He tried to be patient. She could see it in the expressions that crossed his face. Finally he said, “Why not?”
“It is against everything I believe,” Prudence replied, trying to explain. “I do not believe in war and I will not help to carry it out.”
Colonel Langford gaped at her as though he thought her mad. “And yet,” he said, sarcasm evident in his voice, “you did not hesitate to kill Gilbert back there.”
She turned her face away. Even in the darkness, Prudence could feel her color rise. In a voice that betrayed her mortification she said, “Do not remind me of my shame. I am not proud of what I did. It betrays every principle with which I have been raised.”
His voice betrayed his bafflement. “But our lives may have been at stake,” he protested. “And your honor most certainly was!”
“I do not quarrel with the need,” Prudence said, tilting her chin upward in defiance. “But neither can I bring myself to rejoice that I was able to do so.”
Colonel Langford spoke evenly, patently choosing his words with care. “I did not suggest you should. But as a soldier, I know that I would no doubt be dead by now if that was how I looked at things.”
“And that is precisely why I do not like soldiers,” she replied, her voice betraying the depth of her emotion.
There was, Prudence thought, no answer Colonel Langford could give to that and he did not even try. Instead, he said, in a surprisingly quiet voice, “Even this soldier?”
Perhaps it was the wounded boy she heard in his voice. Perhaps it was the reminder, so recent, that there was less difference between them than she might once have thought. Whatever the reason, she reached out and squeezed his hand in unspoken reassurance.
Colonel Langford sat very still and, for a moment, Prudence feared that she had gone too far.
* * * *
Harry stared at her, far too conscious of the feel of her hand over his, the sound of her soft silvery voice in the night. Thank God there was no one close enough to hear, for if there were there would be no hiding the fact that Miss Prudence Marland was a woman.
The wind ruffled her short hair and he wanted to run his fingers through that as well. But it was all insanity. He must get her to Spain, where she would be safe, and then return on his own to finish his mission. How could her uncle have been so irresponsible as to let her embark on such a madcap mission?
And yet, Harry had to admit that had he been in the poor man’s place, he would not have known how to stop her. But he would, he thought with a desperation he did not dare explore, find a way to keep her safe now that she was in his care. It did not matter that she despised soldiers. Whatever her feelings, his duty remained the same: to keep her safe.
Abruptly Miss Marland drew back. Her voice was a trifle shaky as she laughed and said, “Can you imagine how strange we should look if anyone were to see us? A priest and soldier holding hands?”
He was grateful for her jesting. He tried to match her tone. “You are right, of course. We had best be more discreet or we shall find ourselves in trouble, rather quickly.”
They rode on in a companionable silence for a while. At last Harry said, “Your uncle. How do you come to be in his care instead of with your parents?”
She looked away and it was some moments before she answered. “My parents died when I was a child. My uncle was the only person who could or would take me in and he has been posted more places as a diplomat since then than I can recall. The latest was Morocco. You wonder that my spoken French is so poor, but truly that was very useful. Things were said in my presence that would not have been said had they known how well I understood. And besides, it seemed far more useful to learn Berber, so that was where I concentrated my efforts.”
It sounded like an appalling existence to Harry and he said something of the sort aloud. Immediately she rounded on him and her voice was fierce with anger as she said, “Don’t! Don’t you dare speak to me like that—with kindness and sympathy! Especially not now, when I have done what I have done! I can bear anything else except either of those!”
He stared at her and then burst into laughter. He knew it was a mistake, because she was already stiff with anger, but he could not help himself. He reached out a finger to flick the side of her cheek.
“I am sorry, ma petite, but it is absurd,” Harry said, his voice as gentle as he could make it. “Not treat you with kindness? What then am I to do? Treat you with cruelty? I tell you now I will not do it.”
“N-no,” she conceded. “Of course I don’t wish you to do that!” she paused and he could see her drawing in a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “I only meant that when one is accustomed to being strong and on one’s own, sympathy and kindness....”
Her voice trailed off. “Oh, to the devil with it!” she exclaimed. “I am tired and subject to megrims and you ought not to pay attention to anything I say.”
He smiled wryly. He could not help himself, now, either. “I understand,” he said. “For I am very much like that myself, I think. To have someone speak with sympathy seems to imply some lack in oneself. And if one has steeled oneself to the vagaries of a cruel world, well, it can be painful to be reminded that it need not have been that way.”
She turned and looked at him and this time she was smiling, though her eyes shimmered with what looked suspiciously like unshed tears.
“Precisely,” she said. “You do understand.”
His voice was still gentle as he told her, “I understand. I have also come to know however, that genuine kindness and sympathy are commodities more precious than almost any other. And however painful they may be, they are also what, in our hearts we crave.”
She was silent a long moment and then she nodded. “So we do,” she agreed.
“So,” he said briskly, taking a deep breath of his own, “tell me about some of your uncle’s postings.” When she hesitated, an imp of mischief made him add, “Please, Miss Marland? After all, it will help to keep us awake!”
