The Passionate Prude

by Elizabeth Thornton

  When she came to herself, the sun had set, and the noise of battle had receded. She lay unmoving for a long time, trying to make sense of the faint sounds around her, her mind grappling with the unrecognizable cries of creatures of the night which seemed to have crawled out of their burrows to wander over the field. A rush of memory flooded her brain, and she struggled to a sitting position. And then she recognized the animal cries for what they were—the pitiful moans of the wounded and dying crying weakly for water and the relief of a quick death.

  Her head sank to her knees, and she filled her lungs with several long steadying breaths. Every muscle in her body ached as if she had taken a beating and she tasted blood on her lips although her mouth was parched. She lifted her head and looked about her. Small fires burned here and there on the battlefield, and the moon cast its ghostly rays upon the scene of death and destruction.

  She pulled herself to her feet and tried to get her bearings. Armand had fallen only yards from where she had taken a tumble. She moved in circles calling his name, feeling her way blindly, shutting her mind to the horror about her. And then she found him.

  He was warm and breathing, but he made no response to her urgent pleas that he waken. She worked quickly, her hands and fingers testing bones and flesh through the sodden tunic. She found the injury on his left shoulder. She tore his clothing open and pressed her fingers into the ragged wound. His shirt and tunic were drenched with blood and her relief gave way to panic. She was too weak to move him. Nor would she find him again among so many slain even if she did go for help, and that was impossible, for Lustre had vanished, was perhaps at that very moment one of the carcasses that littered the field. She fell back on prayer and a measure of calm returned.

  She quickly unbuttoned her spencer and wrenched off her fine linen shirt. She wadded it into a thick pad and looked around for something to bind it tightly against the hole in Armand’s shoulder. There was nothing.

  It took every ounce of willpower to ignore the cries of the injured as she stumbled among the broken bodies, frantically searching for a corpse to strip of some article of clothing to make into bindings. She deliberately numbed her brain as she went about her ghastly business, steeling herself to touch the faces of the men about her till she found one that was cold and rigid in death. Within minutes she was back at Armand’s side, and deftly bound his wound with the tattered remnants of a young French ensign’s shirt. She rebuttoned her brother’s tunic and sat back on her haunches.

  She knew that there would be no relief, no medical help coming until first light. She had never before considered the inhumanity of such neglect but the cruelty of the practice, unintentional though it might be, struck her suddenly with full force. Men who might easily live with immediate medical attention were being left to die in their hundreds while their comrades made themselves comfortable for the night. She thought of Mrs. Dawson and the other women who followed their men on the march and knew without a doubt that they at least would be wandering the field looking for loved ones who had not yet returned.

  Her eyes picked out dark shapes flitting among the fallen. She was about to cry out for help, but the sound froze in her throat as she saw corpses stripped naked and relieved of everything of value. Looters had begun their ghoulish work. They spread out across the field, carrying off their booty like jackals scavenging on leftovers after the lion has gorged himself on his kill.

  The guttural sounds of German reached Deirdre’s ears as two Prussian soldiers turned over one of the wounded. A young French voice pleaded for mercy. There was the flash of steel, and the voice was suddenly cut off. Rage, white hot and passionate, tore through Deirdre. In a day of unmitigated horror, that one cold-blooded, wanton act surpassed everything.

  She scrambled on her knees among the corpses, searching with frenzied fingers, and found a pair of pistols primed and ready to fire. Satisfied that the powder was bone dry, she braced herself on her knees before Armand like a shield and sat back on her heels to wait. When the Prussians were only yards from her, she cocked the pistols.

  “Was wollen sie?” she asked on a low snarl.

  The men straightened and one of them laughed.

  “Ein Englischer?” he ventured in an amused tone, and moved cautiously forward.

  “Come one step closer and I’ll blow your brains out,” she said in faultless German.

  Their eyes narrowed on the dark shape hugging the ground. It did not seem possible that such a slight form could pose any threat that two burly men could not handle with ease.

  “Wir sind freunde,” said one placatingly, “friends,” he added in English to make sure his meaning was not mistaken.

