Harlequin Historical February 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Virginia Heath

  ‘Was that Rhys?’ David asked, although Rhys had plainly been within his view.

  ‘Yes.’ What did David see when his thoughts took him away?

  She dealt another hand.

  Helene doubted David realised she and Rhys were lovers, that they shared the same bed every night. David had never been upstairs, so he would not know there were only two bedchambers up there, one for Louise and Wilson, one for her and Rhys, but mostly she thought David was caught too much in his own misery to notice the heat in every gaze she and Rhys shared. Or much of anything else, for that matter. Helene was desperate to shake David out of this miasma he was caught in. Bringing him home was the only way she knew to help him crawl out of it.

  They played another hand of cards and she won again. David seemed not to care. He normally detested losing.

  Rhys entered the room. He brushed his hand against hers as he sat in a nearby chair.

  ‘Hello, David,’ he said in a friendly voice. ‘It is good to see you up. How are you feeling?’

  David barely looked at Rhys. ‘I am well.’ His words were automatic.

  Rhys shared a glance with Helene.

  He took a breath before speaking again. ‘There is a packet leaving in two days from Ostend.’ A ship that would take them home. ‘I booked you passage on it and I was able to hire a carriage to take you there. But you would leave tomorrow.’

  Helene’s heart sank. ‘Tomorrow?’

  His gaze met hers and she felt her pain mirrored there. ‘So many people are trying to leave Brussels. I do not know when you’d have another chance to leave, so I seized the opportunity.’

  She turned to her brother. ‘David? Did you hear? Rhys said we could leave for home tomorrow.’ A moment ago she’d been thinking it urgent to get David home, but not tomorrow.

  ‘Home,’ David repeated in a flat voice. ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘There is more.’ Rhys turned to David. ‘I also hired a valet to travel with you, David. A man of experience whose employer was an officer killed in the battle.’

  David’s expression turned pained at the mention of the battle.

  Helene hurried to speak. ‘A valet, David! He will be able to help you in ways I cannot.’

  David turned his eyes to Rhys but did not appear to really see him. ‘Thank you, Rhys.’

  Her brother was not the only one struggling with emotions at the moment. Helene’s were churning inside, as well. Her heart was pounding at the idea of parting from him. Tomorrow! Nothing was settled between them. How could she go back to Yarford House when Rhys would be so far away from her without knowing when—or if—they would be together again?

  ‘Helene?’ Rhys asked, his voice low.

  She forced herself to meet his gaze. ‘Yes.’ Her voice shook. ‘Thank you, Rhys. You have thought of everything.’

  She placed her cards on the table and left the room, too unsettled to stay another minute.

  * * *

  Rhys put his head in his hands. Did Helene think he wanted them to leave so soon? It was tearing his guts out to part with her.

  These four weeks were the most idyllic he could remember, spending each day with her like when they’d been young, making love with her each night. Only when he ventured out in the streets did reality shake him out of this reverie. The city was still filled with the wounded, still reeling from the aftermath of battle. There was more work to be done, even though Napoleon had abdicated. His regiment was heading to Paris, if not there already. Their job would be to ensure that the peace held. The French had so quickly welcomed Napoleon’s return that no one knew how they would react to his final defeat.

  Rhys’s duty was to be with his regiment, to protect his men from the new dangers that could arise. He’d gone to the Allied headquarters at Place Royale and learned it was requested he re-join his regiment in two weeks’ time.

  His idyll with Helene was at an end.

  ‘Rhys?’ David’s voice broke into Rhys’s misery. ‘Where is Helene?’

  Rhys rubbed his face. ‘She went upstairs.’

  ‘I thought we were playing cards.’

  At least the boy’s eyes focused on him now, although there remained something distant about him. Rhys had seen such detachment before in soldiers after a battle, as if they had one foot in the present and one foot still caught in the battle’s horror.

