The Sentimental Soldier

by April Kihlstrom

  This was not what Lord Marland wanted to hear. He gripped his glass tighter. “I see. And now she is helping you write your memoirs?”

  Lord Brandon spread his hands wide. “I offer her a diversion for her thoughts, and a small recompense that no doubt supplements whatever pin money the impecunious colonel can spare her. Indeed, I like to think that my home may be a sort of refuge for her.”

  Marland regarded the other man for several long moments. Then, slowly, unsteadily, he rose to his feet. “I thank you for that,” he said, his voice a trifle harsh with emotion. “And I know you will excuse me. I must be going.”

  “Come again. Any time,” Lord Brandon told him, walking Lord Marland to the door of the study.

  And then he was out in the street again, trying to hail another hackney. His head was in a whirl, trying to sort out the truth in what Brandon had told him. But it was impossible. He would simply have to go back to the hotel, relate everything he had been told, and let her sort out what she wished to believe.

  So intent was he on his thoughts that he didn’t even see the private carriage come to a halt scarcely a few feet away from him.

  “Uncle?” a soft voice called out. Then, louder, “What are you doing here? Were you calling upon Lord Brandon? How long do you have before you are posted out again?”

  In spite of himself, Marland laughed. Prudence had always had the trick of making him do so. “I am looking for you, Prudence. Lady Darton thought I might find you here. How are you, my little puss?”

  She smiled up at him and slipped her arm through his. “I am a married woman now and you must treat me with respect, Uncle.”

  “I have always treated you with respect,” he countered, with a chuckle. “You taught me the folly of not doing so some years ago.” He stepped back and looked at her. “You look happy,” he said.

  “Now why do you sound surprised?” Prudence asked. “Have you been listening to gossip? Very foolish of you.”

  “Ma’am? They are holding the door open for us,” a woman, obviously a maid, told Prudence and Lord Marland.

  “Come in,” Prudence said coaxingly. “I shall give my regrets to Lord Brandon and tell him I shall come back another day. Then we may go back to Lord Darton’s town house, or to wherever you are staying, and have a comfortable coze together.”

  “No, no,” he said abruptly. “You go and help his lordship with his memoirs. I shall call upon you tomorrow morning.”

  “I am not going anywhere,” she said with a determined glint in her eyes that he knew meant trouble, “until you tell me where you are staying.”

  With a sigh, Lord Marland replied, “Grillon’s.”

  Now she was all smiles again. “Good. I shall see you there later.”

  Then, with a kiss for his cheek, she hurried up the steps followed by the maid, who cast him doubtful and disapproving glances. But that was the least of his troubles. He was going to have to go back to Grillon’s and tell his sister-in-law that Prudence was on her way. He shuddered at the thought of what her reaction was going to be.

  Chapter 23

  Prudence paused as she entered Grillon’s. She smoothed down her skirts and then glanced at her maid who, stiff with disapproval, accompanied her into the hotel.

  “They will be expecting us back home,” she said with a sniff.

  “To be sure, they will,” Prudence replied. “Which is why I think you should go back and tell them where I am. I am certain my uncle will escort me home later.”

  “Once I see you safely upstairs,” the maid answered, determined to observe the proprieties even if her mistress did not.

  The door opened and Prudence was shown in to where her uncle and a woman sat talking. They both rose at the sight of her. Prudence immediately turned to the maid.

  “There. You see? My uncle is here and I am perfectly safe. Now you can go home and I shall see you there later. My uncle will escort me and it will all be perfectly unexceptionable.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the maid replied, sounding almost disappointed there was to be no scandal involved.

  The woman retreated and all three people in the room remained silent until she was gone. Then Prudence turned to her uncle and smiled warmly.

  “My apologies. I am hemmed about with restraints these days. No one seems able to conceive that I might be able to manage on my own despite the fact that I have been doing so for years. How are you, Uncle? You must tell me all about the talks on the continent and why you have returned early. But first I pray you will introduce me to your guest.”

  And why that simple request should cause her uncle to color up and stammer was beyond Prudence. She looked at the woman, trying to fathom her uncle’s odd reaction.

  The woman was smiling and there was something oddly familiar about her. It took Prudence several moments to realize what it might be.

  “Mother?”

  The woman beamed. “There. I told you, Hugo, that she would recognize me! My dear, how are you?”

  “But you’re dead!”

  The woman laughed. A warm, rich laugh that reminded Prudence of a time, so many years ago, when she would hear that laugh and know she was safe and loved. A time when she thought she would have her mother forever. When she trusted her mother.

  “Why?” she asked, pulling back when the woman would have hugged her. “Why? Why did you go? Where did you go? Why did you let me believe you were dead?”

  Prudence looked for signs of guilt, for signs that she regretted leaving her child, but there were none. The woman was entirely composed. She raised her eyebrows, as though Prudence were the one who had offended.

  “Did you think my life revolved around you?” the woman asked. “That I had no other obligations?”

  Prudence flinched. “And my father?” she asked, her voice cold. “Is he alive as well?”

