Page 4 of The Duchess’s Absolutely Delightful Dream (The Notorious Briarwoods #14)

F or the first time in possibly more than eighty years, the ballroom was full of English people.

Ellie really found the whole display so incredibly fun to watch as the company decided that the large English family who had come up to the Highlands wasn’t too terrible. But they were still English and therefore to be viewed with suspicion.

It seemed her brother was trying to start off one of those remarkable shows using gunpowder, fire, and color.

She’d seen them before, of course, but this felt like something entirely different.

Half of the ballroom was watching the influx of English people, the Briarwood family, with a great deal of resignation.

After all, the English were not exactly welcome in the western side of the Highlands.

Still, the Briarwoods, as far as she could see, were a worthwhile investment and not such a shabby lot to have around for a good time.

So far, Octavian, the son of the Earl of Drexel and member of the Briarwood family, was quite up to snuff, in her opinion.

He was shockingly handsome, a stunning dancer, a good conversationalist, and he was capable of bantering about silly things and also touching on quite dark ones without a great deal of difficulty. Yes, he was a surprise of a man.

And she needed surprises.

The last year had been a blasted difficult one.

There was no getting around it. Her husband had died. Though their marriage had been based purely on friendship, he had been her dearest companion all her life. Then to top it all off, her father had died only a few weeks later.

That had been brutal. For it was the end of one dukedom and the beginning of another. And her father had been fit as a fiddle, but his horse had been startled, and he’d been thrown and hit his head upon a rock.

That meant her eldest brother, Teague, had inherited the dukedom.

Truthfully, these concurrent losses had left her in a dark well of despair.

Quite frankly, she’d spent the last year climbing every crag to distract herself, searching every loch for peace.

And while staring up at the heavens, wishing that she could escape this grief, she’d surrendered to the fact that she could not.

She’d simply had to ride it all out, like a horse that was too wild, with no wish to be tamed. But the horse had eventually tired.

Grief had inevitably begun to slip away.

Death was a normal part of life, just as the remarkable Octavian had said. It didn’t mean that any of it was easy though. Worst of all, the deaths had made her almost a social pariah. Too much mourning at once, it seemed, was quite bad for one’s social calendar.

She hadn’t minded. She’d always preferred the land. But she was a lady, and it was her duty to re-enter society and take her place.

Still, ladies, of course, were supposed to go into a sort of mourning that gentlemen never had to, which she thought was absolutely unfair.

Why was she supposed to go about basically pretending that she did not exist?

She did not think that her husband or even her father would approve, but it was the way of society, and so she had done as she had been told.

And now that she had come out on the other side of it, people were watching her warily as if somehow they could catch it—her association with death.

But not Octavian in his bright red uniform and shiny gold epaulets.

He was still with her, asking her to dance, despite her tragic past months.

And she liked him well for it.

She liked much about him!

He was also just about as tall as her brother, which meant he was perfect for her because she had a tendency to loom over other gentlemen.

She did not know if it was some Viking in the long history of their family, but her siblings and she towered over the company, and sometimes that made things quite challenging as a lady.

In her experience, gentlemen did not like ladies to soar over them.

She did not have that problem with Octavian at all.

He was an exceptional specimen of a man and, my God, she did admire him!

She admired the way his hands easily held hers as they danced the jig.

She admired the way his powerful body lilted to the music.

So many men were just blundering oafs on the dance floor.

Others were very, very graceful, but none of them were quite as large or confident or as clearly warrior-like as he was. He was a perfect example of the concept of man who was a great warrior and a great lover of the arts combined into one.

She’d begun to think that the idea of a Renaissance man was only a myth. Yes, she’d begun to think, like so many things, that it was a concept written of in a book but not executed in reality.

But here was reality before her, and she adored him. Very much indeed, and she was deeply grateful that he had charged across the room and asked her to dance. She was no fool. She was rather certain that her brother had made him do it. She couldn’t hold it against Teague or Octavian.

Why would she? He did not even know of her existence until recently.

