Page 48 of Hastings (Brothers in Arms #15)

CHAPTER 48

T wo months later

Stephen sat back on his heels and dusted his hands off. The garden really didn’t need much work for the winter months. Just trimming some of the dead wood and vines away, although most of that would wait until spring. The plants needed a warm layer to protect them in the cold months ahead.

He glanced over at Maddy, who was bundled up in a coat and sitting on a blanket under the oak, reading. Her new puppy, Snuffles, a gift from the Westridge’s, was asleep at her side. She couldn’t read enough these days. Before long she’d have exhausted his library and then she was going to start on Freddy’s. He’d offered her free rein among his books.

“Aren’t the trees so interesting like this?” Maddy asked. She looked up at him and smiled, then glanced up at the bare branches above her. “I love how stark they are against the sky. As if the branches were arms reaching for the sun. Hastings will love it here this time of year. Don’t you think so? Although fall was my favorite, for the trees, I mean. The leaves were so beautiful. I found a book about trees at the Park the other day. I set it aside for Hastings.”

Maddy always spoke of Hastings in terms of when he would be here, not if. Stephen tended to agree with her, but it was taking the damn fool too long to get his head on straight. Maddy’s smile had been growing dimmer. Perhaps leaving him in London to figure it out on his own hadn’t been the best idea. But Stephen wanted to start as they meant to go on, and so he felt it was important to treat Hastings like a fully grown man who could make his own decisions, even if they were the wrong ones. But he and Maddy had kept his promise—they remained unmarried, much to Mrs. Tulane’s, and the duchess’s, disapproval.

He tried not to think about whose bed Hastings was sharing drunk and naked these days.

“I think we should go to London and fetch him.” Stephen was startled by his own words. He hadn’t meant to voice that out loud.

“I think you’re right,” Maddy agreed, closing her book. “He’s had enough time to wallow in his self-righteous misery.” She sighed. “And I’ve begun to suspect that’s what he wants. Do you think anyone has come for him before? I mean, gone out of their way to chase him down and bring him back.”

“No, I don’t,” Stephen said, feeling like an idiot for not figuring that out himself. “I think he’s always been the one left behind.”

“So do I.” Maddy looked back at him with a bright smile. “We should go before winter sets in.”

“Perhaps you should marry him,” Stephen suggested, not worried in the least what that would mean for him. Regardless of what the very church he worked for believed, Stephen knew that no vows or papers could make he and Maddy any closer. Nor he and Hastings.

“I think Hastings would rather you did,” she told him, surprising him again. “I think he likes the idea of belonging to us, not just to me, if that makes any sense. We shall ask him again, of course, but I also think he’d prefer the veneer of independence, as if he could up and take off any time he wished.”

“What if he does?” Stephen asked, his stomach clenching in unease.

“Then I daresay he’ll be back.” Maddy seemed unperturbed by the notion. “We give him something no one else has ever given him.”

“What’s that?”

“Unconditional love.” Maddy stood up. “Speaking as someone who never had that before I came here, it is a precious thing and Hastings is not fool enough to throw it away.”

“No,” Stephen agreed. “He’s not that big a fool.”

Hastings felt like a fool. He’d been twiddling his thumbs in London for two months since he’d driven Stephen and Maddy away and, despite knowing he’d done the right thing, they were still all he could think about. He’d very nearly taken a bullet the other day when he took his eyes off the suspect he was chasing because he was distracted by a book he thought Maddy would like in a shop window. And now he was called before Sir Barnabas to take his dressing down. Again. How many times had he had to listen to Sir B rail at him about what a terrible agent he was? He could have been sheriffing in the village, keeping Tuck and Grady away from each other, and pretending Mrs. Thompson was a lady of the evening.

He tried not to think about what else he could be doing in Ashton on the Green.

“So,” Sir Barnabas said as soon as he walked in. “It’s come to this.” He sighed and Hastings sighed with him.

“Why don’t we just skip this part and get to the part where you tell me I’ll be writing reports and supervising some informant for the foreseeable future?” he suggested hopefully.

“Sit.” Sir Barnabas indicated the chair in front of his desk. His lady love Mel had insisted on getting a comfortable chair for his office. He used to have just one tiny, uncomfortable wooden one sitting before his huge desk, making you feel like a prisoner in the dock when you sat before him. God bless Mel , Hastings thought as he sank into the cushioned chair.

“You are very lucky that Essie still had her wits about her the other day.” Sir Barnabas steepled his hands on the desk in front of him and glowered at Hastings over the tips of his fingers.

“I said thank you,” Hastings told him. “That’s what partners are for, aren’t they, to keep you from getting shot?”

Sir Barnabas sighed again. That wasn’t a good sign.

“I had hoped that your time in the country would make you more levelheaded, not less,” he said at last, sitting back in his chair. “Clearly my plan backfired. The Duke of Ashland has requested your return once again.”

“He doesn’t own me,” Hastings snapped. “I’m not a damn serf.” He’d been getting curt notes from the duke every other day demanding his return.

“Apparently the entire village will have no other sheriff.” Hastings drew back in surprise at Sir Barnabas’s statement. “Indeed, I was shocked as well.” He paused and tipped his head to the side as he regarded Hastings. “I know you want to return. Why haven’t you? You are not happy here now. One wonders if you ever were.”

“Happiness is overvalued,” Hastings scoffed.

