‘I didn’t!’ David agreed.
‘But now,’ the valet went on, ‘you are not helpless. In fact, who is it who can tell you what to do? You are the Earl now. You decide.’
‘I am,’ David said, as if realising it for the first time.
Helene smiled to herself. This stranger, this new servant, was able to get David to accept his role as Earl when she had repeatedly failed. Marston had pointed out the advantages. No one could tell David what to do. He would decide.
She started to raise her cup to her lips but stopped midway. Who really could tell her what to do? Not her father. Not David, certainly. Not even Rhys. She was no longer helpless. She was of age. She could decide her own fate.
No one could tell her what to do. Not any more. She could decide.
She reached across the table and put her hand on David’s arm.
He gave her an annoyed look. ‘What is it, Helene?’
This time her own excitement made it hard for her to speak. ‘I am not going with you.’ She took a breath. ‘I am not going on to Ostend with you. Or to England. Or to Yarford. I am going back to Brussels.’
‘Back to Brussels!’ David cried. ‘Why?’
‘To be with Rhys!’ Though she did not know if he would even be there when she returned. If not, she’d find a way to travel to Paris and see him there. There was a risk he would not want her, but it was her risk to take.
‘You can’t go back to Brussels!’ David whined like a little boy. ‘I need you!’
‘No, you don’t, David,’ Helene insisted. ‘Marston can help you even in ways I cannot. You don’t need me to travel home, and you don’t need me at home.’
‘Yes, I do!’ he cried.
‘Father trained you,’ she said. ‘You know what to do. But you don’t even have to do it Father’s way. You are the Earl now. You decide, like Marston said. I want to be with Rhys. I need to be with him.’
David lowered his head for a moment, then raised it again. ‘You need to?’ He glanced away as if thinking. ‘Rhys said I should think about what you need.’
‘He did?’ She was surprised Rhys had talked with David about her.
‘Rhys told me you were going to elope once.’ His brows twisted. ‘Are you going to marry him now?’
Her heart pounded. ‘I don’t know. But I need to find out.’
David gave her an exasperated look, more typical of the brother she knew. ‘Oh, very well, then. I do not agree that you should marry him. An earl’s daughter should not marry the vicar’s son, but if that is what you need to do, we’ll go to Yarford without you.’
She squeezed his hand and turned to Marston, a question in her gaze.
‘I’ve no doubt we can get to Yarford without you.’ Marston winked. ‘The Earl knows the way.’
She smiled at him and rose from her chair. ‘Would you ask the coachman to leave my portmanteau here?’
‘As you wish, m’lady.’ Marston bowed.
She gave David a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ll write to you.’
Five years ago she’d done what her father wanted her to do, what she thought would be best for Rhys. This time she’d risk doing what she wanted to do, what she thought would be best for her.
She hurried off to find the innkeeper to arrange passage back to Brussels.
* * *
Once Helene left Brussels, Rhys saw no reason to delay re-joining his regiment. He’d packed his trunk and arranged to have it shipped to his regiment in Paris. Louise and Wilson begged him to stay one more day, to not hurry off, but Rhys suspected they were eager to be alone. They’d waited twenty-five years for it, after all. Besides, seeing the devotion between the older couple merely reminded Rhys of what he’d given up.
He’d been right, had he not? The army was no place for an earl’s daughter. Her life would be nothing but hardship with him.
Rhys collected his horse from the stable and rode one last time through the streets of Brussels. A light rain started to fall. Rhys stopped briefly to put on his topcoat and to put some coins in the hand of a wounded soldier seated in a doorway. Other wounded men lay on the pavement or leaned against buildings, but in fewer numbers than even a week ago. Some might have recovered; others died. Or perhaps they merely found shelter from the rain. Had Helene tended any of these men? The enormity of their problems overwhelmed Rhys now; how much worse for Helene when, during the battle, their numbers must have seemed endless.
He approached the cathedral, which only brought more memories of Helene, so he urged his horse to go faster.
* * *
Rhys could have chosen two other routes out of Brussels, but he automatically chose the road that led to Waterloo and Quatre Bras. When he was still some distance from the battlefield, the putrid odour of death and rot reached his nostrils. Though a month after the battle, the stench lingered in the blood-soaked ground and the hastily dug mounds of buried men and horses. Several carriages waited at the side of the road by the battle site while their passengers, mostly English, toured the battlefield. Some were in groups led by a local man or an injured soldier; others walked the area alone, heads bowed to the ground, not in reverence, but in the hopes of finding a souvenir. Rhys passed by several urchins who were selling torn epaulets, bloody pieces of cloth, shards of scabbards or piles of musket balls. Visitors were eagerly buying whatever was for sale.
Rhys was glad Helene would not see this.
He closed his eyes. How long would it take for him to stop imagining the world through her eyes? As he rode the same path as he’d done the day of the battle, sadness engulfed him. He didn’t need this reminder of her or of the battle. At a fork in the road there was a sign pointing to Nivelles. He could ride to Paris through Nivelles instead of Quatre Bras and avoid the agonising memories. He should have thought of that route in the first place.
