The Sergeant's Lady (21 page)

“But sailing for England—I got so seasick the last time.”

“Wait in Lisbon for a month or two. I’m certain Mama would be delighted to have you. If you’re like most women, all the strangeness and nausea will fade by then, and you’ll feel well until you’re too big to move properly. Sail in the autumn, and I believe you’ll do well.”

“Very well,” Anna replied, her mind whirling.

Helen considered her again, a speculative gleam in her eye. “Normally, I’d say you’d be confined in March, but don’t be surprised if it’s April or even early May. Babies follow their own calendars, and none are more unaccountable than first babies.”

Anna blinked at her. Did Helen guess the truth? Suddenly Anna wished she had been more creative in her explanation of Montmorency’s threats.

Helen blinked back, her blue eyes wide and guileless, her shrewd expression wiped away. “For now you must eat,” she said. “Dreadful as it sounds, if you can keep something down, you’ll feel the better for it.”

“I’ll try. But Helen, please take the coffee away. The smell is bad enough. I know I cannot drink it.”

Helen smiled ruefully. “And here I meant to hearten you up.”

“I’m sorry. It was wonderfully thoughtful of you.”

“When I was carrying Nell, I couldn’t bear tea, of all things. I’ll drink this myself, and enjoy every sip. Now, try to eat, and I’ll see what else I can find for you to drink.”

Helen squeezed her hand and left, sipping from the offending beverage as she walked. As soon as the coffee aroma had dissipated, Anna broke off a corner of the pastry, put it in her mouth and chewed slowly. When she managed to swallow successfully, she ventured another careful bite.

She was so stunned by the events of the night and the morning to be almost beyond thought and emotion. She grieved what had happened to Lieutenant Montmorency—she wasn’t a murderer, she
wasn’t
—and wished she knew what she or Will had done to draw his suspicion. If only she could turn back time and avoid that carelessness. She knew it had been risky to continue their affair, but she couldn’t wish it all undone. Not any of her time with Will, not the baby.

Helen returned, an earthenware mug in hand. “Can you bear goat’s milk?”

Anna considered and found to her surprise that she could.

They were still sitting together, Anna doggedly working through her breakfast, when Alec hurried in.

“There you are!” he exclaimed. “I thought you’d be ready by now. The troopers are mounted, and I want you to be well away before the Ninety-Fifth rouses the whole camp over him.”

Helen opened her mouth but Anna caught her eye and shook her head. She didn’t want Alec to know yet—Helen’s solicitous care and speculative looks were as much as she could bear.

“I’m ready now,” she said, steeling herself to finish the milk in a single gulp.

They followed Alec to the village square, where Lieutenant Morse, entrusted with whatever dispatches Alec had been able to find or manufacture, waited with a dozen troopers. Two horses, Dulcinea and a pretty chestnut that had once been Mrs. Kent’s, stood waiting in sidesaddles, along with a small string of remounts.

Surely none of this was real, and she would awaken soon to the telltale ache of the onset of her courses, with her pistol lying where she had left it, unfired.

“Come, Anna.” Alec waited at Dulcinea’s shoulder. When she reached him, she noticed a pistol holstered in the saddle, not hers, but one of English make.

He followed her gaze. “I gave you one of mine,” he said casually. “It fires truer than that French piece of yours.”

“Thank you, cousin.” She was grateful for his sensitivity—she didn’t want
her
pistol now, but she knew Alec wouldn’t allow anyone to travel unarmed with so small a party.

“I’ll miss you, lass,” he said gruffly. “Take care of yourself, and give all the family our greetings.”

“I shall.” How many years would pass before she saw Alec again? “Keep safe, cousin.”

“I’ll do my best.”

He boosted her into the saddle. As they cantered out of the village, Anna looked back at him to wave. They passed the Rifles’ camp as they rode onto the main road, but she dared not allow her eyes to linger there.

Within minutes the camp was behind them, and Anna began to accept that she would not awaken from this nightmare.

The company was almost ready to march when Captain Matheson called Will aside.

“Have you seen Lieutenant Montmorency this morning, Sergeant?”

“No, sir.”

The captain sighed. “No one has, but his tent is still there, with his gear strewn about as if he got up in the night and never returned.”

“Would you like me to send a few discreet men to the taverns to look for him, sir?”

