The Major's Wife (The Officer's Bride)

by Merline Lovelace

  “No, he hasn’t left yet." A sigh escaped her. “Nor has Annie. They both profess a rather decided preference for the city instead of the country. Poor Dunston has been kept busy returning various pocket watches and coin purses to the staff these past days, I can tell you.”

  Laughing, Charles tucked a hand under Marianne’s arm and led her to the sofa. She felt his touch right through the sleeve of her gown. The flush that had warmed her when he’d strolled into the library unannounced surged through her again, hotter than before.

  “Here, sit down and tell me how you found these orphans of yours.”

  “Edmond…Mr. St. Just…knows someone in the city. This gentleman, er, refers the children to us.”

  Actually, the bearded, haggle-toothed ruffian Edmond dealt with did more than just “refer” the waifs he handed over. He demanded extortionate amounts for them. Marianne would have denounced the villain to the Royal Society for the Care of Foundlings months ago if her previous experiences with that august body hadn’t proved the futility of such reports. The directors of the well-intentioned society were overwhelmed with the needs of the children already in their care and hadn’t the time or the funds to deal with those Marianne rescued.

  “I must admit,” Charles said with a lift of one brow, “the magnitude of your involvement with this cause surprised me…”

  She stiffened, bracing herself for the stinging rebuke that always followed his sister’s stilted words of praise for her work.

  “And makes me quite proud,” he finished calmly. “Would you care for a plum?”

  Marianne’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. Her husband evidently took that as assent, for he lifted a section of the succulent fruit he’d just peeled and placed it between her lips.

  Still stunned, she nibbled at the sweet pulp, then drew back with a flush of mortification when juice dribbled along her lower lip.

  “How clumsy of me,” Charles muttered, his gaze fixed on her mouth. “Here, take my napkin. Or better yet…”

  His voice trailed off. Mesmerized by the shimmering ripeness of her lips, he slowly bent his head.

  Pull up! his mind shouted. Retreat! This wasn’t part of his campaign strategy! He was supposed to ride slowly over this rough ground. Get to know his wife in bits and pieces. Woo her with jewels and picnics in Hyde Park and slow, sensuous waltzes, as he should have done three years ago.

  Like any good tactician, however, he’d been trained to adjust to unexpected variances in circumstance. Without a qualm, he modified his plan of attack to take advantage of the situation that presented itself.

  Marianne’s heart slammed against her ribs as her husband traced the trickle of juice with his tongue. She sat as if turned to stone, unable to move, unable to think while sensation after sensation bombarded her.

  Her nostrils filled with his scent, rich and redolent of wool, leather, and horse. The late-evening bristle on his cheek scraped against her chin. Through a loud buzzing in her ears, she heard his breathing go ragged. Without knowing quite how it happened, the plate he’d been holding landed on the carpet and she was in his arms.

  With a hoarse cry, she tore her mouth from his. “No, Charles! I cannot… The divorce…”

  “Damn this talk of divorce!” He took her chin and brought her face to his with something less than his usual gentleness. “Listen to me, Marianne. I’ve had time to think since I returned. You were right. I won’t deny it. I married you with the intent of fathering children and leaving my mark on posterity.”

  The blunt admission stilled the wild clamoring in her blood. Her heart aching, she tried once more to turn away. He held her still, forcing her to meet his gaze as well as listen to his words.

  “Such human vanities lose their importance when one charges through a barrage of cannonballs.”

  “Wh… What do you mean?”

  “The Crimea taught me many lessons. Not the least of which was to live the hours God gifts us with and not worry about the weeks and months to follow.”

  “You say that now." Despair welled up from deep inside her. “But when the thunder of the cannons has faded from your memory, you’ll think differently.”

  “Will I?”

  “Yes! You must! Don’t you see, Charles? You’re just experiencing the euphoria of having survived against all odds. You charged straight into the jaws of hell and battled your way out again. Now… Now you must get on with the everyday, mundane business of living.”

