Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1)

by Baird Wells

  Her gasps became a string of moans. Hooking a leg over his back, she twined arms tight behind his neck, her every muscle taut.

  Matthew grunted his approval. He ground her lips into his teeth, catching her cries in his mouth and mingling them with his own. Kate arched, pushing against his hips, begging him closer. He obliged her with a final unbridled thrust, her body clutching at the effort. Matthew's groans canceled out her scream, caught by their mouths and muted into something like a vibration in her chest. It joined the quiver in her limbs, feeding the deliciously violent way that Matthew's body wracked against her. They fell tangled against the quilt, panting together, her eyes pressed shut.

  Kate gathered herself, performing a mental examination. They had crossed a point of no return tonight, and she was anxious to see how different she felt. Perplexed, she discovered she did not feel different at all, only right.

  She feathered Matthew's hair where his head lay heavy against her breasts. Their hearts pounded at each other through her ribs and the sounds of camp came back into focus. His body's weight pinning her to the mattress was a delicious restraint, and she lay silently under Matthew for long moments until the sweat had cooled enough for her to think clearly.

  The men were bound to treat them both differently, if they found out. That would be complicated enough. But what if Matthew began making allowances, or showing her favor, even with the best of intentions? She was used to working for and earning what she had. She didn't want to be coddled. Trying more to convince herself than Matthew, Kate swallowed a mouthful of nerves. “This does not change anything between us.” Spoken aloud, she knew it sounded hollow and ridiculous in light of what they had just shared.

  Matthew's chuckling vibrated along her length. He raised up onto his forearms, flesh peeling at hers from the dampness between them. His grin stirred something in her belly, something clearly not satisfied by his first assault. “You cannot mean that seriously.” His hips shifted meaningfully between her smarting thighs. “Not when I'm still body and soul inside you, Kate.”

  Kate turned her face away, hot from neck to hairline, and bit her lip at his frankness. She wondered at his use of 'soul' but refused to explore it and lose her momentum. “I don't want special treatment because we're lovers. You have to challenge me.” She raked knuckles idly up his back, smoothing the little curls of skin she had torn free. “You keep me anchored. I need that, Matthew.”

  He caught her cheek in one rough palm, pulling her face back to meet the storm in his gray eyes. “Then promise me the same. You've made me a better man, Kate. By your affection, your wit – and wits – but mainly by your damnable, contrary will.” His every word was softened with a brush of his lips.

  Her heart squeezed, and she grinned. “You mean I out-stubborned you?”

  “Yes!” He laughed in earnest. “Yes. And whatever comes now, I never want that to end. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, holding silent, studying Matthew's face in an effort to burn his features into her memory. Whatever their future held, she wanted to remember him exactly, in these first few moments after they had given themselves completely to one another. She could lose him, Kate realized. Tomorrow or a week on. Battle could steal him from her, and all she would have were these moments.

  A sensation broke her reverie. She became aware of movement, of Matthew's hips rocking against her, heat rekindling deep in her belly. “What are you doing?”

  His face drew up with genuine concern. “Shall I stop?”

  Her hips protested his weight, and the flesh in her most tender places stung from over-enthusiasm. Still Kate arched her back from the mattress, twining legs around his. She brushed fingers from his temple to his jaw and brought her lips a breath away from his. “If you think you can,” she challenged.

  His laugh was muffled behind her ear, lips raking kisses over her neck. Kate settled back, wondering what she had gotten herself into.

  This time, they went easier.

  * * *

  Golden sunlight blazing in from the horizon cut through the canvas wall. It burned behind Kate's eyes, bringing her up through layers of sleep. The soft, worn cotton threads of her quilt rubbed silkily against her flesh. She was naked. Last night rushed over her like the cool air in the tent.

  Sensations tickled at her consciousness; tangled locks of hair tickling her closed lids, bruised tenderness between her thighs, and a satisfying weakness in her limbs. Squeezing eyes tighter, Kate sighed, smiled, and melted beneath the covers. Arching cat-like, she threw arms out in a stretch across the mattress. Something scraped the knuckles of her left hand. She wriggled up onto her elbows, fighting the mattress' give and raking tumbled waves out of her face.

