The Soldier's Dark Secret

* * *

Half an hour later, deep in concentration, Celeste did not notice Jack’s arrival until he was behind her, making her jump, squiggle a line across her drawing, drop her charcoal and swear rather inappropriately in French. ‘You gave me such a fright. Look what you’ve made me do.’

‘I didn’t mean to startle you, but you were miles away.’

‘I was concentrating on my work.’

Jack was looking at her drawing, but Celeste got the impression he was thinking about something else. She had not misremembered how attractive he was. Nor the strength of her reaction to his physical proximity. Her skin was tingling as if the space between them was charged, like the atmosphere prior to a lightning strike. ‘What do you think?’ she asked, in an attempt to restore some semblance of normality. She was on sure ground discussing art.

He blinked. ‘I think I should apologise for my abrupt departure yesterday.’

Celeste too kept her eyes on her drawing. ‘I was actually referring to my sketch, but since we are on the subject, I fear we were at cross purposes yesterday. When I said— When I mentioned abstinence— I know nothing of your circumstances. I was speaking for myself.’

‘You may as well have been speaking for me,’ Jack admitted ruefully. ‘I have not— It has also been some time since I...’ Their eyes met briefly, then flickered away. ‘I was therefore rather taken aback.’

‘As was I.’ This time their gaze held. Celeste smiled faintly. ‘I am sure that was the reason for the— It explains why we allowed ourselves to become somewhat carried away.’

Jack touched his hand to the squiggle Celeste had drawn, tried to rub it out, then stared at the resultant smudge. ‘Stupid thing for me to get so aerated about. It was, as you pointed out, just a kiss. We’re adults, not flighty adolescents.’

‘Yes, exactly.’ She nodded determinedly to disguise her disappointment. She should not be disappointed. He was agreeing with her, after all. ‘Most likely we would be disappointed if we—if we repeated the experience.’

It came out sounding like a plea to be proved wrong, and for a moment, Jack looked as if he would comply. ‘Most likely,’ he said as he took a step towards her. She could feel his breath on her cheek. He smelled of grass and sunshine. Her heart was beating hard again, making it difficult to breathe. She stared into his eyes, mesmerised. The gap between them imperceptibly, tantalisingly narrowed. Their lips almost touched before they both leapt back as if they had been singed by a naked flame.

Celeste snatched her sketch from the easel and tore it in half. ‘I don’t know what is wrong with me today. I am struggling to find the correct perspective for what should be a simple sketch.’

Jack hesitated, then threw himself down on a wooden bench, his long legs sprawled in front of him. ‘I doubt either Charlie or Eleanor will care which angle you choose, provided you deliver something that closely matches reality. I’m sure the drawing you have just torn up would have proved perfectly satisfactory.’

‘Not to me,’ Celeste said indignantly. ‘I would have known I could have depicted the scene in a more accomplished manner. You may consider what I do to be a trivial endeavour. My paintings don’t save lives or win wars or—or whatever it was you did when you were a soldier, but they are still very important to me.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to patronise you.’

His smile was disarming. Celeste bit her own back, refusing to be so easily won over. ‘But you did none the less.’

‘I did,’ he conceded.

He dug his hands into his pockets. ‘You know, life in the military is not as exciting as you might think. There’s far more time spent marching and drilling than waging war. And in the winter, when the campaign season is over, there’s a deal more playing cards and making bets and drinking than doing drill.’

‘When I am between commissions, I still paint,’ Celeste said. ‘Not landscapes, but people. I am not so good at portraits, but they are mine, and so it is not like work, you know?’

‘Are you often between commissions?’

‘In the beginning, regularly.’ She chuckled. ‘As a result, I was much thinner and not so well dressed as I can now afford to be.’

‘No less pretty, though, I’d wager, if I may be so bold as to offer a compliment to compensate for demeaning your sense of professional pride. Did you always aspire to be an artist?’

‘I am never going to exhibit at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and I have no ambition to do so. I am not the type to try to break all the rules and to starve in the process, spending my last sou on paint rather than a baguette. I have a modest talent. I was fortunate enough to study with some excellent teachers in Paris, and I needed to find a way of supporting myself, so...’ Celeste shrugged.

