The Officer and the Proper Lady

by Louise Allen

  ‘Yes?’ She stared back, then realized. ‘Oh, yes. You get dressed, I’ll just go and do something outside.’ Honestly, the pair of them will have had their clothes off in front of more women than I have had hot dinners and yet Hal won’t risk me catching sight of an inch of flesh! ‘We need to pack up, George.’

  Julia spread straw and then hay, then threw over blankets until the floor of the old farm cart was as soft and cushioned as she could make it, then busied herself collecting up their things while Will Grey and George brought Hal out on a make shift stretcher. She didn’t think he was going to enjoy that and he would probably swear more com fort ably if she wasn’t in sight. As it was, her vocabulary was considerably enriched. He must be feeling better, she thought, smiling. Yesterday he hardly had the strength to curse.

  The scene, as their little procession made its way out to what had been the main road from Brussels to Charleroi, was in some ways more orderly, and in others, more shocking, than it had been on the day after the battle.

  Broken-down carts, dead horses, splintered trees had all been dragged to the side so that traffic could lurch up and down the deeply rutted road. Every where she looked, there were freshly turned heaps of earth, some of them scarcely covering the bodies that lay beneath. In the distance, great fires burned, giving off oily smoke; Julia could only be thankful the light breeze took the smell of it away from them. The stagnant pools of foul liquid by the roadside were bad enough.

  Will Grey drove the cart, George and Julia followed in the gig and Max walked beside the cart with no need to hitch his reins to it. From time to time he poked his big head over the side and blew slobbery breaths at Hal, who only laughed and rubbed the hairy nose pushing anxiously at his cheek.

  Julia lost track of time as they moved slowly on, having to turn off the road into the trees from time to time to avoid a deeply mired stretch or to allow faster-moving vehicles through. They were still finding men alive, Julia saw, thankful that those hideous, greedy pyres were not taking everything.

  The clocks were striking four when they finally turned into the court yard in Place de Leuvan. Hal’s eyes had been closed for miles and Will had kept turning in his seat to check on him. But as they came to a halt in the shadowed yard, he woke and took a deep breath.

  ‘Coffee, wood smoke, food cooking and nothing, thank God, rotting,’ he said. ‘Julia—’

  ‘Julia! You wicked, wicked child!’ Mrs Tresilian almost tumbled out of the kitchen door, her cap awry, her face flushed. ‘Madame has told me what you have been doing! You’re ruined, ruined…’

  ‘Mrs Tresilian.’ Hal’s voice cut through her words with their rising note of hysteria. ‘We have not been introduced. I am Hal Carlow, second son of the Earl of Narborough.’ Julia saw her mother go very still at the magic word, Earl. ‘Miss Tresilian has done me the honour to accept my proposal of marriage. I trust you have no objection.’

  For a moment Hal thought Mrs Tresilian had fainted. His future mother in law’s face simply vanished. Then he realized she had sat down on the step and burst into tears. Julia scram bled from the gig, sent him a rueful smile and ran to calm her mother.

  ‘Mama, it is quite all right, I am safe. Are you and Phillip all right? We must go in; Major Carlow is wounded and we have to get him to bed right away.’

  ‘Where?’ Mrs Tresilian demanded, rising into sight again, a handkerchief clutched in her hand. ‘Oh my goodness, of all the things…’

  ‘In my bedroom, Mama,’ Julia said firmly. ‘And I will sleep with you. Captain Grey, I will make up the bed, if you and George can bring Major Carlow in a few moments. The first floor—Madame will show you the way. Come, Mama.’

  In the silence that followed their disappearance, Will began to let down the sides of the cart. ‘Masterly,’ he observed. ‘By the time Miss Tresilian has waved the smelling salts about and repeated your father’s title a few more times, her mother is going to be killing the fatted calf for you.’

  A voice from somewhere at the foot of the cart piped up, ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No,’ Hal retorted. ‘I’m not, young Phillip. Just a bit battered.’

  ‘Oh, good. Did you kill any French with your sabre? Has it got blood on it?’

