Revenant: rev·e·nant
n.
1. One that returns after a lengthy absence.
2. One who returns after death.
Lieutenant Archie Kennedy hid the mischievous twinkle in his sapphire eyes by pulling the wide brim of his hat down over his brow but could not conceal the wide grin that stretched across his jovial mouth, bearing the dazzling white of his teeth. He leaned back against the side of the carriage, propping his boots up on the bale of hay opposite where he was sat. Through a half-lidded gaze he regarded his comrade and greatest friend, settled awkwardly, long limbs skewed and akimbo among the bundles of packed straw.
Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower covered his somewhat largish, rather sore looking nose with his hankie and gave a great sputtering sneeze. He glared forbiddingly at Archie through red-rimmed eyes. It was a reasonably short walk from the village to Curraghgowen estate, where the two were currently in residence as warmly welcomed guests, and Horatio would have preferred it to the simple horse cart they were traversing in over the rough, bumpy back lanes of the countryside. But Archie had been adamant on accepting when the amiable farmer had offered them a ride, if not for their own good, for that of their companion’s.
Miss Katherine Cassaday was the youngest daughter of their host Colonel Bertram Cassaday and his lady wife Virginia, seventeen years of age and in delicate health since the fever that had swept through the peaceable hamlet five years earlier. She sat beside their driver, her slender, freckled face turned pleasantly towards the thin autumnal daylight, her pale blonde tresses bouncing merrily, pleasantly sans chaperone by happenstance. Every now and again, her small, gloved hand went to the top of her straw bonnet in pretense of preventing the wind from blowing it back, but in truth she was stealing clandestine glances rearward to where Horatio was sitting, her wide mouth curving up coquettishly at the corners.
In her lap she held a fat yellow American pumpkin, cradling it protectively so that, on her return home, she and her little brother Bram may gut and carve it into a big smiling jack-o’-lantern. Three more gourds sat beside Archie in the bed of the cart and she insisted on stopping the carriage when she espied another desirable candidate in a lush, sunny patch off the side of the narrow road.
“I just got comfortable,” complained Archie, eyeing them slyly as Horatio helped Miss Katie down from her roost.
“We’ll only be a moment!” Katie promised, calling back towards the cart as her slippered feet skipped over the grassy embankment onto the field. “Ooh, look,” she exclaimed, pointing to the ragged figure of a nearby scarecrow, taking care to step over the twisting green vines as she lifted her skirts. “That’s one of grandfather’s best wigs!” she laughed at the curled white hairpiece perched atop the straw man’s head.
Horatio, his spirits suddenly and drastically improved as he strolled behind her, grinned as well. Unlike those in and around the cities, the pranks and high spirited shenanigans of the local youth on the mischief nights leading into Hallowmas were nothing more than amusing and harmless hijinks. He greatly suspected that young Master Bram himself had had a hand in this particular jape.
Horatio glanced quickly over his shoulder to ensure that the cart was now far enough away that neither the farmer nor Archie could be witness to their actions.
“Miss Katie, if you please, I think I’ve found the perfect one,” he cleared his throat loudly, grasping her arm and pulling her to him as he ducked behind the scarecrow. “Right over here,” he murmured, pressing his mouth to hers fervently.
She was lean but soft, bending yieldingly at his gentle urging, leaning so sweetly into him, arching her back against his arm which was covetously wrapped about her waist.
He cupped her jaw in the curve of his large palm, his fingertips toying with the silken wisps of hair curling along her neck as his lips slowly savored hers, tasting her honeyed lushness. Oh, how he would enjoy truly sampling such nectarous confections her body would offer him, those secret, hidden, hitherto unexplored places; his long fingers, his tongue, ached to delve into such paradises, not to mention the throbbing ache in his groin, the hungry yearning of his swelling...
