“I see.” A pause. “I wouldn’t trust Colonel Robuchon to think rationally.”
“Nor would I. We’ll stay on our guard for the next few days, but if we can make it the next hour or two without anyone else coming to find us—” A shadow at the base of the rocky escarpment on their left caught his eye. “Wait.”
He knelt to investigate. Their luck was still in. A cave, and by the look of it just big enough to hold the two of them lying down. They would be safer there than in the open until the immediate danger had passed. He doubted anyone on horseback would even notice the opening, and if they dragged a few branches over the entrance, it would be even harder to spot.
“Look,” he said. “Sanctuary. A bit tomblike, but I believe we’ll both fit.”
She crouched beside him and shuddered. “Don’t talk of tombs,” she reproached him.
“I’m sorry.”
Hastily they shed their gear, pushed it against one wall of the cave, and crawled in feet first after it. They lay on their sides, facing each other. When Will stretched out his toes, they bumped against the back of the shallow cave. If he’d been a little taller they wouldn’t have fit, but as it was, the cave was perfect. For the first time since the Frogs had opened fire the day before, he relaxed his vigilance.
Mrs. Arrington, however, did not share his contentment. She shook from head to toe, her breath came dangerously fast, and she began to sob.
He patted her shoulder in awkward reassurance. “Don’t be afraid. We’re safe now.”
“I know,” she said between sobs, “only I can’t stop thinking about it.”
His need to comfort her overwhelmed all his resolutions of proper behavior. He captured her face between his hands, molding it, stroking her soft skin, exploring the feel of the features already so familiar and beloved to his sight. She stilled, and her breathing steadied as she exhaled on a sigh.
As he traced the path of her tears, she turned her head and pressed a kiss into his palm. The touch of her soft lips on sensitive skin jolted him down to his toes.
He leaned closer and brushed her lips with his own. Even now, he wasn’t sure she would want this. She might still be in shock from their encounter with the hussars. Or she might not want a man anywhere near her after what had almost happened to her last night. So he asked by making his kiss as gentle as he could.
One of her hands stole out to rest against his shoulder; the other threaded through his hair.
He had his answer. He deepened the kiss, opening his mouth over hers. Still it was a leisurely exploration, tongues softly tasting each other. He slid one hand into her hair, into the silken curls that wrapped around his seeking fingers.
He broke the kiss to breathe. “Anna,” he gasped and sought refuge in her touch again.
***
Anna smiled against Will’s mouth. She pressed closer to him, reveling in the feel of his long, lean, masculine body, the horrors of the morning and the night before forgotten for the moment. Long before she was ready, he ended the kiss and gathered her hard against him, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. She could feel his every ragged and unsteady breath.
“What are we going to do?” he asked. He sounded dazed, lost.
Whatever they did, no one would ever know about it but the two of them. The implications terrified and thrilled her. “I don’t know,” she said. She thought she knew what she wanted—if she dared—but she wasn’t ready to speak of it yet.
She nestled closer. He mustn’t push her away. Not that he could, under the circumstances. Bless this cave. “Tomblike is entirely the wrong word,” she said. “It’s more like a cocoon.”
He exhaled, somewhere between a sniff and a snort. “Don’t expect me to turn into a butterfly.”
She chuckled. “You’d never be so gaudy. You’re more of a moth.”
She felt him relax, his grip on her back comfortable rather than taut and desperate.
“Not a moth, either,” he said. “A grasshopper.”
“Grasshoppers don’t hatch from cocoons,” she pointed out.
“It’s what the Frogs call the Rifles, because of our uniforms.”
“Oh, of course. Colonel Robuchon called you that, and I meant to ask why, but it slipped my mind.”
“No wonder.” His encircling arm tightened briefly, protectively, and she sighed against his shoulder. “I wish I’d killed him,” he said thoughtfully. “If I ever get the chance in battle, I will.”
She shivered.
