Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1)

by Baird Wells

  She nodded. “In the language of plants, it stands for fidelity.”

  Matthew grinned, his finger glancing along her bodice where she'd hidden the pin. “What other tokens of affection do you have hidden in there?”

  She snatched his wrist, pulling his hand a modest distance away, regretting that they were in public. “Don't tease me. Do you like it?”

  He tugged gently at his ribbon around her neck. “You could not have chosen more perfectly.” He pressed the leaf back into her hand. “Place your flag atop me.”

  Five simple words, but they caught her breath. Trespassing fingers into the rain-misted hair at his collar, she pulled up into him, fitting their lips together. Her body leaped at the electric current of their contact, heart aching with a jumble of emotions. Matthew was demanding, hand flattened to the small of her back and crushing short her breaths as though he could crush them into one body. He was so hungry and eager that Kate was obliged to lean half over the bench's arm.

  A laugh just inside the door cut them apart without warning. She sprung forward while Matthew slid back in a precarious dance that nearly caused her forehead to clip his chin. His laughter echoed her own as they ducked one another's abashed glances.

  She drew a line along the top of his cravat, watching how the muscles of his neck quivered under her touch. “This exchange will not be forgotten when we arrive at the house,” she promised.

  “I shall hold you to that,” he whispered, grabbing her hand.

  She dared a quick nip at the corner of his mouth. “I am depending on it.” Clutching a fistful of his coat, she took the pin from where it had fallen into her lap, working its small silver stick through his lapel. She seated the clasp, admiring her handiwork.

  Kate started to give herself a little compliment for not stabbing him, but hoof beats rattling far down the lane suddenly became impending thunder. A rider streaked past, bent for hell over the back of his horse, wheeling into the small alley dividing the yard and the mews. His boots struck the cobblestones with a clap seemingly before the horse was fully drawn up. The rider abandoned his reins, dashing for Matthew, the first person in sight. An ill premonition tickled up her spine at his approach.

  Matthew jumped to his feet. “Lieutenant Webster!”

  “General!” Webster grabbed Matthew with a long arm, as wiry as the rest of him, head turning in every direction. “The Field Marshal?”

  “They are just sitting down to supper.” Matthew gestured toward the house.

  Webster waved a dispatch, several pages thick if she had to guess. “It won't keep. The prince wants it delivered by my hand, immediately.”

  “What has happened?” Matthew demanded, eyes never leaving the dispatch.

  “The Prussians have been repulsed. Soundly.”

  Matthew snapped up straight, looking slapped. “Where?”

  Goose flesh prickled up her arms, afraid of what Webster would say next. As much as she wanted to believe the news could not get any worse, the lieutenant's expression undermined her hope.

  Webster hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Charleroi, and I mean to the north.”

  She had visited the town more than once. It was on a river and not easily passed through. When Webster clarified north, he needed no other word to convey how dire the situation lay.

  Matthew took the letter, raking over the writing on its face. “Ten o'clock. Is that precisely when this was written?”

  “Yes, sir.” The lieutenant's nod was sharp. “I was away only minutes later.”

  Matthew cracked the wax seal, clearly startling Webster, and skimmed the message in a breath. He clutched at a fistful of hair. “God dammit all, he's right on top of us.”

  In all the time she had known him, Kate could not recall seeing Matthew discomposed, not when it came to military matters. Now, Webster stood expectantly with Matthew frozen at her side, looking for all the world as if he had no orders to give. He paced a few steps away, and when he turned back, Matthew was scrubbing a hand over his mouth in a gesture she knew too well. He was thinking, hard, struggling to make the best of a bad situation.

  She did not want to hear any more. She wanted to go on visiting the shops and dining with Adelaide and spending every night in Matthew's arms. Reality had come to acquaint itself at last, whether she wished it or not. Kate realized all she could do now was arm herself with knowledge and brace for what was coming. She did not want to ask, but she swallowed away the parch in her throat and did so anyway. “What has happened?”