Right, he thought attempting to shift his hips and the press of his raging cockstand away from the press of her belly, best to avoid fancies involving the admittedly blissful deflowering of his gracious host’s daughter, no matter the sincerity of his amorous intentions towards her. Two weeks, two marvelous weeks of stolen kisses in shadowy corners, carrying on in cupboards and the like; Horatio was certain that Archie knew but was far too tactful to say anything.
It was hard to imagine that their leave would be ending soon and it’d be back to sea for the both of them; he’d be just another sailor receiving scented notes regularly for the first few months, less so once his absence became more tedious than romantic and infatuation wore thin.
But he knew that Katie wasn’t that sort of girl--she wasn’t flighty or coy--and that was partially why Horatio had fallen for her. She was clever--too clever by half as her own father was always fond of saying with a wink--and she was well accustomed to life among the officers of His Royal Majesty’s armed forces. Her mother was the daughter of a respected rear admiral, while her eldest brother was himself an esteemed naval officer; and two of her sisters had married into the service, the younger of which had recently become Mrs. James Kennedy.
And, of course, there had been Declan Cassaday, a capable seamen and loving brother, only seventeen months Katie’s senior and six months past laid to rest in the family mausoleum, killed in a tragic shipboard accident; his affianced, Fiona, resided with the family now but in Horatio’s opinion, as unfortunate as it was, she was no longer a rational woman and would never recover from the loss.
Such morbid and sobering thoughts to be having on such a lovely day, he deemed, and in such circumstances as being in the tender embrace of one’s sweetheart, but perhaps the distraction was a welcomed one considering the heat rising within his young, very attentive and eager body. Though it was Katie who finally pulled away, a flush like the bloom of roses coloring her usually wan cheeks, nibbling at the corner of her wide mouth.
She suppressed a delightful little shudder as she placed her hand upon his chest and pushed him to arm’s length. Her limbs were all aquiver with a carnal thrill, the place betwixt her thighs sultry and slick with her aroused wetness while the rosy tips of her breasts chafed at the lightest breeze, as sensitized and longing for his touch as they were. The mere thought of his full, sensuous lips there upon each one sent a fresh surge of molten stickiness washing over her responsively pulsing flesh.
“It doesn’t take all this time to pluck a pumpkin,” she teased with a smile, batting her eyelashes in an exaggeratedly flirtatious manner, “but it’s been more than long enough to pluck something else, so I think we ought to get back before suspicion and rumor run wild. Grab that one there,” she pointed, “so it at least appears our intentions were innocent.” She winked.
‘Too clever by half,’ mused Horatio.
Leaning over, arm outstretched to reach for the pumpkin, he nearly jumped clear out of his boots when, out of nowhere, a small, frail hand grabbed at his wrist and, with surprising power, twisted it back. He looked in up, shocked, into the rheumy eyes of a feeble old woman, her stare an almost completely milky white, her teeth all but missing as she clung to the shawl that was draped across her bony shoulders; had she been here only a moment before? She began to babble incomprehensibly but insistently, clutching his arm with a grip that betrayed the strength of her aged body.
“I--I’m sorry,” he stuttered, still taken aback by her sudden appearance, “I--I don’t understand you.” He looked desperately to find Katie. “What does she say?”
“She speaks in Gaeilge, Horatio,” Katie informed him as she pulled a few coins from the reticule fastened ‘round her wrist and pressed them into the old woman’s shaking hand. “Old Irish. Calm now, old mother,” she said soothingly, recovering an Irish accent Horatio had to strain to recall having ever heard her use previously; Katie had lived three years in America and spoke with the shrill blandness that, to Horatio’s ears, had become practice in the former colonies. Not that he found Katie’s voice in any way irritating, much the opposite as a matter of fact; it was perhaps the most mellifluous of sounds he had ever heard, especially when she sighed his name into his ear. He’d no idea she spoke Irish; it somehow seemed...beneath her, despite her habitual American inflection.