  Allies they might be, but Deirdre knew that there was no love lost between the British and Prussians. No questions would be asked on the morrow about the night’s work. And dead men tell no tales.

  She sensed their intent as the bolder of the two edged closer. Two shots were all that she had, one for each of them, and if she failed…She waited with eyes and ears straining as she took aim.

  The Prussian had advanced to within a foot of her. Without warning his hand shot out, and as she felt the quick stab of fire along her arm, she simultaneously discharged the pistol in her right hand. He went spinning backward and fell in a deformed heap.

  His companion hesitated. Deirdre transferred the pistol in her left hand to her right, scarcely aware of the warm blood dripping from her fingers. Her heart was pounding furiously against her bruised ribs, but fear was far from her thoughts. That would come later.

  “Warum warten sie? What are you waiting for?” she challenged softly. “Try and take me and I’ll give you what I gave your friend.” The shape cursed softly and moved silently away, slinking like a whipped cur into the shadows, and Deirdre lowered the heavy pistol to the ground. Her breath, which she had controlled perfectly until that moment, tore through her lungs in ragged gasps and she began to retch.

  “Gareth, oh Gareth,” she heard herself sob, and fought back the attack of hysteria that threatened to overwhelm her. The night was far from over, and it did no good to speculate on what had become of her husband. Nor could he help her now. She had to rely on her own resources. She tucked her left forearm under her right armpit to stanch the flow of blood and brought up the pistol, resting it against her knees. She huddled closer to Armand, sharing her body heat.

  He stirred. “Caro?” he whispered on a rustle of sound.

  “Hush, darling. You’ll be with her soon.”

  The answer seemed to satisfy him, for he drifted off to sleep, or unconsciousness, and Deirdre was left to her thoughts during her long, lonely vigil.

  The rest of the night was uneventful, for most looters were cowards and moved away from the ferocious hellion brandishing the wicked-looking pistol to avail themselves of easier pickings. At first light, the medical wagons came for them and they were conveyed to the village of Mont St. Jean. Since Deirdre’s wound was not considered critical, she was left to wait till noon outside the thatched cottages until a surgeon was available to clean and suture the gash on her arm. It was from the surgeon that she learned that Lord Uxbridge had been hit in the knee by almost the last shot of the battle and had been taken to Waterloo.

  “That doesn’t sound too serious,” she said hopefully.

  “Not a bit of it,” was the cheerful rejoinder. “He’s lost the leg, of course, but that’s of little consequence. Considering that he had eight horses shot from under him during the day, he should think himself lucky.”

  Deirdre, still posing as a young dispatch rider, fought back the unmanly tears. “What of Rathbourne? How did he fare, or don’t you know?”

  “Like the Duke, not a scratch on him as usual. He left with the army at dawn to chase the French to the gates of Paris.”

  She would have asked more, but by the time she had swallowed the hard lump which had formed in her throat, the surgeon had moved on. Deirdre put down her head and wept openly, careless of the softened expressions on the f
aces of hardened soldiers who wished they were brave enough to follow the young lad’s example.

  By evening, the road to Brussels was lined with the elegant carriages of its wealthier citizens who had sent their well-sprung vehicles to transport the wounded to a heroes’ welcome in the city they had saved from the designs of a little Corsican megalomaniac. Brother and sister slept through most of the comfortable journey, Deirdre through sheer fatigue, and Armand under the sedation of a large draft of laudanum. When they arrived at the Hotel d’Angleterre just before nightfall, Deirdre took charge and had Armand put straight to bed, refusing to answer a single question about her extraordinary appearance or her whereabouts until she had bathed and dined. Her own questions to Armand she resolved to leave till morning when it was to be hoped a good night’s rest would work a salutary change in him.

  When she finally met with her anxious relatives before retiring to bed, she told them the bare facts, omitting anything that implied she had been in any kind of danger.

  “Just like a picnic to Twickenham,” intoned Tony Cavanaugh with a quizzical elevation of one elegant eyebrow.

