she sighed, catching her first glimpse of Tarbrook House, the longer she stayed in Town, the more appealing Stone Court was beginning to look. At least at home she’d started to carve out a niche for herself. After being of no consequence for so many years, she’d found a great deal of consolation in taking over the duties her mother habitually neglected.
But in Town she was truly a fish out of water, she reflected glumly as Shadow trotted through the arch leading to the mews at the back of Tarbrook House. Instead of dancing every night at glittering balls, with a succession of handsome men, one of whom was going to fall madly in love with her and whisk her away to his estate where he’d treat her like a queen, she was actually turning out to be a social failure.
The only time she felt like herself recently had been on these secret forays into the park, before anyone else was awake. And now, because of those...beasts, she wasn’t even going to be able to have that any longer.
She dismounted, and led Shadow to her stall, where a groom darted forward with a scowl on his face.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I should not have gone out riding on my own. But you need not report this to Lady Tarbrook. For I shall not be doing so again, you may be certain.’
The groom ran his eyes over her. His gaze paused once or twice. Over the grass stains on her riding habit, for example. At which his mouth twisted in derision.
He thought she’d taken a tumble and had now lost her nerve, the fool. She gripped her crop tightly as she warred with the urge to defend her skill as a horsewoman. But if she admitted she’d dismounted through choice, he’d wonder where the grass stains had come from. And since she was not in the habit of telling lies, she’d probably blush and stammer, and look so guilty that he’d go straight to Aunt Susan and tell her that her hoyden of a niece had been up to no good.
And Aunt Susan would extract the truth out of her in no time flat.
And she would die rather than have to confess she’d let a man kiss her. A strange man. A strange drunken man.
And worse, that she’d liked it. Because, for a few brief moments, he’d made her feel attractive. Interesting. When for most of her life—until she’d taken to giving the servants directions, that was—nobody had thought her of any value at all. She’d just been an afterthought. A girl, what was worse. A girl that nobody knew quite what to do with.
So she lifted her chin and simply stalked away, her reputation as a horsewoman ruined in the eyes of the head groom.
* * *
Jack Hesketh sat up slowly, his head spinning, and watched the virago galloping away.
‘Do you know,’ he mused, ‘I think we may have just insulted a lady.’
Zeus snorted. ‘If she were a lady, she would not have been out here unattended at this hour, flirting with a pack of drunken bucks.’
Jack shook his head. He couldn’t believe Zeus—who’d pursued women with such fervour and conquered so many of them while he, and Archie, and Atlas had still been too pimply and awkward to do anything but stand back in awe—had become the kind of man who could now speak of such a lovely one with so much contempt.
If he were to meet Zeus now, for the first time, he didn’t think he’d want to be his friend.
In fact, after the way he’d behaved tonight, he’d steer well clear of such a man. Zeus had always been a bit full of himself, which was only to be expected when he was of such high rank and swimming in lard to boot. But there had been a basic sort of decency about him, too. He’d had a sense of humour, anyway.
But now...it was as if a sort of malaise had infected him, rendering him incapable of seeing any good in anyone or anything.
And Archie—well, he’d turned into a sort of...tame hound, trotting along behind Zeus like a spaniel at his master’s heels.
While Atlas...oh, dear God, Atlas. He winced as he turned his head rather too quickly, to peer into the gloom at the wreck of the man who’d been his boyhood idol.
Though, hadn’t they all been his heroes, one way or another? Which was, perhaps, where he’d gone wrong. In keeping his schoolboy reverence for them firm in his heart during all his years of active service, like a talisman, he’d sort of pickled their images, like flies set in amber. That would certainly explain why it had come as such a shock to see how much they’d all changed.
Especially Atlas. Imprisonment at the hands of the French, and illness, had reduced him to an emaciated ruin of his former self. In fact, he looked such a wreck that Jack had been a bit surprised he’d managed to lift the virago on to her horse at all. Though at least it proved he was still the same man, inside, where it mattered. They hadn’t given him the nickname of Atlas only because of his immense size and strength compared to the rest of them, but because of his habit of always trying to take everyone else’s burdens on his own shoulders. Rescuing that girl from Zeus was exactly the kind of thing he’d always been doing. Atlas had always hated seeing anyone weak or vulnerable being tormented.
Which was what they’d been doing to that poor girl, Jack thought, his stomach turning over in shame. The four of them, making sport of her. No—make that three. Atlas had been the only one of them to behave like a perfect gentleman even though he was as drunk as the rest of them.
Or was he? He’d barely touched any of the drink Zeus had so lavishly supplied, at what was supposed to be a celebration of not only the Peace, but also his return to England. Of the fact that for the first time in years, all four of them had the liberty to meet up. As though the poor fellow felt he couldn’t trust himself to hold it down. Nobody had said anything, though. They’d all been too shocked at the sight of him to do more than squirm a bit as they drank his health. Health? Hah! The best that anyone could say of the gaunt and yellow-skinned Atlas was that he was alive.
‘I tell you what, though,’ he said aloud. ‘You are still my hero, Atlas’
Atlas started, looking taken aback.
‘No, really. After all this time, you are still the best of us. Always was.’
‘You paid too much attention to the letters I wrote when I first went to sea,’ he said, looking uncomfortable. ‘I made it sound far more exciting than it was. Didn’t want you all to...pity me, for having to leave. Didn’t want to admit that I was seasick, and homesick and utterly wretched.’
‘B-but,’ said Archie, looking shocked, ‘you were a hero. Read ab-bout your exp-ploits in the Gazette.’
Atlas made a dismissive motion with his hand, as though banishing the Gazette and all that was printed in it to perdition.
‘Just did my duty. No choice, when you’re in the thick of action. You either fight like a demon, or...well, you know how it is, Jack. Same in the army, I dare say.’ He sent Jack a beseeching look, as though begging him to divert attention from him.
‘Only too well,’ he therefore said. ‘Which is why your homecoming is worth celebrating. Glad you’re alive. Glad I’m alive. Even glad Zeus is alive,’ he said, shooting his godship a wry grin. ‘Since he got us all together again, for the first time since...what year was it when you left school, Atlas?’
‘You are foxed,’ said Zeus with exasperation, before Atlas had a chance to make his response. ‘If I’d realised quite how badly foxed,
