The Captain's Return

“That’s all I wanted to hear!” he said gutturally.

Next instant, Annabel found herself jerked against his broad chest as his mouth sought hers. Warmth flooded her, and for a moment she clung to him, answering the hunger of his lips with a desire as fervid as his own.

But the image of Papa’s distressing upset thrust rudely into her mind. She wrenched back, the force of her motion breaking his hold.

“You must not! Hal, for heaven’s sake, let me be! I cannot marry you. I cannot!”

He did not pursue her as she backed away, but his ragged breath gave her audible evidence of his unabated passion. It had the opposite effect to the one she ought to experience. She could feel her limbs trembling, and a desperate yearning opened up in those hollows that she knew to be most vulnerable to his need.

“You belong with me, Annabel. This is ruining both our lives, and you know it. And for what? For the ravings of an obstinate devil, who is so eaten up with prejudice that he sacrifices the happiness of his own daughter!”

Annabel flew at him then, her hands curled into fists. She tried to hit at him, raging.

“Be silent! Beast! Brute! How I hate you!”

He had caught her wrists, holding them fast.

“Wildcat! Stop it!”

But Annabel was crying with rage, and her protests became the more vehement. She knew not what she said, only that she wanted to kill him for hurting her so…

How it had happened, Annabel had never afterwards been able to recall. Even now, wakeful in her bed, all this time later. But she had found herself lying upon the flagged stone of the summerhouse, in a tangle of legs and panting breath, with the man who slept tonight in the room below.

And when Hal, coming for an instant to his senses, would have stopped it, Annabel was guiltily aware that she had been the one so lost in love and desire who had plunged them back into that total consummation.

Only afterwards, as she lay in his arms, her mind hazy with fulfilment, had the enormity of the proceeding gradually seeped into her consciousness.

Hal had cursed himself with a will. But Annabel, horrified by the realisation of what had happened, had begged him to go and alert her coachman that she might make a hurried and unseen exit from the ball.

He had done as she wished, and by the time he had returned, Annabel had been too overwrought to listen to anything he may have said. She could remember nothing of his words, although she knew that he had addressed her in tones of earnest agitation as he had escorted her to the coach.

What she did remember was the tearful confession she had poured into Papa’s ears. He had been distressed, but not angry—not then. But he had hustled her out of town that very night, and into the country. A tale had been put about by the lady who was sponsoring her that she had been taken suddenly ill, but Annabel had no means of knowing whether it had been believed.

She had not been seen in fashionable circles since. Like the fictitious Captain Lett, Annabel Howes had disappeared without trace. And until he had thrust himself back into her life this afternoon in her little garden in Steep Ride, Annabel had neither heard from nor set eyes on Captain Colton from that night.

Chapter Three

In the small ground-floor room, Captain Colton lay as wakeful as his reluctant fictitious spouse. He had thrust the casement open as far as it would go, but it was still stuffy. The truckle bed could scarcely be said to accommodate his large frame with any degree of ease, but it was not this discomfort that was keeping sleep at bay. He had been in far worse situations, and had slept like the dead—or so Weem claimed. But he had much to ponder.

He had set himself a task that looked likely to prove well-nigh impossible. There was little of the Annabel he had been pursuing in the creature who had accorded him such resentful acceptance this day. Acceptance? It could scarce be called that! Had he not carried out his plan of campaign, she would certainly have thrown him out.

Whether he was glad of having done it was another question entirely. He had thought—naïvely, he was forced now to admit—that the feeling he had for Annabel would be with him unto death. Certainly the intervening years had done nothing to dim its strength.

But in ruthless honesty, Hal conceded that it had been dealt a severe blow by his first sight of the stranger Annabel this afternoon. Had he driven himself through battles and arduous campaigns in Spain and Portugal, holding her image sacred in a determined bid to win her in the end, only to find at the last that he had mistaken his own heart?