“Please do.” He sighed again and raked a hand through his thinning blond hair. “I hope that’s all it is, and he’s just too drunk or caught up with some woman to notice the time.”

“What else could it be?” Aside from outright desertion, those were the usual reasons for a man of any rank to be missing. But Captain Matheson looked worried.

“Nothing, I hope. And yet—Montmorency has looked miserable of late.”

Will nodded. “I’ve noticed. Almost as if something is chasing him.”

“Exactly. I tried to get him to confide in me, but he wouldn’t. I can’t help fearing—he reminds me of a man I knew—in short, I’m afraid he may have committed a desperate act.”

Will stared. “Suicide, sir?”

“I hope not. He has a mother and four sisters back in England.”

“If he did, that’s the cruelest thing he could’ve done to them.”

“Which is why all we’ll do is search those taverns. If he did kill himself, I’d rather
not
find the body, for his family’s sake. If he doesn’t turn up in a few days, I’ll write to his mother and hint of bandits and wild beasts.”

Will sighed. He supposed he ought to feel something stronger than exasperation, but he couldn’t manage it. Montmorency had been trouble since the day he joined the regiment. “That seems the kindest way, sir.”

“I’m glad you agree. We’ll hope we’re worried over nothing.”

“Yes, sir.”

After sending three trustworthy riflemen to search for Lieutenant Montmorency and any other stragglers they might happen across, Will returned to the business of breaking camp.

When they were about to march, Juana hurried up to him and handed him a letter fastened with a wax seal. It was heavy for its size, and he felt a flat oval lump at one end.

“What’s this?” he asked.

Juana raised an eyebrow. “Mrs. Arrington’s maid brought it to me and said her mistress asked that I give it to you. She
writes
to you now?”

“She never has before.” His amazement was not feigned. What had driven Anna to such a risky pass? He wanted to tear the letter open on the spot, but his curiosity—his anxiety—must wait. He couldn’t read it now, in public and on duty.

“But you cannot claim that nothing has happened between you if she is writing you. Have you been meeting her all this time?”

“Believe whatever you wish, but surely you understand that I cannot talk of it!” His vehemence took him by surprise, and he glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention.

Juana softened. “Poor Will. You never do anything the easy way. Not even falling in love.”

He snorted. “There’s an easy way to fall in love?”

“Of course not. But most of us do not
try
to find the most impossible person.”

He sighed, unable to deny her words. “Thank you, Juana.” He carefully tucked the letter into his haversack to read later.

She laid a hand on his arm. “If you change your mind about talking, I promise to keep your secrets and not mock.”

He covered her hand with his own. “I’ll remember.”

***

Will didn’t get a chance to read the letter until they halted late in the afternoon. As soon as he was sure the company was in good order, he slipped away, sat on a flat rock on the outskirts of camp and took out the letter.

When he broke open the seal, a heavy golden locket, engraved with a thistle design, fell out. He undid the catch and opened it to reveal a portrait of Anna wearing a white dress with a blue-and-gold tartan sash, her hair, shorter than it was now, falling in ringlets to frame her face. It was a good likeness. The artist had captured her mischievous smile and the lively intelligence and unusual clarity of her green eyes, while resisting the urge to flatter her with a daintier nose or softer features than those with which nature had endowed her. Will could have gazed at the miniature until the sun set and the light faded, but instead he closed the locket and clasped it in his left hand, holding it close to his heart as he unfolded the letter.

He had never seen Anna’s handwriting before. It was just as he would’ve expected, a lady’s hand, elegant and precise without being delicate or hesitant. He smoothed the page and began to read.

It was signed, simply,
Anna.

Will wept silently, hastily folding the letter and tucking it into his jacket lest his tears spoil it. When it came to the point, she had been the strong one, with the courage to remind them both where their duties lay.

If only he had a way to tell her how much he loved her, how much he esteemed her for her honor and courage, and had from the day she stepped into that clearing to help Juana. But the only message he could send was one of silence, by keeping her miniature. Of course he would keep it—how could she doubt that?

When his eyes were dry he opened the locket again. On closer examination, it wasn’t quite
his
Anna—the face in the portrait still had a girlish softness, and that clever, mischievous expression was also innocent and filled with all the hopeful enthusiasm of happy youth. No, this wasn’t the woman he loved. But it was the girl destined to become her, and from that day forward it would be his greatest treasure.

