Barely a Lady (12 page)

And there, at the bottom of the picture, in perfect English:
Is not the first fruit sweet, my love?

So this was Mimi. Faced with the possibility that this was what Jack had been seeking, Olivia could do no more than stare, sick at heart.

But just to be sure, she stood up and carried the flask back up to Jack’s room. Sergeant Harper looked up when she opened the door, but she didn’t have the composure to speak. She just reached over and placed the flask in Jack’s searching hand. And watched as he abruptly stilled.

He brought the flask up to his chest and laid it there. And then he went soundly to sleep, as if relieved. Olivia turned away and closed the door behind her.

At any other time, Olivia would have delighted in Lady Kate’s at-home. Seated alongside the duchess on the settee, she met the famous and infamous as they came to ingest gossip and tea. Lady Uxbridge, who had hurried to Belgium to be with her lord, came with Lady Somerset, both women pale and distracted by their husbands’ injuries. Mr. Creevey shared Wellington’s agony over the loss of so many men, and Fanny Burney skewered those civilians who’d been too timid to stay.

Each visited a precise fifteen minutes over tea or Madeira. Lady Kate’s cook provided stacks of tea cakes and biscuits. Lizzie kept the tea service filled, and Olivia poured. She was happy to do so, since it kept her too busy to converse. And since Lady Bea took up the last place on the settee, there was no room on the settee for Gervaise’s close company when he inevitably arrived.

He walked into the crowded salon on the heels of Lady Kate’s cousin Diccan Hilliard. Diccan was everything the duchess had promised. Not a handsome man, Olivia thought, his features too broad to be classically aristocratic. He was tall and well formed, though, with a wide forehead, strong jaw, and deceptively lazy gray eyes beneath straight eyebrows. His sable hair was thick, and his nose looked as if it had been broken.

He was everything that was languid and witty. Even dressed in unrelieved black with no more ornamentation than one gold fob and a ruby signet ring, he effectively cast even the golden Gervaise into the shade.

“So, Katie,” he drawled, his gold quizzing glass lifted between two fingers as he scanned Olivia and Grace. “These are the newest additions to your little family. They seem a bit… oh, shall we say,
naïf
for you, infant.”

Olivia found him amusing, just as Lady Kate had said. Poor Grace succumbed to an unattractive blush.

Lady Kate paused as she listened to the impassioned whispers of an ardent suitor named Tommy with pomaded hair and vivid yellow inexpressibles to wave a dismissive hand at her cousin. “I have many faults, Diccan,” she said. “Happily, deceit is not one of them. Olivia and Grace are well aware of my sins.”

“You, Mrs. Grace?” he asked Olivia.

She handed off his cup of tea and smiled. “I was assured I would become quite as notorious as Her Grace if I entered her employ. Please don’t tell me I was mistaken.”

He raised an elegant eyebrow. There was a gleam in his eyes that reminded Olivia of Lady Kate. “You frighten me, ma’am.”

She smiled. “Then it has been a profitable afternoon.”

“En garde,” Lady Bea abruptly barked from her place at Lady Kate’s opposite side.

Diccan beamed on the old woman. “A palpable hit, indeed, Lady Bea. I suspect Mrs. Grace of being a worthy opponent.”

“Really?” Gervaise asked as he waited for his own tea. “I have found Mrs. Grace to be quite shy. Submissive, even.”

Olivia did her level best to remain calm. He wanted her to react. Before the battle, she would have. Today she focused on everyone who relied on her to keep her head. Today when Gervaise asked her to pour for him, she nodded and picked up a cup.

“You’re having
tea
, Gervaise?” Lady Kate demanded with patent disbelief. “Is my Madeira all drunk, then?”

“Bit of a sore head,” he admitted with attractive chagrin. “Besides, I consider it an honor to be served by Mrs. Grace.”

Biting her tongue, Olivia asked his preferences, as if she didn’t know, and handed over his cup. No one noticed him slide his fingers up her wrist. They noticed her almost drop the hot tea in his lap. Fortunately for the peace of the room, he grabbed hold of the cup just as she yanked her hand back. She turned away, never betraying her revulsion at his touch.

Next to her, Lady Kate addressed another newcomer, a broad-shouldered gentleman with sharp hazel eyes and salted black hair who had been introduced as Lord Drake. “You seem in fine fettle today, Marcus.”

“And why shouldn’t I be?” he asked, balancing cup and cake plate on his stockinette-clad knee. “Napoleon is finished, I won a pony from Armiston at faro last night, and I am allowed to spend the afternoon basking in your celestial presence, Kate.”

