Bound by Duty

by Diane Gaston

  Tess shook her head.

  ‘Then we must feed you, as well.’ Her mother put an arm around her and walked her into the drawing room. ‘And give you a nice, warm bath.’

  * * *

  Tess was pampered as she had never been pampered before. Bathed. Clothed. Fed. It was as if her mother was trying to make up for all the years she’d been absent. Every word, every kindness, only reminded Tess of how it felt to be abandoned by her. She appreciated her mother’s efforts, but was not ready to forget how it felt to be abandoned by her.

  Her mother kept trying, though.

  * * *

  The next day in the afternoon, Tess extricated herself from her mother’s solicitude and had some relief. She sat on a window seat in her bedchamber overlooking the street, which was still busy with people rushing here and there and carriages rumbling past.

  As she sat storm clouds gathered, like harbingers of doom. The heavens opened and rain fell in thick sheets, finally clearing the street. Tess watched the rain and listened to its roar and remembered that rain of only a few months back. This rain was as thick, as loud. She remembered again the sight of the horseman appearing through the grey curtain of rain, the horseman who rescued her and became her husband.

  Where was Marc now? Were he and Apollo caught in the downpour, like on that fateful day? She shivered, remembering the cold. For Marc’s sake she was grateful the temperatures this day were not so dangerously frigid.

  So much had changed since that rainstorm and, Tess suspected, much would change after this one. Armies would clash. One would be the victor and the other, vanquished, but not before many men would die.

  She gazed up at the bleak sky. ‘Please keep them safe,’ she prayed. ‘Edmund, Captain Fowler—’ Her throat tightened. ‘And Marc.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Marc was where he was supposed to be, behind the French lines. He’d reached his position in the night, carefully moving past the tents of the French soldiers, acting the part of a Belgian citizen, changing his bearing and expression as he’d also changed into Belgian clothes. No one stopped him, however. No one had come close enough to notice him. He supposed it was due to the rain. Uncomfortable as it was, it acted as a shield.

  He discovered a place that seemed deserted, a thicket of trees and shrubs where he and Apollo concealed themselves and waited for dawn.

  The night, the rain, all made him think of Tess and remember how they’d been caught in rain this thick. He was chilled to the bone, but nothing like he’d been that February day. He spent a miserable night.

  * * *

  When dawn broke, Marc ate some food he’d carried with him. He walked up the slope through grain as tall as he was, reaching a ridge.

  Below him was what looked like the entire French army, waking, like him. Soon popping sounds broke out all over the valley. The men were clearing their muskets of the charges that had lain in them all night.

  There was no doubt he was behind the French lines, all right. His task was to keep watch, follow the army if they fell back, report any potentially useful information and create mischief, if he could—anything to help the Allies. He had an excellent vantage point of what he’d learned would be the battlefield, if Napoleon decided to attack. Wellington had chosen the ridge of Mont St Jean, a narrow space for a battle, only two and a half miles, by the look of it. On Marc’s right was a farm, La Haye Sainte; on his left, another one, Hougoumont. Wellington had men in each.

  Marc glanced around him. He seemed to be alone at this spot. It gave such a view of the field that he expected to see Napoleon himself ride up to use it as his command base, but no one was near. He took out his field glass and looked down at the French army. There was no command post that he could see. His first order of business, then, was to find Napoleon and his generals.

  Without getting discovered.

  * * *

  That second morning at her mother’s house, Tess waited in her mother’s sewing room, waited for the sound of cannon to reach her ears, but none came. She wished it would rain again so the battle could not be fought, but the sky cleared and the sun shone. Out in the street wagons of wounded soldiers rolled by. Count von Osten sent Jakob the footman out to discover where they were from. They were from the first battle at Quatre Bras. Some wore the uniform of the 28th Regiment, but he’d been unable to discover if Edmund had survived Quatre Bras.