She made a most unladylike, and unsoldierly like, gesture with her tongue. But when she began to speak, he could hear that the constraint between them was gone and he was very grateful. Indeed, for the first time since it had begun, Harry began to feel this journey might not prove such a sad trial after all.
Chapter 6
They rode long and hard, only stopping very briefly to eat the food he had brought with them from the French camp. They did not truly rest until after sundown the next day. Neither Prudence nor Harry spoke of their discomfort. Not when their lives were at stake.
Harry looked for and found a barn far enough from the house to which it belonged for it to be unlikely that anyone would notice them. “At least they won’t,” he told Prudence, “if we are gone before daylight.”
She did not protest but merely nodded.
“We don’t dare risk a fire,” he said, “so you’d best sit close to me. We can keep each other warm.”
Harry judged it a measure of the shock in which she still found herself that Miss Marland did not protest. Indeed, she had said very little since they first escaped and it worried him. He suspected it had to do with the Frenchman she had killed. Given how hard she had fought against the notion of carrying a knife, it must be haunting her now.
He had seen this kind of reaction before, in the youngest of the recruits, when they did what had to be done in war. He’d always taken the time to speak a word or two to such lads. Now he wondered if there were any way to ease Miss Marland’s guilt, or whether she blamed him because he had been the one to give her the knife.
But he couldn’t let his fear stop him from trying to help her. So when they had eaten he gently drew her into his arms. Harry thought she was too distressed to protest. Instead she clung to him and started shaking. Tears rolled down her cheeks as he instinctively rocked her, wanting to make matters better and not knowing how.
Eventually she stopped crying but still she did not pull away. Harry wasn’t even sure she realized where she was. But she did because her voice
came small against his chest.
“How do you do it? How do you live with yourself after you do what you must as a soldier? How can you love killing?”
Gently Harry stroked her hair. “I do not love killing. Neither does almost any soldier I know. Indeed, I think it would be true to say that most of us hate killing. But we do it, I do it when I must, because I know that if I did not, then I would die and so would others. I do it because it is my responsibility to protect the lives of the men under my command, as much as I can. I do it because I believe in honor and because I believe it is my duty to help keep those at home, to keep my family safe. Because someone must.”
“You are an odd sort of soldier,” she sniffed.
In spite of himself, and even though she could not see it, Harry smiled. “I am not so unique as you might think,” he said.
And then she truly surprised him. “Tell me about your family,” she said.
“What?”
“Tell me about your family. I have told you about mine.”
Bewildered, he stared down at her. How had they gone from talking about death, albeit admittedly in a cloaked way, to talking about his family?
Miss Marland lifted her head to look at him. “You say you do what you do for their sake. I want to understand why. I want to understand them. I want to understand what would make you risk your life for theirs.”
He nodded. That he could understand. “I have three brothers. The oldest is George, Lord Darton. A very estimable fellow. He is married to Athenia and they have several children. Four at last count, I think. I am the second oldest. Next comes Philip. He is a barrister, much to my brother George’s dismay. And his wife, Emily, is something of a reformer. Then comes James. He seems to be a wastrel but it is only a facade. He invents things. He married a lady named Juliet. They are remarkably well suited. Both Juliet and Emily were in an interesting condition, the last that I heard. And then there is Sir Thomas Levenger and his wife. He stood as something of a second father to us after my parents died some ten years ago. He also is a barrister and Philip’s mentor.”
“How did your parents die?” Miss Marland asked, tucking her hand into his, though whether for his comfort or hers, Harry could not have said.
It took Harry a moment to find his voice. “Their carriage overturned. My father was a reformer. He was on his way to a meeting with my mother. I must suppose he was driving recklessly. They were killed at once, I am told.”
Now she squeezed his hand and there was no mistaking her wish to comfort him. “So we have that in common,” she said. “We both lost our parents years ago.”
It was his turn to hold her tight and to feel a little of the old pain ease within his heart. “So we do,” he agreed, his voice rough with emotion.
She was quiet for several moments, apparently turning over what he had said in her mind for when she did speak it was very much to the point.
“So your father tried to protect others. The common folk. And in your own way you are trying to do the same. By becoming a soldier.”
“No!” the protest was instinctive. “I became a soldier to redeem the family honor!”
She looked at him, puzzlement patent in her eyes. “But what do you mean?” she asked. “Was it not an honorable thing, to wish to help others?”
“Not in the eyes of the ton,” Harry answered bitterly. “They gave my parents the cut direct more times than I can count. We were, all of us, ostracized for years for his actions and words.”
“How unfair!”
Harry smiled but it was a bitter smile. “They did not think so.”
“Well I do.”
The smile became a little more genuine at the sound of the indignation in her voice. “Well, perhaps a little,” he allowed. “But the point is, I wished to prove myself by becoming a soldier. I wanted to show that at least one Langford could help preserve our country, rather than try to destroy it.”
