by Emily Larkin
“Move over,” the lieutenant said in a low voice, as the sailor fumbled to heave himself into the carriage.
Willie glanced at him, and there was something so authoritative in his face that she obeyed, shifting sideways into the warm spot the matron had left. The lieutenant moved, too, taking the place she’d vacated, and by the time the sailor had negotiated the steps, the empty seat was neither next to Willie nor opposite her.
She breathed a silent sigh of relief and loosened her tight grip on the shawl, while the sailor settled himself clumsily and then belched.
The guard closed the door and blew his horn, the driver cracked his whip, and the stagecoach lumbered into motion again. Beside Willie, the thin lady sniffed. “Seventeen minutes,” she muttered.
The carriage had been small and cramped before. With the sailor in it, it was even smaller and more cramped. Or perhaps that was because the lieutenant was alongside her now. He seemed to take up more space on the seat than the stout matron had, although that couldn’t actually be possible; the matron had been very stout, and the lieutenant was quite lean. But Willie was aware of him in a way she hadn’t been aware of the matron, aware of his body pressed against hers—his arm, his thigh—and she was aware, too, of his strength and his heat and his maleness.
Willie felt suddenly self-conscious and awkward. Her cheeks grew a little warm.
To distract herself from the lieutenant, she discreetly observed the sailor. He was unshaven and bleary-eyed. The smell of gin wafted strongly from him. He belched again. His gaze drifted past Willie—and then swung back. He looked her up and down, a blatant leer. “You’re a spruce one, you are.”
“I suggest you keep your tongue between your teeth while you’re aboard,” the lieutenant said coldly.
The sailor took note of the rifleman’s uniform and sneered. “Oh, you do, do you, swoddy?” Then his gaze rose to the lieutenant’s face. The sneer faded so quickly that it was almost comical.
Willie bit her lip to prevent herself laughing.
“I do,” the lieutenant said. His voice was hard and flat and dangerous, and Willie wasn’t at all surprised that the sailor looked away.
Five minutes later, he was snoring.
“Thank you,” Willie told the lieutenant, in a low whisper.
“You’re welcome,” the lieutenant whispered back. His voice sounded like it had before the sailor had climbed aboard, friendly and cheerful.
He’d be a good officer, Willie thought. The sort of officer that men respected. He knew when to laugh and joke, but he also knew when not to. And he knew how to make people obey him.
The lieutenant was still disconcertingly large and warm alongside her, but Willie no longer felt self-conscious. She felt safe. On the heels of that realization came a decision: at the next halt, she’d ask him about the Rifle Brigade. Yes, the lieutenant liked her looks, but she was no longer worried that he’d leer at her like the sailor had, or try to flirt with her, because he wasn’t merely an officer; he was a gentleman.
They halted for another meal at Abbots Worthy. The lieutenant leapt down lightly, then turned to help the thin lady to descend. Willie gathered up her reticule and descended, too. This time she took the lieutenant’s hand without a second thought, and noted again that yes, he did have very nice eyes.
She inhaled a deep breath that smelled of horses and horse dung and woodsmoke and roasting meat, while behind her the thin lady told the guard off. “Twenty-three minutes behind schedule! I shall complain to the company, don’t you doubt it!”
Willie wasn’t particularly hungry, nor did she wish to spend the allotted half hour sitting in a stuffy coffee room. “I’ll help you with the kittens,” she told the lieutenant.
His face lit up in a smile, and Willie told herself that her heart had not fluttered, although she was rather afraid that it had.
The lieutenant spoke to an ostler, a coin changed hands, and half a minute later she, the lieutenant, and the basket were in an empty horse stall. Alone.
For a moment Willie doubted her decision, and then she remembered his behavior in the carriage. The lieutenant was a gentleman and as long as she didn’t flirt with him, he wouldn’t flirt with her.
He crouched and opened the basket. Kittens blinked up at them. Willie smiled involuntarily, and crouched, too.
“Come on out, little monsters,” the lieutenant said, and the kittens did, one after the other, mewing loudly. “I wager they’re hungry. I’ll fetch some milk.”