Gently, she closed the old woman’s fingers over her palm and the money she’d just given her. The biddy was eyeing her sharply, a slight sneer on her ragged mouth; she snapped something in Irish and hobbled away, leaving Katie looking rather unsettled.
“Come,” she said briskly to Horatio, “it’s getting late.”
“Took you long enough,” Archie commented in what he thought sounded like a gruff fashion, though it was far too sly a remark to be taken as such. With a bit of a scowl, Horatio hefted the pumpkin he was carrying into the cart, aiming at his friend. Archie let out a loud ‘oof!’ as the heavy gourd landed right in his lap. “It’s a good one,” he said, his voice strained as he rolled it onto the cart floor and adjusted his pant leg near the crotch. “Heavy.”
“But what did she say?” Horatio inquired persistently lending Katie his hand as she climbed up beside the driver once more. Whatever that vile old crone had told him had plainly troubled her, and Horatio was feeling rather helpless over the whole thing, as well as a bit pettish over his powerlessness to take control and make it right.
“It was nothing,” she tried to laugh lightly and dismissively but he could hear the tension behind the sound. “A silly local legend about Allhallows Eve, that’s all; a rhyme that the provincials repeat ‘round this time of year. Superstitious folderol.”
“Was a beggar bothering you, miss?” the farmer at the reins asked, concerned. “All sorts of vagrants,” he called towards the rear of the cart where Horatio had uncomfortably seated himself once again, urging his horse back into a steady trot, “They ramble into the village looking for charity from good ladies like Miss Katherine here and her kin--iffin I may say, miss. They’re scared the bogles’ll get ‘em, I reckon. Ignorant peasant folk, says I.”
Horatio raised an eyebrow. “You’re in the land of the Kells now, ‘Ratio,” Archie chuckled jovially. “You see at Hallowmas, so the ancients believed, the veil between this life and the next was lifted and it is said in this haunted land that the dead return to the earth for one night out of the year, and they roam the countryside snatching up any unsuspecting mortals they happen upon, carrying them off to their hellish underworld.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Horatio saw the farmer cross himself and thought to himself dryly, ‘Ignorant peasant folk, eh?’
“They leave offerings for the dead, hoping to divert their evil intentions, and light bonfires in the fields to ward them off.”
“Archibald Kennedy,” Katie berated, “I’d have thought you would know better than to repeat such stuff and nonsense!”
“And do you not observe the very traditions that are said to keep the dead at bay this night?” Archie grinned mischievously. “Are you sure it’s not just taboo that makes the topic a distressing one? It’s said that you can draw the notice of the dead with only a mention or a thought...”
“Stuff and nonsense,” repeated Katie stubbornly but there was something in her nature that set the hairs along Horatio’s arms on edge. Was she...affrighted by their discussion? Certainly, in the short time he’d known her, Horatio had never observed her to be unnecessarily palled. “We celebrate the bountiful harvest home and the festivities of an American Hallowe’en--that is all.” Her jaw tightened as she said the last bit and her arms were crossed uneasily across her chest. “Those stories, they are part of our heritage and nothing more.”
“And is this to do with that local legend of yours?” Horatio asked perceptively and was rewarded with the startled straightening of Katie’s back. “The one the beggar was talking of, has it to do with the tales and beliefs of your people?”
Katie was silent for a moment, no more flirtatious glances backwards as she sat perfectly still save for the bouncing of the carriage. “’Extinguish thee not the candle’s light, before the eleventh chime sounds at the hour of midnight; Quench thee not the glow in the window there, and if thou dost go forward with care; For the darkness calls them into sight, in the blackest hour they come, the dead of night,’” recited Katie. She took a deep breath when she had finished. “That is what she said to you, or thereabouts; that is of course a loose translation papa taught me, but a common verse nonetheless.”
Horatio’s eyes strayed to the gloomful looming shape of the old stone Curraghgowen mausoleum and felt a chill roll up his spine. He shook the feeling off, snorting derisively at his own gullibility; tales like those being told, they were meant to set the listener with a feeling of disquiet.