  Much to her consternation, her impassioned attempt to make him see reason produced an unexpected reaction. A rakish grin tilted his lips.

  “What I have in mind at the moment, my dear wife, can scarcely be described as mundane.”

  She pushed out of his arms and scooted to her end of the sofa, too wrought up to let his laughing charm sway her this time. “You’ll view things differently a year from now.”

  The teasing light left his eyes. “Then we shall have to wait a year and see, shall we not?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Setting his own jaw in lines every bit as stubborn and determined as hers, he rose and held out a hand to help her to her feet. “If you wish to wait twelve months to resume our marital intimacies, we shall wait twelve months.”

  “You cannot be serious!”

  “Indeed, I am.”

  She stared at him in open-mouthed confusion before fleeing the field in disorderly retreat. Charles was left to retrieve his dropped plate and contemplate twelve months of celibacy.

  Thoroughly disgruntled, he stabbed at the Stilton and muttered a string of oaths entirely unsuited to an officer and a gentleman.

  Chapter Four

  Stormed at with shot and shell,

  Boldly they rode and well,

  Into the jaw of Death,

  Into the mouth of Hell…

  The Charge of the Light Brigade

  Had he taken leave of his senses? Had a cannonball grazed his skull and left him prey to deliriums? Did Charles really intend for them to maintain a façade of marriage for another year? Could she bear it if he did?

  The questions tumbled through Marianne’s whirling mind in the days that followed. One repeated itself with ever increasing urgency.

  Had Charles been speaking the truth when he said he’d changed his views on posterity, or was he merely attempting to make the best of his wife’s failings?

  The Queen’s frequent accouchements and very pointed views on matrimony set the standard of the times. Rather conveniently ignoring her own regal status, she made it clear that women had a single, overriding purpose in life, and that was to fulfill the destiny of their womanhood. The knowledge that she couldn’t bear a child cut Marianne to her heart. More to the point, the certainty she couldn’t bear Charles a son or daughter left her swinging between resignation and despair.

  The fact that her heart pounded every time she heard the door slam and his boot heels ring on the oak stairs didn’t matter in the least. Nor did the ridiculous leap in her pulse when she heard him moving about in the bedchamber adjoining hers long after they both should have been asleep.

  Her only refuge, her only check on her wild emotions, was her work. And her first order of business, she decided after returning the under-gardener’s watch to the wooden-faced butler one afternoon, was to find homes for Annie and Henry Hackett. The two had become quite inseparable, which added another challenge to her task.

  “If you don’t wish to live in the country,” Marianne said firmly after the city-bred Henry balked yet again at making the trip to home farm, “you must tell me what trade you wish to learn. Perhaps I can apprentice you with a good, kind master.”

  “Cor, that’s easy,” the boy replied, brightening. “I’ve always ‘ad a ‘ankering to jiggle the bits.”

  “Jiggle the bits?”

  “You know, slap the ‘indquarters.”

  Faintly alarmed at the image that evoked in her mind, Marianne looked to Annie.

  The girl slipped her thumb from her mouth. “He wa
nts to drive carriage horthes.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course." She eyed the boy doubtfully. “Do you have any experience handling horses?”

  “I knows just how to ‘andle ‘em,” he bragged, puffing out his thin chest. “I onct jumped on coal seller’s ‘ack what was kickin’ up the traces. Give ‘im a good thump atween the ears with an axe pole, I did. Dropped ‘im in his tracks.”

  Somehow, Marianne didn’t think that particular technique for quieting a fractious equine would impress a stable master.

  When she said as much to Charles during the late night supper that had somehow become a routine for them both, he laughed.

  “Actually,” he confessed ruefully, stretching out his long legs, “that’s pretty much the technique we resort to with the mules hitched to our ammunition wagons and artillery caissons. Quite often they require a good thump to make them move forward during a barrage.”

  “I should require more than a good thump,” Marianne responded with a shudder. She could only imagine the courage it took to hold the line amid a hail of cannonballs, or worse, draw sabers and charge straight for artillery pieces spewing smoke and death.