“I shan’t let Scout escape,” Willie promised.
The lieutenant gave her a grateful smile and left the stall, careful to close the door behind him.
“Hello, sweethearts,” Willie said softly, once he was gone.
The kittens mewed back at her. Monsters or not, they were darlings, with their round little bellies and bright blue eyes, their tiny pink tongues and sharp white teeth. Scout was quite fluffy, with patches of black and gray, while her sleeker brother had smart gray stripes. Willie laid her reticule to one side, picked Mr. Bellyrub up, turned him over, and rubbed his belly. To her delight, he immediately began to purr.
Willie stroked him, and felt the reverberation of his purr, and watched while his bolder sister staggered across the straw, apparently determined to explore all four corners of the stall.
Mr. Bellyrub closed his eyes and Willie felt him relax in her hand, a soft, warm bundle of contentment. By the time the lieutenant returned with two saucers of milk, the kitten was practically asleep, but he roused and mewed loudly to be let down.
Willie set him on the straw and he attacked the milk with so much enthusiasm that he stepped into the saucer.
Willie laughed, and so did the lieutenant. He had a very nice laugh. Her awareness of him spiked again, and with it, the awkwardness.
Idiot, she scolded herself. The lieutenant was very attractive, but she was in this horse stall because of the kittens and because she wanted to talk about the Rifle Brigade, not for any other reason. Accordingly, she said, “When did you join the Rifle Brigade, Lieutenant?”
He glanced at her, and she saw his surprise.
“My father was in the army,” Willie told him. “He was invalided out in 1806.”
The lieutenant sat back on his heels and looked at her, still with surprise on his face. “That was the year I joined the Rifles.”
“You were on the Peninsula, then?”
He nodded.
She named several battles: “Salamanca? Vittoria? Tarbes?”
He nodded again.
Willie bit her lip, and then asked, “Badajoz?”
The lieutenant grimaced faintly. “Yes.” He looked down at Mr. Bellyrub, then glanced back at her, hesitated, and said, “You know what happened there, I take it?”
“I do. My father corresponded regularly with Colonel Barraclough. He said—Barraclough, I mean—that the events at Badajoz brought discredit to the entire army.”
“They did.”
“Barraclough also said that he was proud of his officers, that they did everything they could to halt it.”
It. An entirely inadequate word for the violence and rapine that had occurred after Badajoz fell.
“We did,” the lieutenant said. “For what it was worth.” He grimaced faintly again, then cocked his head and said, “Who is your father? What regiment did he serve in?”
“The Sixty-Ninth,” Willie said. “He died last year. His name was Culpepper.”
The lieutenant’s jaw dropped. “Culpepper? Not . . . Colonel Culpepper?”
It was Willie’s turn to be surprised. “Yes.”
The lieutenant stared at her for a moment, open-mouthed, and then said, in a disbelieving voice, “You’re Colonel Henry Culpepper’s daughter?”
Willie nodded again.
The lieutenant finally remembered to close his mouth. He looked down at Mr. Bellyrub lapping his milk, and then back at her. This time his gaze wasn’t friendly or appreciative; it was something much more penetrating. He looked at her—t
ruly looked at her—a head-to-toe glance that was nothing like the drunken sailor’s leer. Then, he shook his head and laughed. “So you’re Sweet Willie.”
Embarrassed heat rose in Willie’s cheeks. “Wherever did you hear that name?”
The lieutenant shook his head again, laughed again. “The fellows who were in South America used to talk about you. A lot.”
“They did not,” Willie said, as her cheeks grew hotter.
“They most certainly did,” the lieutenant said. “It was ‘Sweet Willie this’ and ‘Sweet Willie that’ the whole first year I was in the Rifles. Some of ’em are still talking about you. Barraclough, for one. Pug Pugsley, for another. And Sergeant Jones, remember him?” Then his expression became serious, solemn. “They’re still talking about your father, too. By all accounts, he was a remarkable soldier. My condolences on his death.”
Willie’s cheeks cooled. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
The lieutenant eyed her, a faint frown on his handsome face. “What are you doing on a stagecoach, Miss Culpepper? You’re not a governess, are you?”
