What she’d hoped it meant.
“They appreciated the meal, Ann. I certainly did. I’ve never tasted anything like it.”
The crowd resumed shuffling toward the parlor door. “And your appreciation matters. For the others, this was a passing pleasure, and for some of them, the gossip provides more sustenance than the food. I see that now.”
Orion peered down at her by the flickering light of a mirrored sconce. “You are blowing retreat?”
“No, Orion. I am transferring to a different regiment, if you’ll have me. I don’t want to end up like Melisande or like Jules, and those are not my only choices. I want to end up like your sister, well loved by a worthy, if occasionally vexatious, man. I want to be an extremely busy woman who enjoys most of what she does.”
“Dorning is more than occasionally vexatious.”
“You like him, and you respect him, and I more than like and respect you. What will you do about Uncle Horace’s thievery?” For that had to be how the champagne had found its way to his table.
“There’s more to it than thievery, Ann. Horace Upchurch has much explaining to do.”
“Then have your explanations from him, Orion, but know that my loyalty and my heart are yours and always will be.” Ann kissed his cheek. “Be gracious in victory, for Uncle is surely facing defeat.”
Orion bowed and left her at the parlor door. Ann sent up a quick prayer that Uncle was smart enough to surrender to superior forces before the battle turned into a complete rout.
Chapter Sixteen
“I want to know why.” Orion chose to accost Upchurch in the library rather than give the brigadier time to concoct defenses or take evasive maneuvers.
The other officers filed past, some going immediately to the chamber pots set out by the sideboard, others settling into the comfortable chairs before the roaring fire. Two footmen stood at the ready, holding trays of port by the window.
“Not now, Goddard.”
“You make my life a misery for years, bring shame upon my name, and try to destroy my business. You will explain yourself now, Upchurch, or you will find this gathering turned into a drumhead court martial.”
Orion could do it too. He had Ann’s support, though he also had her admonition to be gracious in victory.
Upchurch nodded at the footmen, who began passing out servings of port. “It’s complicated. Call on me tomorrow, and I will explain all.”
“Not good enough.” Not nearly good enough, when Orion considered that he’d almost walked away from Ann, from the children, from his sister, from the émigrés, his cousins… “Your lies and scheming have brought me to the brink of ruin, Upchurch, and involved innocents in your battles. You owe me not only the truth, but justice.”
“I’ll buy your damned champagne, if that’s what you want, though the expense will beggar me. You were never supposed to attend this dinner.”
“I was never supposed to dine in company with a fellow officer again.”
Across the room, Lieutenant Haines had embarked on the retelling of some vignette that had doubtless become a fixture of the after-dinner port session. Most of the other guests clustered around him, but for the few cadging naps before the fire.
“You were supposed to slink off to France,” Upchurch said. “I thought when you went this summer that you were gone for good. Your own in-laws had joined in the talk, and I believed I had finished you at last.”
“They are my sister’s in-laws, and they only rode the coattails of the scandal you created for me. For the last time, tell me why you betrayed a fellow officer, Upchurch, one who never showed you anything but loyalty and respect.”
The group across the room descended into laughter, while Orion’s temper was threatening to slip the leash. He cared nothing for the bonhomie Haines and the others were enjoying. He simply wanted peace, a future with Ann, a chance to raise excellent grapes, and an opportunity to live out his life with dignity.
“I did it…” Upchurch waved a footman away. “I did it for Melisande, of course. What other motivation could possibly justify so much unbecoming conduct? She was young, she was foolish, and I… I was foolish too.”
Orion thought back to years of boredom and battles. “You flirted with Mrs. Bainbridge, among others.”
“I more than flirted, and that was badly done of me. Melisande retaliated accordingly, as any worthy opponent would.” Upchurch scrubbed a hand across his brow. “Let us repair to the office, shall we?”
If a lady’s good name was to be under discussion, that was the only gentlemanly course. Orion followed Upchurch through a paneled door into a stuffy room adorned with portraits of stuffy fellows in overly decorated uniforms. The fire had been lit, but none of the candles, adding to the sense of gloomy masculinity.
“Melisande was charming,” Orion said, choosing the word carefully, “but I never played you false with her. None of us did, that I know of.”
Upchurch used a spill to light a branch of candles, though they did little to dispel the shadows. “You fellows knew better, but Deschamps did not. He was exotic, gallant, and forbidden, and if a woman is determined to twit her husband for neglecting her—and Melisande was devastated by my errant ways—how better to do that than to sleep with the enemy? She had no idea—no earthly intimation—of how serious a transgression that was. She liked his accent and his kisses, and he was simply a lonely fellow whose army was being defeated, mile by mile.”
Were the situation not so sad, it would be ridiculous. “What have your past marital woes to do with me?”
“My superiors became aware that I was dealing with an unhappy wife.”
“Because Emily Bainbridge could not keep her mouth shut, even in defense of the realm.”
Upchurch sank into the chair behind the desk. “Emily is troubled, and she is not to blame. I am.”
The air of wounded gallantry was too much. “And yet, it’s not your champagne being stolen, or your good name that receives an annual trip to the regimental latrine. I have held my only sister at a distance because of you, lost substantial business, and nearly parted from friends and allies here in London.” And as bad as all of that combined, he’d nearly parted from Ann.
“I know, and I am sorry, but if you’d been content to take a repairing lease in France… You were promoted, and you were knighted, and I meant for those measures to be some compensation for the gossip, but no, you wanted your blasted honor.”
Were Upchurch not sitting at his desk, looking old and tired, Rye might have hit him. “I go to France frequently, and just when I think I’m finally to be allowed the peace we all fought so hard to secure, my friends tell me I’m the object of talk again at Horse Guards.”
A burst of laughter came from the other room, reminding Orion that the ladies expected the gentlemen to rejoin them before too much longer.
And Ann expected him to be gracious in victory, damn the luck.
“The other culprit in this melodrama is Deschamps,” Upchurch said. “He saw a lonely young woman following the drum for her older husband, and he should have kept his damned Frenchie hands to himself.”
Deschamps’s hands were not the problem. “What did you do?”