The locket had a loop to thread through a chain or fasten to a watch fob. Will owned neither, but he would find some way to wear it near his heart. He would remember, and love, always.

6 April 1812
Badajoz, Spain

Dan was dead and Will was in hell. Again and again the Light Division had stormed the same damned breach, only to be flung back by the French defenders on the city walls. Will had lost count of the number of times they had tried to fight their way in. But he would always remember Dan tumbling off the ramp of debris and bodies into the gory ditch, felled by a musket ball to his forehead. For a moment the world had stood still around Will but duty and instinct had taken over, so he had pushed forward and driven his men along until they were forced to retreat. Again.

A bad business, this battle, the worst he had ever seen. And now Dan was gone. Will wanted to grieve, wanted to worry over what would become of Juana and Anita, but that must wait for the morning. If he lived to see it. Now he gathered the remnants of his company. It was his duty, and there was no one else left. Captain Matheson lived, but he’d been sent to the rear early on, too dazed by a blow to the head to continue. Lieutenant Danvers had fallen, and Will couldn’t find Lieutenant Garvey. He must be dead, too, or worse, injured. Better a quick death than to lie alive in the growing pile of bodies, surrounded by the dead and trampled with each fresh attempt upon the breach.

Will shivered in the raw air, but the locket with Anna’s portrait was warm against his skin. He’d worn it on a cord around his neck since the day she’d given it to him. He hoped that if he died they would bury him before the plunderers got to him so he could carry his secret into the grave.

He wondered where Anna was on this night. To think of her safe and happy in Scotland made this hell of musketry and cannon and the groans and screams of the wounded a little more bearable. He imagined her laughing with her cousins or sleeping peacefully in a warm soft bed. Selfish though it was, he hoped he haunted her dreams as she did his, and that she missed him in her bed just as every time he awakened in the night in his cold bedroll he wished he could creep through the darkness to the sanctuary of her arms.

He closed his eyes and allowed himself one more moment to think of Anna, of love and beauty, before plunging back into hell.

***

Orchard Park, Gloucestershire, England

Three days now. Three days of racking, searing pains, trying to birth a baby who’d refused to turn properly. The accoucheur had pushed and tugged at Anna’s belly, trying to force the child to move. At the suggestion of a neighbor who’d borne six children, Anna had even spent hours propped on pillows with her head down and her posterior in the air. But nothing had worked, and she had gone into labor with her baby still stubbornly breech.

She had tried so hard. But it wasn’t working. She could feel herself weakening. She had to tell Lucy before it was too late.

She fumbled for her sister-in-law’s hand. “Lucy?”

“Yes, dearest?”

Lucy wouldn’t speak so affectionately once Anna had made her confession. Sebastian had been her cousin. But if Anna must die, she wanted someone to know the truth. If the baby lived—well, the child would look nothing like Sebastian. Her brother and his wife would be the ones who raised him. Better that they know than merely wonder and suspect.

“Send them out. I must speak to you.”

Lucy looked doubtfully at the accoucheur and nurse. “Are you certain?”

“Please.”

Her brows drawn together in a troubled frown, Lucy waved them out.

When they were alone, Lucy turned to her expectantly, but Anna curled in on herself. “Oh, God. Another one.”

Lucy handed her the rolled-up sheet tied to the bedpost she’d been clutching through the contractions, and Anna pulled hard as the pain seized her in its relentless grip. Lucy smoothed her hair. “Breathe, Anna. Don’t fight so. Let it happen.”

Anna tried, but the pain overwhelmed her. When it ended she sagged into the mattress, clutching her pillow with one hand.

“You’re still doing well,” Lucy said.

Anna didn’t believe her. “Promise me.”

“What must I promise you?”

“Promise me that if I die, and there’s any chance that the baby lives, you’ll make them cut it out.”

Lucy’s eyes went round. “Don’t talk so! You will not die.”

“Promise!” This couldn’t all be for nothing. Her baby, Will’s baby, must live.

“I promise.” Lucy swallowed. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

“No.” She took a deep breath. She must get this out before the next contraction. “You’ll take care of the baby if I die, so you should know. It isn’t Sebastian’s.”

Lucy gasped and stepped back.