  Rhys glanced away. ‘Helene was upset. At the thought of leaving for home so soon, I expect.’

  ‘Upset? At going home?’

  Rhys thought it would be obvious, but David was not attending to much going on around him. ‘Because Helene and I will have to say goodbye to each other,’ he explained.

  David still looked puzzled. ‘Why would that upset her? I mean, I know you and Helene were friends, but that was a long time ago.’

  Rhys peered at him. ‘Do you not know of what happened between Helene and me? About why I left Yarford?’

  David lifted his shoulders. ‘You bought a commission in the army and left; that is all I know.’

  David had been at Westminster School in London at the time. Apparently, no one told him what happened while he was away.

  The boy averted his gaze. ‘I once wanted a commission in the army…’ His voice trailed off.

  Best to lead David away from those thoughts.

  Rhys took a breath, deciding to tell David about him and Helene. ‘Your sister and I were going to be married—to elope to Gretna Green.’

  David turned back, eyes widened. ‘Married? How could she marry you? Our father was an earl.’

  And Rhys was the vicar’s son. At least the old David was still inside him somewhere.

  Perhaps Rhys would not tell him the whole story. ‘Well, we did not marry and I did leave for the army, but being apart from each other was—’ How to say it? ‘—difficult for each of us. Finding each other again has—has brought us happiness. That is why it will be upsetting to part again.’

  David shook his head. ‘But you can’t marry. Helene is the daughter of an earl.’

  Rhys gave him a disgusted look. ‘The thing is, David, your father’s title and my lack of one never made a bit of difference to Helene and me.’

  David’s brows knitted and his eyes flashed in worry. ‘Are you going to marry her now? You can’t! She needs to take me home! I need to go home.’ He was quickly becoming overwrought.

  Rhys lowered his voice. ‘Do not worry, David. Helene will be taking you home.’ Because Rhys could see no other option for them.

  Rhys had spent a couple of hours walking the streets of Brussels thinking about his future with Helene, never mind all the time it filled his mind these last four weeks.

  Rhys rose from his chair. ‘Do you need anything, David?’

  David had picked up the deck of cards and was absently shuffling it. ‘No. Just to go home.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Helene sat on the bed in their bedchamber and stared out the window that looked on to the alley behind the house.

  She and Rhys were to say goodbye tomorrow.

  From the moment she saw him in the tavern that first night in Brussels, she knew this moment would come. But after these four weeks, it had become impossible for her to imagine being apart from him. How was she to bear another goodbye?

  She thought of their first night together, after the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. She’d thought then it would be their last time together. Saying goodbye to him then filled her with fear as well as grief, because he could have been killed in battle.

  But she did find him again, on the eve of Waterloo. After another night in his arms, she’d had to face another wrenching goodbye. They’d not spoken of a future both those times, not with Napoleon so ready to snatch it away from them, not when her only prayer was that Rhys might live.

  Helene knew what a soldier’s death looked like fro
m the countless maimed and bleeding soldiers who took their last breaths in her arms. She closed her eyes. Any one of them might have been Rhys.

  It was an incredible gift that Rhys lived when all those thousands of men perished on the battlefield and in the hospitals. Goodness! They were still dying here in Brussels, from infection or other complications of their injuries. Rhys might have been one of them. He might have been lying among the bodies where he’d found David. If Rhys had died, then David would have died, too. No one would have known to look for him. God had been doubly good to her.

  Perhaps it was too much to ask for what she wanted now. To stay with Rhys. To marry him. To spend the rest of her life with him.

  At that moment Rhys entered the room. Helene could not bear to look at him, so she continued to stare out the window. He sat next to her on the bed, took her hand in his and raised it to his warm lips. The loving gesture pierced her heart and she fought to remain composed.

  She turned and leaned her forehead against his. ‘I’m better now. I—I simply was not prepared for the idea of leaving Brussels—leaving you—so soon.’