“Is it true?” he asked with rather more than a bit of smug condescension, and that did earn him a glare from Katie, though it was not like the soft, amorous ones he’d experienced before but a hardened and haughtily annoyed thing.
“Of course it’s not true,” she scoffed and she looked away quickly, but not before Horatio could recognize in her stare something he had not expected: a flash of terror.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The stately manor house at Curraghgowen was decked in the festive decoration of the season, the rusted colors of the crumbling leaves and the deep yellows of jack-o’-lanterns and the flickering candles placed within their hollowed and carved shells. Servants bustled to and fro, shooting each other harried glances as they passed in the halls, Archie’s sister-in-law, Irene, playing stern overseer. There was no doubt about it, she had command; what Horatio wouldn’t have given to have seen her shouting orders to and whipping into shape the crew of a ship of the line. James had been sequestered into service and was looking absolutely miserable; his hopes visibly rose for a moment when he saw his brother and Horatio enter the hall, and fell once more when Archie wisely dodged from sight.
“She’ll have you scrubbing the floors before you even realize you’ve said hello,” Archie informed Horatio as they ducked and wove their way into a narrow hallway and the out-of-the-way sitting room at the end. “The woman’s a tyrant, I’m telling you; Boney would take one look at her on a battlefield and turn in the opposite direction,” he explained as the both of them gazed out the door, checking to see they hadn’t been spotted. “Lord knows what James saw in her unless he’s been lusting in secret for his commanding officer. In truth, the entire female side of the family frightens the hell out of me.”
“Some of them aren’t so regretful,” Horatio mumbled sullenly. “You didn’t have to beleaguer Miss Katherine so,” he said evenly, feigning only a casual interest. “The subject was obviously a vexing one, and you couldn’t help but tease.”
Archie clapped his friend on the back, laughing, “’Ratio, you’re the enigmatic workings of your creatively strategic mind will carry you far, but when it comes to romantic notions you are painfully transparent.” They turned together to face the interior of the room and Archie let out a low whistle through his teeth at the sight they beheld. “’Ratio, I think we may have just strayed into some otherworldly place. Make no sudden move; we know not if its inhabitants be friend or foe.”
The cozy parlor was adorned with the largest gathering of jack-o’-lanterns either of them had ever laid eyes upon; grinning, grimacing, glowering, they seemed to spill from the walls in disorderly mounds, their empty eyes regarding them with menacing or mischievous curiosity. Streamers of autumn leaves were draped about the crown molding while platters of nuts and apples sat upon every table surface. Eleven-year-old Bram looked up at them from the hearthrug where he was seated, cross-legged, relieving a pumpkin of its slimy internals; he rolled his eyes.
“Uncle Archie,” he sighed impatiently, shaking his head despairingly, “I’m not a child anymore, you needn’t play such games.”
“And you oughtn’t repeat every silly thing your sisters tell you. So very solemn,” Archie chuckled, stubbing the tip of the boy’s nose with his finger, eliciting a grin from Bram despite his grave manner. “You remind me of someone else I know,” he raised an artful eyebrow as he looked to Horatio out of the corners of his eyes who glowered in return. “So tell me, Master Bram, have you been banished or are you hiding?”
“A bit of both, I suppose,” answered the boy with a morbid cheerfulness. “Irene told me I could make all of these,” he gestured towards the tumble of jack-o’-lanterns, “if I stayed out of the way and kept them from her sight. She said they gave her the creeping willies.” He shrugged, unconcerned. “She is a despot, as you yourself just observed.”
Bram’s frankness was unparalleled and it made Horatio nervous, as if the boy was going to look right into his eyes and suddenly know everything he’d been thinking about Katie; he slowly edged away from where Bram was seated to stare out the window.
“You heard that, eh?” asked Archie dryly, giving his nose another fond flick.
