Slightly Tempted

by Mary Balogh

  Common sense told her that she should go as soon as possible, even if doing so meant traveling with near strangers. But it was hard to behave with common sense under such dire circumstances. The fact was that she could not bear to leave. She had acquaintances and even a few friends among the officers of the Life Guards and their wives. Most of the latter were remaining. Why not she, then? How could she leave and not know what happened to any of those acquaintances?

  She had spoken the truth to Lord Caddick. Even so, she hoped that Alleyne would not return from Antwerp in time to send her on her way today. Perhaps by tomorrow there would be more news from the front. Perhaps the hostilities would all be over by then and she would not need to leave at all.

  Alleyne had still not come by midday.

  During the afternoon, restless and wanting to leave the house as quiet as possible for poor Rosamond, Morgan obtained permission from Lady Caddick to visit Mrs. Clark, wife of Major Clark of the Life Guards. She lived just a ten-minute walk away, and Morgan promised to take her maid with her. It was while she was taking tea with Mrs. Clark that she heard what at first she took for distant thunder. But Mrs. Clark smiled rather tensely when Morgan expressed the hope that there would be no torrential rain to increase the discomforts of the troops.

  “That is the sound of heavy guns,” she explained.

  Morgan could feel the blood drain out of her head.

  “They are far away,” Mrs. Clark told her. “It is more a feeling, a vibration, than a sound, is it not? And who is to know where exactly it is coming from or who is involved in the action? Or indeed whether they are our guns or those of the French?”

  Morgan half expected that Alleyne would come for her before it was time to leave. But she walked home with only her maid for company.

  Alleyne had not called at the Rue de Bellevue. He did not call there for the rest of the day.

  During the night they were kept awake for a long time—and Rosamond’s sufferings were considerably increased—by the almost-incessant rumbling of wheels on the street, combined with the clopping of horses’ hooves and the occasional shouting of men’s voices.

  They were not to be alarmed, Lord Caddick called from the corridor outside the bedchambers. The commotion was merely that of a long train of artillery passing through Brussels on its way to the front.

  Not be alarmed? Morgan, who was standing at her window, a shawl about her shoulders, shivered.

  Where was Alleyne? she wondered.

  Where were the officers she knew?

  By the following day it was too late to leave Brussels even though Rosamond emerged from her room looking like a heavy-eyed ghost to assure her mama and papa that the migraine attack was not as severe as some others she had suffered and that she was ready to travel at a moment’s notice.

  Early in the morning a troop of Belgian cavalry had ridden through Brussels from the direction of the front—Morgan had been awoken yet again by the noise—shouting to everyone they passed and to the sleepers inside the houses that all was lost and a crushing defeat had been suffered. But they had not stayed to answer anyone’s questions.

  They left panic in their wake.

  Almost all the remaining visitors and many of the permanent residents were hastening to leave the city into which ravening French soldiers might be pouring at any moment. At the Caddick household all trunks and bags were packed and all was ready for departure after an early breakfast.

  But there was an unexpected complication. When Lord Caddick sent for the carriage and horses and the baggage coach to be brought up to the front door, he was informed that everything on wheels had been requisitioned by the army for the conveyance of supplies to the front. No matter how much the earl ranted and raved and threatened and cajoled and was prepared to bribe, it quickly became apparent that indeed there was no conveyance to be had. There was no way of leaving Brussels that day unless they were prepared to go on foot, taking with them only what they could carry in their hands and on their backs.

  That, of course, as Lady Caddick pointed out in a voice that expressed more outrage than fright, was out of the question.

  And so they were trapped in Brussels.

  Morgan, although she felt undeniably afraid, was glad.

  Rosamond staggered back to bed.

  IT BEGAN TO RAIN DURING THE AFTERNOON. THERE was a dreadful thunderstorm through the night—a real one this time—and the rain was torrential for hours on end. It was impossible to know exactly where the armies were or what the meaning of yesterday’s distant guns was. But as Morgan lay curled up in bed, resisting the urge to cover her head with the blankets and try to block out the sound, she found that it was not difficult to imagine the misery of thousands of men trying to find shelter and rest where there was none to be had.

  At least, Lord Caddick announced cheerfully at breakfast, the rain would have made travel and easy maneuvering impossible. The roads would be quite impassable. There could be no possibility of a battle today.

  Besides, Lady Caddick added, it was Sunday.

  Morgan was worried about Alleyne. She was also concerned about Rosamond, who was still suffering miserably with her migraine attack. Lady Caddick was almost beside herself with distress, partly over her daughter’s indisposition, partly over the threat to her own safety, but mainly over the uncertainty of Lord Gordon’s fate. Lord Caddick ventured out to find what news was available, though there seemed to be far more rumor making the rounds than hard fact.

  The rain had finally stopped, and Morgan, obtaining permission from a distracted countess again, took her maid and went to Mrs. Clark’s house once more. The wives of the regiment’s officers often gathered there, she had discovered, and on the whole they tended to be far more sensible than most other people, much less given to panic and belief in every sensational story that presented itself in place of reliable news. They were all gathered together on this particular morning. Morgan was relieved to find that they received her warmly as if she were one of them, not as an unwelcome intruder.