“No, it is not.” Sir Barnabas shook his head sadly. “I once thought as you do, that happiness was something for fools and the weak-minded. I thought I was perfectly content to go through life without it. After all, I’d never had it, and I was doing just fine.”

“Exactly,” Hastings said. “No one needs to be happy.”

“I do not think that anymore.” Sir Barnabas looked at him grimly. “I cannot fathom my life without Mel and Wetherald now. Should they be taken from me, I would wither like a flower on the vine and fade away. And I’m glad of it. Man was not meant to go through life alone. Companionship, love—they make us stronger, not weaker. Everything I do now, I do for them. I make England, our home, safer for them . They have changed me, and I do not regret it. For everything I do, every sling and arrow I suffer, my happiness with them is my reward. Only a great fool would throw that kind of happiness away. I did not raise you to be a fool.”

Hastings was speechless for a moment. He knew Sir Barnabas felt that way about Mel and Wetherald. It was in every look they exchanged, the sound of his voice when he spoke of them. But he had never acknowledged it so openly to Hastings before. And to speak of raising him, as if he were a father to Hastings, this, too, was new.

“You are not my father,” he said, not sure how else to reply.

“I am the only father you have ever known,” Sir Barnabas said. “I took you in off the streets as a churlish, ignorant boy and I gave you the world. I gave you books, education, my wisdom, a place to call home, a vocation. Everything I would have given a son, had I one.”

“I…I don’t know what to say,” Hastings whispered.

“Say you are not a fool,” Sir Barnabas snapped. “I gave you Simon, who is dear to me—which I will deny if you ever tell him that—and he gave you the parson. And when I saw you there, I left you. Because the only gift I had left to give you was love. I sent Miss Hyde because you are cut from the same cloth. I gave you the chance to choose and then, because the universe is a kind and gentle master, you didn’t have to. You have the chance to know love and happiness, the likes of which most men will never know. Do not be a fool. Do not throw it away. Do not disappoint me.”

“You saw me there?” Hastings asked in disbelief. “When?”

“That is neither here nor there,” Sir Barnabas said airily, waving it away with his hand. “Did you not hear what else I said?”

“I heard it,” Hastings told him, standing up. “I can’t believe you spied on me. That’s what you did, isn’t it? You came around to make sure I wasn’t buggering it up.”

“That is a poor choice of words,” Sir Barnabas drawled drily. “I did not come to spy, necessarily. But to see the situation. It has become increasingly apparent to me that you are not cut out for this life.”

That blow made Hastings physically stagger. “Are you sacking me? Are you sending me away?”

“I am trying to make you see that you have a choice, and you should choose wisely. If you choose to stay, I will let you, though it will break my heart to do so. But I will not speak of this again or antagonize you with recriminations.”

“Are you trying to play the father with me?” Hastings accused. “Trying to make me fear your disappointment?” Oh, but he did. He did fear it. For Sir Barnabas was the best man he had ever known, it was true. He was Hastings’s model in all things—in his manner, his determination, his control, and yes, even the way he loved.

“I admit I have no experience in the role and am blundering in the wilderness in my attempts, but yes, I am,” Sir Barnabas stated calmly. “I need you to know that when I tell you to go away and not come back, it’s for your own good and because I care for you. When I tell you to go back to Ashton on the Green and love your parson and that treacherous woman who hides behind her genteel facade, it’s because I just want you to be happy. Hastings, just be happy. That is all I require of you.” He paused. “I am also sorry.” He took a deep breath. “I should have known that you were not cut out for this life. But it is the only life I knew then and the only one I knew to give you. Do not be shackled by my ignorance and my mistakes.”

Hastings laughed. “An apology. From you. My situation must be dire, indeed.”

“Essie has offered to drug you and drag you back to the country.” Sir Barnabas leaned back in his chair again, his emotional outburst at an end. Not that his voice ever betrayed the feeling behind his words. Being a spy master was ingrained in him too deeply to reveal himself that way.

“Essie is welcome to try,” Hastings said, affronted. “She’s just angry I almost got killed.”

“We are all angry you almost got killed,” Sir Barnabas told him. “Simon and Manderley have offered to tie you up and transport you to the parsonage personally. Perhaps you are unaware that you have been impossible to live with in the past two months.”

“Fine!” Hastings threw his hands up in the air. “I love them, all right? Does that make you happy? Because it’s making me miserable!” He threw himself down in the chair again. “For God’s sake, I’m a killer. I have no experience being a lover, or a husband, or whatever it is they expect of me. And they know it. They got engaged. Without telling me. That hardly seems like the actions of people who are in love with me.”

“It sounds like the actions of two people who are in love with each other. That does not preclude the possibility that they are also in love with you. Have you considered the fact that it makes a great deal more sense for her to marry the parson than you? I have become personally cognizant of the logistics of this kind of relationship, as you know. Unless you wish to cause the parson issues with his church, then he must marry the girl. I see no reason you cannot reside at the parsonage as you did before.”

“You have it all worked out for me, do you?” Hastings asked.

“Of course,” Sir Barnabas replied. “It’s what I do.”

“So, I should throw away my pride and common sense and go back?” Hastings asked. He looked over and Sir Barnabas was already reading over some correspondence, the conversation over as far as he was concerned.

“Hmm?” he said. “Oh, yes. That’s what I did. I speak from experience that pride does not keep you warm at night. And common sense is best left out of personal entanglements.” He smiled at Hastings. “Get out and go away and don’t come back.”

Hastings didn’t need Sir Barnabas to tell him again.