The Wicked Governess (Blackhaven Brides Book 6)(71)

“And were you never a wicked governess?” he teased.

“No,” she said with dignity. She let her thumb caress his hand. “Or at least, only in my thoughts.”





Chapter Twenty





Caroline had noticed Colonel Fredericks almost as soon as they’d arrived at the ball, but with the matter of Swayle looming largest in her mind, she didn’t truly consider his possible importance to Javan until she saw him again after the waltz.

Leaving Javan to explain the recent events in the foyer to Lord Tamar, she slipped away to speak to Fredericks, who was then sitting beside Miss Muir and her young sister-in-law. Caroline greeted the ladies, who were friends of Serena’s, and turned to the colonel.

“I don’t suppose you remember me, sir—”

“Of course I do, Mrs. Benedict,” he said at once. “And I’m very glad you’ve led the colonel out of cover.”

“I wonder if I might have a word, sir?”

Fredericks sprang to his feet with unexpected energy. “Of course. Excuse me ladies, must stretch these old legs of mine! Let us take a turn about the room, Mrs. Benedict, while you tell me what I can do for you.”

“I believe,” Caroline began delicately, “that you are most knowledgeable about the war on the Peninsula and privy to information that passes the rest of us by.”

“Certainly I am curious—not to say nosey!—by nature.”

“Do you know of the fort at San Pedro?”

“I know the place you mean.”

“The British took it in the spring of 1812, and then I believe the French took it back in the summer.”

“Fortunes of war,” the colonel said with a shrug.

“How did the French take it?” she asked bluntly.

“Head on, I believe. We evacuated.”

Caroline took a deep breath. “Were the British betrayed? Was that why they were so overwhelmed at San Pedro?”

Fredericks blinked and cast a glance that might have been involuntary, at Javan, who was then walking into the card room with Tamar and a couple of the marquis’s cronies.

“Actually, it was a tactical withdrawal,” he said. “We wanted a large number of French shut up in the fort so that a large contingent of troops could get through to Badajoz. And in fact, San Pedro was back in British hands within a month.”

“Then it was already back in British hands by the time Javan escaped?”

“I believe so,” Fredericks said, looking mystified. “Why do you ask?”

She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. “The French told my husband he’d babbled in his fever—no doubt torture-induced—and betrayed the way in to San Pedro.”

She needed to know, for Javan’s sake. For her own, she did not care what a man said when he had no control of his words. She would love Javan whatever he had said or done and nothing could change that now. But she so wanted to set his mind at rest. To stop the nightmares if she could.

“Spite,” Fredericks said with a shrug. “Probably because he’d told them nothing. The French would always have got into San Pedro, because that was where we wanted them for those few days at least.”

She frowned. “Did Javan not know that?”

“Of course not. His task was not connected to San Pedro when he was taken. His troops achieved their own objective before they were overwhelmed getting back to the main army. Some of them were captured. That I cannot discuss with you at the moment, so I hope it is not relevant to your…inquiry.”

“I don’t believe it is,” she said warmly. “Colonel, might I ask you another favor? Would you speak to my husband? You see, I think he believes his honor is lost. That is why he sold his commission.”

“And spoke to no one but Wellington before he did,” Fredericks said thoughtfully. His gaze refocused on Caroline and he patted her arm, before presenting her with a glass of champagne and sauntering off to the card room.

Five minutes later, Caroline couldn’t help glancing in. Her husband sat some distance from the card tables, his elbows on his knees, his eyes on his crossed hands as Fredericks talked beside him. His scar was livid from the rigid set of his jaw. Then, slowly, Javan raised his gaze to Fredericks’s face. He did not blink.

Fredericks stood and briefly gripped his shoulder before walking away to the tables. Surreptitiously, like a boy ashamed to reveal grief, Javan dashed his sleeve quickly over his face, then sprang to his feet and strode away to the opposite door that led to the foyer rather than the ballroom.

Caroline smiled rather shakily, praying she’d done the right thing. But when she walked into the foyer, it was in time to see Javan’s unmistakable figure leaving the building. Without thought, she hastened to the cloakroom to change into her outdoor shoes and retrieve her new evening cloak. They’d come home via Carlisle, and Javan had insisted on making a few purchases, including the ball gown and pearls and the engraved gold ring that she wore tonight.

Despite her hurry, he’d vanished from the street by the time she got there.

“May I send for your carriage, ma’am?” asked the doorman—the genuine doorman, this time.

“No, I thank you…my husband is waiting for me. Goodnight.”

She thought she knew where he’d gone, and it wasn’t far. She turned right up the road toward the harbor.