  Resolutely, she banished all thoughts of war. They didn’t belong here in the peaceful quiet of the night. It was late, well after midnight. Silence blanketed the house beyond the library. A comfortable companionship reigned within.

  Always a light eater, Marianne rarely indulged in heavy cheeses or sweets at meals or tea. Yet during the past week she’d developed a surprising partiality for the rich, pungent Stilton and iced cakes. She was quite content to nibble at both while the major stretched out his long legs and satisfied his much heartier appetite.

  “Why don’t I take Henry to regimental barracks with me tomorrow?” her husband suggested casually. “I’ll show him about a bit, then Dragoon Sergeant O’Donnelly can take him down to the sheds where the mules are stabled.”

  “Oh, Charles, would you?”

  Grinning at the note of desperation in her voice, he nodded. “Perhaps one of the stable sergeants and his wife might be convinced to give the boy a home.”

  “They’d have to take both Henry and Annie,” she warned, chewing on her lower lip. “The two have become quite attached.”

  Her husband lifted a brow, but forebear to comment on the potential difficulties of finding a home for a child who couldn’t seem to comprehend the impropriety of nipping off with every pretty bauble that caught her eye.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Marianne could only wonder at the difference between brother and sister. She’d endured so many strictures from Beatrix about her work, particularly after she lost the babe. Attending to these street urchins was not a task suited to a lady of her station, Beatrix had announced. It would drain her energy as well as her resources, and interfere with her duties as Lady Trent. Consequently, Marianne had learned to withhold details from her sister-in-law and had made only the briefest mention of it in letters to her husband.

  That Charles not only supported her efforts, but was prepared to take an active role warmed her from head to toe. The glowing look she cast his way came straight from her heart.

  “Thank you.”

  Her husband’s sun-bleached brows snapped together. To her surprise, he deposited his plate on the tea tray with something of a snap. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  She blinked, taken aback by his gruff command. “I was merely trying to express my gratitude.”

  “I don’t want your gratitude.”

  “Do you not? I beg your pardon, then." Stung, she rose and dusted down the front of her skirts. “I’ll leave you to finish your supper. Goodnight, Charles.”

  With a muttered oath, he surged to his feet and detained her with a hand on her elbow. “Wait. Please. That was badly said of me.”

  She arched a brow.

  “Badly said, but true,” he admitted slowly. “Gratitude is the last thing I want from you.”

  Pardonably annoyed and just a little hurt that he would reject her heartfelt thanks, she cocked her head. “Then perhaps you’ll tell me what it is you do want from me?”

  He hesitated for so long that she began to think he wouldn’t answer.

  “I wish you would tell me,” she pleaded, quite serious now. “You refuse to divorce me. You…you say it no longer matters whether a child comes of our union. Tell me, Charles, what is it you want of this marriage? Of me?”

  A rueful light came into his eyes. “I thought I’d made my desires in this matter of our marriage quite clear.”

  “Not to me!”

  “Then let me speak more plainly. I want you in my bed, Marianne.”

  Her jaw sagged. Her heart thumped so loudly the echoes thundered in her ears.

  “I want to trail kisses from your mouth to the hollow of your throat,” he said outrageously, following the proposed path with his gaze, “to your breasts.”

  Little pinpricks of fire stabbed into her skin everywhere his glance lingered. Her nipples hardened and pushed against her corset stays with painful insistence.

  He lifted her hand, brushed a kiss across her knuckles. Lamplight glinted on the gold threaded through his tawny hair. When he raised his head, the look in his blue eyes melted her bones.

  “I want to slide into your welcoming warmth, Marianne. Lose myself in your heat.”

  She stood stock still, her hand in his. He cocked a brow, awaiting her answer.

  “That…,” she gasped when she could breathe again. “That is plain speaking indeed.”