* * *
From the outskirts of Nivelles, Rhys could see a huge white stone church towering above the other redbrick buildings. He found an inn where he could rest his horse and get something to eat.
Even this far from the battlefield, there were English in the tavern, waiting for their coaches to take them to see where Wellington defeated Napoleon. Rhys sat in a booth.
The tavern maid approached him. ‘Bonjour, monsieur. May I bring you some tarte al d’jote? It is our specialty.’
What the devil was tarte al d’jote? He was too tired to care. ‘Very well. And some beer.’
He leaned against the back of the booth.
Every step of this journey so far felt laborious, as if he were straining against a tether that tried to pull him back. This was the right thing to do, was it not? To leave Helene?
He remembered five years ago, leaving Yarford, believing he’d never see her or the place he called home ever again. Then he’d been fuelled by anger and his anger made him glad to be away. This day he only felt regret.
The tavern maid brought his food. It looked as if tarte al d’jote was an egg dish.
She gestured towards his uniform coat. ‘Were you in the battle?’
He nodded, not very interested in conversation.
But she went on. ‘My cousin lives in Mont Saint Jean. She said it was pretty terrible.’
‘It was,’ he agreed.
She continued, ‘They hid most of the day. Then after, mon dieu, so many wounded. They even came here.’
‘Must have been very hard on everyone,’ he said.
‘I wish it had never happened.’ She placed his beer in front of him. ‘Don’t you?’
Did he wish the battle never happened? He greatly regretted the catastrophic loss of life, but it had been the battle that brought Helene to Brussels and back to him, not to mention vanquishing Napoleon. There had been good in all that horrific hardship.
He looked up at the maid, but she did not wait for an answer. ‘A lot of the soldiers who
recuperated here said they wanted to quit the army after this. They said they didn’t care what happened; they just never wanted to endure a battle again.’
Before Rhys could respond, she left to attend to another patron.
He took a drink of his beer.
Did he want to endure another battle? No, but he never wanted to endure another battle after surviving one. It was unlikely, though, that he—or anyone—would ever again experience the likes of the Battle of Waterloo.
Still, it had brought him Helene. The good with the terrible. They had each survived their particular hell of the battle. Against all odds. What could be worse? Good God, could leaving the army be worse than enduring Waterloo?
Apparently the soldiers the maid spoke of had not thought so.
Rhys faced other challenges now, other ways that could kill him. Certainly these challenges would not be as difficult as what he’d already endured. Would they be worse than leaving the army? He’d have some money from the sale of his commission. Helene had some money. How bad would it be, really, to leave the army?
He’d be jumping into the unknown, as he’d done when he left Yarford for the army.
He finished his beer and was suddenly hungry for this egg dish set before him.
Rhys had been thinking that the crucial issue was whether he could provide a good enough life for Helene and any children they might have, but maybe that was not the proper question. Maybe the proper question was, which was the bigger risk—facing the desolation of giving up a future with Helene or taking the chance that they could be happy together, no matter what they faced?
Her words returned to him… We are repeating the same mistake…
‘Not this time, Helene,’ he whispered to himself.
Rhys finished the last of his very satisfying meal and threw some coins on the table.
The maid came over and picked up the money. ‘Anything else, sir?’
‘May I see a map?’ he asked. ‘One showing the way to Ostend?’
The map showed he’d have to ride back to Brussels to reach the road to Ostend. He’d be on the same road as Helene’s carriage, but several hours behind. He knew what inn Helene and David would stay in when reaching Ostend, though, and the packet they had passage on to England. He stood a good chance to catch up to her by then.
Make no mistake, though. He’d reach her even if he had to follow her all the way to Yarford.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Helene was only able to secure a seat on a coach to Brussels that would depart the next day, distressing, because she feared Rhys would leave Brussels before she could return there. Rhys had nothing in Brussels to hold him and he’d be eager to return to his regiment.
No matter. She’d travel to Paris alone if she must. She’d find the 44th Regiment and learn of Rhys’s whereabouts from there.
She took a room in the inn for the night and, to pass the afternoon, strolled around Melle, visiting a few shops that sold silk, linen, lace and wool cloth from the manufacturers in Ghent. She purchased a linen handkerchief edged in lace as a remembrance of this place and the decision she’d made here. She put it in her pocket next to the handkerchief she’d taken from Rhys’s trunk before the battle. At dusk she returned to the inn’s tavern for dinner.
The inn was filled with other travellers like herself, but the tavern was nothing like the ones in Brussels where she and Wilson had searched for David—and found Rhys. Gone were the colourful uniforms and rowdy voices of the Allied soldiers that had filled those taverns, replaced by several English travellers and local people.
At the table next to Helene sat two English couples who, Helene could not help but overhear, had travelled to Belgium for the singular purpose of visiting the Waterloo battlefield. The battlefield had been cleaned up—meaning the corpses of thousands of men and horses had been removed—and had become a desirable destination for tourists, especially those coming in hopes of finding souvenirs left behind by the dead soldiers. Helene shuddered. She never wanted to see Waterloo again. She wanted nothing to remind her of the countless dead corpses that blanketed the fields between La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont.