And her brother, her dear beloved brother, was determined to make life better for her, and how could she not be grateful for that?

So, as Octavian turned her about, danced her across the room, and beamed down at her, she wondered how a gentleman of such prowess, such beauty and strength, could make it to so many years of age without a wife of his own.

Now it was her turn to make a grand assumption, of course.

Perhaps he had been married, but when she had confessed about her widowhood, one would’ve assumed that he would’ve confessed his own.

Why was such a beautiful, articulate man from an excellent family unattached?

She did not know, but she did know that she was going to enjoy his company while it lasted.

Why would she not? Life was short. It was fleeting, and well, she’d had enough sorrow for all the lifetimes in the world. She’d promised Hamish she’d live with joy. So, live with joy, she would.

When the music came to an end, she gave Octavian a deep curtsy, and he gave her an elaborate bow, both of them enjoying each other immensely. And once again, they headed off the floor.

She sighed with playful melancholy. “Alas, you should go ask another young lady to dance.”

“Perhaps I should,” he mused, but then he shook his head. Together, they walked along the side of the ballroom floor. “First, let us converse. Will you not show me a little bit of this grand Highland palace?”

She waggled her brows at him. “My goodness,” she said. “You aren’t afraid of courting scandal?”

“Should I be?” he asked. “Will your brothers come after me?”

She narrowed her eyes. “My brother told you to ask me to dance, didn’t he?”

He gave her a look of such astonishment that she knew she was correct. “Tell me I’m wrong,” she challenged, tempted to poke him in his muscled chest.

He choked ever so slightly. “You’re not wrong. I actually was assuming that you would be a little wallflower, desperately sad and longing for help, and that I would do my duty and dance with you.”

They went out through the wide double doors which opened out onto the formal gardens, still filled with people and lit with lanterns strung on silken ropes overhead.

“Oh dear,” she said as her slippers crunched along the raked gravel. “Have I disappointed you?”

“In a way, yes.”

She laughed. “How so?”

“Well, if you had been a dour little wallflower, I would’ve done my very best to cheer you up, felt quite good about it, and then have been on my way, but instead I found you.”

“And what have you found?” she asked, captivated.

“A lady who looks as if she could pick me up, carry me across the field, and throw me, which means you would be excellent at a Briarwood family gathering. We do love our outdoor games. And well, you are unbowed by life’s turmoil, and you are fun, and I… I confess…”

His voice died off as if the words were too hard to speak.

“Have you been missing fun?” she asked.

His mouth tightened into a thin line, and she suddenly rather regretted the question, for it was a deeply personal one.

“Yes,” he said honestly. “As of late.”

“Would it be terribly forward of me to ask…” She stopped herself, then gave him an assuring smile. “You must understand I’m actually quite forward, so if you don’t like a forward person, you should turn about and go away right now.”

He laughed, his darkness lightening. “I do like a forward person. I am surrounded by them.”

She nodded, relieved at his reception. “I’ve noticed your family is like that.”

“And it doesn’t put you off?” he asked bluntly.

“No, I would rather everyone was like that,” she said swiftly. “We would all be much better off.”

“I don’t disagree with you,” he replied.

“But since you have asked, I shall be brief about my lack of fun so that we don’t have to go back into the mire of our mutual sorrows.

” He paused, gathering himself. Then he began slowly, oh so very slowly, “I have been fighting in the war for several years. It’s not very pleasant, and no matter how plucky a person is, years of war eventually gets to one. ”

She longed to reach out to him, to soothe him, and also to kick herself. “I’m so very sorry. I have been ridiculous.”

“How?” he asked, his eyes flaring wide.

“My sorrows are really quite normal,” she explained. “The loss of a husband. Fathers also die. But you? You see the hardest, most awful things quite often, don’t you?”

He stilled, even as the soft Highland summer breeze feathered his dark brow. “That is quite accurate,” he said. “But the truth is that in the history of humanity, though I am loath to admit it, war is quite normal.”

“Oh,” she gasped, taking in his words, surprised by them. “Tell me more then.”