  In other circumstances, Deirdre would have received a severe tongue-lashing, but Lord Uxbridge had arrived from the front with his ever faithful aide, Seymour, and the hotel was in an uproar as special beds and chairs were examined and removed to his lordship’s rooms for his exclusive use. With so much going on, and since their niece seemed to have suffered no ill effects with the exception of a gash on the arm which she made light of. Sir Thomas and Lady Fenton decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Indeed, it was Deirdre’s shorn locks which provoked her aunt to anything resembling real anger.

  “How could you, Deirdre?” she asked plaintively. “Fashion, you eschew, the bloom of youth is fading, and apart from a trim figure and fine complexion, you have little else to boast of. It was your one claim to distinction. God knows what Rathbourne will say.”

  Tony flashed a commiserating grin, and Deirdre bit back a laugh, only too thankful to have been let off so lightly.

  On the following morning, when she opened the door to Armand’s chamber, she found him sitting up in bed and looking a little hollow-eyed, but quite obviously on the mend. Deirdre crossed the room and sank on her knees beside the bed.

  One hand reached out to touch his face. “Pale but interesting,” she managed lightly, then her arms went round his waist and she put down her head and wept. His hands idly fingered her soft, feathery tresses. When she finally looked up, she saw that his eyelashes were beaded with moisture.

  “That was you, standing guard over me through the night, wasn’t it?” he asked softly.

  She nodded dumbly, and fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. When she had told him the whole story of how she had come to be swept up in the final charge, he burst out savagely, “Dee! It’s a miracle you are alive! Don’t think I’m not grateful. You probably saved my life. But you carry things too far. When are you going to let me live my own life? To come after me like that when I told you I was enlisting passes the bounds of anything!”

  “But you didn’t tell me you were enlisting!” she defended. “You told me that you were a turncoat, and I surmised the worst.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That you had gone over to the enemy.”

  He looked dumbfounded. “You thought I was a traitor?”

  “Don’t look so shocked.” She got to her feet and said with a break in her voice, “What should I think when you said all those wild things and Rathbourne thrashed you for it? You never mentioned a word in your letter about enlisting. How should I know what was on your mind?”

  “You actually thought that I could betray my family, my friends, my country, my name? And I thought you knew me!”

  Her eyes dropped before the look in his, but she said levelly, “None of your friends knew where you were. Why didn’t you tell someone?”

  “It all happened so suddenly. Tony told me about Caro. There seemed nothing to hold me back. Besides, Rathbourne knew. Why didn’t you apply to him? He is your husband, for God’s sake.”

  “Rathbourne knew?”

  Armand missed the flicker of shock in her eyes. “Certainly he knew. How he found out, I don’t know, but that bear of a fellow, his watchdog, what’s his name…?”

  “O’Toole.”

  “He hauled me off to answer to my guardian. Damn impertinence! He’s only a servant, after all.”

  “And Rathbourne didn’t try to stop you?”

  “Devil the bit of it! He said that, all things considered, he thought it was the best solution.”

  “What did he mean by that?”

  “I never gave it much thought at the time. I was too relieved to be let go. Who knows? Perhaps he hoped I would become one of the casualties. That would certainly solve some of his problems,” he concluded bitterly.

  “Does he really hate you so much?” she asked in a voice striving to remain calm. She came and sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand.

  His eyes were troubled, though he said easily enough, “No, I don’t really believe that. Rathbourne may dislike me intensely, but he’s not a fiend. We have had our differences, it’s true. Even if he does despise me, he would never go that far.”

  “What differences?” she coaxed, giving him a perfect opportunity to unburden himself about Lady Caro. But on that subject her brother remained discouragingly silent.