Lady Kate frowned. “Are you saying I’m a moon, Marcus?”

He grinned. “A star. A sun. A comet streaking across the sky.”

“Oh, no. Not a comet. It is far too farouche to be seen streaking anywhere.”

“Very sensible,” Diccan agreed. “Be a star, Kate. They don’t even have to expend the energy of orbiting.”

“And would still be the center of a universe,” Gervaise agreed. “What do you think, Mrs. Grace?” he asked, turning on her. “Would you like to be the center of a universe?”

Olivia managed to keep her face impassive. “Heavens, no. I haven’t the stamina for it.”

Gervaise made sure only Olivia could see his smile. “You could easily be the center of
my
universe, Mrs. G.”

Lady Kate tapped his arm. “One does not court a companion, Gervaise. You’ll ruin her for hard work.”

Lord Drake chuckled. “If you don’t want anyone to notice your companion, Kate, hire one with a squint.”

“Ah, thank you, Marcus. You reminded me of a task I’ve overlooked. Grace, Olivia, be warned. Marcus here is the leader of the notorious Drake’s Rakes. Dangerous libertines all.”

“Not so, not so,” Lord Drake demurred with an easy grin. “Merely men who enjoy life to the fullest.”

Kate’s smile was wry. “Indeed. Well, you’ll not be ‘enjoying’ anyone here. We’re far too busy caring for our brave wounded to have time for even so much as a scandalous thought.”

“Brave goddess,” young Tommy of the yellow inexpressibles trilled.

“Fiddle. It’s Olivia and Grace do the actual care. Although I did sacrifice my best carriage to ferry Grace back and forth to the battlefield.”

“Oh, the battlefield,” the sharply thin Lady Thornton said with a shiver. “We went just yesterday, didn’t we, Thorny?”

“Perfectly awful place,” her doughy lord sniffed. “Though I did manage to come away with a brilliant French saber.”

“I was not collecting souvenirs,” Grace said, her soft voice chilly, “but wounded soldiers.”

“No place for a lady,” Lady Thornton stated with disdain.

“No place for anyone at all,” Diccan assured her with a straight face. “Perfectly hideous places, battlefields.”

Grace went rigid. “Particularly for the men still lying there,” she snapped. “Especially if they must watch souvenir hunters drive by without stopping while they—”

She stopped, blushing into blotches. Olivia froze in amazement. She’d never seen Grace raise her voice before.

“Brava!” Diccan drawled with a lazy clap of the hands. “The fair Boadicea puts us park saunterers in our place.”

“Don’t be absurd, Hilliard.” Lord Thornton chuckled, his thick neck purpling above his high shirt points. “She don’t actually expect us to stop and pick anyone up.”

“She most certainly does,” Diccan assured him, never taking his eyes from Grace. “Only think how people would talk if we did. Why, it might become all the rage, what, Miss Fairchild?”

Grace glared at him, but it seemed that she had reached her limit. With a muttered excuse to Lady Kate, she gained her feet and limped from the room. Right behind her, Lady Bea rose like a duchess and followed, never bothering to take her leave.

“Hyenas,” she muttered, much to Diccan’s delight.

“Surely not, old thing. You must mean jackals.”

Lady Bea stopped short and leveled her own glare on him. “Jackals,” she said in awful tones, “don’t laugh.” And swept from the room, as if she hadn’t spoken her first coherent words in five years.

“Rather churlish of you, Diccan,” Lady Kate agreed.

He was still smiling. “Well, how was I to know Miss Fairchild would take exception to a bit of banter?”

“You might have remembered she just buried her father.”

His eyes widened with real shock. “That tartar with the magnificent mustache?” He shook his head. “I didn’t know. Just got back from helping deliver the victory news to London.”

“An apology wouldn’t go amiss,” Lady Kate suggested.

“Apologize?” Gervaise countered with a big grin. “
Hilliard?
By Jupiter, just let me know when, and I’ll have an audience to rival the Cribbs-Molyneaux bout.”

“I’ll lay you a monkey he never does,” Thornton challenged.

Gervaise waved a spoon. “No one would take that bet.”

“Stubble it, both of you,” Diccan snapped.

“No need anyway,” Thornton said. “Nothing more ridiculous.
You
don’t travel to the battlefield, do you, Mrs. Grace?”

Olivia blinked at the sudden attention. “Oh, I’m not that intrepid. I care for the men here.”

