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C rispin should have anticipated that visiting Tunbridge Wells with Hazard’s viscountess would be entirely different from taking Old Harry there.

Hazard had sent a man ahead to make the arrangements and cover all the costs, leasing a townhouse for an entire month.

There was nothing for Crispin to plan. Nothing to execute.

He could exert no control, and that itched .

They were to travel in two coaches. One for Alice, her father, and Camellia.

The other for Haz’s servants. Crispin borrowed Caliban, one of Jasper’s geldings, to ride alongside.

Haz would have lent him a mount, but that would have left him feeling even more beholden.

More like a hanger-on. He should have more than one horse so he could keep one in London.

Just before they set off, Hazard pulled him aside. “I don’t know what you are doing, but as I once told your brother, I fear one day one of your blunderbusses will blow up in your face. This had better not be that day.”

The man was dead serious.

“Very nice, Haz. But if you want a threat to be effective, it should be more specific. And I suggest putting a tad more menace into your voice.” Before Hazard could reply, Crispin added, “I would never do anything to endanger the ladies.” He sniffed.

“If it will set your mind at ease, I won’t go looking for the pistols. ”

“Then why are you going?”

Crispin hesitated. Then “confessed.” “My mother is plotting to throw me a welcome home ball. I need to leave London for a while.”

Hazard studied him a moment, then chuckled. “You’re wasting your time. You can’t outrun your mother. You’ll be wived before you know what happened.”

He grinned. “Now that is a terrifying threat.”

*

Crispin stared down at the small sandstone grave marker. Neville Bodwell. Beloved son. Had he been a better man, the stone would read Taverston. No. Had he been a better man, this baby would never have been conceived. All his reasons for foreswearing marriage and fatherhood still pertained.

There was a touch of autumn chill in the air and the sky was overcast. Nevertheless, after just two days in Tunbridge Wells, Crispin had hired a gig—an open carriage for propriety’s sake—to bring Camellia to the churchyard in Tonbridge.

Thankfully, no one else was about. He would have been particularly peeved to run into the rector or his unpleasant wife.

It pained him to think that Camellia had been subjected to Mr. Castor performing the funerals. One after another.

To his left, she stood weeping freely, yet he felt only emptiness.

Disconnection. How was it possible that he could have had a son and not known?

He’d thought seeing the grave would make the babe feel more real to him.

In coming here, he’d expected to feel the same surge of love he felt when he held Christopher, Arthur, or Randolph, or when watching Hannah frolic about.

Instead he felt bitter. Ashamed. Mean-spirited and resentful.

But he would not unleash any of that upon Camellia. Not again.

In her time of crisis, she had come to London to find him.

Even after the ghastly way he had treated her, the reprehensible things he had said to her, she’d trusted him to do the right thing.

She’d trusted him. And he’d failed her. She had to have believed he ignored her letter. Why didn’t she despise him?

Camellia was still crying. He didn’t know what to say to comfort her.

He had envisioned sorrowing together, but he was failing her again.

Finally, he thought to give her his handkerchief.

Hers was an insufficient lacey thing. But he performed the gesture mutely.

After several more minutes, trying to grieve while his gut churned with self-loathing, he walked away.

Wandered away. Through grounds peopled with corpses.

Amongst the tombstones, he found Colonel Harrington’s grave.

He bowed his head, thinking to pray, but a rush of memory came upon him.

A maddening scene of smoke and noise and confusion.

He’d ached to jump into the heart of it, to fight alongside the infantry, but Wellington had given him explicit orders not to.

The commander believed there were men, touched by the finger of God, who could ride through cannon fire and emerge unscathed.

Wellington was such a man. He thought Crispin was too.

And, critically, communication with Blücher had to be maintained. At all costs.

In the aftermath, there had been men on the field, both allies and enemies, begging for death. Shattered limbs, missing faces, eviscerated innards. It was death as far as he could see. What blasphemy to call such carnage a victory. They said even Wellington had wept.

Camellia slipped up beside him and put a hand on his arm. He realized he was speaking aloud. Muttering to Old Harry’s ghost. Apologizing for surviving.