  Now regret crossed her mother’s face. And sadness tinged her reply. “No. He died when you thought I did. When I did almost die.”

  The woman reached out and took Prudence’s hand, ignoring her efforts to pull free. “Come. Sit. You deserve to know the truth of what occurred.”

  “A few years too late!” Prudence countered, but she sat down beside her mother.

  “Perhaps. But there were reasons for it. Lives were at stake. Including mine. It was more than ten years ago. Napoleon was not yet in power, but he already knew he was going to be. Your father and I were in France. Unofficially, of course, you understand. We suspected it might not be entirely safe and that is why we left you with Hugo. Indeed, we were there in part to verify the horrifying tales that were coming out of France.”

  Her mother paused and drew in a deep breath. “Unfortunately, they were. One night there was a mob. Your father and I were caught up in it. We were both beaten. He died. I didn’t. But it took me months to recover. Even more to be glad I was still alive. The Frenchman who took me in was not yet powerful. But he would be. What he was, was kind. He helped me to recover, he helped me to find a way out of my grief for your father.”

  “And so you became his wife?” Prudence asked. “No wonder you could not tell me, could not tell anyone. You would have been called, we all would have been called, traitors.”

  “It was worse than that,” her uncle interjected. “Your mother didn’t become his wife, she became his mistress.”

  Prudence stared at her mother in disbelief. Her mother looked away and shrugged, though Prudence guessed that careless gesture cost her mother dearly.

  “He was already married. There was no choice, not if I wanted to stay with him. And there were reasons for me to do so. Reasons of state. Already it was evident he would have the ear of Napoleon, he would have power. And I would be able to send information back to England. Not easily and it would be dangerous, but no one else was in the position I was to help.”

  “And what about me?”

  Prudence sounded petulant. She could hear it in her voice, but she could not stop herself. What were matters of state to a young girl on the brink
of womanhood? What were matters of state to a child who needed her mother?

  She must have spoken out loud. Or perhaps her mother had asked herself the same questions over the years. In any case, she answered.

  “I knew you were safe with Hugo. I knew he would take care of you. By the time I was recovered enough so that I could have returned, a great deal of time had passed. I thought that perhaps you would have become accustomed to my death by then and it would be more difficult for you if I did return.”

  Prudence spoke the worst oath she had heard while in France. Her mother flinched.

  “Maybe I was wrong,” she said. “But I had to stay. I had to do what I did.”

  Prudence took a deep breath and tried to comprehend everything. “Why would Napoleon have trusted a man whose mistress was English?” she demanded abruptly.

  “Few knew I was his mistress. And none of those knew who I was. I told him, told everyone, that I was from America, from Philadelphia. Which is true, you know. I told him I had no real love for England, that my father had been killed by the British. Which was also true. I met your father when he was posted to the colonies and I fell in love with him despite the fact that he was British. And so they trusted me.”

  Prudence rose and paced about the room. Over her shoulder she flung accusations at her mother. “What about the principles with which you raised me? Your belief that war was abhorrent? That one must avoid it at all costs? Patently you have helped to keep this one going by passing on information as you did.”

  Her mother came, took her by the shoulders, and looked her squarely in the eyes. “I did what I had to do. What I believed would save lives. And what would protect England and other countries from the horrors I saw in France. To believe in peace is wonderful. Perhaps some day it will even be a reality, that we need not have war. But that day has not yet come. And reality taught me that sometimes one must look beyond principles.

  “You sound,” Prudence replied, not troubling to hide the bitterness in her voice, “like Harry. He says the same and plans to go back to France. Injured as he is I cannot think but that he is throwing his life away.”

  Instead of taking offense, as Prudence half expected her to do, her mother drew her back over to the sofa and pulled her to a seat.

  “Tell me about Harry,” she said gently.

  Prudence did so. Perhaps it was not wise, perhaps it was not discreet, but she did so. And when she was done, there was a troubled look on her mother’s face. Prudence tried to change the subject.

  “Why come back now?” she demanded.

  “To see you.”

  That might have warmed Prudence’s heart had her uncle not added dryly, “The man whose protection your mother was under is dead. That may have played a part in her decision. Especially since she might have come under suspicion as having had a hand in his death.”

  Prudence looked sharply at her mother but the woman only shook her head. “All nonsense. No one really suspected me. They knew it was his wife. Still, it seemed a good time to travel to where the talks were being held.”

  “To meet my uncle,” Prudence said slowly.

  “Yes. And then come home to see you!” her mother said triumphantly.

  “But do you mean to stay?”

  Her uncle rubbed the side of his nose. “Well, there is a problem with that. Everyone thinks your mother dead. Should she suddenly reappear, it would be a tremendous scandal and word would get back to France. That would undo a great deal of useful work, you see.”

  “I plan to go on to America, if we can find a ship that will take me there, by some roundabout route,” her mother explained. “But I had to see you first.”

  Prudence did not answer her mother but looked, instead, at her uncle. “How long have you known she was alive?”

  He did not at once answer and his silence told Prudence all she needed to know. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, softly.