  Matthew looked up quickly, as though he had forgotten anyone else was there. He shook the dispatch, then handed it back to Webster's snapping fingers. “If this is true, Napoleon's got himself – all of himself – a day ahead of our last intelligence. Double-quick, too. He's on my doorstep at Quatre Bras.”

  They weren't prepared. Matthew did not have to say it. She could see it in the grave set of his jaw, and the way his eyes went far away. They were filled with calculations, logistics and strategic points while he estimated just how desperate his plight truly was. His men had spent weeks preparing, but they would have expected two-days' warning at least. Now they had but hours.

  Just as quickly as he had petrified, his shoulders relaxed, seeming to shake the moment off. “Be good until I come back.” He pecked a distracted kiss to her temple, then turned to Webster. “We had better go in.” He squeezed her fingers one last time, and the two broke off, loping like hounds across the yard and in through the door's narrow rectangle of light, leaving her alone in the soft downpour.

  She had been through enough engagements to appreciate the gravity of Webster's news. North of Charleroi and nearing Quatre Bras meant the French had crossed two rivers, several towns and open country with decisive speed, attempting to claim the cross-roads by surprise. Victory there would grant Napoleon an unfettered path to Brussels. Defeated, the retreating allies would be lucky to reach their ships in Antwerp. They might regroup and push back eventually, but Kate had been aware for some time of a sense of finality. In watching the way the men moved, the dread hiding in the silences around the campfires at night. Listening to what Ty did not say when they talked. The Allies had a good push left in them, but she wagered it was the last. If Napoleon cleft his enemies now, there was no hope of recovering. Europe, and very quickly England, would fall under his hand. She could only guess what that would eventually mean for her own country.

  Doctor Hallick would have the work of five men when the fighting broke out in earnest. Kate turned his offer to stay over in her mind, wondering how quickly she could reach the regiment. Her orderlies were skilled enough, but who knew if men like Private Taylor would choose to stay on at the hospital with heavy fighting on the horizon. With Porter reenlisted, she worried for the doctor.

  With no idea what to do with herself and too shot through with nerves to be still, she made her way back toward the house, but she did not get far beyond the door. A handful of bodies filled the entry at the front of the ballroom, a good number of men and a few ladies hovering wide-eyed. They moved about one another like bees, buzzing out what gossip they had heard or could infer before turning to the next person.

  Lady Adelaide separated from the small crush, gliding over the polished wood floor specter-like in her black silk with pretty, doe-eyed Georgiana Lennox in tow. Adelaide clenched Kate's arm with desperate pressure. “Matthew has come in and gone straight to the Duke. Wellington has asked Richmond for a good map.” She stared expectantly.

  Kate breathed in, over and over, stifling panic threatening to well up from her gut. Adelaide tugged at her arm. “Miss Foster. What have you heard?”

  Behind Adelaide, Georgy pinned her a lower lip between anxious teeth, clutching her companion.

  Kate looked between them both, summoning her composure. To Adelaide she said, “You should go home at once. Wake Louisa and pack what you need in order to travel. Be ready to leave for Antwerp.”

  “Antwerp!” exclaimed Georgy, but Adelaide shushed her with a hiss
of her breath, glancing to see if anyone had overheard.

  Then, she fixed Kate with a sentinel gaze. “I would say you are being excitable, and over-cautious, but I believe I know you better than that.”

  Kate swallowed. “If you understood how close the French have come, you would appreciate how correct you are.”

  Georgy, who impressed Kate as clever and level-headed, glanced cautiously behind herself before speaking again. “How close?”

  “Above Charleroi, close enough to strike at Quatre Bras tomorrow if I understand my geography.”

  Adelaide reached behind her and took Georgy's hand. “My son's men are there, you know. He will have to go and fight.” Suddenly Adelaide looked very tired and very frail. She met Kate's eyes. “I have over-exerted myself tonight and could sleep a whole day already. And now you say I must pack and ready for the indignity of a coach to Antwerp.”

  Kate realized that after Adelaide's procedure, the everyday routine was likely exhausting for Matthew's mother. Tonight, she had overspent her energy to make her presence at the ball, to say nothing of the agony she must be feeling worrying over Matthew.