  Shortly after midday the guns of the heavy artillery began firing again. They were closer than they had been the day before yesterday. It was impossible, after the first startled moment, to mistake their constant pounding for thunder.

  The ladies spent a couple of hours sorting the medicines and other supplies they had gathered during the past day and a half, and rolling bandages. They talked quietly and even laughed as they worked, but Morgan, who joined in as busily as anyone else, could feel the tension and the taut fear that pulsed beneath the cheerfulness as they all tried to ignore the significance of what they did.

  How difficult it must be, she thought, to be a wife who followed the drum year after year.

  They were interrupted partway through the afternoon by a commotion on the street outside. Several of them crowded to the windows while Mrs. Clark and Morgan rushed outdoors. Foam-flecked horses galloped past, bearing cavalry with drawn swords. They were coming from the direction of the Namur Gates at the southern end of the city—from the direction of the battle.

  “They are Hanoverians,” Mrs. Clark said. “Not the Life Guards.”

  If they were galloping through other streets in as large numbers as they were doing in this one, Morgan thought, there must surely be a whole regiment of them. They were yelling in German, a language she did not speak. But there were plenty of people on the street willing to interpret.

  “All is lost!” one man shouted.

  “The French are on their heels,” someone else reported.

  Panic seized many of the other spectators. But Mrs. Clark took Morgan firmly by the arm and led her back inside the house. She shut the door behind them.

  “The wounded will be arriving soon,” she told the other ladies. “If the report is correct, the battle is lost and the French will be here soon too. But they will have wounded as well. We can either cower here and panic, or we can go out there and do what we can to help those who will need our help, regardless of the color of their unifo
rm or what side they fought on.”

  Morgan looked at her with renewed respect and admiration and drew a deep, steadying breath. She had not been so far from panic herself just a few minutes before, she admitted to herself.

  “I would rather go out there,” she said.

  Mrs. Clark swung toward her.

  “But you really ought not, Lady Morgan,” she said. “You should return to the Rue de Bellevue. The Countess of Caddick will be worried about you. What we are about to do is dangerous. More than that, it will be horrifying and distasteful. The sights will not be pretty.”

  “I do not expect them to be,” Morgan said. “And I am not a hothouse plant merely because I am the daughter of a duke and unmarried. I will do my part. Please don’t argue with me. I believe you are going to need every pair of hands available within a short time. As for Lady Caddick, she has Rosamond to tend and Captain Gordon to worry about. She knows I am with you.”

  Mrs. Clark did not waste more time on words. She simply nodded briskly and reached out one hand to squeeze Morgan’s.

  “We will go as far as the Namur Gates, then,” she said.

  IT WAS THERE THAT LORD ALLEYNE BEDWYN FOUND Morgan an hour or so later. Not that he was searching for her. He had imagined her far away from Brussels by now. All the way back from Antwerp he had looked for her among the crowds of people moving in the opposite direction. But he had not worried when he did not see her. She was probably on a ship bound for England by now, he had convinced himself.

  He had reported to Sir Charles Stuart without even thinking to call first at the house on the Rue de Bellevue that the Earl of Caddick had rented. He was now on his way south with a message for the Duke of Wellington. He had volunteered for the task. It might be a dangerous mission, Sir Charles had warned him, if the sounds of heavy artillery were any indication of the ferocity of the battle that was raging. But Alleyne had a hankering to see for himself what was going on. Besides, his elder brother, Aidan, had fought throughout the Peninsular Wars. Was he to shy away from merely delivering a letter to the battlefront?

  Wounded from the past few days were beginning to straggle into Brussels on foot, some with bandaged heads or arms in slings, most without any covering for their bloody wounds beyond some torn and grubby rags. Alleyne looked with sympathy at the men as he approached the Namur Gates on his way south, and with admiration at the group of ladies who had already set up a makeshift bandaging station there.

  One of the wounded was explaining to the lady who was holding a glass of water to his lips that today’s fighting—a desperate and deadly battle—was taking place just south of the Forest of Soignés, not far from the village of Waterloo.

  The lady was Morgan.

  Alleyne swung down from the saddle at the same moment as she set down the glass and looked up and spotted him. She came rushing into his arms.

  “Alleyne!” she cried. “Wherever have you been? I was worried about you.”

  He held her by the shoulders and shook her none too gently.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” he asked her. “Why are you not in Antwerp by now, or on your way to England?”

  “You told me you would come for me the morning after the Richmond ball,” she reminded him.

  “Devil take it, Morg,” he said, exasperated, “I was delayed in Antwerp. Never tell me you did not have the sense to leave with the Caddicks. I’ll have a word or two—”

  “They are still here too,” she said. “You do not imagine they would leave without me, do you? Lady Caddick takes her responsibility toward me very seriously.” She explained to him the series of events that had kept them in Brussels.

  “Devil take it,” he said again. “I am going to have to get you out of here myself, Morg. We will be on our way as soon as I have completed this little bit of embassy business.”

  “I am needed here,” she protested. “I am going to be needed for some time to come. I will do my part, Alleyne, even if I cannot actually fight the French as Aidan did. You must not worry about me.”