  Count von Osten had gone out himself to visit the Place Royale in hopes of getting information. Tess’s mother, who insisted on keeping her company, seemed determined to talk about anything except the impending battle. She asked incessant questions about the people she’d known in Yardney, about the servants at Summerfield House, about the house itself. Did it have new furnishings? Had her garden been changed? Whatever happened to her portrait that used to hang in the drawing room?

  Her mother did not ask how it had been for three little girls to be abandoned by her and left with a bitter man for a father. She did not ask who arranged for their education, who taught them how to be young ladies, who tended their cuts and scrapes and injured feelings. Tess had no opportunity to explain how much those tasks fell to Lorene, who’d still been a child herself.

  But her mother was not the only one who avoided questions. Tess did not ask her mother whether she found it easy to leave her children, or why her mother had never written to them or tried to see them or tried to discover how they were faring without her.

  It was nearing eleven o’clock in the morning and her mother had been chattering for almost two hours. Tess’s mind kept straying to some unknown battlefield where her brother and Captain Fowler would fight. Where would Marc be? Would he be in harm’s way?

  ‘Did you know I met the count at Vauxhall Gardens?’ her mother asked. ‘What a lovely night that was! We slipped away and walked together on the Dark Walk...’

  Her mother, of course, had been married at the time and Tess’s father had been left wondering who his wife had run off with this time. Tess had heard her father’s version of this event many times.

  ‘I know it may be hard for you to understand, but we loved each other. It was love at first sight.’ Her mother’s tone turned more subdued. ‘There was no denying it. We needed to be together.’ She glanced aside and smiled, but the smile was not meant for Tess. ‘We still do need to be together.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Tess managed to keep her voice bland.

  Her mother reached over and grasped her hand. ‘But you have a love match. You must understand.’

  ‘A love match,’ Tess repeated. ‘Why do you say so?’

  Her mother laughed. ‘Why do I say so? Your husband dotes on you. You are very lucky, you know. It makes life so much easier to love your husband and for him to love you.’

  Easier? Tess wanted to scream. Realising she loved Marc made nothing easier, not when he might be killed this day.

  Boom!

  She and her mother both jumped.

  Boom!

  ‘The battle has started,’ Tess whispered.

  * * *

  Marc found Napoleon’s headquarters only a mile from where he had viewed what would be the field of battle. He’d seen the great man himself and his generals in conference at an inn called La Belle Alliance. Oddly Napoleon seemed to have chosen to remain at the inn, but surely his aides could have found the same location Marc had found with its perfect view.

  Marc watched the inn for as long as he dared, but, though the generals had ridden off, Napoleon stayed. It was safer to return to the ground where Marc could watch the battle, though he would probably not be of any use to the Allies on the French side of the field.

  It would be hard to watch the battle and not be in the thick of the fighting, to witness men dying and not be down there doing his part.

  * * *

  The sun was high in the sky when the French advanced on Hougoumont Farm, the first action of the battle. Marc had been in battle before his brother’s injury and he knew he’d witness carnage this day and be hel
pless to stop any of it. Yet he also knew he could not take his eyes away.

  He watched the French attack Hougoumont Farm. The fighting looked hard, but the Allies held on.

  French guns pounded into the British line, which remained on the far ridge, mostly out of view. Through his glass Marc could see Wellington on his horse, riding from one end to the other, issuing orders, surveying the battlefield.

  No comfortable inn for Wellington.

  The French cannons stopped firing but their smoke put a haze over the field. Through it, though, Marc saw the French infantry go on the march, straight for the middle of the British forces. It was a magnificent, terrible sight. Thousands of soldiers, marching in column, like a human battering ram ready to pound down the British door. Their drums beat the Pas de Charge.

  Could the British hold?

  The French came closer and the Allied guns fired on them. Men fell and were left like litter on the field as the mass moved on.

  ‘The guns are not making a dent,’ Marc said aloud.

  He had to stay low, lest he be seen, but he wanted to pace, to shout orders.