He frowned, clearly on the fence about it, but then he continued. “After so many years, one becomes rather blasé about war, you see. Not that we don’t still feel the deep scars. It’s more that we can’t express deep emotion about it because we are exhausted by it.”

She cocked her head to the side, touched that he would trust her so with his own pain. “I don’t understand.”

His gaze trailed up to the purple sky, scattered with stars.

“Imagine feeling the sort of grief that you felt at the loss of someone you clearly loved, your husband and your father, over and over and over again, and not just once a year, but almost every day, sometimes multiple times in one day.” His body tensed.

“One is no longer capable of making friends easily because the truth is you don’t want to get attached to people, because those people can be taken away from you quite quickly.

And so we long-term soldiers become distant, and we make terrible jokes, and we no longer weep because all the tears are gone. We have wept them all out.”

“Are you sure you are not a Scotsman?” she teased gently.

He yanked his attention down from the heavens, back to her face. “I beg your pardon.”

She brushed an imaginary bit of nature from his shoulder, wishing she could embrace him. “You speak like a poet.”

“If my wounds make me speak like a poet, then yes, I suppose I am poet,” he groaned. Then he swept his hand out to the dramatic horizon about them. “And I wouldn’t mind being a Scotsman. You have a beautiful country up here.”

She tilted her head to the side, not needing to look. No, she preferred to keep her gaze upon his face and what she saw there. “Yes, we do. It can heal the wounded heart.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know about that,” he whispered.

“I don’t know if all wounds heal or if they should.

You see, I think sometimes we just have to carry on with our wounds.

We do the best that we can. We soldier on, so to speak.

There’s no getting the rot out once it’s in, and you just have to accept that. ”

She pursed her lips. “That is a rather grim view of the world.”

“Right now, the world is actually quite grim.”

“I’m quite protected up here in the Highlands,” she confessed.

“Good, don’t leave them,” he said with shocking intensity.

“You advise me not to travel?” she queried, her own heart aching for him and all he had seen.

“I advise you to enjoy the life that you have because right now life out there is quite tricky.” His eyes closed for a moment. “My cousin, Calchas… Bloody hell, the poor man.”

Whatever spell had fallen between them had unlocked his suffering, and she knew in her heart that there would be no prevarication between them. No artifice. Just truth. And she wondered…

Was this man…?

She shoved the thought away. She needed to listen to him, not think of past conversations.

“What do you mean?” she urged.

“He’s half at war with our own American cousins, you see.

He’s a captain, and we’re at war with the United States, and every day for him is a grim possibility of having to face people that he sees as friends and allies.

He hates it. His superiors tell him what he must do, and he doesn’t want to.

It’s an inner battle that he has difficulty squaring away.

Whereas I do actually hate Napoleon. But every day,” he ground out, “I’ve come to hate the French men that I must fight less and less, you see, because they’ve got no choice in it.

They think they’re fighting for honor and glory in France, but they’re fighting for a madman who would happily kill them all just to keep his crown. ”

She stared at him. “Isn’t that true of most leaders with a crown? Wouldn’t they happily kill everyone to keep it?”

He sucked in a rough breath. “Now that’s one way of looking at the world.”

“That’s one way of reading the history books,” she said gently. “And not putting any sentimentality to it. But I’m very sorry that you have waded through so much and must continue to do so.”

He said nothing, but a muscle tightened in his jaw.

“So,” she continued gently, “we must make your trip here as happy as possible because I assume you will be going back to war soon.”

He nodded. “Yes, unless Napoleon suddenly dies in his sleep, and France wakes up and stops following that madman to their doom.”

“Then every day here should be a peaceful one and full of fun. Will you let me help you have that? Because that would give me joy, you know. Instead of thinking about myself, we could have fun together.”

“Fun together?” he whispered. “That sounds a bit dangerous.”

“All the better,” she replied. “Life isn’t safe. So why pretend otherwise?”

And she knew in that moment that she would give him as much joy as she possibly could. For who knew what lay ahead? For him. For his country. For the world.