Page 54 of The Untamed Heart

It simply wasn’t fair that he had followed the rules and been punished for doing so, and Hamilton had acted with no authority and been lauded. The men would have made it through that pass, and if one or two had died, so what. It was war, not a bedamned tea party. Hamilton had stuck his nose in, though, and ever since that day things had gone wrong. His men had always disliked him, but he cared nothing for that. They were inferior, needing only to be lead and told when to blow their damned noses. But after that day his fellow officers had looked at him differently, too. They’d stopped including him in their social plans, or inviting him to card games, and if he did join, they watched him more carefully, too carefully to use the tricks that usually brought him success.

Waterloo had been the worst experience of his life, yet a ray of sunshine had glimmered when he’d seen the chance to do away with Hamilton once and for all, but the bloody man had come up smelling of roses like he always did. The bastard must be in league with the devil himself.

And now the war was over, and his life was a shambles, his debts were such he had no earthly way of paying a fraction of what he owed, and his miserable sire would as soon let him drown in them.

It was all Hamilton’s fault.

But he wasn’t about to let the man get away with it. Oh no. Not that.

Keller shrank back into the trees as the front door of the elegant house opened. The man himself strode around from the stables, raising his hand and smiling as he greeted the stunning woman who had come out to meet him.

Keller’s fists clenched as he watched her. She was a fine beauty, the sort men fought duels for, with lush curves of the kind no respectable woman should possess. She gazed up at Hamilton with a look of witless adoration in her eyes Keller recognised too well. He’d seen it before, the way women fell for the heroic reputation that clung to the man despite his perfidy.

Well, they would see. He would force their eyes open and make them see Hamilton was no hero. He was just flesh and blood like every other man.

But his pretty bit of muslin would not be lonely for long.

Keller would see to that.

Seagull Heights, Little Valentine, East Sussex, 29th September 1816

Marcus tidied away the tools and stood for a moment, surveying the garden. There was still a great deal to be done, but that knowledge was as satisfying as everything he had achieved. It meant he had a reason to be here, even if the portrait was going splendidly. Well, according to Eustacia, it was.

She had told him she had never felt more certain of her work, of every brushstroke. Her energy and enthusiasm lit her up, giving her a glow he found it hard to look away from. If she had scolded him once for turning his head to look at her instead of holding his pose, she had said it a dozen times daily. Yet he could not help himself. She drew him to her with the force of her personality, the fierce way she cared for everyone around her, her passion and drive to succeed. He admired her so fiercely that it was all he could do to contain his feelings and not burst with the desire to tell her how much.

It had crept up upon him, this affection for her, this deep well of respect and regard that seemed to have attained a life of its own. She had become his first thought of the morning, and the last as he closed his eyes, and yet he did not remember when or how that had happened. It simply was, as if it had always been, a sense of rightness so overwhelming it had no beginning, no end.

Yes, he desired her, what man would not, for she was the loveliest woman he had ever beheld in all his days, yet she was so much more than her face and figure. She had a rare talent, but more than that, she had tenacity and determination, and an assurance of her own worth, which he found desperately appealing.

The urge to tell her grew with every hour he spent in her company, yet he could not. If his declaration was unwelcome, it would make everything awkward, and he would not spoil this little idyll for the world.

Perhaps when the painting was done. Or perhaps after he had tamed the garden into order. Perhaps then he might risk telling her how very much he admired her. For then he would have nothing to lose. His reason for being here would be gone. He would have no excuse to come every morning, to work in the lovely garden and then share a meal beside the woman who had come to consume his thoughts. A dull ache of regret settled in the pit of his stomach.

He did not know how he would bear the future if she was not a part of it.

Setting the fork back in its place on the wall of the potting shed, he looked around at the workbench where Neil had spent some time washing out dozens of terracotta pots, ready for use. They were dry now, and so Marcus gathered them up, placing each stack in order of size on the highest shelf that ran around the shed for the purpose. He had just lifted the last and largest stack of pots into place when the pain stabbed at him, stealing his breath.

He managed to set the pots down before he clutched at the old wound, coughing and coughing until his face flushed and his eyes watered. Standing very still, he waited, breathing shallowly and slowly until his chest released the vice-like grip it had on his lungs.

Well, that would teach him for taking his recovery for granted.

Eustacia had warned him he might be pushing too hard, too fast, but he’d felt so much better of late that he had wanted to prove to her he was still the man he had always been. Yet that was a forlorn hope. He was older, older than her certainly, he thought with regret, touching a self-conscious hand to the greying hair at his temples.

He was only three and thirty, but he knew he looked more like three and forty, and she… she was as perfect and lovely as a spring day.

“Pack it in,” he told himself irritably. If he didn’t watch himself, he’d be spouting poetry next. Still, the point was a valid one. If Eustacia was a day over four and twenty, he’d eat his Hessian boots. Would a young woman as beautiful and vivacious as she seriously consider allowing a man nearly ten years her senior—one who looked a good deal older—to court her?

Feeling dispirited by the likely answer, he made his way around the side of the house to the stable yard to wash at the pump. The back of his neck prickled and he turned, studying the steeply sloping fields and woodland that made much of the Heights inaccessible.

Nothing but the chill autumn breeze stirred the leaves in the trees, sending a flurry into the air to be tossed around by the wind.

Shaking off the odd sensation, Marcus washed in the frigid water before making his way around to the kitchen, just as the sound of Mrs Wainwright’s bell rang out to call him in.

Seagull Heights, Little Valentine, East Sussex, 29th September 1816

Eustacia watched Marcus thoughtfully. He had seemed lighter since his visit to Hawkney. The knowledge that there had indeed been an order, but that the messenger had been killed, had gone some way towards easing his mind. That much was obvious. Yes, the blackmailer was still at large, but he had seemed almost sanguine about that, as if he didn’t much care.

She wished she might say the same, but the knowledge that there was someone out there who wished him ill left her anxious and uneasy. Though she had no right to worry so over a man who was not hers to care for, she had woken in the early hours of the morning more than once, certain that some evildoer was at large, perhaps even close at hand.