by Joan Wolf
All of England knew the story. Wellington had put Adrian in charge of the heavy cavalry because their regular commander had been killed in action two days before, and once Adrian had seen what was happening on the left center, he had ordered a charge. The cavalry had smashed into the lines of French infantry, sending them staggering back from their powerful hillside position, cutting them down by whole battalions.
The charge had completely wrecked the French columns, and the English cavalry captured two eagles as well as two thousand prisoners. Not content with this coup, Adrian had then led his horsemen even deeper into enemy territory, sabering the artillerymen of Ney’s artillery and severing the traces of the artillery horses. Without horses to pull them, the seventy-four guns had been rendered useless to the French throughout the remainder of the day.
The piece de resistance had come out after the battle, when Wellington learned that Adrian had been wounded by a musket ball in the fighting on June sixteenth and had fought the entire engagement at Waterloo with two broken ribs! He had concealed the injury so as not to be put out of action in the bigger battle he knew was coming.
At this moment, Charles came into the room carrying a chair. He was followed by another footman bearing a second chair. They set them in front of the fire. I sat in one and motioned for Lieutenant Staple to take the other. I noticed how one leg stretched out in front of him awkwardly as he lowered himself, his hands braced on the chair’s arms. His eyes closed briefly with relief as the weight came off his leg.
I thought that the people at the Foreign Office ought not to have asked him to make so long a ride, but I had enough tact not to share that thought with him. I understood very well how annoying it can be when people tell you that you have undertaken a task that is too much for you.
I encouraged him to tell me all about the gallant defense of the left center and Adrian’s heroics. He was still chatting away when Walters appeared in the anteroom doorway. “Lord Greystone is indeed in the estate office, my lady,” he announced. Then, turning to Lieutenant Staple, he said, “If you will follow me, sir, I will take you to his lordship.”
* * * *
I was in my room about to change into my blue taffeta evening dress when the connecting door to Adrian’s room opened and he came in. My heart gave such a jolt when I saw him that I thought he was certain to have heard it. I reached out a hand to the bedpost to steady myself.
He looked at the dress laid out on the bed and said, “I came to ask you not to get dressed for dinner, Kate. I’ve asked Staple to dine with us, and he will have to sit down in his riding clothes.”
“I can wear the dress I had on this morning,” I said. “Will that be all right?”
“A morning dress will be fine.” He spoke absently, as if he had something else on his mind.
“I hope Lieutenant Staple did not bring bad news?” I asked hesitantly. I did not want to pry but, frankly, I was dying of curiosity.
He sighed, came farther into the room, leaned his shoulders against the wall beside the fireplace, and regarded me broodingly. “Castlereagh writes that the unrest in the country is growing worse. The government is talking about suspending habeas corpus and instituting ‘gag’ laws against seditious meetings and literature.”
I frowned. The problem of social unrest in England had been growing ever since the booming wartime economy had collapsed after Waterloo. One of the biggest causes of dissent was the Corn Law, which had been passed the previous year. The purpose of this law was to protect British landowners by halting the import of cheap foreign corn into the country. The result had been a half-starved, underemployed population, so outraged by its poverty and suffering that in January the Regent had been stoned on his way to open Parliament.
“Suspending habeas corpus will not solve anything,” I said angrily. “The problem is that people are hungry and there aren’t enough jobs.”
“I know,” he agreed. “Things have come to such a pass that four thousand petitioners have met on St. Peter’s Field, Manchester, and are planning to march on London. The government is terrified. Castlereagh wants me to come to London immediately.”
I blush to confess that my first reaction to this news had nothing at all to do with the poor starving souls in Manchester. “You’re leaving?”
His eyes lifted to mine. “Yes.”
“What, for heaven’s sake, does Castlereagh expect you to do?” I glared at him. “Lead a cavalry charge against those poor men?”
He looked at me for a moment in silence, then he said, “I hope you have not been listening to Staple with too credulous an ear.”
“Why not? He was very flattering about you, my lord.”
Adrian shook his head. “I happened to be the man in command, that’s all. The English cavalry has always been famous for its charges. They go tearing into battle with exactly the same fervor with which they go tearing after a fox.” A gleam of amusement shone in his eyes, as if he was inviting me to share a joke. “The fact is, they couldn’t stop their horses even if they wanted to.”
I did not agree. “You managed to stop them long enough to capture two of Napoleon’s eagles,” I pointed out.
The amusement died. “Stupidest thing I ever did,” he replied shortly.
It had been the capture of the eagles, of course, that had caused him to be written up in Wellington’s dispatches. That, along with his previous injuries, had been sufficient to make a hero out of Adrian.
“Don’t you like being a hero?” I asked curiously. Most men would have adored it.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” he said bitterly. He turned to stare into the fire, affording me an excellent view of his back. “The real heroes of Waterloo are all dead, Kate.” He kicked at a log and sparks shot up in a cascading spray of red-gold. “There were fifteen thousand English casualties at Waterloo, and seven thousand of our Prussian allies were killed as well. God knows how many of the French were slaughtered. To talk about someone still living as being a hero is nothing short of sacrilege.” He gave the logs another kick.