“I hear a lot of things,” pronounced Bram with a prideful sniff. “That’s rather the good thing about often being overlooked.” As the youngest son of a lord, Archie knew the feeling well. “I wish you’d married one of my sisters, Uncle Archie; James is all right but he is a bit wet,” he wrinkled his nose. “They argue quite a bit, and Irene almost always ends up having her way. I ask you, is that any way for a man to conduct himself?” he shook his head with a sigh.
“He’s used to taking orders,” Archie reminded him with a smile.
“True,” said Bram fairly. “I’d still prefer having you as a brother. Not that I’d expect you to marry Irene, mind, and Janine’s gone and gotten herself married as well, the silly girl. There’s always Sissy,” as was Bram’s pet name for his sister, “I suppose,” he brightened and Horatio gave a loud cough.
“I think Katie’s got herself another admirer,” said Archie, laying his finger alongside his nose knowingly and winking.
“Really?” Bram blinked, as if this was news to him. “It’s not some cretin from the village, is it? Only she does like to dally with the young men ‘round these parts--harmlessly, mind. I heard Rafe once say that she wasn’t a prickteaser or anything...”
Archie suppressed a sudden chortle and Horatio cleared his throat loudly, very, very eager to change the topic of discussion; Bram had known exactly what it had meant, what he had said, but was having difficulty understanding exactly what was funny about it.
“Why do you need so many?” Horatio inquired, taking a seat and picking up one of the jack-o’-lanterns, lifting it to eye level so he could regard the fellow eye to eye.
“Alas, poor Yorick,” joked Archie, watching his friend.
“For guidance, of course,” Bram responded a bit peevishly, as if the answer had been so painfully obvious, it had been beneath him even to utter it. “Haven’t you ever heard the story of Jack, who sat on his porch with a lantern to light the way for the spirits so they wouldn’t get lost in the darkest part of the night? I don’t want Declan to get lost, if he should be looking for us.”
There was an awkward silence for a stretch of time when even the usually playful Archie didn’t know exactly what to say.
“I’ve heard another story,” Horatio commented finally, and Archie was surprised to find quite a wicked glare in his friend’s dark brown eyes, the kind of maniacal gleam one got when telling ghost stories to children, “about Jack and his lantern. But it wasn’t about guidance; it was about protection. They say he got lost in the bog one night and came face to face with the Devil himself, who decided then to snatch up the man’s soul right there and then. But Jack was a bargaining man who fancied himself cleverer than Old Nick; he tricked him into a tree and trapped him by carving crosses into the bark, telling him he’d only set him free if he promised never to come for his soul again. The Devil was forced to acquiesce.
“Jack was a wicked man, a petty thief and a liar, and when was finally caught and hanged for his crimes, heaven would not take him and the Devil cunningly insisted on honoring their pact. He’d gotten what he wanted, he was immortal, but he belonged neither to this world nor the next and was left to wander alone in the darkness,” Horatio continued in an ominous voice and when he paused he could hear Bram gulping loudly. “And so he captured a will-o’-the-wisp in a turnip and used it as a lantern, warding off the shadows. You see, he could never rest again for he had paid a terrible price for attempting to outrun the Devil, but the rays of his lantern chased away the demons and spirits of the blackest night, like this night, Allhallows.”
Bram stared at him wide-eyed for a moment, and Horatio was suddenly alarmed that he might have truly terrified the boy. And then Bram’s face broke into one of the biggest grins Horatio had ever witnessed.
“That was brilliant!” he exclaimed. He looked past Horatio’s shoulder, towards the door and called out, “Did you hear that, Sissy? Lieutenant Hornblower just told the most magnificent scary tale!”
Horatio’s hear sank to the pit of his stomach when he heard the reply, hoping perhaps she hadn’t been standing there all this time, she hadn’t just listened in on him trying to instill in her younger brother an affright.