  “I promised you we would wait a year, and so we shall,” he assured her. His mouth curved in something far closer to a grimace than a grin. “That doesn’t mean I’ll enjoy the waiting.

  Charles went to bed quite satisfied with the progress he’d made toward achieving his objective. It wouldn’t take a year. The dazed look in Marianne’s eyes when he kissed her goodnight at her bedroom door gave him hope that he’d storm her defenses well before twelve months had passed.

  The next morning dawned cold and drizzly, but Charles rose with a general feeling of optimism. Even the rather daunting results of Henry Hawkins’ introduction to the regimental stables failed to dim his good spirits.

  The stable master set the boy to work mucking out the stalls of the mules. Cavalry troops generally considered the animals misbegotten, contrary, ill-mannered, and in no way comparable to their noble cousins, the horse. Henry seemed to find them kindred spirits. Nimbly dodging yellowed teeth and lashing hooves, he cheerfully answered each attempt to remove a piece of his anatomy with a solid whack of his shovel.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t as adept at dodging the disapproval of other stable hands.

  “He swears like a Russian,” one corporal reported when the major stopped by to check on the boy. Since Dunbar’s Dragoons weren’t particularly known for their gentle speech, such censure was severe indeed.

  “He don’t take orders well, neither,” another chimed in, casting a darkling look at the unrepentant newcomer.

  “I don’t take no notice of empty ‘eaded crows what flap their beaks is what ‘e means,” Henry replied, bristling. “I asks you, major, what sense do it make to shovel droppin’s from the stalls, dump ‘em in a pile, then shovel the ‘hole mess into a ‘oney wagon? Dump the ‘orse apples in the wagon first off, I says!”

  Charles agreed, but he couldn’t take this raw recruit’s side in the matter of mule droppings over that of his corporals. “I would prefer you learn the army’s ways of doing things before you decide to how best to change them.”

  “But…”

  “Yes?”

  The icily polite query quelled Henry on the spot. Muttering, he went back to his shovel.

  “It’ll take a few knocks up aside the head to get that one into shape,” the stable sergeant predicted.

  “No knocks,” Charles ordered sternly. He suspected Marianne wouldn’t appreciate an application of rough and ready army discipline. “Just keep him busy and out of mischief.” />
  The stable sergeant took him at his word. As a consequence, the boy who accompanied Charles back through the streets of London later that evening wore a weary and thoroughly disgruntled expression. He also carried a scent so ripe that the major’s first instruction to his long-suffering butler was to see that a bath was drawn immediately for Master Hawkins.

  “’Ere!” Henry protested, thoroughly alarmed. “That weren’t no part of the bargain!”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The boy flushed, but held his ground. “Lady Trent promised I’d only have to dunk me spuds onct a week!”

  “Did she?”

  Quite sure Marianne had never couched any promise in those particular terms, Charles nevertheless gave him the benefit of the doubt.

  “Then we’ll have to refer the matter to Lady Trent. Let’s go upstairs and find her, shall we?”

  The butler cleared his throat. “Begging pardon, sir. Lady Trent’s not at home. She left nearly an hour ago, as a matter of fact. And…” He cast a speaking look at his employer. “Lady Beatrix has called. She’s waiting in the upstairs parlor.”

  “Blimey!”

  Evidently more alarmed at the prospect of coming face to face with the major’s sister than dunking his spuds, Henry promised he’d set himself all right and tight and skipped down the hall toward the kitchens.

  Charles mounted the stairs, wondering where Marianne might have gone. As she’d told him upon his return, she’d made a good number of friends in London. Invitations to dinners and musicales had poured in once word of the major’s arrival spread. His duties precluded acceptance of such invitations, however, until all troop transports had docked and his men were cared for. Marianne refused to attend as well, insisting that she didn’t wish to establish a public façade until private matters were settled between them.

  Perhaps she’d changed her mind, he thought, or had gone to visit a particular friend.

  In that he was correct. As an indignant Beatrix informed him when he joined her in the parlor, his wife had indeed paid a visit to a very particular friend.