  He grasped her shoulders more tightly. “Wulf will have my head,” he said, “and I can hardly blame him. I’ll be back before nightfall. Then I’ll be taking you away from here.”

  “Alleyne.” She cupped his elbows with her hands. “Where are you going? Why are you here at these particular gates?”

  “I have a message to deliver to the front,” he told her.

  Her eyes widened.

  “Don’t worry.” He grinned at her. “I am not riding into battle, Morg. There will be no heroics for me. I’ll be quite safe.”

  “Take care, then.” She took a deep, slow breath. “Alleyne, if you should happen to hear word of the Life Guards . . .” She did not complete the thought. She did not need to. He pulled her into his arms for a quick, rough hug.

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” he promised before releasing her and swinging back up into the saddle.

  Through the gates behind her two cartloads of wounded were rumbling. There was the sudden stench of blood in the air, stronger than before.

  She turned away, distracted, without saying farewell, and he rode off south through the gates.

  Morgan, he thought. The youngest of them. All grown up and behaving with foolish courage, doing what would send most ladies twice her age into fits of the vapors. Actually he might have expected it of her, though. As much as Freyja—perhaps even more so—she despised the current image of the perfect lady as a wilting violet. He strongly suspected that it was the approach of hostilities that had drawn her to Brussels even more than Gordon. Gordon, in his estimation, was something of a popinjay.

  He was damned proud of Morgan, out on the streets as she was tending the wounded instead of cowering inside the house on the Rue de Bellevue. But for all that, he had a quarrel with the Countess of Caddick, who had been entrusted with her care.

  Wulf would have his head for not having sent her home long ago.

  IT WAS A FEW HOURS AFTER THAT WHEN GERVASE found Morgan in the same place. By that time a steady trickle of wounded had arrived, some of them severely injured. There were surgeons on the spot, doing what they could to deal with the worst of the wounds, plying their dreadful trade in makeshift tents. There were many women there too, cleansing wounds, bandaging the less serious ones, offering water and whatever comfort they could to the others.

  It had been clear to Gervase as soon as he heard the guns that within a few hours the press of wounded would present the city with a huge problem, quite beyond the power of the volunteers gathered at the gates to deal with. What was needed was some organization—a list of houses and their occupants both able and willing to accommodate the wounded, a way of directing wounded, surgeons, and nurses to those houses, and a way of supplying them with all that would be needed.

  There were doubtless numerous other people setting about such organization, he thought. But there was no way of coordinating the efforts of them all. He could only do his part. He gathered together as many willing acquaintances as he could find, and together they did what they could, knocking on house doors up one side of each street and down the other, calling on apothecaries and grocers and anyone else who could possibly sell them supplies for a thousand wounded and more, and making endless lists.

  Finally they were ready to approach the Namur Gates and set up a station whose purpose would be to direct bearers of the wounded to homes where they would find clean beds and food and water and a roof over their heads, and where they would be tended by kindhearted nurses and physicians.

  There were all too few of those last two, of course, but one could only do one’s best.

  One very young lady was bent over what appeared to be a pile of bloody rags on the ground, Gervase noticed. The pile of rags turned out to be a young private covered with mud and blood, his right leg blown away from the knee down. Her hair was bound up in a blood-and dirt-smeared kerchief. Her muslin dress was creased and dirty and liberally streaked with blood. She was murmuring soft words to the lad
as she cleaned his face with a wet cloth. He was in line—a long line—for a surgeon’s care.

  And then she stood up and passed the back of her wrist over her eyes in a weary gesture.

  Good Lord! He suddenly stood rooted to the spot. She was Lady Morgan Bedwyn.

  He hurried toward her and cupped one of her elbows with his hand.

  “You are still in Brussels?” he asked unnecessarily.

  For a moment she looked at him without recognition. Then she blinked her eyes.

  “Lord Rosthorn,” she said.

  He could hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes.

  “The Earl and Countess of Caddick have not taken you back to safety?” he asked her. “Lord Alleyne Bedwyn has not?”

  “There were no conveyances to be had when we would have left,” she explained to him. “And Alleyne was delayed in Antwerp. He returned only today. He had to ride toward the front on embassy business.”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked her.

  “Is it not obvious?” She smiled wanly. “There is so much to do, Lord Rosthorn. I must not stand here conversing with you.”

  At that moment he realized that she was indeed a woman through and through—a woman with a tender heart and the strength and courage to go with it. He had known almost from the start of their acquaintance that she was no simpering miss, but now he had incontrovertible proof. Today, at this moment, she looked more beautiful than she had on any previous occasion.

  He released her elbow.

  “Go, then,” he said. “Go back to work.”

  He worked there too for a number of hours—he lost track of just how many. He unloaded the wounded and helped sort them into groups—those who needed some ministration but not the services of a surgeon, those who were in need of amputation, those whose needs were reduced to a drink of water and a comforting hand to help them die. He found himself offering that drink of water and that comforting hand over and over again. At the same time he tried to fulfill his primary function in being where he was. He tried to find billets for all the wounded men who could not simply walk away on their own two legs.