The English couples’ noisy conversation also stirred up vivid memories of the wounded men Helene had tended that awful day. She could again see their pain-contorted faces, hear their cries and smell blood, gunpowder and death. She lowered her head as the two couples went on and on about the glory of the battle and the greatness of the victory. They had apparently read much about the battle and spoke of the defence of Hougoumont, of the grand cavalry charge, of how the British troops stood fast when the French attacked, of the routing of Napoleon’s elite Imperial Guard.
Helene could stand it no more.
‘Stop!’ she cried. She rose from her chair and pushed her way past them, hurrying to the door, eager to escape.
Suddenly she was directly facing a man who had just entered the tavern and was caught for a moment in the unexpected sight of him.
‘Rhys?’
He closed the distance between them and, heedless of all the people watching them, enveloped her in his arms. ‘Helene. Helene.’
She laughed and cried as she savoured the feel of his arms, the sound of his voice, the scent of him.
‘I cannot believe it. Are you real?’ She touched his face.
He released her but grasped her hand and pulled her out of the tavern and into the momentarily empty hall of the inn. ‘I am real.’
She shook her head, still half in disbelief. ‘Why are you here?’
He slid his hands to her shoulders. ‘Merely to rest my horse and spend the night. I did not expect to find you here. I was riding to Ostend to find you. To tell you—’
She put her fingers on his lips. ‘No. Do not tell me. I am so weary of people telling me what to think, what I must do. I have something to tell you. I sent David on with the wonderful Marston—he is a treasure, by the way—I sent them on so I could return to you. I have decided that I do not want to return to Yarford. I do not want a life of wealth and ease. I want to be with you. If that means danger, I do not care. If it means hardship, I do not care. I want to be with you.’
Rhys laughed and hugged her again, before holding her at arm’s length once more. ‘My turn.’
Words so familiar, spoken often when they’d been children.
‘I came to tell you that I made a decision,’ he said. ‘I wonder I did not seriously consider it before. I will leave the army. I’ll find something to do, some way to earn money, if our funds run low—’
‘Leave the army?’ she cried. ‘Rhys, no! It means too much to you.’
‘Not more than you mean to me,’ he countered.
‘But I do not mind coming with you wherever the army sends you,’ she insisted. ‘You are next going to Paris—is that not an exciting place to be? I would love to explore Paris with you.’
His expression turned serious. ‘We do not know what it will be like for us in Paris.’
‘We do not know what life would be like for us even if we returned to Yarford.’ She threw up her hands. ‘It will be a grand adventure!’
* * *
A grand adventure. Rhys and Helene had spent their childhood chasing grand adventures together, even if then the adventure only meant climbing a tree or learning how to pick a lock. Why not this adventure?
She was correct. Paris would be an exciting place to explore, and there was no one Rhys would rather explore Paris with than Helene. If the city was too dangerous, they’d not have to stay. He could make the decision to leave the army at any time. He’d been trying to sort out the rest of their lives, but there was no need to do that. He merely had to figure out the next step.
He gave her a direct look and still held her firmly in his grasp. ‘Very well. I stay in the army and we go to Paris together. On one condition, though.’
She looked wary. ‘Wha
t condition?’
‘You must marry me.’ He smiled. ‘We stay together for ever. As husband and wife.’
Her expression turned indignant. ‘You are telling me what I must do?’
This reaction startled him. ‘I only meant—’
A grin grew on her face. ‘It is a good thing marrying you is precisely what I want to do.’
Rhys laughed aloud as he took her in his arms again and swung her around.
His first friend—his closest friend—his best friend—would now be his wife.
And no one would ever again make them part.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Brussels, Belgium—June 1816
Like several regiments of the British army, the 44th Regiment of Foot, the East Essex Regiment, disbanded its second battalion in January of 1816, placing its officers and soldiers on half-pay. With the Continent in peace and Napoleon far away on the island of St Helena, there was little need for an army. Commissions were few in the regiments that did not disband, but the places these regiments were sent were less than ideal. Places like fever-ridden West Indies. Or Ireland, where the task was to police what felt like one’s own countrymen. Or, at best, the isolated Mediterranean island of Malta.
Captain Rhys Landon and his wife, Lady Helene, had not sailed to Dover with the rest of the regiment. Instead they’d elected to take rooms in Brussels, where their funds were sufficient to live modestly and where they had friends.
They had another motive, as well. By January, Helene knew she was carrying a child. They worried that a rough passage over the Channel or further travel in England might not be safe for her. That and the uncertainty of how they would live in England.
Their decision to settle in Brussels delighted Mrs Jacobs. She and Louise Wilson called upon Helene almost every day. This day Wilson had joined them. Wilson had brought a wooden cradle he’d made. After he and Rhys carried it up to the bedchamber, they’d gone off to a nearby tavern, while Louise, Mrs Jacobs and Helene sat drinking tea in the small drawing room.
Harlequin Historical February 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 47