“It’s what I do, you realize.” His voice took on a confessional tone. “What all riflemen do—at least, the good shots. Not always, of course. Sometimes we fight just like the rest of the infantry. But we’re meant to pick out officers and the like, anyone who looks important.”
“I know,” she said. “At least, I understand the strategy. But it’s…startling…to watch you.”
“When you’re in battle, your mind is different.” He spoke slowly, as if he were trying to work it out as he explained it to her. She doubted he had ever talked of it to anyone else, and she felt honored that he found her a worthy confidante. “Everything is faster. You’re more aware of each action, each moment—no remembering yesterday or hoping for tomorrow. It’s all now.”
They were silent for a few moments. His hand was in her hair, and she shifted slightly to give him better access and because one of his uniform buttons was digging into her cheek.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She considered. Really, it was a marvel to her that she was all right, content in the arms of a man for whom she felt something too powerful and deep to name. She had fought Colonel Robuchon, and with Will’s help she had won. The terror lingered, but she had won, and she rejoiced to be alive and able to lie in his arms and take pleasure in his strength.
One thing haunted her, however. “I’m well,” she said. “Except I keep seeing that boy, the one I shot. I wonder who will mourn him once he’s missed.” She shuddered. “I know I had to shoot him, but I wish I’d done it properly, so you wouldn’t have been forced to finish it.”
“I was afraid you hated me for that.”
She attempted to stretch her legs, bumping her feet against his. He shifted slightly. “I think I did for a moment,” she said. “But then I understood. You gave him a good death. The one I’d given him wouldn’t have been half so quick and merciful.”
“Anna.” He laid his free hand against her cheek. “You’d never so much as held a gun before today had you?”
“No.”
“What you did was brave. You did something you’d never done before well enough to keep us both alive.”
“I had to.”
“That’s what courage is. Doing what must be done no matter what. You did well. And the lad is with God now.”
“You believe that?”
“I have to. I couldn’t keep being a soldier, else.”
Anna had never had much faith. “I hope you’re right. He looked younger than I am. And he had a kind face. He was too young to come to an end.”
“That’s the worst of it, isn’t it?” He pressed his lips against her forehead. “It’d be easier if all our enemies were like Colonel Robuchon.”
“But they’re just the same as us. We’ve even got our own Robuchons,” she added, thinking of Sebastian and the Spanish girl.
“Yes, we do.”
Despite herself, Anna yawned. How could she feel tired? But then she remembered it had been over a day since she’d slept.
“You should try to sleep,” Will said. “We’re safe here. We’ll leave this afternoon, after the heat breaks.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll stay awake and listen for the Frogs.”
After all she had seen him do, she could well believe him capable of going without sleep indefinitely. So she nestled against him and closed her eyes.
She wasn’t sure how much time passed, but when she awoke her right arm was numb and sections of her side ached from the uneven cave floor. Her
head was pillowed on Will’s shoulder, and she felt his chest rise and fall with each slow, steady breath, punctuated at intervals by soft snores. So he was human after all.
She couldn’t judge the time by the scant light that filtered through the half-hidden mouth of the cave, but the air felt like afternoon now—hotter, but drier. Should she wake him? Not yet. He needed his sleep. Besides, this was bliss, and she wanted to savor it. Throughout her marriage she had rejoiced when Sebastian’s duties took him away for a few nights or when the logistics of a billet forced them to bunk apart.
But Will, now. If she could always sleep beside someone she trusted and admired as she did him, she would never want to spend a night alone again. Better this cave with Will than the finest feather bed by herself.
Yet she would only have him at her side for a few days. A week, at most. She had to make the most of the little time they had.
She wanted him desperately, and she was past caring whether it was right or wrong. She hoped he felt the same and would take the lead, as she had no notion of how to conduct a seduction. With Sebastian her duty had been to lie passively and let herself be used. And because her pride and sense of honor would not allow her to do otherwise, she had executed that duty faithfully.
