing fingers, hesitated for a brief fraction of a second, and then clasped it. Her handshake was as warm and welcoming as her smile. “Toby spoke often of you.”

“And he spoke often of you.”

“He did?” He saw something in Miss Chapple’s eyes—a dark flicker of grief—before she released his hand. “He was the best of cousins.” She turned towards the pretty blonde. “May I present Mrs. Dunn?”

He was shaking hands with Mrs. Dunn when the thump thump of a cane heralded Arthur Strickland’s arrival. Strickland entered the parlor leaning on the ebony cane, an elderly woman on his arm. “My sister,” he said. “Lady Marchbank.”

Lady Marchbank was as cadaver-like as her brother. She was dressed entirely in black, from her black lace cap to the black hem of her gown. A female grim reaper, was Edward’s involuntary thought. He squashed it hastily and bowed. The resemblance between brother and sister was strong: the tall, stooped postures; the long, bony faces; the wrinkles folded into deep, disapproving lines.

A clock struck six somewhere in the house, a ponderous sound. “I should inform you, Mr. Kane, that we dine plainly at Creed Hall,” Strickland announced as the last echo died away. “And for the sake of our digestion we preserve the strictest silence.”



Mattie studied Mr. Kane surreptitiously while she ate. Goliath, Toby had called him, and she understood how he’d come by that name. He was an uncommonly large gentleman, taller than she was by a good half foot, and solidly built. He looked as if he could carry the weight of a coach-and-four on those broad shoulders.

Mr. Kane had dark hair and a tanned face crossed with pink scars. She knew his age: thirty. The same age Toby would be if he were alive.

Mattie traced the scars scoring across his brow, bisecting an eyebrow, curving down his cheek. She examined his left ear. Most of it was missing. Her gaze dropped to his hands. They bore scars similar to those across his face. Three fingers were missing on his right hand, and one on his left.

Had his sword been cut from his hand? Did that account for the missing fingers?

She imagined him weaponless, trying to ward off an attack . . .

Her ribcage tightened. Mattie looked away from Mr. Kane’s battered hands and forced herself to think of something else. Outside, rain came down in torrents. A cold wind leaked through the cracks in the window casement. The clink of cutlery was loud in the silence: the scrape of a knife across a plate, the tiny clatter of fork tines as her uncle speared a piece of boiled mutton.

What did Mr. Kane think of so silent a meal? Perhaps he was grateful. He didn’t look like a man skilled at small talk, a man who could turn a pretty phrase as easily as he could tie his own shoelaces. He looked like a fighter.

A fighter who’d lost a battle and had almost died.

Her gaze crept back to him. Mr. Kane seemed undismayed by the food. I’ll have no sauces in my house, her uncle was fond of announcing. No spices. Food boiled in plain water is all that one requires.

Pig swill, Toby had called it the last time he’d been home. He had gone down to the village inn to eat his dinner—and smuggled back a roasted chicken and a plum pie for her afterwards.

Grief tightened Mattie’s throat. She looked down at her plate and blinked back tears. I miss you, Toby.



After dinner, the ladies retired to the drawing room. Arthur Strickland poured two small measures of port. Edward sat back and braced himself for more questions about Waterloo.

“When did you return to England?” Strickland asked, sipping his port.

“Last month.”

Strickland glanced at Edward’s ear, his hands. “I hadn’t realized you were so seriously injured.”

“I wasn’t,” Edward said, ignoring the broken leg that had kept him immobilized for months. “A friend of mine lost an arm. He contracted fever and almost died. I stayed with him until he was well enough to travel.”

“Gareth Locke,” Strickland said.

Edward nodded, and tasted the port. Too sweet.

“Tobias’s friend.”

“Yes.”

The three of them—Gareth and Toby and himself—had been inseparable since their first day at school. They’d gone through Harrow and Oxford together, had caroused together, soldiered together, almost died together.

And now we are two.

Edward looked down at his port. The color reminded him of blood—and with that thought came another rush of memory: the blood-and-smoke smell of the battlefield, the din of cannons, the soft sobbing of a dying soldier.

Toby hadn’t wept. He’d died instantly. And lain alongside Edward for all of that terrible day . . .

Edward’s stomach clenched. For a moment he thought he was going to bring his dinner back up. He shook his head, breaking the memory.

“I hear Locke inherited a baronetcy from his uncle,” Strickland said.

Edward’s stomach settled back into place. “Yes.”

“Lucky man.”

Edward remembered the expression on Gareth’s face when he’d bid him farewell yesterday. He shook his head again. “I think he’d have preferred to keep his arm.” And his sweetheart. Not even a baronetcy had been enough to reconcile Miss Swinthorp to marriage with a one-armed man. A brief statement had appeared in the newspapers two days after Gareth’s return to London, announcing the termination of their engagement.