“He broke his promise,” Naomi choked out.
“I know.” His chest rumbled as he spoke. His hand gently stroked her hair. Again, somehow, he just managed to keep her from breaking into a million pieces.
“He’s gone.” She tested the words on her lips. They sounded final and ugly and left her feeling dead inside.
The major’s arms squeezed tighter around her.
Arthur was gone. Dead.
She was alone.
She was a widow at twenty-four.
Chapter Two
Lucas rode into town feeling as downtrodden and miserable as if he’d just lost any military battle. It was enough to make him swear off marriage forever—for as long as he remained in the army anyhow.
Arthur Gilcrest, Gil, had had far more to live for than Lucas did.
Luke rubbed a hand down his face.
He’d held his friend’s grieving widow until the housekeeper had returned and shooed him away.
Lucas was a fixer, a planner. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling helpless, useless.
No, that wasn’t precisely true. There had been little he could do to alter the outcome of the ambush—and later that night, long after the sounds of shooting had gone silent and they’d taken count.
Six of his men captured.
And the next day, news that they’d been killed. The insurgents hadn’t even had the honor to return the bodies. They’d only returned the uniforms—bloodied—some with pieces of skin and flesh still attached. Luke had struggled not to vomit when the messenger revealed that his men had been burned alive.
Gil’s beautiful wife needn’t know the circumstances of her husband’s actual death. Not if he had any say.
Luke swallowed guilt and self-loathing. They’d been told the pass was clear. Gil himself had led the reconnaissance team.
It wasn’t as though a major was expected to handle such assignments himself, or that he even ought to, but Luke should have suspected something, knowing there’d been trouble in the area recently.
Guilt was only one of the reasons Luke had delivered the news himself.
The other was that Arthur Gilcrest had once been a good friend. Their fathers’ lands bordered one another, and they’d attended Eton together. Both were second sons and when Luke’s brother, the Duke of Blackheart purchased Luke’s commission for him, it had only seemed natural that Gil’s brother had done the same.
Riding away from Milton Cottage with the sun setting to his right, Luke contemplated the last moments he’d spent with Gil.
The night before the attack, the two of them had sat up long after the others bedded down, sharing a flask of rum. Staring into the fire, Gil, not one to discuss his fears or concerns, had been in an unnaturally effusive mood. Luke had mostly listened while his old friend mulled over the events that had taken place while they’d been on leave in England—how he’d ruined Lord Barrington’s eldest daughter, Miss Naomi Augustine. How he’d gotten her with child and how he’d set her up at Milton Cottage as his wife.
Luke had met Miss Augustine, Naomi, at the first ball of the season. He’d danced with her, in fact, and been more than a little jealous when Gil declared his intent to pursue the delicate blonde himself.
When Luke asked Gil how his brother, the Lord of Tempest now, had reacted to the scandal that ensued, Gil had evaded the question, instead extracting a promise from Luke that if anything happened to him, that Luke would make certain Naomi and his child were taken care of.
It was almost as though he’d known.
Luke pulled up on The General’s reins when the road he’d been riding along spit off in two directions. The one on the right would take him to the most unimpressive village of Hull Crossings, where he could take a room for the night. The other would lead him to the home he’d grown up in, what was now his brother’s estate in Sussex, Crescent Park. Luke needed to offer his condolences to Gil’s mother and brother, who would have been notified of Gil’s death officially by the soldier he’d dispatched for just that purpose.
And Luke would have to tell Blackheart his decision.
Surely, both discussions could be delayed.
Luke chose the road to the right. He’d stay in the area overnight and return to speak with Naomi—Mrs. Gilcrest—one last time. He’d assist her in making arrangements to return to her family. Or to Gil’s. Whichever she preferred. She could not remain alone.
Luke had promised Gil that he’d see to her well-being.
Gil would never meet his child. The child would never meet his father.
It was obvious that Gil’s wife had loved him desperately. Holding her, breathing in the sweet fragrance of a woman for the first time in months, Luke had wished he could absorb her pain. He’d kept her from falling prone in the dirt. She’d felt fragile, brittle—he’d barely kept her from breaking apart completely.
And it was only the beginning. She’d been lost in her grief today, but tomorrow, she would wake up and face her new reality all over again.
She’d have to put her life back together again, but first, she must mourn.
It didn’t matter that she was hauntingly beautiful, or that in time she’d remarry and be able to put all of this behind her. The news of Gil’s death had shattered her.
Late the next morning, Luke rode once again onto the small property where Gil’s widow had made their home. Clouds loomed in the west, dark and threatening.
A charged energy hovered in the air but the gloomy weather was most appropriate. He’d slept fitfully, if at all, memories of the ambush taunting him whenever his body tried to claim some much-needed rest.
This was something he was getting used to—the not sleeping.
He doubted Mrs. Gilcrest had slept either. He wondered if she’d eaten anything after he left her. She was carrying a child. Luke would speak with the housekeeper. Gil’s wife needed to take proper care of herself.
He dismounted, tied The General off and stepped up to the porch, careful to skip the second step which was cracked and caving in, and then knocked on the door. While he waited for someone to open it, he glanced around and assessed the condition of her situation for now.
Only a small plot of the acreage had been cultivated and much of the land was overrun with brush and weeds. The railing around the porch leaned out precariously, at least the one step needed to be repaired, and a large strip of wooden trim lay on the ground, with another threatening to work its way off the edge of the roof as well.
“Major Cockfield.”
Luke pivoted at her voice and then bowed formally. Dark circles were etched beneath eyes that closely resembled the colors of the very storm clouds hovering on the horizon. She looked unusually pale standing in the partially opened door.
Even tired and drawn, she was just as beautiful as he’d remembered. He tamped down his awareness of her.
“I—” She dropped her gaze. “I apologize for yesterday. I am not normally…” She brushed back a strand of hair, and he noticed that her bottom lip trembled.
Clenching his fists at his side, Luke itched to comfort her again. “It was perfectly normal. No apology is necessary. I am only sorry…” He remembered how those words had not brought her any comfort the day before. How many times would they be uttered to her in the near future? “May I come in?”