  Filled with daring, Kate slipped her arms around Adelaide, embracing her hopefully. “Go home. Entrust your staff to ready your things and rest. Those are my orders.” She squeezed tighter for just a breath or two. “And don't despair, not for one second. He will come back to us.” Closing her eyes to convince herself, she squeezed Adelaide's hands.

  There was a rustle, and Georgy gasped. Kate opened her eyes to find Caroline hovering behind Georgiana, her haughtiness softened by open worry. She spoke with the expression of a bad taste in her mouth, clearly hating to humble herself. “Miss Foster. Sir Henry says you were present when the messenger arrived. Do we have cause to be concerned?”

  We was twisted by her lips, as if to clarify to Kate that she was not a part of it.

  In her ruby silk and gold filigree jewels, Caroline inherently had a way of making Kate feel like a counterfeit imitation, the second-fiddle role she had rejected to Matthew. The urge to claw at her eyes, to shriek and call her names, was born of her love for Matthew and a need to defend him. But it was born equally of her own self-conscious discomfort. She started to turn her back on the woman, who was already pierced hotly by the gazes of Georgy and Lady Adelaide, when her own words to Matthew struck her full force. Bitterness towards Caroline was only moving backwards.

  Kate realized she had the chance to be the better person, but was still not entirely certain she wanted to take it. Sighing, she faced the woman who was still Matthew's wife. “Napoleon is here. Slipped across the river with the stealth of the devil himself. You should go, Caroline, and spend this last hour with the man you love. Whomever that may be.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  He had paced the room from end to end for what seemed like an hour, though checking his watch as the men filed in, Matthew assured himself it had been only twenty minutes.

  Charles Lennox, the Duke of Richmond, came in first with the Field Marshal close behind. Lennox was unmistakably Scottish in design, with the icy blue gaze and the ruddy cheeks of a wind-stung Highlander. Red hair tinged silver hinted at the change of season to middle age. His lean frame held the fierce courage and torch of an adventurous spirit. Matthew had personally witnessed him blazing on the battlefield more than once. There were some in Brussels who underestimated him because he had been tasked with overseeing as yet unused reinforcements in anticipation of the city's defense. They were fools, and then some. Lennox would remain fierce, and fearsome, until his last breath. There was a reason Wellington had positioned the man as a last line of defense for civilians and soldiers.

  “Lennox.” He bowed to the duke out of deference to his reputation more than any difference in their social ranks.

  Lennox slapped a hand on his desk, smile a grim line. “Webb. Need to change your britches yet?”

  “Damn near it.” There was no sense lying to the man. He was likely feeling just as winded.

  Wellington said nothing. He came to the desk and bent over it, pinning the surface with balled fists. The tousled hair at his temples was outright disheveled where he had been pulling at it. The cupid's bow of his mouth pursed tightly, as if at a bad taste. Lennox rifled through a stand in the corner, pulling out a leather map case and drawing out the parchment tube from inside. Meanwhile Matthew hung beside them, waiting for an order, an assignment, some sign from either man that the situation was not as dire as it seemed.

  Lennox laid his map on the desk, smoothing its curl while Matthew weighted it with an inkwell and a candle stick, the only things at hand, in order to get a faster look at their new position.

  He leaned over the map beside Wellington, with Richmond across the desk, and for a long moment they only looked. Matthew traced a fork in the road near Charleroi, calculating how many guns the French had, the damp terrain, and how furiously their master must be whipping them along.

  Lennox hmm'd, his finger brushing the map between two routes, along the waterways from Brussels to Antwerp. The commander was no longer thinking offensively. It was strategy for the most expeditious retreat. Matthew's gut clenched, mouth too arid to swallow.

  After minutes of intense study, Wellington struck a point on the map with his index finger, middle finger fixing a spot nearby so that they vee’d like a sextant's frame.

  “The bastard.” Wellington stood, crossed his arms, then brought them to his hips and took a step away. He rounded back, stabbing the map again. “He has humbugged me, by God! Napoleon has got twenty-four hours' march on me.”