“It’s not like that! It was after—” But she could get no further before the next wave of pain struck.

After just an instant’s hesitation, Lucy returned to her side.

When it passed, Lucy coughed. “Was it…when you were captured by the French?”

Anna shook her head. “No. Not rape. I love him so very much.”

“Who? Why?” Lucy shook her head. “Never mind. You can explain after you recover.”

“If I die—”

“You won’t die!”

“I wanted you to know, so that when the baby doesn’t look like Sebastian—” Another contraction.

“Anna, you must save your strength. Of course we would take care of your baby, just like one of our own, but it won’t be necessary, because you will
live
.”

Anna groped for Lucy’s hand again. “Tell the baby I loved him. Tell him his father was a good man—the best, the bravest—and he would’ve loved him, too. Tell him—”

“Anna, you will not die!” Lucy’s voice had a shrill edge.

Anna shook her head. Three days, and her strength was draining away. Lucy didn’t understand.

***

Will gathered twenty men from his company, along with a few other stray riflemen. He found Cockburn, Second Company’s bugler, who could sound the advance over the roaring din of explosions and musketry. Time to try again.

“Sergeant! Rifles! Cooeee!”

At the shout, Will and his band of followers looked to the right and spotted some thirty men of the Fifty-Second, another of the Light Division’s regiments, commanded by a captain and a lieutenant. Will led his men toward them.

“What say we join forces?” the captain, a stout, red-faced man, bellowed over the noise.

“Yes, sir,” Will said. “The more the merrier.”

“I’m Herrick.” He pointed at his companion. “He’s Stokes.”

Lieutenant Stokes eyed his captain as though he were mad, but acknowledged Will with a curt nod.

“Come, Stokes,” Captain Herrick continued. “If we’re to die together, we may as well be properly introduced.”

Will grinned. “I’m Atkins.”

“Well then, Sergeant Atkins, shall we make a charge?
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more?”

He recognized the quotation.
Henry V. “Or close up the wall with our English dead.”

Captain Herrick clapped him on the back. “Did you hear that, Stokes?
He
recognizes the Bard when he hears him. Maybe we’ll make a lieutenant of
him
.”

Another morose look from Stokes. “He’s welcome to it, so long as I make captain.”

“Ample vacancies in all ranks, come the morrow,” the captain shouted cheerfully.

Will thought Lieutenant Stokes rather hoped Captain Herrick’s place would be among the vacant ones.

“Well, Sergeant,” the captain continued, “shall we blow the blast of war and imitate the action of the tiger?”

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Will thought. “You heard the man, Cockburn,” he told the bugler. “Sound the advance.”

Together the remnant companies mounted the breach, Will and the officers in the lead, they with upraised swords, he with bayonet fixed and rifle held before him. It was rough going, stumbling in the rubble, treading on the horrible yielding softness of fallen bodies, but they pressed on.

Captain Herrick fell first from a musket ball to his throat. As he tumbled aside, he nearly knocked Lieutenant Stokes into the flooded ditch below, but Will reached out and caught the junior officer by the elbow just in time. Both men stumbled to hands and knees. Something sharp grazed Will’s right shoulder, but he ignored it.

The lieutenant got to his feet and extended a hand to help Will. “Thanks,” he mouthed, a manic sparkle in his eyes. Then, with upraised sword, “Forward, Fifty-Second!”

Will added his own shout. “Rifles, to me!”

Almost there. Will searched for a gap in the wall of blades, fired his single shot at a French lieutenant and saw him fall, and prepared to fight his way through with bayonet and brute force.

A musket ball struck his forearm and pain seared through him. He fell back, struck his head upon a stone and knew no more.

***

Lucy tried not to look at the blood. She shouldn’t feel so very queasy. She was a grown woman with two children of her own; she had seen her share of blood. But there was so much, the warm, coppery smell heavy in the air. How could anyone bleed so and yet live?

Anna was alive, for now. She was unconscious, her skin held a deathly pallor, and her breathing was terrifyingly shallow. But she clung to life, and the accoucheur had managed to staunch the bleeding.

The baby’s cries echoed around the room and rang in Lucy’s ears. It was a strong child. It had commenced its indignant wailing practically the instant its head finally emerged and had not ceased for an instant as the nurse washed and swaddled it. Not “it,” Lucy corrected herself, but “he.” Anna’s baby was a boy, a fine, vigorous child whose prospects seemed much better than his mother’s.