I gazed at him in silence. He had leaned his hands on the mantelpiece and was still staring into the fire. His back looked rigid. “Is that what you said to Lieutenant Staple?” I asked.
He shook his head wearily. “The whole experience was such a nightmare that men need something to help them romanticize it so they won’t have to remember the reality. I just happened to be one of the unlucky fellows they chose to lionize. Believe me, I didn’t do any more than thousands of other soldiers on that field.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.
He turned away from the fire and looked at me. “Because I don’t want you having any false ideas about my being a hero,” he said. The candle in the wall sconce shone behind his head like a halo. “I’m not.”
I smiled and did not reply.
* * * *
Dinner was a pleasantly informal affair that evening. From somewhere in the house Mrs. Pippen had unearthed a small table, and Adrian had caused it to be installed in the dining room. It was made of old-fashioned oak, would sit ten people at the very most, did not suit the room at all, but it was much more conducive to conversation than the splendid table that it superseded.
“I’ll order a small mahogany table when I’m in London,” Adrian said when Harry commented on the new addition. “Kate’s right; the other table is much too large for family dining.”
“Where did you put the other table?” I asked.
“I have no idea. Mrs. Pippen tucked it away somewhere. We can drag it out if ever we have a dinner party.”
I smiled at Lieutenant Staple, who was sitting on my right, and told him a comical story about trying to dine with someone who is seated half a mile distant from one. He had looked a little overwhelmed when we first sat down, but my story made him laugh. I embroidered my theme a little, and he was much more relaxed when the first round of footmen entered the room bearing food. I glanced at Adrian and found him watching me with approval in his
eyes.
To my horror, I immediately thought about bed.
I turned to Harry, gave him a brilliant smile, and said something utterly inane. He laughed. The first course, a pleasant-tasting soup made with chicken,, was served, and we all tucked in.
Adrian was leaving with Lieutenant Staple the following morning. “I don’t want Staple riding all the way back to London,” he had told me before we came down to dinner. “I’ll drive the curricle and he can accompany me.”
I had agreed that the obviously weary lieutenant should not make such a ride again. Then I had asked Adrian if he knew how long he would be staying in London and he had said he didn’t, but that he would let me know when he did. He had said nothing at all about tonight.
I drank lemonade instead of wine, ate my dinner, and listened to the men talk about the problems in the country, contributing a comment here and there when someone looked my way. The candles glimmered in the great overhead chandelier, which was almost as large as the oak table. The fire crackled in the fireplace. The footmen’s feet made scarcely a sound on the thick rug. There was the muffled sound of rain pattering against the glass of the long windows.
“It’s raining,” I said.
The men stopped talking to listen.
“If it’s still raining tomorrow, we’ll take the chaise,” Adrian said to Lieutenant Staple.
The fire cracked again, drowning out for a moment the sound of the rain. When I heard it again it was drumming harder than before.
I refused dessert and said to Adrian, “I’m going to go and say good night to Paddy.”
He nodded, and the three men got to their feet as I left the room.
I found Paddy tucked up in the housekeeper’s room with Mrs. Pippen and Walters. They were all drinking tea.
“I just came to say good night to Paddy,” I told them. “Please, sit down.”
The old groom came across the room to give me a good hard hug. “You are not to be fretting yourself, girl,” he ordered.
“I’m not.”
“Hmm.” He gave me a shrewd look. “I’ll be seeing you in the morning before I leave.”
Everyone would be leaving me in the morning, I thought dismally. I managed a smile. “Sleep well.” I turned to Paddy’s companions. “Good night, Mrs. Pippen. Good night, Walters.”
They were still on their feet. “Good night, my lady,” they chorused. I nodded and retreated to my room.
Lucy was there waiting to help me undress. I thought, I must remember to ask Adrian if he sent anyone to Charlwood to look for Rose.
Then I thought that it might be weeks—months even— until I saw Adrian again. I probably wouldn’t even see him again tonight. He probably would rather talk to Lieutenant Staple than make love to his unwanted wife.
I had worked myself into a fine state of gloom by the time I was in my nightgown and in my bed. I dismissed Lucy and picked up The Wealth of Nations, which I was now reading for the second time. It seemed to me that Adam Smith had an important message and that I had missed half of it on my first go-round.
I looked at the pages of my book, but what I was really doing, of course, was listening for sounds on the other side of the connecting door. Lucy had drawn the drapes across the bedroom window, but I could still hear the rain drumming against the glass panes.
I had read one page over at least four times when my listening ears picked up the murmur of voices from next door. Adrian, talking to his valet. My heart began to slam and the book trembled in my grasp. I looked down at the page, but it was a blur. I kept looking anyway, but all my senses were focused intently on that connecting door. He had to come.
And at last, he did. I heard the door open. I looked slowly up from my book. He was closing the door behind him. He said, “If you are not feeling up to it, Kate, I can go away.” He was wearing a dressing gown.
“Don’t go away,” I said.
He came toward the bed. I closed my book and put it on the table next to me, hoping that he would not notice how my hand trembled. He sat on the bottom of the bed and looked at me. “I have some bad news,” he said.
