“I daresay they are. I...got separated from them. It was an accident—I never intended—but I—”
Hart’s brows narrowed, and his lips and fingers moved in rapid calculation. “Good God. Never say you walked here from New Orleans.”
“Not all the way. We rode, at first.”
“Oh, to be sure.” Hart looked at Thérèse and Jeannette as if seeing them for the first time. “And were these, er, ladies your companions on this journey?”
Thérèse and Jeannette drew closer together, clasping hands.
“Every step of the way,” Henry said. “May I present my wife Thérèse and her sister Jeannette Bondurant?”
After a single startled blink, Hart swept them a courteous bow. “Enchanted, Mrs. Farlow, Miss Bondurant. If you will be so good as to come with me? It sounds as though you have a great deal to tell.”
And before he knew what was happening, Henry found himself seated in the low room that served as office and mess for the 27th’s officers, pouring out almost the whole story. Hart thoughtfully provided refreshments—tea for the ladies, ale for him and a nice selection of biscuits, cakes and fruit for all. Thérèse and Jeannette tucked in with a will, but Henry had little appetite.
But if Hart was judging him and finding him a deserter, none of it showed on his face. Other than a few questions for clarification, he said little, but seemed engrossed in the tale.
Henry left out a few details for Thérèse’s and Jeannette’s sakes. He mentioned that they had been searching the Bondurant estate for some valuables intended for Thérèse, but he left out the fact it was pirate treasure and that they still carried some of it with them. He left Thérèse’s illegitimate status and her mixed ancestry untold for now, not out of shame but because it was her story to tell when and how she chose.
He told all about Bertrand Bondurant’s death, however, and their need for instant flight. “If there had been a way to reach our army, I swear I would’ve done so. But we had no way to learn where they had gone without drawing suspicions we could ill afford. And once we were spotted in the city, we had to take the first boat or ship that would take us away, no matter where it was bound. It was our bad luck that it was upriver. Once we began, we were going farther and farther away with every hour, and I still had no way of getting news. If I’d known the war was over and had some way of getting to a southern port—Mobile or Charleston, perhaps—we would’ve done so and sought a ship bound for Jamaica. But by the time we got the news about the war, we were in northern Tennessee. We’d already had slave catchers nearly abduct Jeannette, so we were wary of going south instead of north. And then a man we trusted betrayed us.”
He briefly told the story of Wilson’s attempt to ambush their wedding. “Our other friend from our journey—the true friend—helped us escape. He was quiet about it, so we’d never suspected it, but he often helps escaped slaves who are bound north. It seemed safer for Jeannette to come here. And I knew if we kept going, we’d get to Canada eventually. I was less sure of what would happen if we made for a closer American port.”
“It all sounds reasonable to me,” Hart said. “Why, what are you afraid of?”
“Of being tried for desertion. It sounds too fantastical for reason. A soldier gets lost near a battlefield, only to turn up five months later, over a thousand miles away?”
“Exactly. It’s so fantastical it can only be true. If you’d meant to desert, why would you be here? You could’ve stayed in America. It isn’t as if you don’t speak the language or would have trouble understanding their ways.”
Henry shifted in his seat. “But they couldn’t have stayed,” he said. “At least, Jeannette couldn’t, and Thérèse wouldn’t leave her behind. Besides—no matter how it looks, I’m not a deserter. I want to go home—or, at least, to sell my commission and see about settling here in Canada.”
“Really?” Hart’s eyebrows rose. “It’s a fine enough country in its way, I suppose, but I can hardly wait to go home.”
“You see, I don’t want to disappear into the frontier, but I learned along the way that I’m very good at living on it. I’m a younger son with no fortune to speak of, and soldiering is my only profession. Unless I mean to be an officer for the rest of my life, I need to make a way for myself somewhere. We’ve talked it over.” He nodded at Thérèse and Jeannette. “We mean for it to be here.”
“Well! My friend Taylor can advise you. He used to live in Montreal, but now he’s settled here and thinks it will be a great city someday.”
“Thank you. But, I cannot help thinking—it isn’t as though you have the power to absolve me of desertion. It’s my own regiment that must settle that.”
“As to that, I’ll write a letter of recommendation for you. It’s to your credit that you fought in the last battle of the war. I know, it isn’t as though you could’ve known, but no one can say, Good God, how can we pardon this fellow when he wasn’t with us in that dashed scrape at such-and-such place? And, unless you’re determined to settle here and never go home again—”
“Not at all,” Henry assured him. “I’d like to go home first and introduce Thérèse to my family.”
“Then, given the present situation with France, the best way you can prove your faithfulness is to get straight back to England and present yourself ready to serve.”
What the devil? “What situation with France?”
Hart blinked at him. “Of course. You haven’t heard yet. We only learned a few days ago, but I’m surprised they didn’t say anything at the Longs’ farm.”
“No. We’ve had no news of the wider world since we left Tennessee, and precious little there. What’s happened?”
Hart leaned forward, his eyes grown suddenly intense. “Boney is back.”
“What? How?”