  He lifted his head and stared directly into her eyes. ‘I also found out I am expected back with my regiment within two weeks’ time.’

  There was no denying it, then. Parting was inevitable. Unless…

  Rhys took both her hands in his. ‘Helene, I have been remiss. I should have talked with you about the future, about what we should do. I fear you have long expected that of me.’

  She placed a quick kiss on his lips. ‘Rhys. Do you not remember? I said I would ask nothing of you but that you would live. I received my wish. You owe me nothing more.’

  But she wanted so much more!

  He tightened his grip. ‘I owe you more. I vowed to myself that I would not repeat the errors of the past. Five years ago, I did not seek you out to explain why I had to leave. I will not repeat that mistake.’

  Helene drew back, unsure she wanted to hear what he would say.

  ‘Ethically I should marry you,’ he began. ‘I have compromised you, so marrying you would be the honourable thing to do—’

  She cared nothing about that.

  He glanced away as if a thought just occurred to him. ‘Although if you are with child, I would do the honourable thing—’

  ‘You should. You would.’ His words wounded her. ‘But you do not want to marry me.’

  ‘It is not that.’ He released her and ran a ragged hand though his hair. ‘I love you, Helene. My heart wants to marry you, even more strongly than five years ago. But I am not that foolish young man any more.’

  Foolish? He’d be foolish to marry her? Is that what he thought?

  ‘I must use my head.’ Now he seemed to be arguing with himself. He looked at her earnestly. ‘My life, my livelihood, is with the army and my men, my superior officers, are expecting me in Paris.’

  He wanted the army. Not her.

  She lifted her chin. ‘You could ask me to come with you.’

  ‘And leave David?’ He shook his head. ‘I would not ask that of you. We both know he needs you now.’

  ‘Then I could join you later,’ she persisted.

  ‘An Englishwoman travelling alone into France? You cannot.’

  He would not escape this argument so easily. ‘Perhaps Wilson and Louise would come with me.’

  For a moment he seemed to be actually contemplating this possibility. But he shook his head again. ‘No. We do not know what dangers we will find in Paris. Napoleon was instantly welcomed back. The people will not so welcome the British army in their midst.’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘Not only that. I do not know where I might be sent after Paris. If the peace holds, it will become even more difficult to advance to a higher rank. I may have to take posts that are far more unpleasant than Paris.’

  These seemed like excuses to Helene. ‘You know I can take unpleasantness, Rhys. I did so at Waterloo. There were many women at the battlefield—’

  He stopped her. ‘Those women, if married, were married to the soldiers. They live in terrible hardship. I will not have that for you.’

  She continued undaunted. ‘I know some officers take their wives with them. When the army was marching to Quatre Bras, I saw a wife riding next to her husband, an officer. She stayed by his side. Why can I not be like her?’

  ‘Because the places I may have to go if I am to advance in rank—the West Indies, India—pose a great risk of disease and other dangers.’ His tone remained resolute. ‘Or if we married and you did not come with me, we’d spend years apart. I cannot want that for you either.’

  ‘Other women manage that,’ she told him, but she did not like the idea of years of separation either.

  ‘Helene.’ He looked directly into her eyes. ‘I cannot support you on my captain’s pay and I cannot guarantee I will advance in rank. You do not deserve to live in straitened circumstances—’

  ‘I have some money from my mother.’ Not much, though, actually. Her father had not provided for her beyond that inheritance. ‘Besides, have I not shown you I am able to endure hardship?’ She swept her arm around the room. ‘Look how humbly I can live. I can even cook.’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘You are game for anything and I have always loved you for that, but what if we have children, which is very likely? How humbly would you wish them to live? How much hardship—and disease—are you willing for them to endure?’

  Helene turned her face away. She had no counterargument for that.

  He pressed on. ‘If I left the army I would be as your father said—fit for nothing. I am trained as a soldier, Helene. Nothing else. I have no other options.’ He made a helpless gesture. ‘We are in no better a place than five years ago.’