Maybe, just maybe, Sebastian had been wrong about her. If she ever meant to try again, how could she hope for a better chance than what the fates had handed her now? No one would ever know what she and Will did out here. Sebastian had never told the world what he thought of her—he was far too proud for that—so she was a lady of impeccable reputation. That reputation, coupled with her fortune, should keep her above suspicion. She could do it. Why not? Will made her feel alive again after she had consigned herself to a kind of living death. Her old self, her reckless self, wanted to embrace that life to the fullest.
She had never felt anything quite like this heady blend of desire, trust and admiration, but she shied away from putting a name to it. It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. It was impossible to love on so short an acquaintance. She had learned from her great mistake and would never again stake her life and honor on a momentary enchantment. But surely she and Will could enjoy the enchantment while it lasted and part with dignity at the end of their journey—surely they both had sufficient maturity and wisdom for that. Why not?
And if it turned out that Sebastian had been right—well, it would mean reviving all the old misery. But at least she would know and be able to live accordingly.
Will stirred. “What?” he mumbled in a sleep-fogged voice as he patted her shoulder and back as if trying to remember who she was and what she was doing there. He shook his head vigorously. “Good God. I didn’t mean to sleep.”
She laughed gently. “No. Because Will Atkins is a perfect soldier who can go without sleep for a week.”
“Actually,” he said with great dignity, “I’d planned to let you have your nap, then wake you to listen while I rested. But I must have drifted off.”
“In a warm, dark place, with someone snoring beside you? I don’t see how such a thing could’ve happened.”
He chuckled. “No harm done, I suppose. If anyone had ridden through, I’m sure we would’ve heard. And you don’t snore.”
“You do,” she said affably. “But I’ve heard far worse.”
“Your husband?”
“Oh, he was loud enough, but I meant Cousin Alec—Major Gordon. I hated when we had to camp in the open or our billet had thin walls. I don’t see how Helen endures it.”
“True devotion?”
“Undoubtedly.” She stretched out, trying to revive her stiff limbs. “We should leave, I suppose.”
“Yes. I’d like to put a few more miles behind us before dark.”
Will pulled aside the branches concealing the entrance to their refuge and crawled out. Anna followed and accepted his offered hand to lift her to her feet. He slid the knapsack onto his back, shouldered his rifle and handed her the spare rifle and her canteen. As she settled the straps as comfortably as she could manage, movement in the valley below drew her eye. It was one of the hussar’s horses, a chestnut with a white blaze and white stockings on its forelegs. “Look, Will!”
She wasn’t sure she wanted the horse—riding would speed their journey back, and she wanted to make her time alone with Will last as long as possible—but they had a duty to inform their army about their comrades’ captivity. Will was a soldier, and Anna belonged to the army, too, in a way. Duty could never be ignored.
***
Will grinned at the sight of the placidly grazing horse. “Our luck’s still in, I see.”
Anna—despite his best efforts, he no longer thought of her as Mrs. Arrington—looked much struck by the notion. “We have been lucky, have we not? Do you suppose we can ride him?”
“As long as he’s sound, I don’t see why not. He looks calm.”
“That’s the beauty of cavalry horses. Nothing rattles them. I’d never suggest riding double on one of my brother’s Arabs, and even the ponies we had at Dunmalcolm when I was a girl had tempers, but a horse like that will tolerate anything.”
“Ride double?” he said. “I’d thought you’d ride and I could walk.”
He began to climb down the hill, offering his hand to help her over the steeper sections. He couldn’t honestly claim that he regretted kissing her in the cave, but they had to be careful. They must nip this in the bud, or they’d end up lying together before they reached the army. He couldn’t allow that.
“Why?” she asked. “That’s not much faster than both of us walking. If we both ride, we really will be beyond their reach.”
She had a point. Maybe the enforced physical closeness of sharing the horse was worth it if it got them back to their world, beyond temptation’s reach, a day or two sooner.
