Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1)

by Baird Wells

  Matthew gave a sharp nod and considered the gross understatement. Still, there was no need to spoil Hay's excitement. “Let's hope it was not Napoleon's best performance. I prefer a little sport for my trouble.”

  “We'll beat them soundly, sir. No question.” Hay struck the air with a fist. “Lady Sarah was just this evening making light of all the empty fabric on my coat.” He ran a finger over his breast. “But I explained it's being prepared for all my commendations. Soon enough, it'll be full up.”

  Matthew chuckled, shaking his head. He glanced Hay over while handing his invitation to the footman, amused and bit jealous of an energy which had long ago been tempered for him. “Who is your commander now? Picton?”

  “Maitland, sir, as his aide-de-camp.” Hay snapped to attention, chest puffed to strain his waistcoat.

  Matthew bit into a grin, fixing a straight face. “How old are you now, Hay? Twenty?”

  “Eighteen sir,” he preened, “Just last month.”

  “That explains it. We'll break you of this enthusiasm by nineteen.” He winked and took Hay's hand, receiving a squeeze and a pump so vigorous that Matthew feared he might not get his arm back.

  “Yes, sir.” Hay grinned, already being pulled away by rowdy masculine voices calling to him from across the crowd. “Thank you, sir.”

  Matthew swept a hand, shooing him away and fighting to remain stern until the boy was out of sight. He bypassed the cloak room, realizing he had forgotten his evening shoes in his hurry to leave the house. In his hurry to see Kate. If blisters were his only penance for a few more minutes in her company, he was satisfied.

  The ballroom was a marvel of redecorating. Trellised paper with hand-painted roses covered the wood-beam walls. Yards of silk draped in swaths of patriotic red and gold between the trusses overhead. The radiant glow of at least three hundred candles was already beading regret at his temples, making Matthew question his poor choice of wool over linen.

  “Webb.”

  He turned to find Lord Ethan Grayfield trailing behind him. They had hardly seen one another since serving together in Portugal. Now he had seen his old companion twice in as many days. Not surprising, since Grayfield had given up the army in favor of a position at the Whitehall war office. He would have been more enthusiastic about the encounter were he not so eager to find Kate. Matthew extended his hand. “Grayfield. Good to see you again.”

  While they shook hands, Ethan searched the room around them. “Any chance of finding Major Burrell here this evening? I have a question for him and am rather eager for an answer.”

  “To the disappointment of more than one lady, he has chosen to remain at the garrison. If there is something I can pass along –”

  Ethan's hand shot up. “No, no. I won't trouble you. An idle matter.” He pointed towards the ballroom's wide entrance. “I'm glad to see your mother looking well. She's making the rounds like a queen, as always. Very fetching guest she's brought along...”

  High praise, considering that Grayfield's own wife was quite the beauty. Ethan raised a brow, letting the statement hang between them.

  “Fetching guest, you say?” Matthew pretended to try and see past Ethan's shoulder. “Sounds as though I had better see for myself.”

  “Webb.” Ethan bowed, tossing him a knowing smile. “It would be rude of me to keep you.”

  “Grayfield.” Matthew returned the gesture, leaving Ethan with a last quick handshake and making his way into the ballroom.

  A highland reel cut the floor nearly in two, raucous laughter passing down the line with the swap of each partner. Feet stomped, drumming to a singing fiddle and clapping hands which split the air. He searched each dancer, each observer, waiting for one to catch his eye.

  When his gaze found Kate's familiar shape in the peacock crowd, the room could have been empty. Music, voices and people all drifted into a far-away murmur. For a moment they were the only two people who existed. He struggled to fill lungs that had become tight with anticipation. Matthew imposed a sweet sort of torture, denying himself the pleasure of her against an ache in his gut. He stalked her unnoticed while she faced Lord Pearson, flanked by his mother on the left.

  Closing the distance to Kate, he was aware of nods and salutes from the islands of revelers he passed, but he returned none of them.