“Oh yes, I did hear indeed,” came Katie’s kittenish response. “Papa would tell me that one when I was young, when we used to carve turnips just like the story. Fi is heading to the mausoleum to light the candles on the steps; why don’t you run along and have help her, hmm?” she suggested, putting her hand on her brother’s shoulders and guiding him towards the door. “She could use a companion. Just make sure you’re back before dusk.”
“I don’t want to play nursemaid to Fiona,” grumbled Bram, shuffling his feet. “She’s been beastly to everyone for the past week, and barmier than normal.”
“We’ve talked about this,” Katie said in an undertone. “She’s very distraught. It’s as mama says, it takes time to heal such wounds. Just try and be nice to her this time, no putting toads where she’ll accidentally come across them, understand?”
Bram laughed in remembrance of his own prankish behavior and Katie shooing into the hallway him as he began to imitate Fiona’s surprised squeals.
“What do I do? Tell me what to do!” Horatio begged urgently under his breath of Archie as Katie was distracted by her younger brother, keeping his voice low so that she could not overhear.
“’Ratio, if you haven’t figured it out by now...” chuckled Archie.
“I know what to do!” he retorted sharply. “With girls, I mean; I have done it before, if you recall. But Katie’s no girl! Or rather she’s not that kind of girl, you understand my meaning,” he snapped when Archie grinned.
“You’ll figure it out,” Archie said brightly, encouragingly as he clapped Horatio on the back. “But if you want my advice,” lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “James told me of an empty cottage on the far end of the property where he and Irene sneaked off to during their courtship to share an intimate moment or two, if you catch my meaning. The moon is full and this is a night when devils and imps hold sway; let your imagination do the rest,” he advised roguishly. And with that, he slipped from the room on Bram’s heels, tipping an imaginary hat at Katie as he passed her.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Archie was certain, as he stood in the center of the crowded ballroom amidst the boisterous merrymakers, that there must be at the very least four hundred and seventy-two members of the Cassaday clan, including aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins and other assorted kin. Most were, to type, drinking rather heavily, which only served to improve their joviality, and some had brogues so thick that he believed even his uncle Hamish would strain to understand their words; the Scotch burr he was accustom to, but it seemed that the Irish one sounding like a bunch of lilting gibberish.
“What did he just say?” Archie asked his brother James in an undertone as the circle of revelers surrounding a red-faced old man with a shock of white hair and an amiable manner burst into raucous guffaws, some even clapping at what was obviously an amusing anecdote.
“Haven’t a clue!” James shrugged, chuckling. “Not sure anyone does. I find, from experience, it’s best when Eamon’s speaking to look interested, nod occasionally and then laugh when it’s clear he’s finished his tale.”
Archie’s attention was drawn away by a gaggle of giggling girls gathered ‘round the enormous marble fireplace farthest from the patio doors, its gaping maw large enough to swallow all of them at once; they knelt before the roaring blaze where the sunlight could not reach them, bathed in its warm glow while the flittering of the flame cast strange shadows upon their faces. They turned their faces to him and turned quickly back, whispering amongst themselves and tittering giddily; Archie was sure that, even within the ginger radiance of the firelight, he spotted quite a few cheeks flushed with a rosy effulgence. They held small blades in their hands and were passing between them a bowl of apples.
“And what is that mischievous set about then, hmm?” Archie inquired with a saucy twinkle to his eyes. He noticed that Bram sat on the fringes of the group, fussing with one of his many carved gourds, seemingly explaining its function in his typical pragmatic fashion to a serious-minded young woman crouching beside him. He recognized her immediately as Miss Fiona Wheaton, Declan Cassaday’s former fiancée; she was not joining in the games of the other misses and they in turn appeared to be unaware of her presence.
“Ah, a game of divination, if I’m not mistaken,” replied James with a grin. “They peel the apple, then throw the rind in the ashes; supposedly, it will spell out the initials of their future husbands, God help them.” He gave his brother a playful nudge in the ribs with his elbow. “I think quite a few of them are hoping to see the letters A.K. there on the hearth.”