“Who are they?” Drake spoke up. “Anyone I should greet?”

Olivia’s heart all but stopped beating.

“Excellent idea,” Lady Thornton said, setting down her cup. “It would be unconscionable to overlook someone we know.”

Lady Kate laughed. “I wouldn’t worry,” she said, picking a lemon biscuit from the tray. “We were somehow overlooked when it came time to dole out influential people. I believe our senior guest is a mere baronet.”

“We should still visit them,” young Tommy demanded. “Patriotic duty, you know.”

“Excellent idea,” Gervaise said. “Hasn’t Miss Fairchild just chastised us for not doing our duty by our brave lads? What better way than to visit them on their sickbeds?”

He spoke to the room, but his eyes were suddenly on Olivia. It was all she could do to remain still. He was threatening her again. And he didn’t even realize how great a threat it was.

“Another day, Gervaise,” Lady Kate spoke up. “When they’re strong enough to withstand the excitement.”

“I believe I’ll make a point of it,” he said. “Frequently.”

Olivia felt cold. She saw the glint of triumph in his eyes and battled a flush of dismay.

Just then, Finney lumbered into the room. “ ’Scuse me, Y’r Grace. Mrs. Grace be wanted upstairs.”

Jack. Olivia knew it without his saying it. His fever had receded nicely, and she’d left him sleeping. But now she could hear a faint rumble of voices, one of them Harper’s. She had to get up there. One shout from Jack and they were ruined.

One look at Lady Kate kept her from jumping up.

“Thank you, Finney,” she said, rising and shaking out her skirts. “I’m on my way. My apologies, Lady Kate. I’ve left you with the teapot.”

Olivia doubted anyone but Gervaise would have noted her departure. She made it a point to walk quietly out the door. The minute she was out of sight, though, she ran as fast as she could up the stairs.

Chapter 10

A
t first he thought it was a dream. He could see himself in bed with her, his sun-darkened hand a stark contrast against her milk-white thigh. He could smell the fresh air on the sheets. He could taste the morning sun on her skin. She was giggling as he tickled her, high, breathy notes of delight. She loved to be tickled, right there behind her beautifully dimpled knee. And every time he tickled her, she dropped the sheets she held so tightly to her throat in a simulated show of virtue.

Ah, success. She shrieked with glee and the sheet fell away, bestowing those perfect, luscious breasts for his sole delectation. They bounced a little with her mirth, and her rose nipples puckered with the sudden chill—and with the heat in his gaze. He couldn’t look away from those perfect, pert breasts.

Before she could roll away in another display of maidenly reticence, he fell on them like a starving man, and, ah, the taste of them. The delicious texture of those long, hard nipples in his mouth as he sucked and nibbled and licked his way to heaven. The mysteries that just waited for his exploration beneath that lovely patch of blond hair. The charming music of her coos and sighs and moans as she lifted to meet his thrusts.

“Oh,” she gasped, “surely you will kill me.”

He laughed at her impish smile. “Surely I’ll try.”

And he’d tried very hard. But inevitably, he’d had to leave her in that warm, soft bed and return to duty. She was still giggling, threatening to give away all his secrets if he didn’t return to her. So he rolled her over and slapped her pretty bottom. Then he lifted his uniform jacket from the bedpost and walked over to the chipped mirror that hung above her dresser.

“I don’t love you, me,” she pouted, showing him just a peek of those perfect breasts.

“Of course you do,” he retorted, offering her a gallant bow. “And I, Mimi, love you to distraction.”

Turning, he buttoned his jacket.

His uniform jacket.

His blue uniform jacket. With red facings and cuffs.

Jack lurched up in bed so fast his ribs screeched. Who was Mimi? Where had he been? And dear God, why had he been donning a French uniform?

How did he know it was French?

He shook his head. He had no idea. He just knew it as surely as his name. He dropped his head into his hands. “What have I done?”

“Problem, m’lord?” Harper asked from the doorway.

He was gasping for air. “Yes. No.”

How did he ask?
Who
did he ask?

Jack looked up at the solid little man who still wore a tattered Guards jacket and wondered if he knew. But if he did, surely he would have said something. “Get my wife,” he snapped.

It hadn’t been a dream. He had been in that bedroom, with that woman. He’d been laughing, as if he had not had a trouble in the world. And he had been donning the uniform of the enemy as if he were used to it.

He understood now why he remembered guns.

