The Officer and the Proper Lady

by Louise Allen

  That was obvious, Julia thought, recalling that luke warm caress. ‘No, of course not,’ she agreed.

  ‘I have made up my mind and fixed my intention upon you, Julia,’ he said with the air of a man about to embark upon a well-conned speech. ‘I am convinced that the occasional irregularity of moral purpose, the impulsive lack of discretion that was obvious at the races and that I observed tonight is something that can be overcome and that you will make an excellent wife for a man of the cloth.’

  For a moment, she was so taken aback that she gaped at him. ‘Lack of discretion? Tonight? What do you mean?’ True, she had inhaled lemonade and spluttered and choked, but that was hardly indicative of—what did he say?—irregularity of moral purpose.

  ‘I saw you, Julia,’ Thomas said, more in sorrow than in anger. ‘First you were flirting with the large officer with the whiskers and then you left the room with that rake Carlow.’

  ‘If you thought that I was engaged in an amorous encounter with Major Carlow,’ she said coldly, ‘then I am surprised you did not come to confront us. I told you that he and I are not… have not… Oh!’ She glared at him. ‘I am not conducting any sort of flirtation with Major Carlow or anyone else, and let that be the end of it. Either you believe me or you do not. And if you do not—’

  ‘Yes, I believe you,’ Thomas said hastily. ‘But, dearest Julia, it is in cum bent upon you to learn discretion. You will be the example to all the ladies of the parish, you must be above reproach in your be ha vi our.’

  ‘I have not yet said Yes,’ she pointed out. This was even worse than Charles Fordyce’s jealousy. Thomas would lecture her, would disapprove and would then forgive her for every little slip. Julia was suddenly utterly convinced that she could not bear to be constantly forgiven.

  ‘Yes, my dear, but you must see—’

  ‘I see only that we will not suit, Mr Smyth,’ she said firmly. ‘I thank you for your most flattering offer and your most Christian forgiveness, but I will not marry you.’

  ‘Julia!’ He took her arm as she lifted the curtain to step out. ‘Have you been toying with me? I did not think it of you.’

  ‘My intentions were most certainly not to toy with your affections, sir.’ She winced inwardly at the jolt to her conscience. She should have been stronger, clearer in her mind. She should have run every time she saw Hal Carlow, and erased him from her head and her heart. But it seemed she was not that strong. ‘I had thought that we would suit, but I thought I knew you better than it seems I do, and you have an image of me that is, perhaps, in ac cu rate. It is better that we find these things out now, is it not?’

  ‘I am sure it is.’ He bowed stiffly. ‘And it will be a lesson to me to be more careful in the future.’

  Thomas thought her a flirt and a tease, she could see he did. And his crime had been to be dull and worthy and a little sanctimonious. Perhaps he was right about her. Julia pulled her arm free, pushed the curtain aside and almost ran from the alcove.

  The buzz of conversation was louder in the room. As she hurried towards the exit, she heard snatches of conversation:…cross the Sambre, I have no doubt… Prussians will have to hold them…best to go to Antwerp now, by canal boat… God, I’m looking forward to this.

  The last speaker stopped her in her tracks. He was one of a group of young infantry officers, their eyes alight with excitement as they argued and talked.

  They want this fight, they want this great battle and the death and the glory and the blood shed, she thought, turning away, sick at heart. Thank goodness, there is the door, and no-one I know standing there. And instead of Mama being able to leave Brussels with the support of a future son-in-law, they must rely on the baron and their own wits. And somewhere to the south, Hal would be fighting. He could be wounded, killed perhaps. And somehow that would all be her fault too.

  Julia ducked though the knot of people into the front hall. She could ask a footman to take a note to Lady Geraldine and call her a cab. If she stayed here a minute longer—

  ‘Yes, you’ll get your battle, Bredon, I’m sure of it.’ It was Hal talking to a slightly younger man in the scarlet coat and yellow reveres of one of the infantry regiments. There was a black mourning ribbon around his left arm. Brown haired, his face seemed made for laughter. Something about him reminded Julia of an eager hound.