Where was the girl who had given herself to him in the torrid heat of mutual passion when last he had seen her? Had he carried a false picture of that night, building in his imagination upon the actuality so that he cherished an exaggerated memory? The sequel he remembered all too well.

Returning distraught to his lodgings, he had discovered orders to rejoin his regiment in Dover the next day, from there to embark at once for Spain. He had chased like a demented fool in the early hours to the Howes town residence, only to find the knocker off the door and the shutters up. A sleepy retainer had been roused at last to his furious banging, from whom he had learned that the master was gone out of town.

There had been nothing he could do but write—letter after letter. And for months nothing had come. He had thought that Annabel was punishing him by her silence. Until the letters came back in a package, unopened except for the first. That had been torn in two.

For a while Hal had given up. But when nearly a year had gone, his heart as desperate as ever, he had again written. And the letter came back with its seal intact. After that, he must now suppose, Annabel had been established here in this village. Had he written, she would probably not have received the letters.

From her hasty words today, he must suppose that she never had received them. Howes had played him false! No doubt leading Annabel to suppose that he had never made any attempt to contact her. Small wonder that she had reacted to his arrival with resentment.

He must show her the letters. At the least let her not think him basely treacherous.

Only that seed of doubt lingered. Hal wished he had not been so hasty. If Annabel no longer loved him—if he, let it be said, could not love the woman she had become—then of what use was his presence here? Perhaps he ought, after all, to pretend that he had been recalled to his regiment. It had been Annabel’s suggestion. Thrown at him in anger it was true, yet it had merit.

His arrival would establish her respectability in the neighbourhood. He would meet his obligations, whatever happened, with any financial aid Annabel thought proper. He might remain a few weeks, put on a pretence of familial harmony, and withdraw again with no harm done.

His hardened honesty gave him a mental kick. No harm done! Was there not harm enough in his throwing Annabel back into an episode in the past which he had no doubt at all she had done her best to forget? No, he must face it. He had compounded his original fault by appearing in this way.

On this painful thought, he began to drop asleep, a half-formed resolve in his mind to talk bluntly to Annabel the following day, and assure her that he intended to withdraw from the vicinity as soon as was decently possible.

In the morning, however, in search of hot water with which to wash and shave, he blundered sleepily into the large room, looking for the kitchen, dressed only in shirt and breeches. Here he encountered a small child playing on the floor.

The infant was dressed in a nightgown, and a pair of large blue eyes regarded him solemnly out of an adorable little face surrounded by a mass of curling locks that matched almost exactly the colour of his own.

Hal’s heart lurched. The babe! A girl? Devil take it, why had no one said it was a little girl? Something seemed to kick him in the chest. His daughter. This was his daughter!

The child continued to gaze up at him, the wooden horse and cart motionless under her still hands. She did not appear to be afraid. Hal dropped to his haunches.

“Hello! What’s your name?”

At that, she looked coyly, and one small hand reached up to her mouth, slipping a finger inside.

Before Hal could repeat his question, the gaunt woman who seemed to be Annabel’s only servant appeared in the doorway behind. Her gaze was anything but friendly, her tone sour.

“Her name’s Rebecca.”

The infant removed the finger from her mouth, and piped up. “Becca.”

“She can’t say it right, so we call her Becky mostly.”

Hal smiled at the child, and held out his hand. “How do you do, Becky?”

His daughter looked at the hand, and back up to his face. Then she scrambled up, and ran to embrace the dour maid’s legs.

“She’ll be shy of you to start with, sir,” volunteered the maid, leaning down to pick up the child.

Hal rose. “No doubt.”

The woman clearly knew his identity. And strongly disapproved of him, if he was any judge. He changed his tone to one of command.

“I’ll be glad of some hot water, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

Annabel’s clear voice spoke from the stairway to one side. “It is a great deal too much trouble. Janet has enough to do without fetching water. You’ll find a tin jug on the stove in the kitchen.”