Everything I Ever Wanted, page 25
His mouth was indeed open. He filled it with a spoonful of hot oats before she literally had him eating out of her hand.
India sliced a heel of warm bread for herself and added a spoonful of jam. She was quiet as she spread it across the heel, her thoughts moving away from this place and time.
"What is it, India?" South asked.
She was not surprised he had caught her mood. He seemed to have little trouble doing that. She raised her face slowly to his and let him see she was now in earnest. "Will you tell me about the prison barge?"
He may have gauged her mood, but her question took him unawares. "What do you want to know?"
"You don't mind?"
"I will tell you if I do."
She nodded. "Very well. When did it happen?"
"Ten years ago. I was in the Peninsula then. Napoleon had taken Madrid after the rebellion. King Joseph had fled. There were skirmishes almost daily in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. The ship I was on had the misfortune to be captured by the frogs."
"You weren't ransomed and returned?"
"No. There were too many uncertainties at that time. We were moved to a barge and kept there while diplomats haggled over our fate."
"You said it was eight months."
"Yes."
"That is a very long time."
"Yes."
His succinct answers revealed more to India than she thought he meant to. "Did you regret your decision to serve?"
"No. Only that my father and I exchanged bitter words over it. He did not want me to go. There was no reason for it, you see, except that it was what I wanted and I was determined. I think he sensed I was prepared to defy him, and that was when he gave in. He did not have to. In that way he was far wiser than I gave him credit. Had he opposed me to the end, we might have never reconciled. I came late to this understanding, but with eight months to reflect on my father's actions, I was finally able to see he was possessed of no less good judgment than Solomon."
India watched a faint smile lift the corners of his mouth. She guessed the reason for it. "You told him so, did you not?"
"As soon as I saw him."
"He agreed with you."
"Of course," South said. "Then he called in my mother so she might hear me say the same. Apparently, my imprisonment had not given her so fine an opinion of her husband. I do not think she was prepared to forgive him if there had been no release."
"You are her son," India said simply. "I think it must always be thus for a mother and her son."
South shrugged. "Perhaps. It is true that she is persuaded she is in the right of everything where I am concerned."
"You do not sound convinced of the same."
"She is my mother, India. Not my conscience. And yes, I have had occasion to tell her so, though not in quite that straightforward a manner. With Mother, one is best served by practicing a bit of roundaboutation."
"And you are very good at that, my lord."
He smiled. "Yes. I am."
She returned his smile, albeit a gentler version than the one she had given him earlier. "Tell me how you were released," she said."Was it finally the work of the diplomats that aided you?"
"No. I might be there yet, waiting for an agreement. In the end, there was only one way to guarantee my freedom and that of every other prisoner on board. I escaped."
India's eyes widened fractionally. "Escaped? How was that possible?"
"Mr. Tibbets died," South said. "He was one of the men sharing leg irons with me. The guards had to unshackle us to remove his body. When the linking chain was lifted, I was able to move for the first time without the cooperation or permission of another man. The guards were not prepared for an assault. After so long a confinement, it is understandable that they would miscalculate the strength of their prisoners."
South set aside his spoon and picked up his cup. He wrapped both hands around it, threading his fingers together, and raised it toward his mouth. "I was able to overpower one of them. Mr. Blount, the man who shared shackles with Mr. Tibbets and me, took the other. We had planned for months for just such an occasion as this. It is but one way to pass the time, you understand, and it gives a man purpose to plot his escape."
South's half-smile mocked him. He drank from his cup. "We had imagined being able to take the keys from the guard and free everyone held in the same area. We would then move to other parts of the ship until we had taken it over. It was a reasonable plan given how many of us there were and how few were assigned to guard us."
India waited for the explanation of what had gone wrong. That something had was there in the gravity of his expression and the sober gray eyes that would not quite meet hers.
"One of the guards was able to fire his pistol," South told her. "Mr. Blount went down—mortally wounded, though I did not know that then. The shot alerted other guards. We could hear the shouts and their running approach toward us. There was no time to effect the escape of all, so I went alone."
"The other prisoners must have urged you do so," India said.
South nodded. "Yes, they did. In very strong terms."
India searched his face. "You have regrets that you listened to them?" she asked gently.
He glanced up from contemplating the contents of his cup. "Regrets," he repeated, his voice slightly hoarse with emotion. "Yes. Always."
"But you..."
"I escaped, India," he said flatly. "Many of them did not. Seven men were hanged for having some part in my defection. A score more died from disease or despair."
"And how many were saved?" she asked. "The story does not end there, not with your escape. That is but the beginning. You went back, did you not? You returned for them, and those that survived in your absence were rescued because of it."
"You would have me be a hero, India. Is that it?"
"I would have you be what you are," she said. "Are you telling me you did not return?"
"No," he said. "I did. But you should not make too much of it. I had an obligation to those I left behind. It was my duty."