“He slipped away from Elba with his personal suite while his British minder was, if you please, off visiting friends in Italy. When Boney landed in France, with every step he marched north, his following grew. There wasn’t even a fight. Every regiment the king sent to capture him rushed to his banner, and old Fat Louis fled Paris before he arrived.”
“I...I thought the French were tired of war.”
“They were, but they got even more tired of Louis. He never was an inspiring figure, and I gather he made a hash of things—tried to act as if the past quarter century never happened, snubbed men the people regarded as heroes, that sort of thing. And of course Boney is swearing everything will be different now—he is content with France in its traditional borders, he wishes to be a good, moderate constitutional sort of monarch and so on.”
“Never. Even if he thinks he means it, he won’t carry through.”
“Of course not, so this means war. We’re expecting to be sent for at any time now. There’s no need to have so many regiments here now that we’re at peace with the Jonathans. I don’t expect we’ll fight them again soon. We’ve proven they can’t take Canada, and I suppose they proved we can’t take any of their territory either, so we might as well leave each other in peace.”
“I hope so,” Henry said.
“My point is,” Hart continued, “now that you know about France, the best thing you could do would be return to England on the first available ship. I think that would be sufficient to clear you of any suspicion of desertion. They’ll be glad to have you back from the dead and ready to fight again.”
“Back from the dead,” Henry echoed. “Good God, my poor mother.”
“Yes. The sooner you’re on your way home the better.”
Henry took Thérèse’s hand. “Are you ready to go to England? We’ll come back. I swear it.”
“With you, I’m ready to go anywhere.”
Chapter Seventeen
London, September 1815
As the hired post chaise barreled through London on a sunny afternoon, Thérè
se closed her eyes and wished she could close her nose against the smells of the city. Jeannette was leaning against the window, exclaiming over what she saw as Henry genially pointed out various landmarks and famous lords’ houses.
Jeannette had been right in her warnings about early pregnancy, all those months ago on the Natchez Trace. Thérèse had no appetite, and she vomited every morning and sometimes in the afternoon and evening, too. She was sleepy all the time. But worst of all was her sense of smell. She swore it had grown doubly acute, and the combination of coal fire smoke, horses and their excretions, and food, cooked and otherwise, wafting through the warm London air was all but too much to bear.
Henry gently pressed her hand. “You’ll have a place to lie down and rest soon, I promise.”
She nodded without speaking.
Their journey from Canada had been smooth and pleasant, if occasionally tedious, until the last two weeks when her body’s changes had begun asserting themselves. Making all possible haste to England had taken the better part of four months, as it turned out—alternately floating and walking along the network of lakes and rivers that had taken them from Windsor to Quebec, waiting there for a ship ready to sail for England, and then the journey across the Atlantic, which Thérèse had enjoyed. There was something so compelling about the open ocean, the salt scent, the snap of sails in the wind. And she and Henry had had a fine cabin to themselves, with a hanging cot instead of a hammock, and they’d enjoyed taking their pleasures there, the rhythm of their coupling keeping time with the ancient motion of the sea.
She’d conceived this child somewhere on the open Atlantic. If it was a girl, she wanted to give it Océane, at least for her middle name. Henry might prefer something more English for daily use, and if they were to live in Canada, doubtless her daughter would be happier as Caroline or Elizabeth or Mary.
They’d reached England too late for the war. In fact, they’d stopped to exchange messages with a westbound ship a little over a week before they landed—an American merchantman, warily civil now that peace had been concluded and there was no longer any reason to fear impressment—who had told them of Napoleon’s defeat at a place called Waterloo.
Thérèse rejoiced in the peace, and Henry claimed to do likewise, but some part of him seemed taken aback. He’d been so intent on taking his place with his regiment, proving his continued loyalty and courage by fighting the emperor again, so she supposed it was only natural for him to feel rather at a loss.
He’d determined that he should report to Horse Guards regardless, to explain what had happened, and, they both prayed, be exonerated of any intentional, criminal desertion. And with peace restored, he could sell his commission right away, and they could begin planning for their return to Canada—though Thérèse was unhappily aware that her condition might make further travel inadvisable until the child was born and grown at least several months old. Next time, she vowed, they would go back to their earlier practices of pleasuring each other without fully coupling, just to make sure they didn’t make another baby until they’d settled into their permanent home.
“Thérèse, you should look,” Jeannette said. “I’ve never seen such splendid houses.”
“I can’t,” she said miserably. “And they’ll still be there tomorrow, won’t they? Maybe after I rest I’ll be strong enough to go for a walk.”
Henry meant to go to Horse Guards this very afternoon, but he refused to drag them along. Instead he was leaving them at his family’s London town house. The rest of the Farlows wouldn’t be there, since apparently in the fall almost everyone who had a country estate went to it to see to the harvest and enjoy the hunt. But he assured Thérèse and Jeannette that a caretaker couple, elderly servants who’d long been in the family, lived in the house year-round and would be able to provide at least the minimum comforts of a hot meal and a clean bed.
All Thérèse cared about was the bed. The hot meal sounded more daunting than otherwise, though she forced herself to eat whatever she could stomach lest she follow Sophia Wilson’s example.