The disapprobation in his voice made Willie smile. “Not quite. I’ll be more of a companion. My charges are sixteen and seventeen.”
“But surely . . .” He halted, and looked a little abashed.
Willie answered the question that he clearly felt he couldn’t ask. “I don’t need a position, Lieutenant; I want one.”
His frown became tinged with confusion.
Willie tried to explain: “England bores me. I want to travel again, and Sir Walter Pike, who’s employing me, is a diplomat. The family is off to Vienna next month.”
“Your father became a diplomat, I understand? After his injury.”
Willie nodded. Colonels of infantry regiments needed two hands, but members of the Foreign Office didn’t. “Yes. We were in Constantinople, then Russia, and lastly Brussels. If Father hadn’t died when he did, we’d have been in Brussels during the Battle of Waterloo.”
The lieutenant grimaced again, not the faint grimace he’d accorded Badajoz, but something much grimmer that thinned his lips and twisted his mouth. “Be glad you weren’t there. Waterloo was . . .” He shook his head and reached for the basket.
“I heard it was bad,” Willie said cautiously, as he examined the nest of rags.
“Very bad.” The lieutenant looked down at the basket a moment longer, then glanced at her. “Have you ever seen an illustrated version of Dante’s Inferno, Miss Culpepper?”
Willie nodded.
“Waterloo was like that. Only worse.”
He was telling the truth—she could see it clearly on his face: the pinching at the corners of his eyes, the pinching at the corners of his mouth.
Willie acknowledged what he’d said with a nod, for it seemed to her that nothing she could say would be meaningful. The Battle of Waterloo had happened. It had been a terrible slaughter. Those were irrefutable facts, and platitudes and words of condolence wouldn’t be in the least bit helpful now, nearly twelve months after that battle.
The pinching at the lieutenant’s mouth and eyes faded. He looked down at the basket again and put it aside.
Willie changed the subject. “You’re on furlough, I take it? Where are you stationed?”
“France.” The lieutenant shook off his grimness and smiled at her. “Two of our battalions are there right now; the third’s in Ireland.”
They talked about army life while the kittens lapped their milk. The lieutenant told her some of the stories he’d heard about her and Willie had to confess that they were all true, and then he told her some of his misadventures. It was the most enjoyable conversation Willie had had in years. She couldn’t remember when she’d last laughed so much. She heard the first warning blast of the guard’s horn with something close to disbelief. Had she and the lieutenant been talking for half an hour?
She scrambled to her feet. “Where’s Scout?”
The lieutenant stood, too. “She was in that corner, last I saw her. Probably made herself a nest.” He scooped up Mr. Bellyrub and placed him in the basket.
Willie began searching in the straw for Scout. “I still don’t know your name,” she told the lieutenant.
“Mayhew,” he said. “William Mayhew.”
“William?” Willie said.
He grinned at her. “We share a name. Almost. I’m a Will, not a Willie.” He rifled through the straw and called softly, “Here puss, puss, puss.”
But Scout didn’t poke her head up and mew at them.
The guard’s horn sounded again.
Lieutenant Mayhew began to grope through the straw more urgently. “Go, Miss Culpepper.”
“Nonsense,” Willie said, widening her search. She checked one corner, and another. “Here she is!”
“Thank God.” The lieutenant grabbed the basket and held it out to her—and said, “Uh-oh. Where’s Bellyrub?”
The guard’s horn blasted a third time.
Lieutenant Mayhew took Scout from her. “Go!”
Willie ignored him.
“Miss Culpepper—”
“I see him,” Willie cried. She seized hold of the kitten, thrust him into the basket, then snatched up her reticule and ran to the front of the horse stall, drawing back the bolt and flinging the door open.
They burst from the stables, out into the yard, just as the stagecoach disappeared from view.
The clatter of hooves and jingle of harnesses faded from hearing. There was a long moment of silence, and then, “They left without us,” the lieutenant said, a note of indignant disbelief in his voice.