Lying back, he stared at the plaster swags that crisscrossed the ceiling like elaborate spiderwebs. He tested the memory of that other bedroom, tried to bring it into focus. To bring
her
into focus.

Mimi.

He’d been happy with her.
Without Livvie. Oddly enough, that thought brought a flush of resentment. And right behind it, a hot wash of shame.

What did it mean? What had he done?

He needed to talk to Livvie.

He must have spoken out loud, because in only minutes she was there.

“Jack?” She stood in the doorway, not quite entering the room. He noticed again how tired she looked. Her drab gray dress hung from her frame, as if she’d suffered deprivation, which made no sense. She was a countess, for God’s sake. They were one of the wealthiest families in Britain.

“Why didn’t you tell me I fought in a battle?” he demanded.

She stiffened. Her skin paled. Nodding to Harper, who’d followed her, she waited until he left before shutting herself in with Jack. She was so thin, was all he could think.

“You would have remembered soon,” she said. “It seems you have.”

“No, I haven’t!” He closed his eyes and pressed his hands against them to try and shut out the images that still tumbled through his mind. Suddenly his world was upside down and all of his memories lies. He didn’t even know what to
ask
.

So he went on the attack. “How much weight have you lost?”

He opened his eyes to see her standing still, her hands clenched at her waist. “I don’t know. A stone, maybe.”

“Maybe two. Why? And what are you doing wearing that execrable dress? You’re a countess, damn it. Why do you look like an underfed governess? What aren’t you telling me?”

She shrugged. “Quite a bit, I imagine.”

He’d hurt her. He could see it in her eyes. He’d never hurt Livvie in his life. But if he hadn’t, who the hell was Mimi?

He must have spoken out loud, because Livvie flinched.

“You remember her, then?” she asked.

He stared at her, stunned. “You’re not surprised.”

She never looked away. “When your fever was high, you kept calling out to her.”

“But that’s absurd. I don’t know anybody named Mimi.”

With breasts that should have odes written to them. With a gamine smile that embraced the universe. He was getting hard again just remembering. What the hell was wrong with him?

“I think you do know her,” Livvie said, and sat in the chair by the bed. “Can you tell me about the memory?”

It was then that Jack realized how tightly her hands were clasped. “No.” He rubbed again at his forehead, as if it could erase the pictures. “It’s not possible. I would never… never…”

And yet he felt guilty and ashamed. And wished like hell he could reclaim that laughing young face.

But he was not about to discuss that with Livvie.

As if she’d heard him again, Livvie sighed. “You and I had been having some problems,” she said, her voice flat. She looked away. “You’ve been… away for a while.”

“How long?”

She shrugged again without looking at him. “A while.”

He could read the rest in her posture.
Long enough to take up with Mimi, whoever she was.

“What do you remember of the battle?” Livvie asked, a curious stillness to her face, which made him feel even worse.

He remembered that he’d worn a French uniform and heard the boom of cannons, the stutter of a thousand muskets. Horses.

“Guns,” he said, unable to tell the truth. “Big guns. Did I join the Hussars?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean? You must know. I’m here, aren’t I? How did I get here?”

“Chambers found you and brought you to us.”

He braced himself. “Well, what uniform was I wearing?”

For a second, she said nothing. Then she shrugged. “When you got to us? Life Guards.”

“Life Guards? Don’t be ridiculous. I never would have joined the Life Guards. If I finally convinced my father to let me join, it would have been the Hussars.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Jack.”

“And you haven’t
asked
? Someone has to know. My commander. My friends. Find Drake or Lidge. Hell, ask Gervaise.”

“We’ve been told it’s safer for you to remember yourself.”

He opened his mouth and closed it again. Dear God. She couldn’t tell him whether or not he’d…

He couldn’t even think it. He saw himself again, smiling as he adjusted those damning red cuffs. Setting his shako on his head and whistling as he left Mimi’s atelier.

He closed his eyes against the shaft of white-hot pain that pierced his temple and knew that he had to change directions.

“Chambers,” he said, opening his eyes. “Ask him. Come to think of it, where the hell is he?”

She shrugged. “He left right away. He, uh, doesn’t valet for you anymore.”

Jack felt another linchpin in his life slip free. “Why?”

She shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know that either.”

Suddenly he was furious. With Livvie. With himself. With whatever fate had landed him in this bed with a head that didn’t work.

He wanted answers. He wanted to be absolved of treason, and he didn’t know how.

“Tell me about the battle,” he said. “You can do that, can’t you?”