"You are a man of integrity, my lord. The obligation you had was to yourself, to act in an honorable manner. Perhaps it is as you say: you are no hero—yet it is not every man who risks his life and still asks, years later, what more could I have done. I do not believe you should reproach yourself for what you could not accomplish."
South sat back in his chair and regarded her over the rim of his cup. "Have I acted honorably toward you, India?"
India's brows drew together, and a small crease appeared between them. "I do not know what you mean," she said slowly, feeling her way. "It is not the same thing at all."
South's study remained considering. "Not the same," he murmured. "I wonder if that is..." His voice trailed off.
He set down his cup and returned to his rapidly cooling porridge. "You're frowning. Did I burn your porridge after all?"
Her frown actually deepened. "What?" India's glance fell to her bowl. "Oh. No. It is just that..."
"Yes?"
She pressed her cup to her lips and drank. "Nothing," she said. "It is nothing." If he did not intend to pursue the question he put to her, then she would be wise not to raise it, but she wondered what had provoked it. Did he believe he had not acted with honor toward her? Was it because he had taken her from London without her permission? Or shared her bed at her own invitation? "Tell me the rest," she said after a moment. "How did you get off the barge?"
South was not surprised when India did not press him to make any other explanation. He doubted that she believed he had acted in any way dishonorably, but it revealed much more about the way she thought of herself than how she thought of him. "There was time enough for me to take a coat and hat from one of the unconscious turnkeys. I put them on and slipped out in the confusion that came with the arrival of the rest of the guards. I made my way topside and threw myself in the water before I could think better of it."
"How did you know which way to swim? Could you see land?"
"Not then. I just struck out. It was when no boats from the ship were released to pursue me that I realized just how far from shore we were. They assumed, quite correctly, that I couldn't swim such a distance."
"Then how...?"
"Mere chance," he explained. "Some would say a miracle. A Portuguese fishing boat came upon me and hauled me in."
India's dark eyes narrowed. "How long were you in the water before they found you?"
"A day and a night."
She found she simply had no words to properly express herself, nor any voice with which to say them. She could only stare at him. That he should explain so plainly, without bravado or extravagance, made India's emotions that much more deeply felt.
"The Portuguese took me to shore. Fed me. Hid me. Three days passed before I was strong enough to leave. I made my way north, found a packet boat, and stowed myself on board. That boat was stopped by one of His Majesty's frigates when it tried to run a blockade."
"You escaped again."
"It was not so much an escape as merely being found."
"And then the frigate returned to rescue the men on the barge?"
He shook his head. "No, that would have meant a full engagement. I asked to be allowed to have use of the packet boat instead and fly the French tricolor. When we arrived in the waters where I had last known the prison ship to be, our presence aroused no alarm. We were taken for a supply ship and given permission to come alongside the barge. By the time our ruse was discovered, we were in position to take the ship."
India knew he would not give her the details of that fight even if she had wanted to hear them. The truth was, she did not. "Did you leave the navy afterward?"
"No. Not immediately."
"But you had already served with distinction. You were honored, weren't you, for your escape and rescue?"
"Yes. Though that is neither here nor there. I remained until we had cleared the way for Wellington's entry into Spain." South saw that small vertical crease appear between India's brows. "It is like seeing a play through to the final act," he said. "Even when you have a wish to slip quietly into the wings before it is done."
"And did you have such a wish?"
"On occasion. As is often true, it was never the same after the rescue. It set me apart from the others, though I would not have had it so. I could not put it in the past, because I was not allowed."
"You were regarded as a hero," India said softly. South's brief, darting glance revealed again how discomfited he was by the thought of it. She imagined he must have abhorred the public expression of praise for his deeds. "And you only meant to do your duty."
"Yes."
She nodded. "I know it is not the same thing at all, but there are times I would rather be Ursula again, the gentlewoman attending on Hero, than Hero."
He chuckled at her wordplay. "If it is not the same thing," South said, "then it is not so very different."
"Perhaps." India finished her tea and set her cup down. "Is it why you choose to work for the colonel?"
South lifted an eyebrow in question.
"I mean, there is little chance of you being acknowledged for what you do at his urging."
He smiled. Trust India to come so pointedly to the heart of it. "That is as good a reason as any. Though I must tell you, the colonel has never urged me to do anything. No matter how it is couched, there can be no mistaking what he says for anything but a command."
"Does your family know?"
"No." He paused. "Does yours?"
India had been spooning her porridge. His carefully timed question made her head snapped up. "You must know that I have no family," she said.
"Why must I know that?" he asked. "I know only that I could not find any."
She merely shrugged.
South reached across the table and laid his hand lightly over her wrist. He held her glance. "Are we at another impasse?" he asked. "Did you think I would not return to the matters that brought us here? I have answered your questions, India. Not because I needed to. Certainly not because I found any pleasure in it. I answered them for no other reason than because you asked."
India swallowed. Her appetite had fled. She slipped her hand free of South's and pushed her half-eaten bowl of porridge aside. "What do you want to know?" she asked.