  That was not true. Helene felt changed from five years ago. She was ready to take chances, to leap into an unknown future. Surely they could surmount any obstacle as long as they were together.

  She rose and walked to the window. The alley below looked bleak, as alleys often do.

  She turned back to Rhys, squaring her shoulders and lifting her head high. ‘I will not argue with you, Rhys. I wish only to point this out.’ She paused to take a breath. ‘If the issues that kept us apart five years ago are unchanged, as you say, so will be the fact that we are repeating the same mistake. We are parting.’

  He stared back at her.

  She suddenly could not stand to be in the room with him one moment more. She strode to the door. ‘I need to be away from you for a while. I’ll go downstairs and tell Louise and Wilson that David and I will be leaving tomorrow.’

  She had thanked God that Rhys lived after the battle, but saying goodbye to him this time, as it had done before, killed any chance at her happiness.

  * * *

  Rhys saw little of Helene the rest of the day. She busied herself with packing or spending time with Louise or Wilson or David. Anyone but him. This would be their last night together and she wanted nothing to do with him.

  If she only understood it had torn him apart to say those things to her, but her welfare was paramount in his mind. He would not risk her suffering again, not the way she’d suffered at Waterloo.

  * * *

  After a glum, uncomfortable dinner, the low spirits of which Rhys had no doubt were his fault, Wilson surprised him by inviting him out for beer at a nearby tavern while Helene and Louise served David dinner and cleaned up the kitchen.

  As they walked out into the cool evening air, Wilson said, ‘I am glad you accepted my invitation. It is difficult for me to know what is proper and not in my situation.’

  ‘Proper?’ Rhys did not follow at all.

  Wilson smiled wryly. ‘Am I servant or not? Am I acting out of place?’

  Rhys laughed. ‘I was never so high as to consider you my servant. You were, though, one of the few men around who would allow me to pester you.�
��

  ‘You never pestered me, lad.’ Wilson touched his shoulder.

  Rhys smiled inside. Wilson called him lad, as he had done when Rhys was a boy.

  When they entered the tavern they were met by the familiar smells of hops, frites and men. There were almost as many men in the place as would be expected before the battle, and as great a variety of uniforms, but the men who wore them also wore bandages or carried crutches or wore that same vacant look that was often in David’s eyes. Gone was the air of bravado that had been present before the battle. Now the atmosphere was subdued, weary, pained.

  Rhys and Wilson found a table, sat and ordered tankards of beer.

  When the maid placed the tankards on the table, Wilson took a sip and said to Rhys, ‘I suppose Lady Helene is not happy to be leaving you.’

  Rhys recognised that as an invitation to speak, but he’d spent too many years pushing his emotions down to be able to confide in anyone. He’d not even been able to share with Helene the desolation he felt inside at parting from her.

  He asked Wilson instead, ‘Tell me. Did you ever regret leaving Louise? Did you ever wish you would have stayed?’

  ‘Regret?’ Wilson looked pensive. He took another sip. ‘Not regret. I was sorry about it, to be sure. Grieved for the loss. Missed her, but we did the right thing. She had a good life and so did I.’

  This should have made Rhys feel better about his decision, but it did not.

  ‘I take it you will not marry Lady Helene, then.’ Wilson persisted.

  ‘I cannot ask her to follow the drum,’ Rhys replied. ‘That’s a hard life and I have nothing else to offer. Very little money, as well.’

  Wilson nodded. ‘Yes, lad. That was my situation, as well. Nothing to offer. No money.’

  Rhys steered the conversation away from him and Helene and instead asked Wilson about other people at Yarford House and in the village. Rhys’s parents never mentioned anything to do with Helene or her family in their letters, so there was much to catch up on.

  * * *

  When they walked back to Louise’s house, Wilson talked about his and Louise’s plan to marry. Wilson had saved his money and had enough to make their lives easy.