  ‘Yes and no, and will you take Max into the stable for me? I’ve got to go upstairs and I need George to help me.’ Will raised startled eyebrows, but Hal added, ‘Go, Max. Friend,’ and the horse turned and plodded away. ‘The boy’s been up on him, Max will remember his scent,’ he reassured Will who had been on the receiving end of Max’s teeth before now. ‘And I don’t want to give him a vocabulary of military oaths or his mother will add that to the list of sins my pa rent age has to counterbalance.’

  Getting upstairs tried both the other men’s ingenuity and strength and his own endurance. Hal felt decidedly wan by the time they staggered through the door into a simple bed chamber with sprigged wall pa per and a narrow white bed next to the window. His bearers laid him down onto the clean, yielding softness, and he realized that his nostrils were full of the scent of Julia. The sensation of coming home to somewhere familiar and safe washed through him, leaving him calm and strangely light headed, as though he were floating.

  Perhaps marriage would be like this, he thought vaguely.

  ‘He must be exhausted,’ he heard Julia murmur, and a cool hand stroked the hair back from his forehead. ‘Try and sleep, Hal.’ The hand stroked down to his cheek, and eyes closed, he turned his face into it and sighed as sound and sensation slipped away, leaving only the hazy awareness of her presence as he slept.

  ‘Mama, please do not fuss. I really do not need a chaperone in my fiancé’s bed chamber, especially when he is this weak.’ That was Julia, Hal realized, surfacing slowly from sleep, wondering what the faint agitated clucking sound was. There had been no chickens in the hovel.

  ‘Oh I suppose not. But it all seems so sudden, dear.’ Oh yes, Mrs Tresilian, and this was Julia’s bedroom and he was in her bed—alone unfortunately. ‘He is such a…a physical looking young man,’ Mrs Tresilian continued.

  Hal converted a laugh into a cough and opened his eyes to find both women regarding him. His future mother in law had the expression of someone finding an exotic, and probably dangerous, animal in the room; Julia was pink in the cheeks and appeared to be suppressing a smile. Mothers in law were an aspect of marriage he had not considered.

  ‘Good morning. How are you feeling?’ Julia enquired, obviously intent on ignoring her mother’s embarrassing observation. ‘Shall I send George up with your break fast?’

  ‘Thank you, yes. I feel much better. Good morning, Mrs Tresilian. Perhaps, ma’am, it would be possible for us to discuss the situation a little later?’ It seemed he had slept for more than twelve hours and he was, provided he did not try and move, feeling a sight better for it.

  ‘Oh dear; I mean, yes, of course.’

  ‘Captain Grey has called and he will bring the doctor later this morning,’ Julia said, calmly ushering her mother out of the room. ‘We can talk this afternoon, after luncheon.’

  So, he had found himself a managing wife, had he? Hal gritted his teeth while George got him sitting up, then found that Julia had sent up a vast break fast. A wife who did not believe in gruel for invalids, thank goodness. He had, he realized, committed himself to a wife who was infinitely better than he deserved. But what she had done to deserve him, other than be open-hearted, brave and generous, he could not imagine.

  ‘It would appear from what Dr Gregson says that I am going to live, with all my limbs attached,’ Hal said calmly. ‘I have, beside my career as an officer, a small estate in Buckinghamshire which is in good heart and which brings me sufficient to maintain a wife and family in comfort. I can establish you, ma’am, in the country or in town, which ever is more agreeable to you. I will, of course, under take Phillip’s education.’

  He paused, and Julia decided he would probably show as much emotion briefing fellow officers before an engagement. The effect it was hav
ing on her mother was, however, miraculous. She was positively beaming. No, she could not have refused Hal’s offer—his order—to marry her. Whatever her scruples and the second thoughts she’d been having for the past day, her reputation, Hal’s own sense of honour and her family’s needs must over-ride them.

  ‘As to the ceremony, I would propose the English church in a week’s time.’

  ‘Hal! You cannot possibly be fit by then,’ Julia broke in, unable to maintain her pose of meek attentiveness any longer.

  ‘I will be well enough to stand up for half an hour,’ he countered. ‘As you know, my colonel called just after the doctor. I am ordered home to re cu per ate and I would suggest the sooner we sail after the ceremony, the better. I regret that I will need to trouble you, Julia, to write the necessary letters to arrange that.’