  “You were a child,” he said impatiently. “We could not trust you not to tell. Or to give yourself away by your happiness if you knew she was alive.”

  “I would not have done so,” Prudence said stiffly.

  Even as she said the words, she wondered if they were true. Would she have demanded her mother? Told her friends? In some way betrayed the secret? Perhaps put her mother, and others, at risk?

  She sighed. “How long do you mean to stay in London, mother?” she asked.

  A shrug. “It will not be easy to arrange passage. Not with the war going on between England and the United States. It may take some time to arrange or I might be gone by next week.”

  Prudence sat beside her mother and took her mother’s hands in her own. “Then we have no time to lose, do we?”

  * * * *

  Harry stared out the window. Over his shoulder he said, “Her uncle? Are you certain?”

  Lady Darton’s voice was sympathetic as she replied, “Her maid was most adamant on that point. And even if it were not, there was a woman present to serve as chaperon.”

  “I see.”

  Lord Darton clapped his brother on the shoulder. “So she did not tell you that her uncle was coming back so soon. Perhaps she didn’t know. The maid said she seemed surprised to find him outside Lord Brandon’s house.”

  Harry turned to look at his brother. “And why the devil was he there?”

  Lady Darton colored up but he didn’t see her. Still, he heard her voice as she said, “I fear I am responsible. I sent Lord Marland there to see her.”

  Some of the tension seemed to go out of Harry’s shoulders. He could not have said precisely why he was disturbed by the notion of Lord Brandon and Lord Marland together, but he had been. Particularly after Prudence had championed Lord Brandon already.

  As though summoned by his thoughts, there was a stir in the doorway and he turned to find Prudence standing there, her face pale but with two bright spots of red on her cheeks. Without stopping to think he went toward her.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked taking her hands.

  They were shaking, he realized, and he drew her to him, enfolding her in his embrace, oblivious to George and Athenia behind him. Suddenly all his past anger at her seemed unimportant. All that mattered was that she needed him.

  “What’s wrong,” he repeated softly to the top of her head.

  She looked up at him. There was pain in her eyes and her voice trembled as she said, “My uncle is back in London.”

  “And isn’t that a good thing?” he teased, bewildered by her reaction. “I thought you liked the fellow.”

  “I do, but—”

  She looked beyond him and Harry heard George clear his throat.

  “Er, perhaps you and Prudence would care to talk matters over in your room, Harry?”

  “Er, yes, of course,” Harry said. “Come, my dear. We shall be more private there.”

  She came without a word of objection and that lack of temper, of spirit alarmed Harry more than anything else could have done. Wilkins took one look at the pair and excused himself.

  Harry drew Prudence to the bed and undid her bonnet. He drew off her gloves and set them down on a chair. Only then did he tip up her chin to make her look at him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked yet again.

  Chapter 24

  Prudence stared up at Harry. What was she to tell him? Her uncle and mother had both impressed upon her the need for secrecy and she could well understand it herself. And yet how could she not tell Harry? Especially since her mother’s words still haunted her. About honor and duty and the need to work to protect others. She would have to tell Harry that she understood his need to go back to France and yet she was desperately afraid to do so.

  And if she did not tell him any of this, then what was she to say to him? She opened her mouth to pass it off lightly with a jest and misdirection and realized she could not lie to this man. Not now, not ever.

  He was so earnest and he looked at her with such concern in his eyes. All he wanted to do was comfort her but
how could she let him? And yet how could she not? These past days, when he looked at her with such anger in his eyes had been unbearable. She could not risk going back to such a state of affairs between them.

  Abruptly Prudence drew in a deep breath. She would not tell Harry, but neither would she lie. And the moment this was all over, she would do whatever it took to bring him to this point again.

  “I-I pledged my uncle I would not speak of any of what he told me,” she stammered. “Not even to you, though I dearly wish I could. I-I know you must find that unforgivable, so I will go.”

  But he would not let her go. Instead he caught her hands and held them gently but implacably. “If you have given your word,” he said, “then of course you must keep it. But that does not mean you must run from me. Or from the comfort I would give you. Whatever is distressing you, don’t you think it is both my right and my obligation to offer you what help I can?”

  And what was there to say to that? How could she object when he was smiling at her so kindly? When he held her hands with such gentleness and looked at her with such warmth in his eyes? How could she be so foolish as to refuse what she so dearly needed? And what he was so willing to give?

  So now she let him draw her to him. And of her own accord she tilted up her chin to meet his gaze. When he bent his head to kiss her, she met him halfway. No, more than that, for she pulled her hands free of his and wound them around his neck. For this moment she would forget her uncle and her mother. For this moment there was nothing but Harry and herself. For this moment she had no doubts at all about what she wished to do.

  If Harry was surprised, he did not show it. His arms slid around her back to hold her and to let his hand twine itself within her hair. The kiss, begun as something gentle and reassuring, became much more. A demand. A promise. A pledge.

  And when he undid the pins in her hair she reached to undo his cravat. He paused to smile down at her, a twinkle in his eyes as he said, “Eager, are you?”