  A communication from her husband arrived soon thereafter having made a circuitous route by way of Antwerp to find her. The contents were brief and to the point. Under his cousin’s escort, she was to make for Belmont, Rathbourne’s seat in Warwickshire, where his mother and sister had taken up residence for the summer. Guy Landron had been sent ahead to smooth the way for her arrival. The Earl would join her as soon as his stint with Wellington was over and the world was once and forever rid of Napoleon Bonaparte. Rathbourne made no mention of her brother; no explanation was tendered for Armand’s disappearance from Brussels just before the battle; no regrets offered for the part he had played in keeping her in ignorance of an event that was bound to affect her profoundly. There were no endearments, no tender expressions to soften directions he might just as easily have sent to a servant. He had signed it simply “Rathbourne,” in Deirdre’s eyes, the final insult.

  She read the missive several times, then tore it into shreds. She did not think that she could ever forgive Rathbourne for the deception he had perpetrated. How could he do it to her? In suspecting Armand of being a traitor, a conviction which Rathbourne had ruthlessly exploited, she had been made to suffer agonies. Nor did the list of his iniquities end there. The torment of being in ignorance of Armand’s fate for three days had propelled her into a course of action which she would remember for the rest of her days. It had been in Rathbourne’s power to protect Armand, but he had sent him off to battle like so much cannon fodder—an untried, untutored, raw recruit. For what purpose?

  Who could fathom the mind of such a man or explain his conduct? It seemed to her that Armand had earned the Earl’s dislike from the very beginning, over the affair with Mrs. Dewinters. And once Rathbourne was roused, there was no placating him, not that Armand had made the slightest push to reconcile their differences. Far from it, as she was first to admit, but his youthful defiance did not merit such implacable enmity. The affair with Caro coming when it did must have been the last straw. Had Armand’s carelessly uttered words been close to the truth? Did Rathbourne really want the boy dead so that he would be out of Caro’s reach once and for all?

  Fragments of conversations came back to her. Armand warning her off the Earl because he was no gentleman; his nom de guerre was “le Sauvage”; he hated the French with a passion. That he hated Armand was self-evident. Could she be in love with such a man, a man who could stop at nothing to gain his ends?

  Her thoughts strayed to Vauxhall, then moved on to the night he had cheated her at cards at Lord Winslow’s gaming establishment. Finally, she thought of the coach
ride after the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, and his threats about Armand. The man was utterly without conscience as he had repeatedly proved in his conduct with respect to herself.

  His glib tongue had almost beguiled her into thinking that he loved her. She should have known better! Always, always in the past, she had had her defenses in place ready to deflect the first serious attempt to engage her heart. How had he managed to slip under her guard? Of all people, she more than anyone had ample evidence of the unscrupulous lengths the male animal would stoop to in the game of conquest, and how little declarations of love counted when passion was spent. He wanted her, was obsessed with her, lusted after her. Hadn’t his lovemaking proved that the man was a sensualist? That wasn’t love! If he truly loved her, he would never have put her through this hell.

  He expected her to retire to Belmont and await his pleasure. As his wife, she was bound to comply with his wishes, and Armand, as his ward, was in no better case. The authority of a husband or guardian under the law was almost inviolable, and short of murdering his dependents, he was given a free hand to abuse them in any way he saw fit. Fool that she was to have put herself so completely into his power! And more fool still for wishing that he were with her, and she could be folded into his arms and unburden her heart to him.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  In the week that followed the battle, a steady stream of dignitaries passed through the portals of the Hotel d’Angleterre with no other object than to pay homage to Lord Uxbridge, the man who, time and time again, had thrown back the legendary French lancers and cuirassiers. That he proved to be the most popular guest of any note that the hotel had ever boasted of was not to be wondered at, for a smile was never far from his lips, and he was in such high spirits, despite bouts of pain, that it was impossible to feel sorry for him, at least in his presence.

  As it turned out, there was no question of Deirdre’s immediate removal to Belmont. Armand developed a fever, and Dr. McCallum advised that he be given time to convalesce before attempting a journey which was bound to fatigue him. Deirdre was only too happy to delay an event which filled her with dread, and they remained where they were with Deirdre dividing her time as companion-nurse equally between her brother and Lord Uxbridge who found himself in much the same pass as Armand. Of the two patients, there was never any doubt that Uxbridge had the better temper.