  ‘Oh my goodness.’ Her mother, it seemed, was only thinking about the ceremony. ‘There is so much to do! I will begin making lists at once. Your trousseau, my dear!’

  ‘I will give you a draft on my bank,’ Hal added, sending Mrs Tresilian almost running from the room to start work, without a thought to her un chaperoned daughter left behind in the bedroom.

  Julia told herself that her mother’s state of flustered happiness should make her happy too, but inside her stomach was a cold knot of misery. Hal, no longer the informal, friendly man he had been in the hovel, was approaching their marriage with a cool efficiency that frightened her.

  ‘What is wrong?’ He was sitting up against the piled pillows. To her critical eyes, he looked too fine-drawn and pale. Perhaps it was just the strength of the afternoon light flooding in through the window. She got up and went to sit in the chair by his bedside, trying to calm herself with the doctor’s reassuring words.

  ‘Wrong?’ She made rather a business of smoothing down her skirts. He had never made any pretext of loving her, it was unfair to feel resentful that he was treating their coming union as anything but an arranged marriage. ‘Nothing, really. It is just that I am concerned that you are overdoing things. It is only four days since you were wounded. We are comfortable here; your friends can visit you. I am sure that however eager they are to see you, your family would rather you waited until you were stronger.’

  ‘And I am rushing you into marriage,’ he said dryly. ‘You are missing the opportunity for planning and shopping and looking forward to a wonderful day with all your friends.’

  ‘I do not care about that.’ Indignant, Julia looked up and met Hal’s frowning gaze. ‘But it is too soon.’

  ‘Are you frightened?’

  ‘Frightened?’ She frowned back. What on earth had she to be frightened of now Hal was out of danger? ‘Of Hebden, you mean? No. Perhaps I should be, but it doesn’t seem quite real—a feud and vengeance. And I should be frightened of meeting your family, but I know I will like them.’

  ‘Of me,’ he said, holding her gaze until she realized what he meant. The blush seemed to rise from her toes.

  ‘No!’ He wouldn’t release her, however much she wanted to look away. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You are very innocent, Julia.’

  ‘Not that innocent,’ she pro tested. ‘I know what…happens. I cannot pretend it does not sound strange, but I am sure I will soon become accustomed.’ And the sooner, the better, she acknowledged, shocking herself. She wanted the wedding delayed for Hal’s sake, but she wanted it quickly, for her own.

  Making love did, indeed, seem a very peculiar business, but her body was sending her quite clear messages that it under stood more about it than she did. The proximity of Hal, the haunting memory of his naked form, the vivid impression of that kiss, the very fact that they were in a bedroom alone together, all produced that strange, restless sensation and an almost irresistible need to touch him.

  This marriage was going to be difficult enough, but perhaps if they could achieve an understanding through intimacy, that would help with everything else.

  ‘I hope so,’ he said, turning his head away, restless, on the pillow. ‘I hope that you will find marriage pleasurable.’

  ‘At least you know what you are doing,’ she said, nerves making her blurt out exactly what she was thinking.

  There was a long silence, then he said, with what she could have sworn was irritation in his voice, ‘I do not know what I am doing with virgins.’

  ‘I should hope not,’ Julia said, trying to make a joke of it. Hal did not reply. Tentative, she reached out and touched his forearm, the left, uninjured, one, ‘Hal, I wasn’t frightened before, but you are scaring me now.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Her confession brought Hal’s head round and he smiled, a rather rueful twist of his lips. Julia let out a breath as he moved his hand to catch hers. ‘Come here then, and let me see if I can soothe your nerves.’

  ‘I rather doubt that would be the result,’ she murmured, moving to perch cautiously on the edge of the bed.

  ‘You are going to have to do all the work,’ he pointed out and the cold knot inside her began to melt at the sight of the old, familiar laughter in his eyes.

  ‘Very well.’ Cautiously, she placed her right hand on the pillow by his shoulder and leant down, eyes closed, too shy to watch his eyes change colour from troubled grey to intense blue, as they had when he had kissed her at the ball.

