Elizabeth smiled, feeling for the moment transported back to the frivolity of a month ago. “I decided I must have a new gown, in honor of the occasion. Silk, to please Jack, who has been saying for this age how he longs to see me—”
A sharp rap at the door interrupted them, and Jack strode in, handsome as ever in his everyday uniform, but looking graver than Elizabeth had ever seen him. “What’s amiss, dear?” she asked.
“I can’t stay long, but I thought it right you should know—both of you,” he said, inclining his head toward Louisa, “that Bonaparte has crossed the frontier near Charleroi and driven in the Prussian outposts. We’ve been ordered to concentrate tonight and be prepared to march at a moment’s notice.”
Elizabeth and Louisa exchanged dismayed glances. “Oh,” Elizabeth said. Now that the long-dreaded moment had come, she didn’t know what to say. Her heart pounded, and she felt queasy, but also oddly numb. She wanted to rush to Jack and throw her arms around him, but her feet felt leaden. She looked down at her mending, abandoned in her lap, then up at her husband. “I suppose you’ll have to wait a little longer to see me in silk, then,” she said with an attempt at lightness.
Jack smiled and shook his head. “Not at all. The duchess isn’t canceling the ball, and Wellington himself will be there, so I’ll escort you just as I planned. I only have much more to do between now and then than I expected.”
“What?” Louisa exclaimed.
“Has the duke gone mad?” Elizabeth cried.
“If he has, he has a method in it,” Jack said earnestly. “Most of his senior officers will be there, so we’ll be in one place if any of our orders change over the course of the night.”
Louisa nodded. “I suppose there’s some sense in that.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth agreed, “and it might make the people a little less inclined to panic.”
Jack nodded. “I believe that’s half of the duke’s reasoning. He’s so completely a different man away from the ballroom or the dinner table that I suspect most of his public behavior is simply an act to keep the city calm and confuse Boney’s spies.”
“Well, then,” Elizabeth said, shaking her head, “tonight we’ll dance on the edge of war.”
* * *
That night she dressed with more than her usual care. She wanted Jack to remember her looking as beautiful as she was capable of before he rode into battle. Her dress was all white with silver tinsel embroidery. The only color she wore was her new emeralds, Jack’s gift to her from a Brussels jeweler—a pair of dangling earrings and a pendant resting just above her bosom.
Jack, by contrast, hurried in late, with barely enough time to change into his dress uniform before the hour when their carriage was ordered. He paused long enough for a slow, gratifying inspection that made Elizabeth color and lower her gaze to blink up at him, mock-demure.
He drew tipped her chin up for a kiss. “You have never looked more splendid.”
She shrugged. “Fine feathers.”
He shook his head. “It’s not only the dress. You’re radiant. I don’t know what I did to deserve a woman like you, but...I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said. “And I don’t know if I’m all the things you say, but if thinking them will make you careful to live and come back to me, please don’t stop.”
“I’ll do my best, but if I should fall, Elizabeth—”
“Don’t even speak of it!”
He closed his eyes for a moment, but kept speaking. “If I should fall—I can’t say don’t mourn me, because I know I’d mourn—”
“Don’t!”
He closed his eyes for a moment but kept speaking. “I can’t say don’t mourn me, because I know I’d mourn you, but go on. Live happily and take good care of the Grange and—”
“Jack. I’ll do all those things. But don’t speak of it. I don’t want to borrow a trouble I pray I won’t face.”
“Ah.” With a brisk nod, he began changing into his best uniform. “Tomorrow a great many of our countrymen will be fleeing for the ports. Don’t follow them. Even if the worst happens and the army is broken, you and Mrs. Lang will be safer here than taking your chances on the roads. I can’t imagine it coming to a siege of the city.”
“Very well. We’ll be careful.”
“My brigade is to be part of General Picton’s division,” he said as he did up his buttons. “He only arrived from England today, but I like him. He seems rather gloomy, but I know he’s a fighting general.”
“Even I know a little of his reputation,” Elizabeth said. She would almost rather Jack not be commanded by a fighting general. A cautious one would be more to her purposes.
All the way to the ball they talked of commonplace things—of what their friends and enemies in Selyhaugh would think if they could see them now, of improvements they would like to make to the Grange and their new house in London—of everything but the battle to come. But they sat side by side in the carriage, hands tightly clasped, and Elizabeth couldn’t ignore the drums and bugles echoing through the streets, calling the battalions to assemble.
Chapter Eighteen
It had taken only a month of Brussels life for balls to become commonplace to Elizabeth, but the Duchess of Richmond’s ball felt nothing like any of the others. The atmosphere in the long, plain room—before the Richmonds had rented the house, its carriage-maker owner had used this chamber to store and display his wares—was abuzz with tension rather than joy, and everyone was murmuring over the fact that Wellington had yet to appear.