She nodded. Settling back a bit into her chair, she told him of a field now called Waterloo. She talked of valor and carnage and the piles of dead, mown down like flowers in a storm. She mentioned Wellington and Uxbridge and Blucher, Napoleon and Ney and somebody named Grouchy, as if Jack should recognize it all.

Please, God, tell him he hadn’t participated in such carnage. Tell him he hadn’t turned against everything he believed in. Let there be another explanation.

He found himself reaching for Livvie’s hand; suddenly, desperate in a way he’d never known just for the comfort of her touch. He held back. He had no right to her comfort. Not yet. Not until he knew for certain.

He looked down on her bowed head and thought how the sunlight set her hair afire, how she hummed as she became aroused. How free and open her smiles were.
Had
been.

What had he done to her? What had he done to himself ?

“How?” he asked, and Livvie looked up. “How do I get my memory back?”

She seemed to search his eyes for something. “Grace is going to speak to a doctor tomorrow. We need to wait until she does before we try anything. You’ve been very ill, Jack. We can’t take any chances.”

If she only knew.

“My family,” he said, clutching at anything familiar. “Do they know?”

“Not yet.”

Absently he nodded. There was no way he could have betrayed his family. His name. His parents were far too proud and his older sisters a right pain. But how could he hurt young Ned and Georgie? He was their hero. Their teacher. And Maddie and Maude, poised on the brink of adulthood. He would ruin them all.

“Jack?” Livvie suddenly sounded so hesitant.

He shook his head. “Does your friend Grace have anything for a headache?”

In an instant, Livvie was on her feet, resting the back of her hand against his temple. That simple touch seared him, stealing his breath and obliterating Mimi’s face. He almost shoved Livvie’s hand away.

“No temperature,” she said. “But a headache can be a warning of brain fever. You mustn’t fret so, Jack. You’ll remember.”

He looked up to see a vast uncertainty in her eyes. What was it she was afraid of? What memory? Could it be a French uniform? Or something worse? Could he bear to lose her regard if it was?

He should gather his courage and just ask.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t bear being unworthy of her.

“Why are you here?” he asked instead. “I don’t think I’ve been very good to you lately.”

She lifted a hand, as if she meant to touch him. But just as he had done, she let it fall. “What else could Ido?”

“I’m sorry, Liv.”

Her head snapped up and she glared. “Don’t, Jack. Don’t apologize until you know what it’s for.”

“I think I should get it done before I know how bad it is.”

Her expression stiff and unrevealing, she got to her feet. “I think I should get your headache powder now.”

All he could do in response was nod. “I think you should.”

Olivia walked out without looking back, and he felt her dismissal in his chest. What was it he had lost back in the darker reaches of his mind? Something to do with the two of them, something crucial.

Could they really have bungled their marriage so badly? Was there someone who could tell him how? All he knew was that he’d been disporting himself with Mimi as if he had no one waiting for him back home. And how could that be?

He was still thinking about it twenty minutes later when Livvie stepped back into the room carrying a glass of liquid. Her back was straight and her expression calm, as if she hadn’t just heard him speak of his mistress. She was brave, his Livvie. She had the strength of a soldier. And she carried the injuries he’d inflicted on her like battle wounds.

She was wrong. He could apologize before he knew exactly what injury he’d caused her. The problem was, she wouldn’t accept it. So he took the glass and drank his medicine and allowed her to help him lie back down and rest, all the while knowing that he wouldn’t rest at all. Not until he knew for certain what had brought him to this house in Belgium.

For the first time in weeks, Grace Fairchild allowed herself to enjoy a leisurely stroll through the Parc. It had taken another day, but she’d finally tracked down Dr. Hume to speak with him about the earl. She knew she should get the physician’s advice back to Olivia, but the wait wouldn’t make the news any better. Besides, she needed a moment to herself.

She was bone weary. There was still so much to do for the wounded, and she knew she had yet to face her future without her father. But for these few minutes, she needed to lift her face to the sun.

The day was warm, and the sky a perfect azure. A light breeze ruffled the trees. The smell of death had faded, replaced by the faint whiff of roses from the Parc Royale. It had been so long since she’d been able to enjoy this lovely city with its winding cobbled streets and soaring Gothic churches. She loved the tall, gable-topped houses and the quaint old shops. She wished her leg was feeling well enough to climb the bell tower of St. Gudula’s so she could look out on the jumbled red-tiled roofs of the medieval city. She wished she could simply wander the narrow streets and sit in one of the coffeehouses. But she knew that would have to wait.