"Your name," he said. He saw that he had surprised her. "I reasoned some time ago that the difficulty in discovering much about you lay in the fact you were no longer using your name. You selected India Parr for the stage, did you not?"
India stood and cleared her things from the table. She expected South to raise some objection, but he did not. He let her go, let her busy her hands with the mundane tasks of scraping and washing. "I was called Diana," she said finally. "You will allow that it is not terribly different from India. A letter moved here and there, another changed."
He nodded and continued to wait.
India unpinned the apron protecting her gown and began to fold it neatly. "Hawthorne," she said. "Diana Hawthorne."
"Hawthorne is nothing at all like Parr."
"No," she agreed. "It is not."
"Was Cotswold your home?"
"Cotswold?" At first she did not understand. "Oh, because of my position there as governess. No, I was sent there from Devon. That is where I grew up."
South came to his feet and skirted the table. He took the apron India was creasing with her fingertips out of her hands and laid it across the back of a chair. Placing his hands gently on her shoulders, he turned her around and nudged her toward the adjoining room. He pointed to the settee. "Sit. I will get your shawl."
He was gone no longer than a minute and India was sitting exactly as he had left her. South produced a dark-green paisley shawl and placed it around her shoulders.
"Did you think I meant to faint, my lord?" she asked when he placed a bench directly in front of her and sat. "I assure you, I would not have."
He was in a better position to judge her pale features than she had been. "Let us call it a precaution," he said.
She nodded and looped the tails of the soft woolen shawl under her breasts. A strand of hair had fallen across her cheek, and she brushed it back. It was then she noticed how cold her hands were. She settled them on her lap, threading her fingers together to keep them still. "Are you familiar with Devon?" she asked.
"I can admit to little more than having ridden through that countryside on my way to Land's End."
"It is rich farmland for as far as the eye can see. Each little plot is carefully tended. Neat hedgerows stitch the fields together as if the landscape were a verdant quilt. The scale of everything is diminutive. Where London sprawls, Devon nestles. The hollows are filled with tiny cottages, and villages stay confined to boundaries of the woods and meadows. The people are plain and steady, hardworking and proud. So much in Devon is small, my lord, except the heart of its inhabitants. The people in the West Country have enormous hearts."
"That is good to know."
India smiled faintly at South's carefully polite tone. "I mention it because it is part of my story. I lived in one of those little cottages. My father had been in the king's regiment years before, and now he had a piece of England that was his own. You might not imagine that farming would suit him, but it did. My mother was a midwife. It was a skill she had occasion to learn following the drum. That had been her life for many years."
"Before you were born," South said.
"Yes. My parents were settled in Devon when I was born."
South nodded. "They are older?"
India changed the tense of his question. "Were," she said. "They were older. They are both gone now."
"How long ago?"
"A dozen years. I was eleven."
A faint frown changed the line of his mouth as South considered not what she had told him, but what she hadn't. "Together?" he asked. "You lost both your parents at the same time?"
"In a fire."
South realized he had not fully prepared himself to hear what she might have to say. "I am sorry." He held her gaze because to look away would have been cowardly. "Was it your home that burned?"
She nodded. "There was nothing left. Nothing. I was gone from the cottage that evening. I had been invited by the vicar and his wife to spend the night because I was to attend the fair with them the following day. My father could not take me, and my mother was anticipating there would be need for her services as Mrs. Doddridge's time was nearing." India hands unfolded, and she absently fingered the fringe on her shawl. Her smile was rueful. "I have not thought of Mrs. Doddridge in years," she said. "My mother confided that she was set to deliver twins. I cannot say whether she did or not. I only know that my mother was not there to assist with the birthing."
South watched India shake her head slightly, rousing herself from her reverie. He waited patiently to see where her thoughts would take her next.
"I sometimes wonder, if I had not been away, if I might have saved them," India said. "I slept more lightly, I think. I might have been able to do something. I asked the vicar about it, but he told me I should not dwell on what might have been. I needed to accept what was."
"There is not much in the way of comfort there for a young girl."
"No," India agreed. "It is not."
"There were no brothers?" South asked. It seemed unusual that she would grow up as an only child in a farming family. He had always imagined that the sturdy stock of the West Country—the spirited descendants of the Saxons and Vikings—would have a brood. Though no particular number defined that term, he knew it was greater than one. "No sisters?"
"No. None. There was only me. Diana Hawthorne. Daughter of Thomas and Marianne."
South thought he might have been able to touch her loneliness. It seemed that tangible to him. He caught her eye. "If there were some other way," he said. "If I could spare..."
India's short laugh was without humor. "Never say that you wish you could spare me this. You brought me here to open these wounds. If I must feel the pain, then you can look on it."
"I will look at whatever you want me to see, India. And yes, if I could spare you, or better still, take it upon myself, I would. But you know it is not true that I brought you here to open wounds when I had no knowledge of any."