Chapter Four
Miss Culpepper took it exceedingly well, Mayhew thought. But then, the daughter of Colonel Culpepper would. She didn’t have hysterics or fly into a temper, she merely said, “Well, that’s a slight setback,” and turned to one of the ostlers and inquired about hiring a gig to take them to the stagecoach’s next scheduled stop, which was Winchester.
By the time that Mayhew had fastened the basket lid properly, Miss Culpepper had ascertained that the inn did have a gig, that it was available for hire, and was in negotiations as to the price.
The ostler, no doubt thinking that they were pigeons to be plucked, named an extortionate sum. Mayhew opened his mouth to object, and then listened in admiration as Miss Culpepper proved that she was no pigeon. In fact, he suspected that the price she beat the ostler down to was less than anything he’d have managed.
But when she opened her reticule to pay, he said, “Absolutely not, Miss Culpepper. I shall pay for the gig.”
Miss Culpepper, proving her intelligence further, didn’t argue with him.
Mayhew handed over the coins. “The fastest horse you have,” he told the ostler. “And there’s a half crown in it for you if we’re gone in five minutes.”
The ostler headed for the stables at a run.
The gig was ready in four minutes. Mayhew handed Miss Culpepper up onto the seat, passed her the basket, climbed up himself, and tossed the ostler the half crown he’d promised him.
They left Abbots Worthy at a brisk trot. Mayhew estimated that they were six minutes behind the stagecoach, possibly seven.
“I apologize,” he said. “This is my fault.”
“It’s no one’s fault,” Miss Culpepper said cheerfully, clutching the basket with one hand and her reticule and shawl with the other. The tassels that fringed her shawl fluttered in the warm summer’s breeze, and the ribbons on her bonnet did, too. “We’ll catch up before the next stop.”
Mayhew knew that they would. One horse pulling a light gig was faster than four horses pulling a heavy stagecoach. The chestnut was young, fresh, and perfectly willing to stretch its legs in a gallop. At every bend in the road, Mayhew expected to see the stagecoach ahead of them—until the horse went lame half a mile past Headbourne Worthy.
They went from tooth-rattling gallop to hobbling walk in the space of a few seconds.
Uh-oh, he thought.
Mayhew drew th
e gig to one side of the road, handed the reins to Miss Culpepper, and jumped down to examine the chestnut, hoping it was just a pebble lodged in a shoe.
But no, they weren’t so lucky.
“Damnation,” he said under his breath, and then, more loudly, “It’s cast a shoe.”
“At least it hasn’t thrown a splint,” Miss Culpepper said, which was a much better reaction than he’d expected.
“We’d best turn back to Headbourne Worthy,” he said. “I’m sorry, Miss Culpepper.”
“Don’t look so worried, Lieutenant,” she said, with surprising equanimity. “It’s not the end of the world.”
“But your employer—”
“Sir Walter is meeting me in Twyford tomorrow. As long as I’m at the coaching inn by nightfall, all will be well. And Twyford can’t be more than a dozen miles from here. Even if I have to walk, I’ll get there before dark.”
The prospect of walking a dozen miles didn’t seem to perturb her in the slightest, and Mayhew was reminded once again that she was a soldier’s daughter.
“You won’t have to walk that far,” he promised her.
They did have to walk the half a mile back to Headbourne Worthy, though, leading the horse and gig. But although they were headed away from Winchester, and although it was now impossible that they’d catch up with the stagecoach, Mayhew couldn’t regret it. He’d never enjoyed a walk more. He liked Miss Culpepper. He liked looking at her and he liked talking with her, and if they hadn’t missed the stagecoach, and if the horse hadn’t cast a shoe, then he’d have been wholly delighted to spend his time in her company. As it was, he was partly delighted and partly worried. Miss Culpepper shouldn’t be wandering the countryside with him; this was how young ladies lost their reputations.
But no one would ever know, and he would get her to Twyford by nightfall.
Headbourne Worthy was very small. It didn’t have a posting inn, but it did have a blacksmith. They left the horse and gig at the smithy, with instructions that both were to be returned to the inn at Abbots Worthy. Mayhew forked over some coins, retrieved the basket with the kittens, and asked the blacksmith how best to get to Twyford.