  “He must have driven them north with the threat of hell at their heels,” said Lennox.

  Matthew searched the map again, his mind adding green lines and blue lines, trying to picture where the Allies currently held ground. It was hard to do, not lumping the different forces into one group, but after a moment of study, pieces began to click together. Excitement, the barest embers, ignited in him.

  “I think we're missing an opportunity here.” He tapped the crossed lines indicating the road at Quatre Bras. “My men are here, and I have no doubt that in a few hours I will find him at my doorstep. But the Prussians are holding fast here –” He circled an area just beyond Ligny to the east. “Napoleon beat them back today, but not far.”

  Wellington leaned in so that his hooked nose almost touched the map, as though he could spy the true face of the terrain and divine his enemy's position. He was nodding faster and faster as Matthew spoke.

  “But we can push east, and if the Prussians run west...” Wellington traced the valley's funnel shape upward from Charleroi. “We can crush him in the vice, if Blucher will play along.”

  Their eyes met, all three exchanging glances, and Matthew saw his hope mirrored there.

  “I will face him here.” Wellington cut a swath with his thumb through the name 'Waterloo’, “and here he must be stopped.”

  * * *

  While Lennox went out to douse his guests with the news, Matthew stayed with Wellington a while longer, writing orders of his own in tandem with the Field Marshal's ream of dispatches. Wellington wanted every officer with his regiment no later than three in the morning. By the last check of his watch, it was one-thirty. Satisfied that his orders to Ty were complete, he went in search of Kate and his mother.

  The dining room lacked its earlier glow of festivity, absent the laughter and conversation that had woven together the merrymakers on his arrival. Couples paired off, embracing openly without bothering to seek the privacy of a dark corner or a hall, seeking comfort in each other's arms. A grandmother and her matronly daughter patted and fussed over their young heir, three generations squeezing hands, entreating him a safe return.

  Passing the parlor, Matthew observed a young lady crumpled with sobs, two male relatives bearing her from the room while her gallant Hussar begged her to be strong. Every room was punctuated with a few nearly lifeless souls, faces frozen in drawn-up anguish, posed like sepulcher statu
es waiting in suspense.

  This, he resolved, was the most compelling reason for keeping military and social life separate. Lords and ladies of the haute ton meant well. They were spirited and patriotic, eager to show support for their lads. And in London, such a thing would be well and good, away from the press of an immediate threat, but tonight... Matthew shook his head, cutting between two milling groups of officers and their ladies. Tonight, they had decorated for a wedding in order to hold a funeral.

  On the eve of battle in the regimental camps, there was camaraderie, a settling of accounts financial, personal and spiritual. The men sang or read the Good Book aloud, shouting down a drunken piper or the raucous laughter of one last game of dice. The men who could write penned letters, and an even scarcer few snored away contentedly, at peace with whatever came on dawn's heels. Every diversion, each activity was underscored by the brotherly understanding of shared sacrifice, and of a grateful dependence upon the musket beside you. What lay ahead was swallowed down with grog and grim determination.

  The heart-wrenching misery surrounding him now, the tears flowing violently or stoically all around, though perfectly merited, were of no use to a soldier. At a moment when a man's spirits needed bolstering, even outright bravado, such an abrasive emotional scene was tantamount to declaring him already dead.

  All along his grim path, Matthew looked for Kate. It was not hard to sort through the faces. A small crush of guests were concentrated at the cloak room, collecting hats and cloaks with all the shouting of a horse auction. A good many more had already left.

  He found Kate at last in the hall proper, on her knees in front of the door to the makeshift ballroom. An old man Matthew did not recognize, two young women, and Lady Richmond bent with concern over the prone form in front of Kate. Reaching her side, Matthew eyed the trickle of blood from the girl's mouth, stark against the pallid cast of her face. Had she been struck in the crush of people quitting the house?

  Kate tossed him a cursory glance, pretty features as severe as he'd ever seen them, then fixed the old man with a pointed look. “A fit is natural, under duress. Particularly if she has had them before. But you must not put anything into her mouth.”