  It was a piece of foolscap, folded into uneven quarters, nestled just below the pillow where Matthew had lain sleeping only an hour before. She snatched it up with trembling fingers and undid the creases.

  Cmd staff assembling.

  Nothing less could pull me away.

  Until this afternoon...

  Ever Yrs,

  Webb

  Kate clutched the note to bare breasts, falling back onto her pillow. Air whipped up from the bedding at her impact, a heady mix of lavender, cologne and sweat. Turning onto her belly, face pressed to the sheet over Matthew's side of the mattress, her senses caught fire at last night's memories. She did not want to leave the bed. Only the promise of seeing him enticed her to roll out and plant feet on a cold floor.

  They were lovers now. Kate shook her head and tried to grasp the idea, slipping into yesterday's shift, the one which still held a hint of Matthew at its neckline. Until this afternoon. At his words, the day suddenly stretched out too long ahead of her. Damn Napoleon. Couldn't he keep to himself for a day or two?

  Ah, well. Kate chuckled, reminding herself that evening would come eventually. They could belong to each other in the few quiet minutes between obligation and sleep. She sucked in a breath, chasing away anticipation that was already nipping at her focus.

  It might be the first day of June in Belgium, but if the floor was cold, the water in her pitcher was frigid. She scrubbed head to foot, the fastest she could ever recall, tugging her chemise back down for any measure of warmth. Once she was dressed, clean clothes from her stockings to the pale blue dress she kept back for Sunday service, Kate dug her mother's silver-gilt hand mirror from a trunk of her belongings at the foot of the bed. Perching on the edge of her chair, she propped it against a heavy earthenware jar atop her small table, cribbing the edge with a cloth to keep it from sliding. She looked, truly looked at herself, unable to remember the last time she had used a mirror for more than examining her own wounds or getting something from her eye.

  From a pocket of her apron, she slipped out a pair of small shears. Tugging down the strands at the nape of her neck, Kate plucked through until she had gathered a thin lock, and snipped it off at the roots. Digging silk surgical thread from another pocket, she knotted a length at the top of the hair, winding it tight around the strands. She tucked the shears, thread and lock of hair all back into her pockets. When she inevitably wrote to Matthew over the course of the day, she would slip the hair inside.

  Taking up her boar-bristle brush from the table, she worked through tangles till her hair was tame and lustrous. Taking a hairpin from the bowl, the same pins Matthew had removed the night before, Kate held it with her teeth to free up her hands. She began to twist her locks into a soft arrangement. Not wildly impractical, she decided. Certainly more attractive than the everyday, serviceable knot that had become part of her uniform.

  Kate finished tucking the ends and pinned them down with a groan. The unintended side effect of being smitten with Matthew was that she suddenly worried over her appearance. She was not entirely certain how she felt about the change. It was uncomfortable, knowing without a doubt that he had been watching her. How often did she go waking to sleeping with blood, dirt and God knew what else on her clothes? Not that new debris stood out from old stains dyed into
the weathered gray linen. The pockets of her apron were always lumpy, overflowing with whatever she needed at hand or was too busy to put away. It could not have been flattering to her figure. For years she had intentionally discouraged male attention, to earn her place or keep the unwanted at bay. Credit to Matthew, she chuckled, for persevering.

  On her walk to the command post, Kate swore every pair of eyes glanced her way. It was almost the exact sensation she'd had coming down to breakfast with Patrick the morning after their wedding night. She felt different, inside and out, and she was certain everyone could tell. The men always looked, she reminded herself. They said 'hello' and 'good morning', nodding over an armload of wood or glancing up from swabbing a musket to offer a polite smile. She ground teeth into her cheek. Maybe it was just hard to imagine, after the night she had spent with Matthew, that no one had heard them.

