Trusting Miss Trentham

Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“We’ll give Bristol one more day,” Icarus said, when they’d finished dining. “If we don’t find Houghton tomorrow, we’ll head down to Exeter.” Which he didn’t want to do. Exeter was so damned far from London.

“You said you don’t think it was Houghton.”

“No,” Icarus admitted, fiddling with his napkin. “Houghton was a good soldier. I liked him.” He folded the napkin in half, and then in half again. “I didn’t like Cuthbertson.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Icarus shoved the napkin aside. Cuthbertson had been like a b***h in heat, always swaggering past on the way to a s****l liaison or just back from one—and ready to boast of it. On my way to take a flourish, he’d say with a wink. Or, Just had myself a buttered bun. “He, ah . . . was rather too much given to gallantry for my taste.”

“Gallantry?” Her eyebrows rose. “You mean he was a philanderer?”

Icarus nodded.

Miss Trentham’s eyebrows rose even higher. “You mean . . . with other soldiers?”

“Lord, no!” Icarus said. “There are camp followers and, um, local . . . uh, women.”

Miss Trentham’s eyes narrowed. Her head tilted to one side. “You mean prostitutes?”

Icarus found his napkin again. “Yes.” He folded it into quarters, unfolded it, pushed it aside. How had they got onto this subject? “Houghton was an excellent sergeant. Tough, but fair. The men respected him.”

Miss Trentham accepted this change of topic. “Is he quite old?”

Icarus shrugged. “My age, or thereabouts.”

“Oh.” She looked faintly surprised. Had she been expecting a grizzled sergeant with salt-and-pepper whiskers?

“It’s a great shame he lost his arm. To my mind, he would have made a good officer.”

“Can an enlisted man become an officer?”

“An officer can be raised from the ranks.” Icarus brought out the churchwarden’s list and unfolded it. “I’d like to find him.” He pondered the list for several minutes, and looked up to find Miss Trentham watching him. She was wearing a gown in a soft shade of slate gray. Her eyes were gray, too. Icarus frowned. Hadn’t they been blue yesterday?

Miss Trentham smiled at him. “We’ll find Houghton.” And then she pushed back her chair and bade him good night.

The next time he saw Miss Trentham, she was in her nightgown, standing in the middle of his bedchamber. Icarus stared at her blankly, wheezing for breath. What? Where? And then the fog of nightmare lifted from his brain.

He heard himself groan, and closed his eyes and lay back on the pillows, trying to catch his breath. After a moment, he realized his face was wet with tears. He wiped them clumsily away.

“Here.”

Icarus sat up slowly and accepted the brandy. She’d given him less tonight; the glass was only half full.

Miss Trentham plumped his pillows. “Sit back.”

He did, and sipped. Blessed brandy.

Miss Trentham sat beside him on the bed, not saying anything, a quiet and comforting presence. When he’d drunk half the brandy, he handed the glass back to her. She took it without a word, and gave him a teaspoon of valerian. “Must be close to finishing that.” His voice sounded hoarse.

“Yes. I’ll send Green to buy some more.”

Icarus swallowed the valerian. He’d become used to the bitter taste, welcomed it almost.

Miss Trentham took away the spoon and rearranged his pillows again. Icarus lay back. She returned to the bed, book in hand, but tonight she didn’t sit at the very end; she sat beside him, opened the book, and found her place. “The Siphnians at that time were at the height of their greatness . . .”

It felt cozy having her beside him. Icarus listened to her voice and let his thoughts drift. He shouldn’t kiss her tonight, he really shouldn’t. But he knew he would—if she offered—because when she kissed him he felt warm and safe and happy, and he needed that feeling too much to turn her down.

His eyelids lowered. He drifted on the sound of Miss Trentham’s cool, melodic voice, drifted until her fingers lightly touched his cheek and she said, “You’re almost asleep, aren’t you?”

Icarus opened his eyes. He freed one arm from his sheets and reached for her, needing to kiss her.

Miss Trentham leaned close and laid her lips on his.

Icarus sighed with pleasure.

They kissed leisurely, unhurriedly, their mouths matching as perfectly as their steps had when they’d danced. Icarus stopped thinking. There was no reason to think. No reason at all. He kissed Miss Trentham’s mouth, her jaw, kissed down her throat to the neckline of her nightgown. A dim, half-heard note of caution sounded at the back of his brain. It was dangerous to kiss a woman’s throat. Kissing a woman’s throat led to kissing her in other places.

Icarus found Miss Trentham’s mouth again and kissed her slowly and sleepily, drifting in a cozy, shadowy place where everything was sensation and pleasure and instinct.