  They were all going to be killed, all the young men…

  ‘Miss Tresilian, what is wrong?’ Hal had seen her. Had the man eyes in the back of his head? Julia forced back the threatening tears and shook her head, unable to speak.

  ‘Rick.’ Hal turned to the young man. ‘Go and find Lady Geraldine Masters. Take her aside and tell her Miss Tresilian is unwell and I am putting her in a cab home. Discreetly now.’

  ‘Sir. As if it were my sister’s reputation.’ He flashed a smile at Julia and walked briskly off.

  Julia took a deep breath and told herself she must be calm. Her nerves were in tatters, that was all. Her refusal of Thomas Smyth was a disaster, but there was nothing that would be helped by tears or the vapours or panic. At least she had the money Captain Grey had won for her at the races. That might pay for a few gowns, but it was no substitute for a husband. She managed to walk with composure to retrieve her wrap. When she turned back, Hal was at the door.

  ‘I have a cab. Come along, no-one is watching, just round this corner.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She let him help her in, then stared as he joined her and closed the door. ‘What are you doing?’ The horse set off at a walk in the opposite direction to home. ‘And where are we going?’

  ‘I am abducting you.’ Hal sat back, crossed one long leg over the other and regarded her gravely in the borrowed light from the street. Her alarm must have shown, for he relented and explained. ‘I have told the driver to walk round and round the Parc until told otherwise.’

  ‘Oh. Thank you.’ Abducting me indeed. If only he would! At least I would not have to make any decisions. ‘I suppose I ought not to go home until I have worked out what to say.’ Her mind felt curiously blank and rather bruised.

  ‘What has happened?’ Hal asked, his voice deep and soft in the shadows. ‘Who has upset you?’

  ‘At least you do not ask me what I have done, which is what Mama will ask, and she will be quite right,’ she replied wryly. ‘It was all my fault. I have just lost another suitor.’

  ‘What? That prosy bore Smyth?’

  ‘Yes, although as you have never spoken to him, I do not know how you can be so judgmental.’

  ‘He stalks around with a look of moral superiority on his face. Either that or he has a permanent bad smell under his nose,’ Hal said with a distinct lack of charity.

  ‘He certainly has high standards,’ Julia said with a sigh. ‘But although I am prone to an occasional irregularity of moral purpose and exhibit an impulsive lack of discretion, he was sure I could be set on the right path with suitable guidance and can be a model of rectitude in the parish. Only I did not think I could stand it.’

  ‘I should think not.’ Hal sounded aghast. ‘What irregularities and impulsiveness, for goodness sake?’

  ‘That favour at the races.’

  He groaned.

  ‘And he saw me leave the room with you earlier tonight.’

  ‘So I have lost you another suitor. I am sorry, Julia. It is I who has been showing the impulsive lack of discretion.’

  ‘Oh, he would still have taken me,’ she said, realizing as she spoke how cross that patronising attitude had made her feel. ‘I turned him down.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Mama is going to be so disappointed in me. I have had this chance to make all our lives so much more secure and I have just thrown it away.’

  ‘Surely when she sees how you feel about him?’

  She shrugged, de pressed.

  ‘Has he hurt you very much? Were you very fond of him, Julia?’ Hal leaned forward and took her hand, stroking it as though to comfort her.

  ‘Fond of him? Certai
nly not, how could I be when I lo—’ She froze, the two betraying words trembling on the tip of her tongue. Love you. I love you.

  Chapter Eleven

  Hal went very still, while the warm pressure of his hand through the silk of her white evening gloves sent her erratic pulse wild. For an appalled moment, Julia thought she must have said the words aloud. ‘Lo…Loathe being lectured like that,’ she finished, desperately.

  ‘I see,’ he said, and she could not read the underlying emotions in his voice. ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘Keep parading myself on the Marriage Mart,’ she said, beyond keeping up pretences with him. ‘Before Napoleon escaped there wasn’t much point—anyone who might have been interested was as hard up as we were. But with all the new arrivals, and Lady Geraldine being so kind, Mama thought it worth the investment in gowns.’