Archie scoffed. “Well, at least show me the fraternal courtesy of forewarning me once my bride-to-be is revealed. I wouldn’t like to think I was the last to know,” he teased. He nodded towards Fiona and added more solemnly, “And what of her? Whose initials will she see?”
“I rather think that there’ll be no more initials for her, Archie,” James responded soberly. “Childish foretelling games are no longer of interest. Hell,” he swore, gritting his teeth as he gazed into the crowd, “here comes Irene. If she confronts you, remember, I’ve been helping with the decorations on the patio all afternoon.” And with that, he slipped away with a grace and stealth that Archie quite thought even the most demanding of commanding officers would be proud of.
Archie took a bracing breath and stepped forward, putting on his most dazzling of smiles. “I thought you and your friends had been exiled by the iron maiden,” he commented, placing his hand atop Bram’s head, pushing the boy’s neck back so his face was upturned to his.
Bram held up his jack-o’-lantern. “This one sneaked out,” he replied with a crooked grin. “He escaped Her Majesty’s tyranny. The others are still outcast but they’re safe, hiding in the parlor. I was just recounting to Fi the tale Lieutenant Hornblower told me earlier, about Jack and his lantern.”
Archie bowed then to Fiona, as if he’d only just noticed her presence. She wasn’t a pretty girl, not in a conventional sense, with too-chubby cheeks for her lean profile and her nose was a long, drastic slope that ended in a protruding tip. She was what was commonly known as ‘Black Irish.’ She had large brown eyes framed with thick, dark lashes and a full, pouting mouth with dusky lips shaped by a hint of an awkward overbite; straight brown hair framed her face and her slender, elongated neck. Archie couldn’t recall ever seeing her smile; that made him profoundly sad.
“Miss Wheaton,” he said formally.
“Lieutenant Kennedy,” she responded listlessly, her gaze darting anywhere but Archie’s face as she toyed with the paring knife in her hand. “Bram’s been looking after me,” she put her hand on the boy’s shoulder but quickly withdrew it as if she was uncomfortable with or unsure of the intimacy. “Keeping me company since his mum retired early. She’s feeling quite ill,” she explained when Archie made to inquire. “She just needs some rest; I think these festivities have been overtaxing her fragile constitution.”
Fragile constitution, Archie’s freckled arse. Lady Virginia Cassaday was of a wholly woebegone humor since the loss of her son, given to fits of weeping and days of withdrawal from the company of others, all save for Fiona. Fiona’s grief was forceful enough without the detrimental persuasion of Lady Ginny’s theatrical sorrow. Now that may have seemed callous of Archie to judge the situation so harshly, but his family had known its share of loss and he knew the difference between sorrow and overindulgence. Still, he bit his tongue.
“My commiserations,” he said stiffly. “I do hope the repose does her well.”
Bram pantomimed an exaggerated snore, bored to tears by the wistful woman’s companionship; the boy might have grown up quickly, and had an unusually keen intellect for his age, but there were just some things that he would not understand until he was older.
“Well, perhaps the lady will do me the honor of joining me for a dance?”
“I regret to say I do not dance, Lieutenant Kennedy,” she told him softly, “but I would not mind a bit of fresh air.”
“A walk then, perhaps?” he offered her his arm and she accepted. He winked at Bram; the boy pulled a face and Archie grinned inwardly, knowing that one day, when Bram had grown up a bit, he’d work it out. Right before they turned to walk away, Fiona let the apple she’d been paring fall from the clasp of her long fingers, the rind remaining in her palm after the naked fruit had bounced to the floor. She tossed the peel into the hearth ashes and did not linger to witness the results; whatever it may have been, the girls sat beside the fire reacted with a series of inscrutable shrieks and squeaks.
