Lauren understood suddenly. He did not need to complete his story. She understood. But having begun it, he needed to tell it. They had come to the junction of the stream and the river and had stopped walking. Lauren gazed off into the deer forest beyond and waited.
“Again I was poor Syd,” he said. “I went through amputation and other painful procedures. I went through the delirium of fever and the ordeal of the voyage home. And all the time I was poor Syd. I arrived home and Kit took all the blame on himself. I was just poor Syd, who should not have been allowed to go in the first place. I was poor Syd, whom my brother had failed to protect. Kit came very close to madness that summer—because he had sacrificed his young brother, because he could not take the wounds and the sufferings of poor Syd upon himself. Pardon me for being bitter. I could not make any of them understand. I gave up trying.”
“They would not simply rejoice with you?” Lauren asked quietly.
He looked at her sharply. “You do understand?”
She nodded, and her eyes filled with tears, something that seemed to be happening to her rather too often these days.
“Yes, I understand.” She set one hand tentatively on his arm and then stretched up to place one gentle kiss against his good cheek. She hesitated only a moment before kissing his withered, purple-skinned right cheek as well. “You were every bit as much a part of the success of that mission as Kit was. No, you were the greater part, because your role was so much more dangerous and painful and lonely. There is nothing sad or pathetic about you, Sydnam Butler. You are a great hero and I honor you.”
His grin was lopsided and rather sheepish.
“Yes indeed,” she said severely, “love can be an abomination when it insists upon wrapping the loved one in cotton wool, when it will not trust the strength of the one it loves. I am quite sure you have made yourself into the world’s most competent steward.”
They laughed together and turned to walk back to the house.
“You are going to have to talk to Kit, you know,” she said as they approached the terrace. “Even if you have to tie him down and gag him.”
“I think not,” he said, though he chuckled at her words.
“Please?” she begged softly.
Baron Galton had come by gig with Sir Melvin Clifford to the stretch of riverbank where all the men and boys had gathered to fish, but he chose to walk with Kit back to the house, relinquishing his place in the vehicle to the earl.
“A dashed good spot for fishing,” he said.
“We have always had pleasure from it,” Kit agreed. “There are few more relaxing ways to spend a morning.”
The others strode on ahead, talking all at once, it appeared, and bearing the morning’s catch with them. Kit reduced his stride to accommodate the slower pace of the elderly gentleman.
“I am planning, sir,” he said when there was no longer any possibility of their being overheard, “to institute an inquiry. I was a reconnaissance officer for a number of years, as you know, and have several useful contacts at both the Foreign Office and the War Office. I know many officers who are still active in the field too. I believe you should be aware of what I plan to do. I hope to discover exactly where, when, and how Mrs. Wyatt, Lauren’s mother, your daughter, died.”
“Why?” Baron Galton looked at him sharply. “What the devil do you want to know that for?”
Kit was somewhat taken aback by his almost hostile tone. “You have never been curious yourself, sir?”
“Never!” the old man assured him. “They met with some misadventure and died and word did not get back to us. That is all. People—sons, daughters, parents—die every day, Ravensberg. We can do nothing to bring them back once they are gone. It is pointless to spend time and money and effort simply to discover what we already know. It is best to leave them in peace and get on with our own lives.”
A sensible attitude, perhaps, but it did not seem quite natural for a father to be so unconcerned about his daughter’s fate.
“You made no inquiries at the time, sir?” he asked.
“At what time?” the baron asked. “They never did write often. How were we to know they were even missing until years had gone by? By then any inquiry would have been fruitless.”
“Did the Earl of Kilbourne make no attempt to locate his brother? Or discover what had happened to him?”
“Look here, Ravensberg.” Baron Galton had stopped walking and was regarding Kit sternly from beneath bushy eyebrows. “I have no doubt you are a clever young man and are eager to impress your betrothed by discovering what no one else has discovered in ten or fifteen years. But take my advice and leave it. Let sleeping dogs lie.”
Kit looked steadily back at him. “Good God, sir,” he said with sudden insight, “you know, do you not?”
The old gentleman pursed his lips and looked broodingly at him. “Leave it,” he said again.
Kit leaned slightly toward him, his hands clasped at his back. “You know,” he said. “But Lauren does not. Why? What happened?”
“She was a child, that was why,” the baron said irritably. “She had a good home with Kilbourne and his countess. She was happy and secure. She had companions of her own age and good prospects. She was only three when her mother left, little more than a baby. She quickly forgot her, as children do. Kilbourne and his wife became her parents. She could not have asked for better. You can see for yourself that the Dowager Lady Kilbourne loves her every bit as much as she loves her own daughter.”
“You believe that Lauren did not miss her mother?” Kit was still frowning. “That she did not feel abandoned? That she did not suffer when the infrequent letters and gifts stopped coming?”
“Of course she did not.” Baron Galton spoke firmly and turned to resume walking. “She never once asked. She never spoke of her mother. She never stopped being as serene and happy as she had always been. You may wonder how I can be so sure when I visited her only rarely. I love my granddaughter, Ravensberg. I dote on her. She is all I have of my own. I would have had her to live with me at the snap of two fingers, but it would have been selfish of me. She was happier where she was. I wrote weekly to Kilbourne until his death and he wrote weekly to me. Lauren was a model child and then a model young lady. She was rarely if ever disobedient. She never neglected her lessons or her other duties. She was never discontented or demanding. She was less trouble than either of Kilbourne’s own children. There was no need to upset her unnecessarily with news of a mother she had long forgotten.”
“Kilbourne knew the truth too, then?” Kit asked.
“Of course he did,” Baron Galton replied. “Forget about your inquiries, Ravensberg. And forget about upsetting my granddaughter by dredging up what is long in the past. Leave it be.”
“What did happen?” Kit asked.
The old gentleman sighed. “I suppose,” he said, “you have a right to know. I would have felt it my duty to inform you before you committed yourself to a betrothal to Lauren, had you given me an opportunity to do so. But I was presented with a fait accompli instead. My daughter was as unlike my granddaughter as it is possible to be, Ravensberg. She was always a great trial to her mother and me. She married Whitleaf just to be free of us, I believe, though I approved the match. She led him a merry dance. It was something of a scandal when she married Wyatt a mere ten months after Whitleaf’s death. By some miracle, though, that very marriage gave Lauren a good, steady home, where she was soon loved for herself. I never heard one murmur from either Kilbourne or his countess about bad blood. And they were quite as eager for the match between their son and my granddaughter as I was.”