Free Brash by Margo Maguire Page B

taking one only when she walked the fields with Tilly, her Great Dane. She’d figured out that walking strengthened her leg and it had helped to minimize her limp, though when she was fatigued, her lameness was as pronounced as ever and she needed Tilly’s support.
    Luckily, she was not the least bit tired at the moment. She decided it was the perfect time to catch the heavy shadows of late winter out in the back garden. Perhaps she’d be able to swallow her disappointment if she occupied herself in a worthwhile pursuit.
    She picked up her sketching pad and a packet of freshly sharpened pencils and started down the stairs.
    * * *
    If there was one thing James Norris had learned in the past month, it was that life was too short for wasting. Damn all, he’d lost his closest friend, Lang Jameson, in the explosion on the wharf at Plymouth. As James was several years Lang’s senior, he understood far too clearly that he’d already wasted too much precious time.
    Aye, he’d been involved in many a naval battle these past few years, but somehow he and his friends had managed to come through them – intact, mostly. During their time in the fleet, Freddie Diggins had lost a finger. Douglas Harris’s memory had gone defective. Farley Taylor had nearly lost an eye. All of them had scars from one bit of shrapnel or other.
    Yet now, nearly a year after Old Boney had been imprisoned, James was dead – horribly and violently killed for no good reason whatsoever.
    A few days after the explosion and fire, James had resigned from the navy. Losing Lang had been the shock that thrust him from further military service. It was time he did something more than ride the waves on The Defender.
    James rode toward Barrington Manor, the home of his very good friend from school, Robert Barrington, whose sister James intended to wed. He’d put off marriage long enough, thinking he had all the time in the world. He was already five and twenty, by God. He’d believed he would have plenty of time to do all he’d set out to do in this life. Serve England in her fight against Napoleon; carouse at various pleasure houses with the other veterans of the war; travel the continent he’d fought so fiercely to protect from arrogant French tentacles.
    A set of entirely different priorities had begun to form inside his head the moment he’d identified Lang Jameson’s burned body amidst the rubble of the navy storehouse. Lang’s body had been unrecognizable but for his height and the color of his hair – what was left of it.
    Nausea roiled as James thought of it, and he wished he’d been able to spare Lang’s father, the earl of Sunderland, the same misery. But the earl had raced down to Plymouth and insisted upon viewing his son’s remains before his burial. It was an agony James would never wish upon any father.
    Pushing his bleak memories to the back of his mind, James turned his thoughts to Virginia Barrington whom he’d met several times. Though James would not inherit his noble father’s title or estates, it was known that he would inherit a large sum upon his sire’s death. A young lady could do worse than settle her sights upon a wealthy, former naval officer for a husband.
     He and Virginia had exchanged a few letters, and James knew she had not yet received a suitable offer of marriage. She was waiting… for him, he hoped.
    It was nearly dark when he arrived at Barrington Manor. He’d written ahead of his arrival, of course, and was expected. Two footmen came from the house and took James’s bag as a groom came around and took charge of his horse. A moment later, James was walking into the main entrance of the house toward Robert who was coming down the staircase at a quick clip.
    “James!”
    The two friends shook hands and repaired to the drawing room. “We heard of the terrible fires at Plymouth. The Defender was untouched?”
    “Aye. But my good friend – you met him once in London, Lang Jameson – was killed in the