  She deserved jewels and fine silk gowns, but Kate needed no such ornaments. He traced the seductive caress of tissue-thin white muslin hugging womanly curves. The simple fabric set her apart from every woman in the room, her dress a breath of fresh air among the gold thread and dazzling sequins. Its only true decoration was sprigged wildflowers embroidered at the sleeves and neckline. It could not have been more perfect had it been made for her. His ribbon around her neck was his undoing, and Matthew's heart stuttered.

  For all his protests that her hair should be down, whoever had styled it deserved a great deal of credit. Curls full of more fire than he remembered revealed a nape and bare shoulders that caught the attention of at least three other men passing her in just the time it had taken for him to cross half the room. Matthew exhaled against a jealous impulse, feeling no desire to fill his calendar with dawn appointments. There would be talk enough already without the scandal of a duel. Everyone present knew very well that he was married. Once he reached Kate on the other side of the ballroom, there could no longer be any doubt in their minds of it being a transitory state. There was no scenario in which he was not going to touch her, and they could all be damned.

  He stopped just shy of acquainting their bodies and laid fingertips against her wrist. He took an odd pleasure in the mingling of their body heat through two pairs of gloves, knowing exactly how it would feel to caress her without any barrier. She stiffened at the pressure of his hand, shivering at the rush of his breath over her neck.

  “I have been half of my self today, until this moment,” he murmured for her ears alone.

  “Strange. I have felt you with me all along,” said Kate, leaning into the space between them, making him whole.

  He rested his forehead against her silky curls and inhaled. Not a scent or any one thing he could name, but something that fed his soul. His eyes closed, and he simply existed in that moment.

  His mother's fan jabbing him in the ribs broke the spell. “Your lady has been waiting patiently for a dance, Webb.”

  She snapped him back into the moment, and for the first time Matthew truly looked at someone other than Kate.

  Pearson, tall, thin and silvery like an old tree cut his usual elegant if stooped figure. But his mother...what was she wearing? Even being of a certain age Adelaide still managed to turn heads. When he was in London, men at parliament or the Exchange begged him to send an obnoxious wealth of 'regards' to the lady. Tonight her neckline was at an unprecedented low, high enough to be perfectly modest, but revealing for a widow in her fifties. Her sleeves were short. Matthew shook his head at all the bare arm. Could they even be called sleeves? Suddenly uncomfortable, he focused his attention on Pearson, who was standing unaccountably close to Adelaide.

  “Two beautiful ladies waiting for a dance. Pearson, have you been neglecting your duties?” he chastised.

  Puffing up with a smile, Pearson cupped his mouth. “Gout.”

  “But we've had such an agreeable conversation,” protested Kate. “There was no rush to dance.”

  “So we have, my dear! So we have.” Pearson patted Kate's shoulder. “Now you must do your duty. Go make a spectacle of yourself with the other young people.”

  “Lady Richmond promised a waltz on your arrival, Matthew,” his mother offered, grasping Kate's arm. “You do waltz, Miss Foster...”

  Kate's head cocked impishly as she studied him. “I do.” She bit her lip, reaching out her hand.

  He tried committing her to memory in that moment, to remember her always just the way she looked now. A woman's figure belied by her girlish face, glowing with a light deep in her eyes, passion which seemed to well up from her soul. She belonged to him. Somed
ay he would be able to grasp that.

  Matthew took her arm and pulled her to his side, guiding them to the floor where the other dancers were already weaving between one another.

  * * *

  Matthew had not embellished his skill as a dancer. Even in hard soled boots he was agile, and to her even greater delight, Kate discovered he enjoyed dancing just as much as she.

  He led her into a quick turn for perhaps the fifth time and nodded his approval. “I believe you have mastered the waltz, Miss Foster.”

  “I had a very skilled teacher, General Webb.”

  He was an absolute rake, mouth cocked up at one side. Her breath quickened at his eyes, resting at her lips, the subtle pressure of fingers against her back. He waited to speak until they had angled away from a curious pair beside them. “I'm not entirely certain who has been instructing whom of late.”

