‘No.’ She sighed. ‘As usual, my presence was pointless. Mary already had the search well in hand.’
His face went carefully blank.
‘She couldn’t rest until she’d discovered whether you lived or died, you know. Because she loves you as much as I love—loved Gideon.’ He turned his face away at that. But she couldn’t let the matter rest. Justin had behaved like an idiot where Mary was concerned. She had to at least try to make him see what he’d lost.
‘Of course, she is a far better, more sensible woman than I. She even went inside the barn that they told us was full of dead bodies, refusing to believe their report of your death. Though I wasn’t brave enough to go in with her. It made me feel so ill that I went over the wall into the orchard to be sick in private. That was the moment when it occurred to me that you might be trying to protect me from distress. If Gideon had been as mangled as some of the poor wretches I saw lying all over the fields, you wouldn’t have wanted me to see him like that. For my last memory of him to be so gruesome. It hit me, when I couldn’t even bear the thought of seeing you dead, or wounded. And we’ve never been exactly close, have we?’
He looked at her again. ‘So you do accept that I act in your best interest.’
She sighed. ‘I accept that you try to, yes. But as I said, I haven’t come here to argue with you. Justin, Tom told me that you were with Gideon, at the end. Will you...will you tell me...?’
If she’d thought he looked ill before, that question made him look positively haggard.
‘I know,’ she added, ‘you cannot tell me all, but I do want to hear as much of the truth as you think I can bear.’
‘I can tell you what he wanted you to know,’ he replied with a nod. ‘His last thoughts were of you. Tell Sarah I died well, Justin, were his last words.’
‘Oh!’ She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry. But discovering that her twin had sent her a message, with his dying breath, was more than her resolve could stand. She reached for the handkerchief she’d brought to use as a flag of truce and held it to her face.
‘I promised him,’ said Justin more gently, ‘that you would know you could be very proud of him.’
‘Could I?’ She looked up, her stomach lurching with hope and dread and grief. ‘I have been so afraid that he threw himself away doing something foolhardy. I’d been so worried about him, in the days before the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. I always know when he is planning some mischief and I had this awful presentiment that he was about to do something even worse than usual.’
Justin looked sceptical, but he only said, ‘He died bravely. He died well.’
‘Can—?’ She hiccupped. ‘Can you tell me...how?’
He frowned. For a moment she thought he was going to fob her off with the usual excuse of her not needing to trouble her empty little head with the ugly realities that should more properly be taken care of by men.
But then he surprised her by saying, ‘Major Sheffield’s unit got cut off by a party of French chasseurs. When I came across them, they were penned into a town square.’ He paused to draw in a couple of breaths. But she didn’t fill the silence with questions. She could see he was gathering his strength to tell her the tale in his own way.
‘Bennington Ffog’s troop,’ he continued, ‘were holding off the French, while Lieutenant Rawlins was attempting to get the Rogues to turn the guns round so they could make their escape. Gideon saw him struggling to control the men. They’d lost heart when Major Sheffield was killed. Gideon rallied the Rogues, got the guns turned and then stood and fought a rearguard action. I...’ He paused again. There was something in his face that told Sarah he was right back in that town square all over again. With what looked like an effort, he continued.
‘For a while, Gideon and I fought side by side, blocking the street so the French couldn’t pursue the guns and their crews. We fought until reinforcements came. But by then it was too late for your twin. He was badly hurt.’
‘Cavalry sabres,’ she said in the ghost of a whisper. ‘I’ve seen what they can do.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. Though if it helps, he didn’t take long in dying. I tried to stop the bleeding, but...’ He stopped when she gave a choked cry and buried her face in the handkerchief again.
‘Sorry, that was tactless of me. I just wanted you to know he didn’t suffer for long.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘I have been tortured by the thought of him lying out there, slowly dying, like so many of them did. Alone and in pain.’
‘He died in my arms. He died bravely. Saving my men, and the guns, to fight the next day. The day we defeated Bonaparte once and for all. He won’t come back to tear Europe to pieces again, Sarah. And the way Gideon died made a contribution to that outcome.’
‘Thank you,’ she said once she’d regained command of her voice. ‘For not spinning me some sugary confection to make my grief easier to swallow. For—’ She sat up straight, and gave him a searching look. ‘You say he actually had command of your men? If only for a short time?’
He nodded.
‘Oh, Justin, if only you knew what that would have meant to him.’
‘I think I did. We had a chance to speak a little, at the very end. He told me that he wanted me to return to Chalfont and manage the estates. That Mother is struggling, but won’t say anything. He even stole the sword, thinking that without it, I wouldn’t go into battle—’
‘Oh! So that was it. I wondered... He’d been acting so very...so very...well, the way he always did when he was planning some mischief.’ Thoughts were teeming, nineteen to the dozen, through her brain. ‘Yes, of course,’ she breathed. ‘He saw the chance to prove he could be as good an officer as you. Of course, he had to steal the Latymor Luck so that he could wear it into battle.’ She shook her head. ‘And you blamed Mary for taking it. I heard you. Oh, Justin, how could you?’
‘Do you think I don’t know what a terrible mistake I made?’
‘You made another very grave error, too. About the night of the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball. It was entirely my doing that Mary was there. She didn’t want to go, you know. I positively compelled her to go with me. I was absolutely determined to see Gideon. And Gussie was too ill to go. So I went straight round to Mary, spinning her such a tale that she felt she had no choice but to go with me. And then you had the gall to accuse her of—what was it?—ingratiating herself with your sister?’