  In sight of the officers' camp, she groaned. Posed behind his desk under the awning was John Thomas, her least favorite of Matthew's aides. Thomas had a flat round face, set with flat round spectacles over a pointed mouth, making him appear older and more stern than his late twenties. He tended details with the precision of a bird snatching worms from the grass, but the man had no sense of humor. Worse, he was unhelpful.

  She forced a smile, glancing around them. “Lieutenant Thomas.”

  “Miss Foster.” He did not ask or even seem to wonder at her purpose.

  “Where might I find General Webb this morning?”

  “Out.” Thomas smacked a seal against the wayward flap of an envelope, laid it on one of his three-tiered rows, and returned the stamp to his egg-shaped silver wax-jack without ever looking up.

  She rolled her eyes, smiling harder at Thomas, who creased another dispatch with the precision of a straight-edge. He went right on ignoring her, transforming sheets of paper into letters. No matter. There was a less painful way to gather information. “Where is Colonel McKinnon?”

  “With General Webb,” he bit sourly. Kate sensed a little jealousy in the clipped words.

  Of course McKinnon was with Matthew. He had all the capability of Thomas, except speaking to him did not make one want to strangle him. “When do you expect them back?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest. More likely the day after.”

  “That's ridiculous!” Kate cried, forgetting herself a moment. “I need to see the general...now. This afternoon! He cannot be gone until tomorrow.”

  Thomas continued scratching his quill across the foolscap in front of him, but poked a finger over her shoulder. “Take it up with the major.”

  There may as well have been a wild animal behind her, waiting to pounce. Kate turned around slowly, not making any sudden movements.

  It was impossible to tell how long Ty had been there. He leaned casually onto one hip, arms crossed loosely. Long enough, if she guessed by his obnoxious grin.

  “Miss Foster.” His bow was ridiculous. “The general has left the garrison under my command. Tell me how I may be of service.”

  Glancing left and right, she closed the distance between them. “You know very well you cannot,” she hissed. “When will Matthew be back?”

  He arched a brow, lips twitching. “Matthew?”

  Lacing arms tightly over her chest, she answered with a glare.

  It only served to make Ty laugh. “It's as Thomas says. The general got word from Blucher this morning that the French were closer than we'd anticipated. He's taken a patrol south, for surveillance on Charleroi.” She swore Ty smirked. “In last night's clothes.”

  Ignoring him, Kate dug fingernails into the meat of her palms, willing her cheeks not to give her away. A burn from the tip of her nose to her ears said she was failing. “Gone until tomorrow afternoon?”

  A slow nod. “Mmhm. At the earliest.”

  A wave of irrational anger swept over her. Matthew had no choice, of course. Enemy movement required his attention, and, by all accounts, he was a brilliant tactician in the field. He would want to have a look for himself at just what the men were facing. But no word? Could he not spare even a moment while Bremen was being saddled to send her a note? Suddenly she felt like crying, and sleeping.

  Instead, she tipped a curt nod at Ty. “Major.”

  “Miss Foster?” Thomas's voice cut in before Ty could answer, turning her around.

  He held an arm out, pinching a folded paper between two fingers and shaking it at her, continuing to scribble at his writing. “General Webb left this for you.”

  She strangled a mouthful of colorful oaths in her throat. Snatching the note with enough force to smack Thomas's hand down, she turned to Ty. He shrugged, looking helpless when she stormed past.

  Perhaps she would simply close the hospital today. Men were not ranking high on her list.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  31 May, 1815 – Quatre Bras

  Fann,

  Something terrible has happened: Matthew and I are lovers!

  Matthew. His name sounds sweet as I say it in my mind. And bitter, too. I know him now, but I am a stranger to myself. In all these years I have had no one to care for, to truly worry over. Now everything is fearful. Matthew has been gone for two days, and I swear my anxious feet have worn a trench between here and the look-out. He has taken a piece of me, without my knowledge or my say-so. There is no sense agonizing over it; I can never get it back.

  Should we have dared? I will not, cannot entertain that question yet. Today I can manage only joyful unrepentance. Whoever this woman is who awoke in my place today, she feels beautiful, complete, and filled with purpose. Matthew has given all this to me, and so I trust him as we enter the dusky territory ahead.