I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. “Bad news, my lord?”
“Just before we went into dinner the groom I had sent over to Charlwood returned. It seemed that the girl you wanted to have as your maid is dead, Kate.”
I blinked, trying to adjust to a topic I had not expected. “Dead?” I echoed. I frowned. He was looking very grave. “What happened?” I asked sharply.
“She tried to get rid of the child she was carrying,” he said. “She bled to death.”
I pressed my knuckles against my mouth. “Dear God,” I breathed.
“I’m sorry, my dear. It is not a pretty story.”
I slammed my fist into the mattress. “Damn him, Adrian!” I slammed it again. “Damn him! Damn him! Damn him!”
His big hand settled over mine, stilling my futile pounding. I took a long breath to steady myself and told him about the time I had seen Rose come out of my uncle’s bedroom.
He listened, and when I had finished there was a white line around his mouth. He said in an unusually clipped sort of voice, “Charlwood has never had any sense of honor.”
My husband is one of the few men I have ever known who can use the word honor and you know it means something.
“Harry told me he tried to elope with your sister,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said, his enunciation still very clipped. “Charlwood Court is but ten miles from here, and the summer Caroline was sixteen, Martin came down from Oxford. He persuaded her to meet him secretly. She was unhappy at home and it was easy for her to fancy herself in love with him. It ended up in an attempted elopement.”
He was looking at his hand, which still covered mine on top of the blue wool blanket.
“Harry said you stopped it.” I was still whispering.
“Yes. I would never trust my sister’s happiness to a man like that.” He raised my hand, turned it over, and kissed the palm. His eyes met mine. “You were right to be afraid of him, sweetheart. But now you are safe with me.”
I felt the touch of his lips all the way down in my stomach. His mouth moved to my wrist and lingered there. He had to be able to feel the hammering of my pulse. He lifted his lips and fingered the ruffle at the edge of my nightgown sleeve. “This,” he said, “is a nuisance.”
“Perhaps I ought to remove it, then,” I said unsteadily.
“Mmmm.” His hands were already at my throat, undoing the first of three pearl buttons.
He lifted my nightgown off, tossed it to the floor, then stood to strip off his own dressing gown. The bedside lamp was still lit, and in its glow I could see the puckered red scar that lay along the right side of his rib cage. I thought of the injury he had concealed at Waterloo, and when he came back to the bed I leaned toward him to trace the line of the scar, first with my forefinger and then with a rain of little kisses all along its length.
He said my name and I lay back upon the bed and lifted my arms to him.
“It will be better this time,” he murmured in my ear. “I swear it will be better.” He kissed my ear, my temple, my cheek, and then, finally, he reached my lips. A hot drenching surge rose within me, and I opened my mouth to him. His hand caressed my breasts, and when the nipples were standing up hard, it moved lower to my stomach and my hips. He kissed me, and I quivered in his hold as his hand moved lower still. The fire crackled, the rain beat against the windows, and I surrendered my body completely to mindless desire.
It was so wonderfully sweet, so hot and sweet, my blood, my juices all running hot and molten under his touch. Everything between us felt so natural, so right, but when at last he started to enter me, my body remembered last night’s burning pain and tensed in anticipation.
“Relax, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Relax and it won’t hurt.”
I tried. I shut my eyes, willed my thigh muscles to relax, lay perfectly still, and let him in. Deeper and deeper he came, so slo
wly, so carefully, and there was pressure but no pain. I let out my breath shakily and looked up into his hard, intent face. He said huskily, “All right?”
I nodded, and lifted my legs, and my body closed around him.
As if from a long distance, I heard the rain begin to drum heavier against the window. Then he drove, coming up into me like a powerful surge of water, wave after wave of it, irresistible, and my body shook with his coming, racked with shocks of such intense pleasure that I think I actually cried out.
It wasn’t until long afterward, when we were lying together quietly, my head pillowed in the crook of his shoulder, that the fear moved in. This emotion that I felt for him was too strong, too all-encompassing, too powerful. It wasn’t safe for either of us.
He went to sleep still holding, me, and I lay quietly so I wouldn’t disturb him. His skin was warm against my cheek, his chest rose and fell with reassuring regularity, but these physical things could not brighten the bleakness of my thoughts.
I love him, but I must not make the mistake of expecting him to love me. This was the anguishing thought that was tearing at my insides and keeping me awake this storm-tossed night.
Now you are safe with me.
He had said that, and he had meant it. He was a man whose instinct would always be to protect those who were weaker than he. He had shielded his younger brother and sister from the rage of their father. He had married me because he had seen that I was afraid of my uncle. He had been kind with his lovemaking because of this protective instinct that was so much a part of his nature.
I was safe with him. The question was: was he safe with me?
This feeling that I had for him was not tepid. It was passionate and it was possessive. If ever I gave it free rein it would smother him, and destroy me.
He had blown out the bedside lamp before he went to sleep, and the room was dark. I lay awake for hours, listening to his breathing and to the sound of the rain, the storm that raged in my heart fiercer by far than the storm outside the window. When finally the rain ceased just before dawn, I had accepted what it was that I must do.