  He wanted to fight.

  On the crest of Mont St Jean, the British line fired their muskets, one volley after another, until the French infantry broke into retreat. Marc nearly whooped with joy to see the cavalry giving chase. He put his field glass to his eye again. The Scots Greys were among them, he could tell by their beaver hats.

  Amelie’s Captain Fowler would get his chance at glory, Marc thought, trying not to envy him.

  It took only moments for the glory to turn to devastation. The cavalry had ridden all the way to the French guns, but it was too far. Fresh Cuirassiers cut off their return and Marc witnessed slaughter.

  Few Scots Greys made it back to the line and likely Fowler was not among them. Marc memorised the ground where the cavalrymen fell, where he’d search for Fowler.

  * * *

  Later in the afternoon the cavalry charged again, this time riding in full force for the British line of infantry. Surely this was a mistake? The infantry formed squares that held, though the squares became smaller and smaller as men were wounded or killed. But this time the French cavalry suffered great losses, being fired upon from the squares. Through his glass Marc found the 28th holding their own. Tess’s brother would be one of the officers on horseback in the middle of a square. It was where Marc would have been, had his brother lived. He and Charles might have fought this battle together—if things had been different.

  Marc shook those thoughts from his head. Instead, he analysed the tactics on each side.

  The whole of Napoleon’s strategy seemed like a mistake. Why attack the centre and not the more vulnerable flanks? Why commit so many men to the siege of Hougoumont? Why attack in column and not in line, which would have given them so much more fire-power? Still, with all these mistakes, Napoleon’s forces were close to victory. The Allies were straining to hold on. The field was awash in bodies and blood and evening was approaching.

  From Marc’s right, another army approached. His heart sank. French reinforcements? If so, Wellington was doomed. He put his glass to his eye once again, but these regiments were still too far away. He kept his eye to the glass as they marched closer and closer.

  Marc’s spirits soared from the depths to the heights. The Prussians were marching towards the battlefield. They’d arrived to support Wellington!

  He swung his glass to the battlefield again. His elation was short-lived. Napoleon sent in the Old Guard, his finest soldiers. They churned across the field towards a very thin British line. The Prussians would be too late by mere minutes.

  The drumbeat of the Pas de Charge pounded in Marc’s ears. The Guard advanced. Marc could almost taste their triumph as they fired upon the poor line of redcoats.

  But just as Marc despaired, thousands of British soldiers rose up as if by magic, all firing round after round into the Guard. Many fell. The others broke and ran.

  Marc bounded to his feet and cheered.

  The entire French army broke and ran with the Allies at their heels. Marc stuffed his glass in his pocket and hurried to where he’d left Apollo. The fleeing soldiers were running towards him, and if he did not get out of there, he’d soon encounter a multitude of panicked, desperate men.

  * * *

  A more horrid day, Tess could not have imagined. When the sounds of the battle reached Brussels, even her mother’s determination to talk of other things failed. They sat, silent and worried, while the booms of the cannons went on and on. Count von Osten went out every couple of hours in search of information, but nothing reliable came his way. Each time he returned to the house, he said he’d heard both that all was lost or that Wellington was victorious, but neither report could be believed. At one point, a whole regiment of Belgian soldiers rode through the city, declaring the battle lost, but messengers from the battlefield did not confirm that, and the cannons kept firing, indicating nothing was finished.

  It was near nightfall when the guns finally went silent and von Osten left once again. It was midnight before he returned. He burst into the sitting room where Tess had endured the entire day in her mother’s company.

  ‘My darling!’ he cried. ‘Tess!’

  They both rose to their feet.

  ‘He has done it! Wellington has done it! The French are in full retreat and the Prussians are chasing them all the way back to France!’

  ‘How wonderful.’ Tess’s mother flew into his arms and he swung her around in a joyous display.

  ‘Are you certain?’ Tess asked cautiously.