The post chaise slowed, and Thérèse opened her eyes and sat up. They had turned into a narrower street than the ones she had glimpsed during the rare moments she’d been willing to open her eyes. It was still broad and bright, with a little promenade between the street and the houses where several well-dressed ladies and gentleman, along with a few plump, prosperous-looking servants, strolled along. The houses stood tall and imposing in their rows. Thérèse didn’t know enough of England’s architecture to judge their age, but from the uniform freshness of the brickwork and the clean, classical lines, she guessed them to be well under a century.
“Here we are,” Henry said brightly. “Farlow House is just at the end of this street.”
“You told me your house was small,” Thérèse said. Could she really be part of a family who lived in such splendor?
He shifted uncomfortably and took her hand. “Well, it is small compared to some.”
Jeannette smiled. “If you’d been looking at the other houses for the past quarter hour, you’d know very well why he called it small. Compared to the Duke of Wellington’s home...”
Thérèse shook her head. Smaller than a duke’s palace was not small.
“Never mind.” Henry gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Just think of the home we’ll build in Canada. Our home.”
Thérèse did. It helped to think of them together in something less than half the size of the houses on this street, but ample for a family with, say, three or four children and a servant or two. This was temporary. She and Henry would have their own home, in their own world, one that would be equally new and strange for both of them, and while her jewels and his saved army pay were enough for them to begin with, if they became rich it would be by their own efforts.
The post chaise drew to a halt at last, and Henry peered out the window. “Hullo,” he said.
“What is it?” Thérèse asked, alert to the troubled tone of his voice.
“There’s a black wreath on the door. The family is here—at least some of them must be—and they’re in mourning. I can’t imagine—what has happened?”
“They’re mourning you,” Jeannette said with a laugh.
Henry grinned. “Then by all means let us go inside and disabuse them of that notion.”
Already someone had spotted their arrival, for the doors were opened, and a footman in bright green livery strode purposefully down the steps, while an older man in a plain dark suit stood in the doorway.
“Good heavens!” Henry exclaimed. “Ostell, still with the family? I thought he’d be pensioned off by now.” He opened the chaise from the inside and stepped down before the footman could reach it and lower the step.
He turned to offer Thérèse his arm to climb down, but before she could take it, the butler interrupted with a shout. “Mister Henry! You’re alive.”
Henry turned to face the old man, who was shuffling down the steep steps at a great rate. “As you see, but I’ve brought my wife and her sister with me, and I cannot leave them in the carriage.”
The butler halted. “Wife and sister?”
“From America!” Henry offered her his arm again and helped her down to the cobbled street, then turned to give a steadying hand to Jeannette as she sprang down with the energy and flexibility of youth—youth that had the good fortune to not be pregnant.
Butler and footman stared at them in amazement. Thérèse was acutely conscious of how odd it must be for an apparently white woman to turn up with a black sister, and even more so of the shabbiness of her plain brown dress, of how thin and hollow-eyed she’d grown in just the past fortnight, and above all how dark she was from her long months of travel, when she hadn’t always had a broad-brimmed hat to shield her from the sun.
“Oh,” the butler said. “I see. Welcome to Farlow House, madam, miss.” He turned back to H
enry. “I’m that glad to see you alive. Your mother said you couldn’t be dead, but none of the rest of us believed...” He shook his head, appearing to collect himself. “Joseph,” he said to the footman, “get Thomas, and bring their baggage inside. I’ll speak to the housekeeper. That is...”
Clearly the man was uncomfortable about something, and Thérèse had an uneasy feeling it was her and Jeannette. Would they be welcome? Would Jeannette be treated as part of the family or exiled to the servants’ quarters?
“I’m that glad to be alive, Ostell,” Henry said with a laugh. “And I wasn’t expecting to see you here. The family is still in London?”
Ostell bit his lip. “They’re planning to go in another fortnight or so. There was illness...but I will let her ladyship tell you.” He looked grim, his joy at seeing Henry and wonder at Thérèse and Jeannette entirely driven away.
Jeannette slid her hand into Thérèse’s, and the girl gave it a firm squeeze. If her dauntless sister was nervous, too... Thérèse eyed the wreath on the door. What if it wasn’t only Henry who was mourned?
“Oh,” Henry said. He turned to her and Jeannette, worry dawning on his own face. “Then we must go in immediately. We are all weary from the journey, and my wife especially, so if you could ask the housekeeper to make haste, or at least to be ready to show her to whatever of the family or guest rooms is ready but unoccupied.”
“By all means.”
Thérèse tightened her grip on both her husband’s elbow and her sister’s hand as they followed Ostell up the steep steps into the house. She was dizzy, as much with nerves as with her pregnancy. What would Henry’s mother think of such a bride for her son? And above all, was all well here? What were they walking into?
The instant they stepped from the sunlight of the street into the cool shadows of the entry hall, two voices cried, “Henry!” and a pair of women, one young and the other well into her middle years, hurtled down the stairs to fling themselves into his arms. Jeannette and Thérèse stepped back to let his family welcome him.
Freedom to Love Page 24
