Autumn Rain by Anita Mills

Author:Anita Mills [Mills, Anita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Historical, Victorian, General
ISBN: 9781626810389
Google: eoFHQvU6E80C
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2013-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

She sat there, twisting her hands in her lap, looking down to see the ring he'd given her, not wanting to believe the scarlet-clad officer who stood before her. Beside her, Arthur slumped in his chair, seeming to have shrunk, to have aged even beyond his sixty-five years within a few minutes. He said nothing, nothing at all.

"Believe me, I convey my own as well as Lord Wellington's condolences," the stiffly correct Captain Moore told them. When Baron Kingsley did not respond, he murmured, "Under the circumstances, I shall of course leave you alone in your grief."

Elinor's throat ached, the lump too great to swallow even. As Jeremy showed the captain out, she clutched the arms of her chair, holding on as though she could somehow stem the rising hysteria. Charles was dead-dear, sweet, fun-loving Charley was dead—gone forever. That could not be right—there must've been some mistake—only yesterday, she'd received a letter from him. A letter she'd shared with Arthur—and with Mary—and all the while he'd already been dead for days.

She wanted to scream—to cry out to God that it could not be! Not Charley—anyone else but Charley! Dear God—not Charley!

Without speaking to her, Arthur rose from his chair, and leaning heavily on his cane, he walked slowly from the room. Already word had spread in whispers through the house, and now silence descended, as though everything within had stopped.

Outside, in the street, there was a near carriage wreck, shouted accusations, and angry threats. Moving as though she were in a trance, she rose to close the window against the hot city air. The August sun shone brightly, the street was alive with people who did not know, who continued living their existences without a thought for Charles. She fastened the shutters angrily. Why could it not have been one of them? Why Charley? Why? Why? Why?

The Earl of Longford would be accompanying his body back, the captain had said. Longford had been wounded also—so grievously that he'd been expected to die. But now it appeared that he was recovering. There was no justice—Charley had perished while a man who cared about nothing had lived. And she could not help feeling a deep bitterness for that.

"My lady—?" Mary inquired timidly from the door. "It's sorry I am fer ye." She entered the room, moving closer. "Are ye all right? Perhaps a bit of laudanum—"

"No." It even hurt to whisper.

"I ordered some tea fer ye."

"Thank you."

There was such a sense of unreality that Elinor thought she had gone mad. She was going to drink tea, she was going to go through the motions of living, knowing that Charley was dead. Three months ago, she was laughing at the antics of the animals in the Tower menagerie with him. Three months ago, she'd sat beside him to watch the splendid fireworks at Vauxhall, had shared ices at Gunter's, had—she couldn't go on thinking about those things—she couldn't. And yet when she closed her eyes, she could see him standing before her, she could hear him again.

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