  “Shocking.”

  “I'm sure.” His wink was too much.

  She dropped her eyes to his cravat, biting her cheek in vain. His hand at her waist clutched tighter, his leading steps demanding in their pace. Kate formed a quip on her tongue, working up the courage to tease that his dancing was no different than his lovemaking. But when she found Matthew's face again, his eyes were no longer on her. “Is something the matter?”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched, but there was no sign he had heard her question, or that he was aware she was still in his arms.

  “Matthew?” she prompted.

  “Hmm?” He acknowledged her with a single word only, his glare burning over her shoulder. The light trip of Matthew's feet became an angry stomp, and he pulled her closer, more intimately than any other pair of dancers. Embarrassed heat flushed her from throat to forehead. They were attracting craned necks and whispers from those around them. When he led her through the next turn, she understood why.

  Smirking, presiding over a small court of guests at the foot of the dance floor, was Caroline, hunting them with slitted eyes. Why had it not occurred that she might be here, sewing discord? She was accessorized with a fawning Major Pitt. Kate wanted to sink into the marble, disappear. Caroline's sensual magnetism left her feeling pale and plain. Matthew's blatant stare was not helping. Kate swallowed her jealousy. “Should we leave the floor?” she whispered, trying not to sound as eager as she felt.

  “Mm.” His eyes still did not meet hers. They took wider strides, practically bouncing each step. He was putting on a show, she realized. Bitterness surged inside, and Kate pulled a few deep breaths, fighting it back. “Matthew, can you listen to me for just a moment?” She hissed the words, hating the resentful bite.

  Without warning he darted in, crushing his lips against her temple. The gesture was so obviously calculated that Kate snatched her hand from his, halting their momentum and nearly tumbling an oblivious couple beside them. Matthew blinked at her, looking almost comically surprised, but her throat was too tight to explain, choked with anger. She pivoted on her heel, tearing through the crush in no clear direction until she spied the ballroom's small exit to the dooryard. The moment she got close enough to feel the cool night air bite her flaming cheeks, Kate knew it was the right direction.

  It was not truly a garden. The space from the door to the back wall was too small and uncultivated to merit the name, but someone still had invested the effort to make it a lush retreat in spite of its limits. A latticed wooden arbor claimed most of the open ground, its weathered slats embraced by a lovely and deceptively aggressive candy pink rosebush, giving shelter to a small bench tucked beneath the plant's twisting branches.

  Tears pricked her eyes, throat aching because she would not spend them. She did not want to sit. Nothing so passive would sooth the throbbing in her temples. She wanted to pace, stamp her feet into the ground, hammer out some of the shame burning her from head to toe. But when she stepped from the last stone stair onto the grass, a chilled spattering of raindrops kept secret by the light of a single lamp caught her across the nose and shoulders. If she did not want to sit, at least she could stand beneath the arbor in peace and gather herself. Lifting her skirts, she crossed the yard. Evening dew soaked the top of her feet, wetting her stockings and wicking into her shoes. The feeling did not improve her mood.

  Stepping under the cover of beams and foliage, Kate pressed her back to the damp wood of an upright support. She closed her eyes, inhaling slowly, permeated by the roses' sweet, oily scent.

  “Kate.”

  Reflexively, she sighed, not looking at him yet. He was behind her in the yard, in the rain, but she wasn't ready to let him closer, to do more than acknowledge him yet. “Yes, Matthew.”

  “Kate, look at me.”

  She did, unable to resist the sad contrition in his words.

  His eyes were down-turned over the grim line of his mouth, shoulders drawn up with a tension that said he was uncertain of coming any closer. He rubbed a thumb and forefinger together repeatedly, inside his glove. “I have no feelings for her, none that mean anything to us.”

  “That is not true.” She crossed her arms, rejecting the idea outright.

  “I have no attachment to her,” he argued.