‘Your parents then, they are dead? You said you needed to support yourself,’ Jack explained when she raised her eyebrows at the question, ‘so I assumed...’

‘Yes. Both dead.’ Celeste stared down at her hands, frowning. Despite spending a good deal of time thinking about it, she had not the foggiest idea how to begin the search for answers which had brought her to England. She needed help, but her ingrained habit of trusting no one save herself inhibited her from seeking it. Not that, as a foreigner, she thought morosely, she had the first idea of where to start seeking.

‘Penny for them?’ Jack was looking at her quizzically. ‘Your thoughts,’ he said. ‘You were a hundred miles away again. I fear I’m boring you rather than distracting you.’

‘No, it’s not that.’ Perhaps she could ask him just one simple question to get her search underway? She really did have to make a start because there, tucked away at the back of her sketchbook, was a letter containing a puzzle she needed to solve in order to draw a line under the past and get on with her life.

‘Jack?’

He looked at her questioningly.

‘Jack, if you—if you needed to find something. Or someone. How would you go about it? I mean if you did not know where this person lived, or—or who they were, precisely. Are there people one can employ to discover such things?’

‘You mean to track down someone who has gone missing?’

She had his attention now. All of it. Though he was still lounging casually on the bench, though his expression was one of polite interest, his eyes were focused entirely on her. Celeste shifted uncomfortably. ‘Not missing precisely. Not anything at all, really. I’m speaking hypothetically.’

She risked looking up, and wished she had not. ‘Hypothetically,’ Jack said, openly sceptical. ‘Well, hypothetically, you could employ a Bow Street Runner.’

‘Is that what you would do?’

He smiled. ‘Good grief, no. Speaking hypothetically of course, I am more than equipped to solve the problem for myself, but we’re not talking hypothetically, are we?’

Realising that she was clenching her hands so tightly together that the knuckles showed white, Celeste hid them under her painter’s smock. She ought to look him in the eye, but she was sure if she did Jack would know she was lying. She was not a good liar. She was good at keeping silent. She was very good at hiding her feelings, but she was a terrible liar. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Forget I asked.’

She could have bitten her tongue out, realising only at the last moment that telling Jack Trestain something didn’t matter was a sure-fire way of alerting him to the fact that it did, though he said nothing for so long that she began to hope he had done just as she asked. At least she was a step further forward. She had no idea what a Bow Street Runner was, but she could find out. She prepared to get to her feet. ‘I should...’

‘Sit down.’ His grip on her arm was light enough, but one look at Jack’s face, and Celeste thought the better of resisting him. ‘Who exactly is it you’re trying to trace? A lover? An errant husband, perhaps?’

‘I have no husband, errant or otherwise, and as to a lover— No, not since before— Since— It has nothing to do with affairs of the heart.’ She sounded defensive. She was getting upset. And Jack was not missing any of it. ‘It is nothing,’ Celeste said. ‘I regret raising it.’

Jack gave her a neutral look. ‘You know, you’d be taking pot luck by employing a Runner. Some of them are excellent chaps, but some— Frankly, I wouldn’t trust my sister alone with them. Not that I have a sister. Have you? Or a brother? Is it a sibling you’re seeking?’

‘I am not so fortunate as to possess either,’ Celeste said repressively.

Jack nodded. ‘So, it’s not your parents or a husband or a sibling you’re trying to trace. Who then?’

He was not going to give up. Celeste shook her head and folded her lips.

Once again, Jack failed to get the message. ‘Now I come to think about it, you weren’t clear if it was a person or a thing. Is it stolen property then, jewellery? Or the family silver?’

‘Mon Dieu,Jack, I wish you would leave the matter alone!’

‘You ask me for advice but now won’t tell me why. Don’t you trust me, Celeste, is that it?’

‘I don’t trust anyone. I find it is safer that way.’

‘That, if I may say so, is a fairly bleak philosophy.’

‘You may, since I suspect it is also yours.’