And thus did Upchurch ensure the story would spread faster and farther than the flames of the Great Fire.
“My sister likes you,” Dennis said. “She claims you have the air of a brooding hero. It’s the eye patch, makes you look ruthless. I envied you that damned eye patch, Goddard.”
“And the way you speak French,” somebody added. “The ladies love a fellow who can offer sweet nothings in French.”
The list of Rye’s enviable qualities grew as the port in the glasses disappeared, until somebody suggested Rye was deserving of a monument in Hyde Park. He let them maunder on, listening with half an ear.
Upchurch’s fabrication neatly cleared Rye’s name without implicating Melisande or Upchurch himself in wrongdoing, and that was cleverly done. But Upchurch’s loyal officers had believed one set of lies about Rye all too easily, and now, just as easily, they were convinced by another set of lies.
The good graces of such sycophants didn’t, in fact, mean all that much, and never had.
This realization was a greater relief than knowing Rye would never again have to tolerate Dexter Dennis’s righteous glowering. The regard of men like Alasdhair and Dylan mattered far more, as did the respect of the children. They cared nothing for gossip and everything for the fact that Rye kept his word and treated them decently.
Jeanette had never turned her back on her disgraced brother, and Ann had taken a man scorned into her bed and into her heart.
Rye stripped off his eye patch and rubbed at his forehead.
“You wear it for show?” Dennis asked, peering at the scrap of black silk.
“I wear it because bright light gave me terrible headaches for the first few years after I mustered out, and it still occasionally bothers me. I also wanted to spare others the sight of my scars, but those have faded.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to stand up with my sister at some point this Season?”
The request was made ever so casually, and Rye wanted to laugh. “I have a bad hip, Dennis. I might occasionally try a waltz, but something as lengthy as a quadrille is beyond me. You won’t see me dancing much.” And when he waltzed, he’d waltz with Ann or not at all.
“But if you do take a notion to trip it as ye go, on the light fantastick toe, you’ll keep m’sister in mind?”
“Of course, and speaking of the ladies, it’s time we rejoined them.” Rye was hungry for the sight of Ann and the sound of her voice, and weary of the company he’d so long yearned to join.
“Quite right,” Dennis said, finishing his drink, “and the brigadier seems to be of the same mind.”
The footmen collected glasses, and some of the company made further use of the chamber pots as Upchurch decreed the interlude at an end.
“And remember, lads,” he said, “not a word to the ladies.”
Dennis all but charged down the corridor and was whispering to his sister in a corner before the first gentleman was served his tea.
Rye tarried at the parlor door with Upchurch as the other guests greeted the ladies and found chairs and sofas to lounge upon.
“Was any of that fairy tale true?” Rye had told Upchurch to explain that his loyal subordinate had been following orders when on reconnaissance in the countryside, nothing more complicated than that.
Upchurch’s gaze rested on Melisande, who made a graceful picture presiding over the tea tray. “Most of it. I am not the only officer for whom the generals charted a hard course, Goddard, but I wasn’t permitted to tell you. Word came down from Horse Guards recently that the problem on the Continent had been resolved. I’d hoped you could simply slink off to France none the wiser—what soldier wants to know that he’s been used in such a manner?—but then we had that little chat in my office.”
“The chat where you explained that because you and your spouse did not honor your vows, I have been made to dance on a string for years like the generals’ puppet.”
Upchurch watched his wife, who laughed at some inanity from Dennis.
“I have danced as well Goddard, and in addition to my marital woes, there was that little business about all of Europe being embroiled in warfare. Nobody wants to see us reduced to that sad pass again. Though you are right: You deserve to have your good name cleared and your future secured. I will doubtless be taken to task for disobeying orders—unreliable dodderer that I have become—but the war, thank Providence, is finally over.”
Not quite. “You will pay for that champagne, Upchurch. Every crate and bottle. To the penny.”
Upchurch nodded.
“Then I will collect Miss Pearson, bid my hostess good evening, and make a night of it.”
“Let me say this, Goddard, because you won’t hear it from anybody else: Thank you. A lesser man would not have withstood the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune half so stoically, but a whole ring of bad actors has been brought to heel because of your sacrifice.”
I don’t care. Rye would care, maybe a little, soon, but right now, all he wanted was to be alone in a coach with Ann.
“You and the generals are not welcome,” Rye said. “You had no need to keep me in the dark as you did. You did that to spare yourself humiliation. I would gladly have played the role assigned to me, but I wasn’t given a choice.”
“Understood,“ Upchurch said. “You might find yourself flooded in the coming weeks with orders for champagne.”
That, Orion did care about. “I live in hope.” He strode off to find Ann holding forth near the hearth about the wonders of herbes de Provence. She concluded her rhapsody as Rye offered her his hand.
“Miss Pearson, I am felled by fatigue. Would you mind very much if we took an early leave?”
Ann rose gracefully. “Of course not. I am unused to such entertainments myself and would gladly bid our hostess good night.”
Countless eternities later, Rye had Ann bundled into the Dorning town coach.
“What happened?” she asked. “The men stalked off to the library glaring daggers at you. In less than thirty minutes, you become the toast of the regiment.”
“I’ll explain later. The whole tale approaches farce, but suffice it to say, I am the toast of the regiment at present, and I do not care one moldy cheese or wilted leek that it should be so. Kiss me.”
Ann obliged, and as lovely as the meal had been, her kiss was a greater source of sustenance.
“Will you spend the night with me, Ann?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t even told you what Upchurch had to say behind a closed door. I’m not going to France, not to stay.”
“Then neither am I. Kiss me.”
Rye obliged, at length, enthusiastically, and when Ann finally cuddled next to him on a contented sigh, he could honestly agree with Upchurch about one thing at least.
The war was over. The war was finally, absolutely over.
“You want me to take on the post of chef at the Coventry?” Ann asked.
Mr. and Mrs. Dorning had called upon her at her home, and Ann had no doubt Miss Julia and Miss Diana were listening at the keyhole.
“I do,” Mr. Dorning said. “We do, rather. Jules Delacourt has succumbed to a serious bout of homesickness and is packing up his effects as we speak.”