As a younger woman, she might have dressed him down sorely, and he’d have caught her in his arms and jollied her out of her temper.
In the inn’s foyer, she turned her back to him, as the lady of the manor turns her back in expectation of the butler removing her wrap. Leo obliged, and folded her cloak over his arm. The scent of Christmas spices wafted from her garment—cinnamon, cloves, a touch of mace. An expensive and unusual perfume.
“I will oblige you with the disagreement you seek,” she said, taking her cloak from him. “We were friends once, so I’ll not kill you without a fair hearing.”
She stalked off into the common and had the maid scurrying forth from the kitchen and disappearing up the steps with the cloak.
Well. If Marielle wanted a battle, Leo would show her exactly what a soldier knew about winning a war, even a war of words. For ten years, he’d been held hostage to her memory, and clearing the air before he took a bride only made sense.
So why was he looking forward to this disagreement with a past love far more than he was to tomorrow’s introduction to his potential fiancée?
Unfair, unfair, unfair… Marielle sent that protest heavenward, to whatever unlucky angels presided over the fate of thwarted lovers.
Leo was no longer a boy. In every way, he’d matured into the promise Marielle had seen in him as a young man. He was handsome, self-possessed, and apparently had found financial success. When he hung his caped great coat on a hook by the common’s front windows, he revealed riding attire that was bang up to the nines. His cravat was tied in some fancy knot and sported a gold pin adorned with a tastefully discreet sapphire. His left little finger bore a signet ring, and his posture was militarily impressive.
He had to be married. No man with that much to recommend him would have gone unclaimed. Leo’s family had been gentry—mere gentry, according to Papa—but their fortunes must have prospered over the past ten years, or perhaps plundering Spain had left Leo well to do.
Papa had said Leo would never amount to anything.
Marielle was delighted to see Papa had been wrong.
Marielle was happy for Leo, but she was also quite sad, for she had been right about Leo, and she’d let him go with barely a whimper.
Leo crossed the common to one of the private parlors and again held the door for her. A fire crackled in the grate, and a table had been set immediately before it. The room also held a settee, and there Marielle did take a seat.
“You’ll let out the heat if you don’t close the door,” she said. “I’m widowed, and need not shiver for the sake of my chastity ever again.”
“You’re also angry with me,” Leo said, poking some air into the fire. “I have a few questions for you too, but ladies first, Ellie.”
Only Leo had called her that. Had he used her nickname as a weapon or an olive branch?
“I am furious with you, which makes no sense. We were young and foolish, and the past has no bearing on the present.”
He propped an elbow on the mantel, looking twelve kinds of too delicious. “Humor me. We were friends once.”
They’d grown up together, their papas owning neighboring estates. When Leo had gone off to public school, Marielle had cried for weeks, and sneaked splotchy letters into the post, knowing he could not reply. He’d brought her a journal at the holiday break, full of the sentiments he’d not been able to send her.
She still had the journal, though she’d not read it since the night before her wedding. “We were playmates.”
He pushed away from the mantel. “And then we were lovers, or the next thing to it. I proposed to you.”
Oh, he had. On bended knee, her hand in his, and it had been perfect. The memory distressed Marielle now, because it was both precious and false. While she grappled with that incongruity, Leo opened the door and said something to a maid, then closed the door.
“You proposed,” Marielle said, “and I accepted your proposal.”
“Then you married another.”
She had, months after Leo had gone haring off on his adventures. Marielle rose and stalked over to him.
“You left me, waiting like the most gullible dupe ever to plight her troth. Left me waiting in that cold, dingy saddle room, for hours. I cried for you, Leopold, and when Papa found me, I swore I would never cry for you again. The humiliation faded, but not the sense of betrayal. If you were so mad to buy your colors, why not ask me to follow the drum? Why not marry me before you went chasing glory on the battlefield? I would have waited… Oh, damn you.”
They stood close enough to embrace, while Marielle fisted her hand around the handkerchief in her pocket—his handkerchief. She’d learned not to cry, but indulging in tears earlier had weakened her defenses.
“You waited for me?” Leo’s question was cautious, as if he repeated a phrase he couldn’t quite translate from a foreign tongue.
“For hours,” Marielle said, pity for her younger self swamping her. “Until I was so cold, I couldn’t feel anything except the shame of falling in love with a coward. How could you face Boney’s guns, but not face me? I would have been hurt that you’d changed your mind, Leo, but I loved you. I would have let you go. I would have tried to understand.”
Leo dropped to the sofa and held out his hand. Marielle didn’t at first grasp that he wanted her to sit beside him.
“I’m still trying to understand,” he said. “You waited in the saddle room.”
Marielle took the place beside him. “I waited so long that I caught a serious lung fever,” she said. “I don’t know how many times I was bled, but I suspect the problem was a broken heart rather than an ailment of the body. You were in Spain by then, and Papa had no idea which regiment you’d signed up with.”
“A simple inquiry at Horse Guards would have told him that much.” Leo stared into the fire as if fairies danced in its depths. “But Marielle, he had no need to ask for me at Horse Guards, because he bought my commission with his own coin.”
If Leo had kicked Marielle in the ribs, he could not have delivered a more stunning blow. “My father sent you to war?”
“With a handsome rank, a new uniform, and hearty best wishes. He also assured me I’d get over your rejection in time, though I was to step aside graciously, for you were intent on making a more suitable match. Eight months later, I read in a three-week-old newspaper that you had made your choice. I stayed drunk for a week.”
“You abhor inebriation.”
“Right now,” Leo said, “I abhor your father even more.”
Marielle sat beside her first love, her heart and mind reeling. “My father sent you to war, and then he arranged a perfectly safe, dull match for me. He told me young men were legendarily faithless, and I must not hold your decision too much against you.”
Leo continued staring at the fire until a knock sounded on the door. Marielle rose to answer it, and admitted a maid carrying a large tray. The girl set the tray on the table, bobbed a curtesy and withdrew, closing the door behind her.
The tray was laden with a pot of chocolate, slices of Christmas stollen, a teapot, a plate of short bread, butter, and a little pot of raspberry jam.
Raspberry was Leo’s favorite, and he apparently still put butter and jam on his shortbread. Marielle lifted the lid of the teapot, intent on checking the strength of the brew. Warm, tea-scented steam wafted up, and then the lid went clattering back to the tray.