  ‘It’s a cut-throat business for a young woman, isn’t it?’ he asked, shifting on the seat so he was directly in front of her and could take both her hands in his. Just like Thomas Smyth at the races, Julia thought. But then she had felt mildly embarrassed, now she was scarcely aware of her surroundings, only of the man sitting opposite her, his hair pale in the flickering, intermittent light, his face turned down to their clasped hands.

  ‘My sisters both had their Seasons,’ he went on, as though he was thinking aloud. ‘But it is easier for them, I suppose. They both have titles, dowries; their father is an earl. Not that Honoria found her husband that way.’ There was amusement in his voice, not disapproval.

  ‘Honoria is like you?’ Julia asked, fighting with the urge to lean forward, kiss the sharp angle of his cheek bone that was all she could see of his face.

  ‘Lord, yes!’ he laughed. ‘Hence the trouble.’ For a moment she thought he would explain, but then he said, as though his words were a logical continuation of what he had just been talking about, ‘Has Hebden made further contact with you?’

  ‘The jeweller? No. It was strange though. When he was looking at the pieces he mentioned you.’

  ‘What?’ Hal sat bolt upright and released her hands. Julia just managed not to grab his back.

  ‘He implied that he had heard gossip that made him assume I was selling the jewellery to finance my—oh, husband-hunting is what he meant, I suppose.’ Hal went very still. ‘He said something about the reverend, the widower and the rake. You are the only rake I know,’ she said with an attempt at a laugh. ‘I remarked to Mama that no doubt someone saw us at the review and gossiped.’

  ‘So he thinks I am a suitor for your hand?’ Hal sounded decidedly worried.

  Julia’s stomach ached with embarrassment. He thought she was trying to imply he was courting her. ‘No, I think he was only…’

  ‘If he thinks that, then you are in danger,’ Hal said bluntly, and she realized his anxiety was for that, not that she might assume anything about his intentions. ‘He bears a deep and savage grudge against my family and two others. He was responsible for driving my sister from Society, he kid napped my brother’s wife and tried to ruin her sister. The infantry officer you saw me with in the hall—Rick Bredon?’ She nodded. ‘Hebden is his step-sister’s half-brother and is causing her new husband sleep less nights, believe me.’

  ‘You think that if he mistakenly believes I am…important to you in some way, he might attack me too? Although why should he think that, beyond some foolish gossip?’

  ‘Smyth thought it,’ Hal pointed out. ‘And if Hebden is watching now, he knows we are alone in circumstances that would ruin you if they became public. Damn it, if I had had any notion that he knew of a link between us, I would never have got into this con founded carriage with you. The man is obsessed.’

  Julia almost asked what the Carlows had done to attract such virulent hatred, then good manners caught up with her. If Hal wanted her to know, he would tell her. ‘And you are important to me,’ he added, cutting back to her last comment.

  ‘Then let us hope your Mr Hebden considers friends unimportant in his campaign of vengeance.’

  ‘Is that what we are, Julia?’ Hal took her hand again, apparently interested only in tracing the fine lines of sewing that shaped the back of her glove. The movement of his finger made her want to shiver.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said brightly. Then the recollection of the talk in the grand salon came back to her and a shudder ran through her. ‘Hal, is it true? Is Bonaparte at the frontier?’

  ‘Yes.’ The eagerness in the single word told her all she needed to know: Hal Carlow was itching to get into battle.

  ‘How soon will it be?’

  ‘Before the battle? I do not know. Not very long: days not weeks, but it depends which way Bonaparte moves once he crosses the Sambre. Do you and your mother want to leave for Antwerp now?’

  ‘If we go, it would be because we believe Wellington—all of you—will lose,’ she said slowly. ‘Are you telling me that is what to expect?’

  ‘No. But you can have no concept of what a city close to a great battle would be like. I have seen it, in the Peninsula.’

  ‘I do not want to run away,’ she said, realizing as she spoke how passionately she felt it, although not why. ‘I would feel a coward. You—the Army—will not run.’

  ‘No,’ he said again, and his hands on hers were stilled. ‘We will not run. But this is Bonaparte, one of the greatest generals in history.’