  “Attachment is the least of my worries. You have been married for ten years, Matthew. It would be natural to feel something.” She slumped onto the bench, tiredness overtaking her without warning, and held out a hand to him. “Our love is not a barb to be used for pride or injury. Do not make me –” Kate caught her breath. “Do not make us part of your revenge.”

  Matthew stayed rooted where he was and swept a hand back toward the house. “Can you fault me, Kate? You are right, and I am more deeply sorry than I can put into words, but can you truly fault me?” He was drawn up in a tense line, nearly shouting. She had never seen Matthew come so close to losing control.

  “I am happy.” He shook his head, striking a fist to his breast. “I am content. To my very soul. I love and am loved, by you Kate, and it bloody well terrifies me at times.” He paced away, then turned sharply back, chest heaving. “But it is the most perfect thing I have ever known.” Finally, he moved toward her. “I do not want her to take another moment of pleasure in having denied me for so long.”

  She could not fault him, knowing too well the eager desire to prove superiority to those who hurt you. She had felt exactly the same way, when it came to Lizzie. “Whatever bad blood is between you, let it go. We have taken a fork in the road. There is no point in walking backward simply to punish Caroline. All you have now is whatever you choose to sow.” Kate hugged herself against a chill both inside and out. “If you choose bitterness, I cannot fault you, but I won't be party to it either. We have enough obstacles of our own.”

  He was in front of her now, miserable and confused. “You were not worried that I still have feelings for Caroline?”

  “No.” There was worry in her heart, but not a bit of it was named Caroline. At least, not directly.

  He settled beside her on the bench, close enough to dissolve their painful distance. Matthew's hand wrapped hers in its warmth. “Then tell me what you are thinking.”

  “I don't know what I am thinking. What I was thinking. Maybe I haven't been. My heart has been stumbling blindly ahead and my body, traitor that it is, goes right along.”

  He stiffened beside her, and Kate could hear his throat working. “Are you leaving me, Kate?”

  “No! God, no. I would never leave you.” She fell against him, resting her head on his chest, slipping an arm into the heat beneath his coat. “I might as well stop my heart or draw my last breath.”

  His damp gloves brushed her cheek. “Then I dare you to name a single trouble which I cannot fix.”

  For the first time, it seemed impossible that Matthew could keep his word. “One day we'll wake up and the war will be over. I suppose it's been easier not to think about what will happen then.” Without the marginal anonymity of the army, Kate had begun to wonder where they could go. Matthew's open acknowledgment in the ballroom had pressed the issue.

 
; He swatted a hand at her concern. “My man has taken the divorce suit to Scotland. We'll have an easier time with the courts there. I can find you a house in town, Kate. We would sort out –”

  “No.” Divorce could take years or never be granted at all. That left their relationship in a painful and scandalous limbo. “I hate London, and I won't be your mistress. The chief ornament of a gaudy townhouse, living in a city where I may as well be living alone. Carrying on in the dark.” She jerked away and crossed her arms, hating how petulant she must seem. “I won't play second fiddle to anyone, not even a viscountess.” None of it was Matthews fault, and she certainly did not blame him, but that did not change the future looming ahead.

  Matthew pulled her back to him and wrapped her close, cradling her head against his shoulder. Tears wet her face where and soaked his shirt-front.

  “You are not my mistress, or an ornament. You are my blood and bone, the heart beating in my chest. The ground in which I bury myself to be healed and made complete.” He lifted her chin, raising her eyes to his. “I know it feels impossible now, but do not give up.”

  “I am worried, but I am not giving up.” She sat up, cradling his face in her hands while Matthew swept away her tears with his thumbs. “I have something for you.” She reached into her bodice, his face brightening while she fished inside her dress.

  Matthew craned his neck, pretending to peer into her neckline. “Now I know how Napoleon smuggles his intelligence.”

  “Truly, Matthew?” she chastised, softening it with a smile. She located the clasp and pulled the gift free. Taking his hand, she dropped the pin into his palm, where it rested, no bigger than farthing.

  He rubbed a finger over the leaf's smooth green enamel, tracing its three points. “Ivy?”