had no idea that annoyance was not his problem. His problem would be forgetting who he was now and thinking he was a soldier again.
‘Not at all,’ he responded perfunctorily.
She folded her hands in her lap and kept her gaze averted. It felt to him as if she held herself in check and he wondered what he would see if she set herself free. He laughed inwardly. Apparently they were both confined, both unable to be who they were inside.
But he did not need this sense of kinship with her, fuelling that inexplicable yearning inside him. It was not physical desire—or, more accurately, not only that.
How odd that her looks should captivate him when she did not meet society’s ideal of beauty.
Lady Agnes certainly did.
Miss Tilson was too tall, too strong-featured, but somehow not plain. It was difficult for his gaze not to be riveted upon her face and her changing expressions.
She took a breath, as if trying to clear away whatever had been in her mind. ‘So you were in the army?’
He shrugged. ‘I was a younger son, until my brother died.’ He blinked away his own intrusive memory.
The polite smile she’d pasted on her face faltered a bit. ‘What regiment?’
She seemed determined to make conversation. ‘The 28th.’
His father had purchased a lieutenancy for him when he turned eighteen. And why not? He’d not been suited for anything else, or so he’d always been told. As part of the 28th, he’d been in nearly every major battle of the war with Napoleon, from Egypt to Toulouse.
‘Were you at Waterloo?’ she asked.
He gritted his teeth for a moment. ‘No.’
He could have stayed in Belgium with his regiment, when he inherited the title, but battles were unpredictable matters and he dared not risk being killed and leaving his nieces to the mercy of relatives so distant as to have no care for them.
He’d grieved not being a part of the Waterloo battle almost as much as he’d grieved his brother’s death. Many of his men died at Waterloo. He should have been leading them. Protecting them.
‘On the Peninsula, then?’ she persisted.
‘Yes. On the Peninsula. And in France.’ His regiment had been a part of that bloody pursuit of the French as they retreated from the Pyrenees into France.
Her brow furrowed. ‘And some soldiers relive battles afterwards, the way I relived the shipwreck?’
Apparently the shipwreck was never far from her mind. ‘Yes. Many. I expect if I heard cannon right now, it would put me right back into battle.’
‘It would?’
There was a rap on the door and a serving girl entered with their drinks and food. After she left, Garret took a generous gulp of ale and plunged his spoon into the stew.
Miss Tilson nibbled on a piece of bread, a pained expression on her face.
It tugged at his sympathy. ‘Talk about it.’
She glanced up. ‘About what?’
‘About the shipwreck,’ he explained. ‘It helps.’
Although it might be more help to him to keep his distance from this young woman—his nieces’ governess.
* * *
Rebecca glanced away. She wanted desperately to talk about the events crowding her head and overwhelming her senses, but ought she to do so?
Claire Tilson would have declined this invitation, she was sure. Indeed, Claire Tilson would not have fished for this conversation at all. She would have remained in her place. She would have gone to her room as the Viscount requested, even if spending more hours alone would have been unendurable.
Well, she would be Claire Tilson later. Right now she needed to be Rebecca Pierce, on an equal footing with this gentleman and with a great need to talk.
She faced him. ‘Shortly after we woke that morning, the storm began and we were told to remain in our cabins.’
‘We?’ His brows rose.
She must be careful how she spoke. ‘I—I befriended another young lady. We spent most of the voyage in each other’s company.’ And in each other’s clothes.
She described how the storm grew and how their alarm escalated. And how the gentleman came to take them on deck. She told him of the wave that washed Miss Tilson and the man off the deck.
She did not tell him of being pulled away from Nolan, her poor sick maid. Could she ever forgive herself for that?
She saw an image in her head of Nolan in her bed as the water rose around her. Rebecca covered her eyes.
‘Go on,’ his voice demanded.
‘I was dropped into a rowing boat. There was a mother and her children next to me, but then we saw the ship crash against the rocks and the rowing boat tossed us into the sea.’ She remembered the cold water all around her, not knowing which way was up, not being able to breathe. ‘I don’t remember anything else very clearly until waking up in the inn.’
What had happened to the mother and those dear little children? She could not bear thinking of them under the water. Could not bear thinking of their dead bodies floating to shore.
She glanced at Lord Brookmore, whose gaze did not waver.
She took a breath. ‘That is it. That is all.’
Did his eyes turn sceptical? She could not tell. ‘A harrowing experience,’ he said, more factually than sympathetically.
That was a good thing, though. Had he offered her comfort she might have broken down and turned into a watering pot the way she’d been yesterday.
He dipped his spoon into the bowl of stew, making her realise he’d refrained from eating while she told her story.
She ate a few bites, as well. ‘I don’t know why I was saved. Why me over so many others?’
She downed her glass of claret.
Lord Brookmore took a more leisurely sip of his ale. ‘There is no making sense of those matters, you know. In battle, good men die. And yet men like me live. There is no making sense of it.’
Of course. He must know more about death than she could ever know. ‘What do you mean “men like me”? Are you so bad, then?’ She tried for a light-hearted tone.
He faced her, a sad smile on his face. ‘There were times in my youth that my father was convinced of it.’ He poured her another glass of claret.
She took a sip. ‘I cannot believe it. You have been nothing but kind to me.’
He laughed drily. ‘I need a governess for my nieces.’
She