  Two days with only half my heart, or worse when it is time for bed. Are you shocked? Of course not. You are laughing at me, as well you should.

  Know you this: If General Webb does not return from the field tonight, Napoleon will have an adversary on his hands the likes of which he has never before conceived...

  Matthew lifted his hat, eyes dazzled by midday sun, and wiped a sleeve over his forehead at the line of sweat left behind by his hat band. Two days of overcast sameness, sun-up to sundown, had offered a reprieve from the dusty heat beyond the river's swampy out-wash. This afternoon's break in the clouds brought the scorching elements to bear on his patrol.

  They had camped out two nights in a thicket at the river bend. He'd had to see it for himself, not trusting the Prussian soldier's claim that a body of French soldiers was stirring up dust, beyond Charleroi to the south. He had no doubt the small picket had seen something; his allies south of Brussels were seasoned veterans and hardly prone to exaggeration. How much they had truly seen nagged with a pang in his gut. For all his own talk that real battle could be upon them at any time, Wellington's intelligence said they should expect Le Grand Armee to fuse and drive north no earlier than July. Logistically, Matthew thought it impossible for the emperor to arrange anything more quickly. He knew it from experience that Napoleon would not be hurried. If it seemed to an outside observer that Napoleon acted quickly and decisively, it was because they did not comprehend the reach of his perception and how long he truly contemplated a matter before pouncing.

  Expecting battle any day made him confident of advanced warning. The Prussian dispatch hinted he could no longer expect that benefit, and what he spied through his glass a day later had proved them right. A double-snake of heavy guns and supply wagons slithering up from the ripple of afternoon heat wave seemed to confirm that sinking suspicion. It was not enough to constitute a whole army, not yet, but what was a whole army? Puzzle pieces of companies, regiments and battalions, infantry and artillery moved up a square at a time, until an empty field became a battleground.

  He trotted Bremen over the rolling terrain back to the garrison, only in half a hurry at the front of the patrol. McKinnon had galloped ahead at point, laden with handfuls of dispatches and instructions that would be well underway on his arrival.

  In sight of the walls now, t
he idea of Kate washed over him. Heart drumming double-time, blood pounding at his throat, the memory of her lips and hands should have added to the slow burn of a baking sun. Instead, Matthew enjoyed a calm, easy confidence rooted deep in his gut, the same sort he felt when making a sound tactical move. She was not a tactical move, a voice protested. There were too many emotions in play to be so rational about her. About them. His sense of peace was made even stranger by that same voice hushing away anxiety, reassuring him that the bond he now shared with Kate deserved his every ounce of trust.

  Unconsciously, he must have urged Bremen with a subtle kick or nudge. The horse's pace ate more ground, answering Matthew's hotly kindled need for Kate. His contemplation of the French problem was far from done; he could be occupied with preparations into the night, but if he could just see her, feel her nearby, the even-keeled effect she had would sustain him. There had been a time, when he first returned to the regiment, that he would go nearly a week and not see her at all. Now, two days had practically killed him. Hunkered in the wood, lying in the brush under fading twilight, a hundred things had crossed his mind to tell her. In camp, she would have helped him pass the boredom with cards or reading aloud from her book while he worked. And when the laughter and conversation were spent...

  Matthew snapped his head, shaking off a memory. The brush of her foot along his calf when they were slow and just beginning. How burying himself in her heat did not cure his madness, only alter it. His name as a gasp on her lips at the end. He shook his head again and tried to catch his breath.

  His eyes scoured the camp as he trotted in through the sharp timbers. He looked for her all the way to the paddock, gaze landing on faces and shapes, cataloging and dismissing. It was no good; Kate was nowhere in sight.

  It was a powerful application of willpower upon stabling Bremen not to turn south toward the hospital. Instead, he dutifully traipsed the muddy trail toward his command post. For anything less than the news he had carried back, Matthew thought the officers could be damned.