  He’d come home so many other times saying first one thing, then another.

  He smiled at her. ‘I was at the Place Royale when the dispatch came in. There is no doubt!’

  Tess sank back in her chair, suddenly exhausted. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘Ossie,’ her mother said, ‘we must celebrate. Drink a toast to our fine soldiers. Let us bring out the champagne and gather the servants to be given some, as well. Champagne! It is perfect for toasting a victory over Napoleon!’

  He ran out of the room and returned a few minutes later with a bottle of champagne and three glasses. ‘There is celebration in the servants’ quarter, never fear. This bottle is for us.’

  Tess’s mother stood up and took two of the glasses from him. He’d filled them to the brim with the bubbly wine.

  She handed one glass to Tess. ‘Be more cheerful, my darling girl! We have won.’

  Tess accepted the glass, spilling a little over her fingers. ‘I will be more easy when I know Edmund is safe.’ And Captain Fowler.

  And Marc.

  Where had he been during the battle? Had he been in danger? Was he safe now?

  The count’s expression sobered. ‘There were many casualties, they said.’

  Some of the exultation evaporated.

  The count put his hand on Tess’s shoulder. ‘Do not worry. Tomorrow I will take the carriage to the battlefield and see what word I can find of our dear Edmund.’

  ‘May I come with you?’ she asked.

  ‘To a battlefield?’ He looked upon her kindly. ‘I think not.’

  * * *

  Marc changed back into his own clothes before riding to where the soldiers were bivouacked for the night just steps from where they’d fought the most desperate battle he could imagine. It had not been possible to follow Napoleon in his retreat. The vanquished emperor was swallowed by the desperate men clogging every road, running over the countryside, all trying to reach the safety of home. Darkness was falling fast, making it even more difficult. Besides, with no more army, where would Napoleon go except Paris?

  Marc instead would search among the survivors for Tess’s brother and Amelie’s fiancé. Exhausted men sat around small campfires, haunted expressions on their faces. The battlefield was in their view, but it was now a macabre sight of bodies that appeared no more than grey mounds in the darkness. The stench of blood and death was inescapable and the cries of wounded and
dying men and horses pierced the air.

  No one dared come to their aid. The looters, the most ruthless and heartless of men—and women—moved among the bodies, stripping them of clothes, pulling out their teeth, taking anything that might bring money. Looters would think nothing of killing anyone who tried to stop them. But every cry that reached Marc’s ears hit him like a sabre thrust. Were they Edmund’s cries he must ignore? Or Fowler’s?

  If Marc found them among the survivors, he would not have to search among the dead and dying when dawn broke. He started with the 28th. Edmund’s chances of making it through were a lot greater than Fowler’s.

  And Marc did not want Tess to suffer yet another loss.

  * * *

  It took him hours but he finally found Edmund.

  Among the wounded.

  Edmund lay on the ground outside a house where one of the army’s surgeons was occupied with amputating limbs. Edmund’s uniform was stained with blood.

  ‘Glenville?’ he mumbled hazily as Marc knelt next to him. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

  ‘Tess would want me to be here,’ Marc told him.

  * * *

  The day after the battle was even more stressful for Tess, if that were possible. The count went out early, but returned almost immediately because the roads were too crowded with the wounded pouring in to Brussels, some in wagons, some on foot. He left again, this time to return to the Place Royale to see what names were on the lists of killed and wounded. Tess went out herself, then, much against her mother’s wishes. She walked to the main road over which scores of wounded soldiers travelled and asked any soldiers from the 28th Regiment if they knew what had happened to her brother.

  The sight of countless men so terribly injured was heart wrenching. Some of the injuries were so terrible that she did not see how the men were still alive. She suspected they would not survive long. Where would they all go?

  She spied another wagon with men wearing the red coat with yellow facing and the stovepipe shako that identified them as being in the 28th. She ran alongside. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen, do you know Lieutenant Edmund Summerfield?’