He drifted in this place for some time, sinking closer and closer to sleep. After a while, he became aware that Miss Trentham had stopped kissing his mouth and was kissing his throat instead.

His eyes slowly opened. “You shouldn’t—”

“Shush,” she whispered

He should stop her, but it felt too good, marvelously good—soft lips exploring his throat, a warm tongue tasting his skin. It made his blood hum faintly.

In another time and place that hum would have pushed him towards wakefulness and arousal, but here and now it was comforting, deeply and profoundly comforting, because it made him feel alive and it made him feel loved, even though he knew he was neither of those things.

Icarus closed his eyes again and let himself drift, cocooned in warmth and safety and happiness.

The next time he opened his eyes, it was daylight. Someone was moving quietly, making up the fire.

He propped himself on one elbow and watched Green adroitly coax the coals into flame. “What time is it?”

“Ten o’clock, sir.” Green stood and began laying out Icarus’s shaving tackle. “Mrs. Reid apologizes for waking you, but she says there’s quite a distance to cover today.”

Icarus scrubbed his hands through his hair and yawned. “She’s right.” He climbed out of bed.

A quick wash, a quick shave, three eggs and sirloin, and they were off. “North or south?” Icarus asked Miss Trentham, when they stepped out into the wintry street.

“North?”

“North it is.” There was a hackney stand at the end of the street. Icarus raised his hand, hailing a jarvey.

They circled Bristol as a clock hand does, first the northern parishes, then those to the east, and then south. It was late afternoon by the time they reached Bedminster. The jarvey slowed several times to ask directions, and finally drew up in front of a large church of antiquated appearance. Icarus stepped down from the carriage and helped Miss Trentham alight.

The church of St. John was empty except for a woman arranging the folds of the frontal cloth.

“Excuse me, madam,” Icarus said. “Can you tell me where I can find the churchwarden?”

The woman straightened. She had graying brown hair beneath a mobcap, and a plump, pleasant face. “Mr. Crowe? He’s gone to Portishead for his grandson’s christening. Could my husband help you? This is his parish.”

“I’m looking for a Chelsea out-pensioner,” Icarus said. “A Sergeant Houghton, recently returned from Portugal.”

“Houghton? Poor man. He’s staying over by the South Liberty coal-pit, with his sister’s family.”

Icarus’s weariness fell from him. “He’s here?”

“Yes.”

“Can you furnish us with his direction?”

The vicar’s wife gave them Houghton’s address. “But this time of day, he’s usually on the high street.”

“The high street?”

The woman came as far as the church steps and pointed. “It’s five minutes from here.”

Icarus handed Miss Trentham up into the hackney. The carriage lurched into motion again. He sat forward on the seat, peering out. Bedminster looked a dingy, dreary place.

In the high street, they climbed down once again. Beneath the acrid coalsmoke was a nauseating whiff of tannery.

“Please wait for us,” Icarus said, reaching into his pocket for some coins. At the next cross street, a man awkwardly swept the crossing. Icarus glanced down at the coins in his hand—and then back at the crossing-sweeper. He was sweeping awkwardly because he only had one arm.

Icarus chose a coin at random and thrust it at the jarvey. He took Miss Trentham by the elbow and towed her across the street. She didn’t protest, didn’t ask questions, just caught up her skirts and hurried alongside him.

Icarus was almost running by the time he reached the crossing-sweeper. The man wasn’t Houghton. He couldn’t be Houghton.

The crossing-sweeper looked up. He was a big man, but almost cadaverously thin. His shabby coat hung on his frame, the left sleeve pinned up at the elbow. The face beneath the ragged beard was Houghton’s, the brown eyes were Houghton’s, but not the Houghton he remembered—alert, confident, vigorous. This Houghton looked as grimy and dispirited as his surroundings.

They stared at each other. Icarus saw Houghton give a blink of recognition. His shoulders straightened, as if he was on parade. “Major Reid, sir?”

“Jesus, man,” Icarus said, aghast. “What are you doing here?”

Houghton’s jaw tightened beneath the beard. His chin lifted fractionally. “What does it look like? I’m sweeping the crossing.”

“But why?”

“Because I want to eat.”

“But you have a pension!”

“Pension’s half-yearly, sir.”

Icarus opened his mouth, and shut it again.

“Shall we find somewhere to sit and talk?” Miss Trentham suggested. “A pot of tea would be nice, and I’m sure Sergeant Houghton would like something warm to drink if he’s been standing out here all day.”