Miss Marland shook her head, impatiently it seemed to Harry, but she did not answer that point. Instead she seemed to go off on a tangent. “And I was raised to believe that soldiers and war were anathema to truly being civilized. It is a wonder any of us ever learn to get along with others!”
Harry could not help himself, he laughed. She glared at him and he attempted an apology. “I am sorry, it is just that you have such a novel way of looking at the world. It is vastly...” he paused to choose his word, “refreshing.”
She seemed a trifle mollified by that. But Miss Marland also seemed to become abruptly aware of where she was and eased herself off his lap. With an attempt at dignity she could not quite maintain, she asked, “Where do we go next?”
There was, there could be, only one answer. However little he liked it, he had to get her there. He had to keep her safe. “Spain.”
He half expected a protest, even though it was where she wanted to go, but she only swallowed hard and nodded. Still, after a moment, she did ask, “And after? After you see me safely to British lines? Will you come back here? To France? To continue your mission?”
He could not lie to her. “Yes.”
“I see. It will be dangerous.”
“Yes. Doubly so after our encounter with Jean Louis Dumont.”
Miss Marland nodded again. And swallowed. As though she had been trained not to protest even those things she most disliked. And though it was surely none of her affair what he did, Harry felt his heart go out to her as she tried so hard not to voice her worry, her disapproval, her wish to change his mind.
Impulsively, he reached out and took her hand in his. Absently he stroked the back of it with his thumb. “I will be careful,” he said.
Miss Marland nodded again.
“This is something that is vitally important that I do.”
She nodded once more.
“I will come back safely.”
Now she looked at him. “You cannot know that! Not for certain!”
Her cry was a protest and a plea all wrapped up in one. And again he could not lie to her.
“No, I cannot,” he agreed. “But I will do my best.”
This time she did not nod but merely swallowed hard and a single tear trickled down her cheek. He wiped it away with his other hand.
“I will get you to safety first,” he promised.
“I would rather you did not go into danger yourself,” she protested. “Cannot someone else do it?”
Harry shook his head. All he could say, in a rough, implacable voice, was, “No.”
* * * *
Unfortunately for Harry’s plans, he found it was not possible to travel directly south to Spain. There were too many patrols on the roads watching for them. After one such narrow escape, Harry turned eastward. That evening he explained to Miss Marland the change in his plans.
“We shall have to stay in France for a while,” he said, not troubling to hide the frustration he felt. “But not dressed as we are. I spied a gypsy camp a mile or so back. I propose to go there and trade for some of their clothes.”
“Am I to be a boy or a girl, this time?” Miss Marland asked, with a cool composure he could not help but admire.
“A boy, I think, if the clothes will sufficiently hide your person. We shall pass as brothers.”
“We don’t look very much alike,” she objected.
Harry shrugged. “We can’t pass for full gypsies anyway so I thought we would claim to have a gypsy mother but different fathers. That should explain the differences between us. But in any event, we must both dress as men. The French will be looking for a man and a woman.”
“We could both dress as women,” Miss Marland suggested, a smile twitching at her lips.
Harry glared at her but she simply smiled back. “No,” he said curtly. Then, at the question implicit in her raised eyebrows he added, “Two women traveling alone would likely not be safe. Particularly from soldiers. We would be unmasked at the first encounter.”
That sobered her and she made no further objection. The gypsies proved willing to
trade clothes. The soldier’s uniform, in particular, seemed to interest them. It was only when they were well away from the gypsy camp, however, that Miss Marland produced yet another surprise. She brought out a bag of brown powder.
“What is that?” Harry asked warily.
“Ground walnuts. It will darken our skin. It is what I used when I masqueraded as a Moroccan prince,” she explained.
Harry did not ask, was not even certain he truly wished to know, where she had learned such a trick. He was too grateful for the powder to argue. Once they were disguised, he regarded her with approval.
“Your apparent gypsy background should serve as sufficient explanation,” he said, “for the oddity of your French.”
She nodded. “What shall we call one another? I cannot call you Colonel Langford nor Père Alain. It would not be safe. Nor can you call me Miss Marland. We should give ourselves away at once.”
Harry nodded. “Agreed. It should be something familiar or similar to our own names so that we remember to answer to them. We can claim to be named after our French fathers. I shall be Alain, since that is the name I have been using as a priest, and you shall be what? Pruet?”
She considered it a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I can learn to answer to that.”
“Good. Our lives may depend upon it. Now I think we are ready.”
“Ready for what?” she asked doubtfully.
Harry drew in a breath. This was the difficult part. He did not think she would like what he had to say. “I still have a mission to perform. We cannot continue to avoid towns, for that is where I must go to do what I am here to do.”
She stared at him and he thought she meant to protest. But, once again, she surprised him. Abruptly she shook her head. Her voice was brisk as she said, “It will not do. Not as we are. I may pass as a young boy but you, you are strong and will be seized into the military by the first commander who catches sight of such an able bodied man who is not in the army.”
She was right, of course. His status as gypsy would not protect him in such a case and Harry was angry at himself for not thinking of it first.
The Sentimental Soldier Page 5