“We can try,” he said.
When they reached the valley floor, the horse wandered over of his own accord to greet them.
“You can ride, I suppose?” she asked as she caught the horse by the bridle and stroked its nose.
“Of course.” He felt vaguely insulted that she felt the need to ask. “I was meant for a farmer, remember? I doubt I could manage your brother’s Arabs, but I can stay on an ordinary horse well enough.” He hoped he spoke truth. He had hardly ridden at all since his enlistment, but surely it wasn’t the sort of skill one forgot.
She blushed. “I meant no insult. Only I’d always supposed that men who knew how to ride must end up in the cavalry.”
Will laughed. “I’ve no regrets on that score. With all due respect to the Sixteenth, I’d rather be in the Rifles.” He moved to the horse’s near side. “Keep hold of him while I check his hooves.” Still willing, the gelding lifted his foot for inspection when Will leaned against his shoulder. “When an infantry regiment is out recruiting, they’re hardly looking to send anyone to the cavalry because he knows horses, any more than they’d send him to the navy if he knew boats. They’ve a quota to fill. It was regular infantry that came to town, so a regular I became.”
“Not a rifleman?”
“They didn’t exist yet—not until a few months later. When they started the experimental corps, my regiment was asked to send men, and I was chosen.”
“Because you had the makings of a good marksman?”
He moved on to the next hoof. “Hardly. Because I was trouble, and it was an easy way to be rid of me.”
“You, trouble? I find that difficult to believe.”
“It’s true. I was insubordinate, and a pest.”
“Really? I can’t imagine you fomenting insurrection or disobeying orders.”
“I didn’t—I was just a pest. I was sixteen, with opinions about everything under the sun and no sense of when to keep quiet. It’s a wonder I escaped flogging.”
“And yet now you’re a sergeant.”
“Well, I’m not sixteen anymore. I hope I’m a little wiser now. And the Rifles are a different sort of regiment. They like a man who can think for himself—within bound
s of reason.” He finished his inspection of the hooves. “He looks sound. I’ll check the saddle now.”
“Maybe his rider brought dinner along.”
“That’s my hope.”
He pulled back the sheepskin cover of the equipment roll at the saddle’s pommel to reveal a rolled-up blanket, whose heft promised treasures within. As he set the blanket on the ground and crouched down to unroll it, he felt her eyes upon him and decided he might as well get certain things out into the open.
“Ma’am,” he said, not meeting her eyes, “we can’t keep forgetting ourselves like we did in that cave. We can’t pretend that we’re anything other than what we are.”
“I’m not pretending anything.”
He looked up then and found himself arrested by the angry sparkle in her green eyes. “Yes, you are. Otherwise why would a lady like you want anything to do with a man like me?”
“Because of who you are,” she snapped. The horse snorted and stirred at her tone, and she stroked its nose soothingly.
“But I’m nobody.”
She shook her head decisively. “You are not. What’s more, you don’t believe that yourself. You’re as proud a man as I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something.”
He spread his hands in acknowledgement. “But I’m nobody to you. Believe me, Mrs. Arrington, if you weren’t a lady—”
“No!”
“What?”
“No! You will never again call me by that name.”
“Does my lady command me not to?”
“I’m not commanding, I’m begging. You’ve no notion how sick I am of the very sound of Arrington. Please. While we’re out here, with no one to hear, call me Anna.”
He knew he should say no, but how would he feel, if he were saddled with a name he loathed? “Anna,” he said.
“Thank you. Will.”
An embarrassed silence ensued. To cover his own half of the awkwardness, he unrolled the blanket, discovering tools for caring for the horse—a curry-comb, a hoof pick and the like—and, blessedly, half a loaf of bread, salty Spanish ham and a packet of dates. He popped one into his mouth and handed another to Anna. She thanked him and chewed it blissfully, while he repacked the blanket roll and restored it to its place in front of the saddle.
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