The Accidental Duke (The Mad Matchmaking Men of Waterloo Book 1) by Devlin, Barbara (love letters to the dead .TXT) 📕

When the driver slowed and brought the rig to a halt, Father descended. A footman handed Mama to the sidewalk and then turned to assist Anthony, which grated his last nerve. He was no invalid, and he required no special care.

“Shall we join our soon-to-be in-laws and your future bride?” Father uttered the one phrase guaranteed to evoke a vicious tremor of anxiety.

After brushing a speck of lint from his lapel, Anthony scanned the collective for any sign of a rogue cuirassier, because he could not help himself, and adjusted the empty sleeve pinned to his coat. The crowd shuffled in various directions, but the sea of elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen parted to reveal his fiancée, sitting atop an Arabian mare, and he swayed as his ears rang when he glimpsed the horse. Biting back fast-rising bile, he forced a smile and followed in his parents’ wake.

Hot and cold at once, Anthony focused on the simple task of breathing and fought for balance as he strolled. But the cold, steel grip of fear imprisoned him in the past, amid the cannon fire, the clash of metal against metal, and the ghoulish cacophony of the dying. By the time he reached Arabella, it was all he could do to acknowledge her presence with a mere nod.

“Lord Rockingham, it is delightful to see you.” If she noticed anything odd about his demeanor, she said naught, and he was grateful. “But you do not ride?”

“No, I do not.” Panic rolled in his belly, and his pulse pounded. Assailed by another surprise attack of violent memories, which he was powerless to evade, he daubed his temple with a handkerchief. When her mount shifted in Anthony’s direction, he flinched. “Careful, Lady Arabella. I have no wish to be trampled.”

“But you are in no such danger.” As she slid from the sidesaddle, she giggled and settled her palm in the crook of his elbow. “Papa, will you return Astraea to the footman, because I should walk with Lord Rockingham?”

“Of course, my dear.” Lord Ainsworth seized the reins.

“You named your horse for a Greek goddess?” Anthony asked, as he desperately sought a distraction, else he might swoon and embarrass himself.

“The star maiden and goddess of justice, to be exact.” Arabella met his gaze and studied him for a minute, which seemed an eternity. He wondered what she thought of him, not that it mattered, as she drew him into the rotation, while their respective mothers lingered in the rear. “And why not, because it suits my girl, given she is a gentle soul.” In that instant, she flexed her fingers. “Will you tell me of the horse you lost?”

Dagger to the heart, with savage precision.

“How did you know?” Her otherwise pedestrian query flung him, headlong, back into hell, and he halted. When he teetered perilously, she steadied him, and he leaned toward her for support before righting himself. “I never mentioned him.”

“You didn’t have to utter a word, because your reaction to Astraea spoke volumes, and you paled, Lord Rockingham.” Focusing on the lace that framed her heart-shaped face and delicate features, which quite arrested him, he found sanctuary in her smile and her discretion, even as her disturbing ability to guess his unrest unnerved him. “I suppose he was rather spectacular, because I cannot imagine you settling for anything less.”

“Oh, he was majestic.” Opening the door to his memory, Anthony sifted through the jagged shards of a bygone era and his naïve self, hale, whole, and unmarred by artillery. As if by magic, the hedgerows, throng, and sidewalk yielded to a cherished vision, and he could have wept at the sight. “At just over seventeen hands, with a coat as black as a crow’s feather, Hesperus stood tall on the battlefield as a most impressive animal. Friesland born, from his deep heart-girth to his robust haunches, with cannon bones like the trunks of a mighty oak, he was short coupled from his croup to his withers, and he never failed to answer the call of duty.”

“I wish I had known him.” As a graceful sylph, she stretched her neck when she stared at him. “I gather Hesperus was even-tempered, too.”

“Ah, he was a proud beast, but he snored like a grown man when he slept, and he favored red apples, which he consumed in a single bite.” Without thought, he tugged her closer to his side, because she presented a lifeline of sorts. “He lived for the fight, and in the heat of war, we were one entity charging the field. When I moved he responded. With a subtle tense of my thighs, or a gentle flick of my wrist, Hesperus shifted in unison with me, and never were two creatures so perfectly matched. Yet, inasmuch as he confronted peril with fearless tenacity, he trembled at the sight of a stable mouse.”

“What a character,” she said in a soft voice. “You must miss him, terribly.”

“Such that I cannot convey the depths of my despair at his loss.” For a second, he closed his eyes. Tears beckoned as he relived the savage blast that ripped Hesperus from Anthony. But he gained a measure of strength when she squeezed his arm, in reassurance, because she spoke to him without actually speaking to him. “But the ultimate cruelty and unfairness is that in a moment of incomparable violence for which I have no direct recollection, life as I knew it ended. I know not where or how to reclaim and organize the remnants of what remains, or if it is even possible to recover.”

“I cannot begin to comprehend your pain, because I cannot fathom a world without my beloved Astraea, although I know she cannot live forever. But had I known her presence would provoke such painful memories, I should have left her in the stable.” Lady Arabella paused to sit on a bench, as if nothing he shared shocked her, when almost everyone, save his fellow veterans, avoided