  ‘We have Wellington,’ she pro tested, shaken by his words.

  ‘Who has never met Bonaparte in the field. I want you to leave, Julia. I want you to go to the baron as soon as it is certain the French have crossed in to Belgium. Promise me that.’

  ‘I promise I will not do anything to put Mama and Phillip in danger,’ she said, not understanding why she was equivocating, but knowing that she needed to.

  ‘Good,’ he said as though she had taken a great weight off his mind. ‘And now, you must go home.’

  Julia watched as he lowered the window and leaned out to call up to the driver, unashamedly admiring the flexibility with which he moved and the line of his lean body. Here she was, in a closed carriage, at night, with a notorious rake, and he did not so much as flirt with her. He had held her hands as though she was one of his sisters, that was all.

  If I was bolder, knew what I was doing, I could en courage him to kiss me, she thought, biting her lip as he sat down again. With passion. But what if he does not want to again? I would sink with shame. He doesn’t want a good girl. He wants someone with experience.

  And then it was too late. The carriage drew up, Hal opened the door and jumped out to hand her down, and she thought, I should sink for shame just thinking about it.

  ‘Good night, Major. And thank you for seeing me home.’

  ‘Good night, Miss Tresilian,’ he said with equal formality, raising her hand to his lips.

  Through the silk, she could feel the heat of his breath, the firm pressure of his lips, and her breath caught in her throat as he released her and turned back to the waiting carriage.

  ‘Will you be at the duchess’s ball tomorrow night?’ he asked, one foot on the step.

  ‘Yes—if the enemy is not at the gates,’ she managed in an attempt at lightness.

  ‘I will see you then, I hope. And if not, remember what you promised me.’ And he was gone.

  Julia climbed the stairs to their apartment, her brain spinning. If Napoleon advanced, then Mama and Phillip must go to Antwerp with the baron, but she would not. There was nothing she could do, but she would not leave Brussels while Hal was fighting, in danger. To do so would feel like running away, deserting him. How she would manage to stay, she had no idea. But, she resolved as she reached the door, she was not going to tell Mama about Mr Smyth either, not until at least the day after tomorrow, after the ball, after they knew when the battle would be.

  ‘Let me out here,’ Hal called up to the driver as the carriage rattled past the duke’s house opposite the Parc. He was too restless to sit in a stuffy carriage, too energised by the intimacy with Julia,
not to walk.

  He paid off the man and began to make his way downhill. He did not under stand what he felt for Julia Tresilian, but it was powerful, too powerful to resist without pain.

  The physical yearning for her was stronger than for any woman he had ever wanted, but perhaps that was simply the result of denying himself another taste of her. The urge to protect her was as visceral as the instinct he had to shield his sisters from harm. He liked her. He liked her honesty and her intelligence and her humour. He had stopped drinking and had not looked at another woman for her, although she had not asked it of him.

  He admired the dogged way she set about husband-hunting when he knew she found it distasteful. Through his carelessness he had scared off her two serious suitors. Hal’s pace slowed until he stopped; he put one foot on a low wall and looked out at the lights of the Lower Town. He discovered he was examining his conscience: an un familiar exercise.

  Was it carelessness or had he intended to drive those men off? He was not sure he wanted to know the truth about that. And he certainly did not relish telling Julia that the remaining candidate, Colonel Williams, had maintained a mistress for many years and had done so when his wife was alive. But he would do if he thought she was going to marry the man: she should know something like that.

  So, now she was back where she had begun, only out of pocket, perhaps in debt, for all her gowns. Would that make him an acceptable suitor?

  The idea, the very fact he was even contemplating such a thing, shook him. And yet, here he was, thinking about marriage. He had a small estate of his own, she might like that. Her mother and Phillip could live there. He could afford to bring her up to Town for the Season every year, when he was in England.

  When he was in England. A group of soldiers with their whores passed him, drunk and cheer fully noisy, but Hal hardly heard them. He was a soldier, that was what he did. But what if there was no more soldiering to be done? Could he settle down like his brother, manage his land, raise a brood of children? They’d be quite hand some children, he decided, almost dreamily, putting together his features and Julia’s.