Lucy stared at Anna’s pale face and murmured a prayer. Anna must not die now, so troubled and bereft. Lucy willed her to recover and prayed that she be given the chance to atone, if need be, and find peace and happiness.

As she rested a hand on Anna’s clammy forehead in benediction, Lucy looked up and met her husband’s anguished eyes. James had burst into the room just after the baby was born, drawn by the clamor of an obvious crisis, and he’d watched in mute horror from the doorway as his sister almost died before his eyes. Now he had crept nearer, but he should not be there. It wasn’t proper, and besides, women were stronger than men at times like these.

“James, we’re in the way,” she said. “We should leave and let them do their work.”

“Her ladyship is right, my lord.” Mr. Hayden, the accoucheur, was deferential yet firm.

“Shall we take the baby with us?” she asked. “He sounds strong enough to go to the nursery.”

“He is that, my lady,” the nurse agreed.

“An excellent notion, Lady Selsley.” Mr. Hayden nodded. “The quiet will do Mrs. Arrington good.”

Lucy couldn’t see how, for Anna was far beyond hearing her son’s wails. But Mr. Hayden and the nurse could care better for her without the distraction, and she and the nursery maids could supply all his needs.

“Come, James,” she said.

Bending forward, he kissed his sister’s still brow. “Don’t you dare die,” he whispered.

Lucy led him from the room, collecting the baby along the way. She bounced him gently and crooned the Welsh lullaby her father had once sung to her, and he began to grow calmer. Rather than take him to the nursery, she carried him to the room she and James shared.

“Shouldn’t we take him to the nursery?” James asked.

Lucy settled herself in a chair near their bed. “Not yet.” The baby, quiet now, stared solemnly up at her. “There’s something I must tell you,” she continued. “Can you light a few more candles?”

“What is it?” James fumbled in the semidarkness for more candles and lit them from the single taper burning on her dressing-table.

“This isn’t Sebastian’s baby,” she said, lowering her voice as if the very walls might overhear.

“The devil!” James knelt before her and peered at the infant’s face.

For the most part, the baby simply appeared new—red-faced, with unformed features. His thick black hair was a Gordon trait, one that James and Lucy’s two daughters shared. But this baby was unfamiliar in a way that Lucy couldn’t define—was it the forehead, or perhaps the eyebrows? She guessed that he would grow to have the look of his unknown father.

“It isn’t his appearance,” she said, “though he certainly doesn’t resemble Sebastian. Anna told me. She wanted us to know, in case she died.”

The young interloper turned his head toward her bosom, rooting hopefully. Lucy was too much of a mother to resist that wordless plea, so she unbuttoned her bodice. She had more than enough milk; her four-month-old, Lilias, would not go hungry if she fed Anna’s son now. They would be obliged to make other arrangements if—but Lucy wouldn’t allow herself to complete the thought.

“I cannot understand it.” She smoothed the baby’s hair as he latched on and sucked greedily. “I know Anna was unhappy with Sebastian, and of course the manner of his death doesn’t bear speaking of, but I cannot imagine going to another man so
soon
.” Truly, she could not imagine
ever
wanting anyone else if James died.

“I know. But you know what Sebastian was.”

Lucy did indeed. Her cousin had shown himself more than willing to use
her
for his own selfish ends before he met Anna. If only she had been quicker to trust James when they first married, she would have told him how Sebastian had almost forced her to marry him when he was threatened by a scandal involving his mistress. Armed with that knowledge, James would have prevented Anna’s marriage. But Lucy had been bewildered by her new husband’s character, and she had still felt loyal to the family who had brought her up.

In three years of happy marriage, Lucy had never quite shaken her guilt over her part in Anna’s unhappiness, though James had forgiven her long ago. So as Lucy fed Anna’s son, she decided that she had no right to condemn Anna.

“I do know what Sebastian was,” she said at last. “And I suppose everything must be very different with the army, too, surrounded by so much danger and death.”

“She’s my sister.” James stroked one of the baby’s small, wrinkled hands. “And this is my nephew. I could never cast them out.”

“I promised her we’d care for her child just as if he were ours.” She blinked back tears. “She was so certain she would die.”