  Julia was very aware of the smell of him, an exciting maleness beneath the overlaying scents of clean skin, soap, a herbal salve. She leaned closer and smelled the coffee on his breath and felt the heat of his body as her breasts touched the thin white cotton of his night shirt.

  And then she found his lips, warm and firm and smiling under hers and she hesitated, unsure what to do next, confused by the difference that being above him made.

  ‘Go on,’ he mouthed silently, and her lips read the words. He had not closed his mouth on that last syllable.

  Dare she? Julia let her mouth press a little more, then, when he did not move, she let the tip of her tongue slide out, between her own lips, between his. She froze, shaken by her own daring, by the intensity of initiating such a simple thing, and then Hal opened to her and his tongue found hers and touched and teased, and his hand came up to cup her shoulder, and it was all she could do not to sink down onto his bandaged chest with the need to be closer, tighter, totally entwined.

  It was too much, and she needed him to guide her. She needed to hold on to him, but she did not dare in case she hurt him. She was alarming herself with what she wanted, needed. And she had no idea what to do, except that his mouth angled under hers as though seeking something. Something she had no idea how to give.

  Hal was not used to virgins and the thought did not seem to make him happy, she had realized that. She must be doing this all wrong. But if she asked him, he would be too kind to tell her.

  Julia sat back, stumbled to her feet, knocked into the chair and backed away, her palm pressed to her lips. Her limbs seemed all over the place, not in her control at all. ‘Oh. Oh, I…’ Hal’s eyes were intense upon her, his body still, as it had been when he had been in such pain and stillness was the only way he could deal with it.

  She felt wanton and confused, excited and ashamed of herself and humiliated by what must be a hopeless lack of natural instincts. Giving up on the struggle to find any words to express what she felt, Julia fled.

  Hal put his right hand on the pew end and tried to take some of the weight off his leg. The resulting pain in his arm and side made him hiss, unable to say just what he felt under the very nose of the English chaplain.

  ‘Here she comes,’ Will said, turning from his scrutiny of the aisle and Hal forgot the pain. ‘The place looks like a hospital ward, there is so much bandaging and so many crutches on display.’

  ‘At least they are here,’ Hal murmured back. ‘We didn’t lose all our friends.’ It was not the thing to turn round and watch the bride coming up the aisle; Will, who was taking his role as groomsman seriously, had told him so. Then there was a murmur, a rustle of silk, and regard
less of instructions, he turned.

  Julia was on the arm of the Baron vander Helvig, a slender figure in pale primrose, her hands full of yellow and white roses and the green filigree of ferns, her face hidden by a fall of cream Brussels lace that had been Lady Geraldine’s bride gift.

  She looked pure and fragile and ex qui site, this girl who had defied her mother and convention, who had braved the horrors of the battlefield to save him. Hal felt like a criminal who had been rewarded for his crimes when he should have been hanged. Somehow, he vowed, he was going to make this up to her, be worthy of her. She faltered as she saw his face, then took the last few steps that brought her to his side and the baron laid her hand in his.

  ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together…’

  How many weddings had he sat through in the past few years? A dozen? The words and the meaning had flowed over his head, even when it had been his brother standing at his side, taking his vows. Shut in parson’s pound, parson’s mouse trap, yoked—all the slang expressions that had summed up how he had felt about marriage, and yet now it felt like a relief, an objective gained. It was very strange.

  He repeated his vows, thinking about them properly for the first time, hearing Julia’s words spoken so steadily, directly to him as though they were alone. Then Will produced the ring, and Hal slipped it on her finger and listened with total concentration as the chaplain pronounced the words that bound him to this woman.

  ‘You may kiss the bride.’

  The last time they had kissed, she had run from him, trembling and distressed. After that he had sent for Will, demanded to be taken to the Hôtel de Flandres where order was gradually being restored and he was able to have his old room back.

  Mrs Tresilian had been relieved to have him at a respectable distance. Julia had been silent, except for an attempt to send George with him. But he had refused. The groom, given a comprehensive description of Hebden, the attempt on Hal’s life and the possible dangers to Julia, had settled down with his shotgun to keep guard at Place de Leuvan.