“Crispin?” she whispered.

“My God. What did we do?”

She linked her arm through his and peered into his face. “At Waterloo? Napoleon had to be stopped. You did what you had to do.”

He groaned. “I have nightmares.”

“Of course you do. You’d be inhuman not to. You know Neville did, after Vitoria. They’ll fade with time.”

After a moment, he pulled himself together, taking note that her eyes and nose were pink, and her voice was hoarse. Perhaps they should not have come. “I thought the baby’s grave would unman me. Not your brother’s.”

“You aren’t unmanned. If you think so, you have the wrong definition of a man.” She looked up, and he was drawn to do so also. The sky was darkening. Clouds were rolling in. “Thank you for bringing me here, but we’d better get back to Tunbridge Wells before the rain.”

She was blessedly matter-of-fact. And blessedly generous. She didn’t chastise him for walking away, embittered, from Neville Bodwell’s grave, without having shed a single tear.

*

Tunbridge Wells had entertainments. Nothing like London, Crispin thought, but enough to occupy its visitors.

Yet Alice and her father went only to the medicinal baths each day, and Camellia did not even do that.

Unlike their first trip to the town when she wanted to see and do everything, now, except for the brief visit to the graveyard, she would not leave the house.

To Crispin, Society’s rules for widows seemed punitive.

One morning, after they had been there a week, he wandered into the bookstore. Its selection was poor, but he did find a copy of Pride and Prejudice by their favorite anonymous lady. That afternoon, they began the book together, reading aloud. Camellia began.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Crispin yelped, and Camellia laughed. That same throaty laugh he remembered. It was good to hear.

They were sitting in the conservatory, a well-maintained indoor garden filled with greenery, but at that time, no flowers.

No blooms to drown out the light scent of lilacs.

Sunlight streamed through the windows. This strange feeling must be contentment .

They passed the novel back and forth, taking turns as their voices tired.

“She seems to have modeled Darcy after Jasper,” he mused, after finishing one of the chapters. Seeing her surprise, he laughed and said, “You’ll have to meet him. You’ll see what I mean.”

“I have.”

“You have what?”

“I’ve met the earl. And your comparison seems apt. He came to take Mr. Diakos away to care for your great aunt. I’ll admit I was quite angry. I do think Neville’s final decline began when Mr. Diakos left.”

Their great aunt? She was as robust as a draft horse. Crispin didn’t know whether to appreciate Jasper’s discretion or to be angry he’d lied. And now, he must confess. “He did not fetch Adam for our aunt. He brought him to London to care for me. I didn’t ask it. He took it upon himself.”

“Oh!” Camellia flushed. Then grew pensive. “I suppose I should have put two and two together. Well, then, I can’t be angry with the earl anymore. Of course he came for Mr. Diakos.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be.” She sighed. “In truth, Neville was dying since Vitoria.”

They sat in silence for several minutes. Crispin tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair. A question was working its way through his brain. If Jasper hadn’t claimed Adam by saying Crispin needed him, how had Camellia known he’d been ill?

“Camellia, who told you I was sick?” He tried to make the question sound casual, but her eyes widened with alarm, leading him to demand, “Was it Hazard?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t be angry. It shouldn’t matter.”

Of course it mattered. “Who?”

“Your porter. He isn’t working for you anymore. Please don’t make trouble for him.”

“James?” He wouldn’t have thought the man would be loose-lipped.

But then… “He was never my servant. He was Hazard’s spy.

” He paused, glancing around at the potted bushes as if he expected to see the footman lurking behind them.

“When Adam came to London, James went back to Hazard and Alice.” Which explained nothing. “Why, how , did he tell you?”

“I came upon him by accident. At a charity event that Alice attended. He saw me and guilt prompted him to tell me you didn’t read my letter. Please don’t fault him.”

“Lud.” A damning memory returned to him. He ran a hand over his brow. “I told him to burn it, didn’t I?”

“Apparently.”

“What a blackguard I am.”

“You aren’t. James said you were deathly ill and…”

“And?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Drugged with laudanum.”