Before she had a chance to dance, there was a skirl of bagpipes, and their hostess announced that sergeants from the Gordon Highlanders would favor them with a demonstration of the sword dance. Elizabeth found herself hand in hand with Jack at the front of the ring of guests who gathered around the dancers and the pipers. As the wild, strange music echoed through the room and the kilted dancers stepped, leaped and spun over their crossed swords, she shivered. Was this the last dance for these young men, brought here for the amusement of the duchess’s continental guests, who found their bagpipes and kilts so exotic?
After the Highlanders had finished to general acclaim, Lord Uxbridge, the cavalry general who stood second in command to Wellington, spoke to Jack. He nodded and replied, too quietly for Elizabeth to hear above the buzz in the room.
He turned to her. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I must abandon you for a time.”
She squeezed his arm. “Don’t worry about me, not now.”
She watched him disappear into a side room with Uxbridge and a few other senior officers. Then Lieutenant Beckett appeared at her side and begged her for the next dance. As they stepped through the opening figures, it almost seemed like a normal ball until the lieutenant spoke.
“It’s about time we began this business in earnest,” he said cheerfully. “The sooner we meet with Boney, the sooner we can send him back where he belongs.”
“You’re very confident,” she commented. She knew he was a seasoned officer who’d seen years of campaigning on the Peninsula, but he seemed too young and eager for the dreadful task he must face.
“Of course I am. The duke will see us through, you’ll see. And look! There he is.”
Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder and saw Wellington enter the ballroom, accompanied by the Prussian liaison, Baron von Muffling. The duke looked more solemn than she was used to seeing him, and she was reminded of Jack’s assertion that Wellington’s wild sociability was all a front for the benefit of French spies. She’d never been sure of that—the man seemed to enjoy balls and female company too well for it to be entirely an act—but she supposed there was no point in trying to fool spies now. Elizabeth watched as Lady Georgiana Lennox broke away from the dance and hurried to the duke’s side. She spoke to him, he answered, and when she turned away she looked grave.
For all that, the ball continued unabated. Jack was still away in conference with Uxbridge, and Elizabeth danced the next two dances with another young officer, this
one less experienced and even more eager for battle than Beckett. Elizabeth found herself giving him motherly advice, for which he laughed, thanked her and said, thoughtfully, that perhaps he’d better pen a few lines to his parents back in Sussex before they marched out.
When the dance finished, Elizabeth and her partner ended it deep in one corner of the room. He was promised to his sweetheart for the next, so she assured him she would have no trouble finding another partner or someone to sit out the dance with. She was among friends, after all.
But when she turned to search the nearest group of guests for a friendly face, the person who stepped forward was Henry Liddicott. “Lady Armstrong! I’ve been looking for you.”
She blinked and took an involuntary step back. What was he doing here? He could not possibly have been invited. “Sir,” she said coolly, “we have not been introduced.”
“But you know who I am, do you not?”
“I have nothing to say to you.” She looked around for reinforcements, but couples were already taking their places for the next dance, and the only other non-dancers nearby were a young couple deep in earnest, heartfelt conversation.
“Truly? I wonder what your husband told you of me, and of my wife. If he’d ever told you about her, somehow I doubt the two of you would reek so of April and May.”
“I know she was part of his past,” Elizabeth said, keeping her voice level. “I am aware that my husband’s conduct has not always been what it should be. But what cause have you to come here and talk of it to me?”
“Because I’m tired of seeing Jack Armstrong being happier than he deserves.” He thrust his hand into an inner pocket of his coat, and Elizabeth stood paralyzed with sudden wild fear. If he drew a pistol and shot her, that would effectively put a period to Jack’s happiness.
But instead he pulled out a pair of small notebooks, each marked with black ribbon, and pushed them into her hands. “Read those. They’re part of Bella’s diary. She kept it hidden while she lived. I found it among her things afterward, and then I discovered what she really was. I marked the spots most of interest to you.”
She knew she ought to give them back to him unread and flee to the other side of the ballroom, but her curiosity proved too much for her. Keeping a wary eye on Liddicott, she shifted a few feet to a spot near enough to a lamp to give her sufficient light. She opened the first diary to the marked entry from July of 1799 and read.
A deadly dull regimental dinner was enlivened considerably by the presence of Lieutenant Armstrong. He is quite the handsomest creature I ever beheld now—I can hardly credit that he is the same man as that homely boy-ensign of three or four years ago. But the delight of it is that I finally got a chance to get him to myself yesterday afternoon while L. was out. He was a little shy of me at first, but more than persuadable, and he confessed that he had never lain with a woman before myself! He was a trifle quick off the mark, in the way of young men, but very eager to be taught, and it is agreeable indeed to have a blank canvas to begin upon. I mean to have him again as soon as I can and teach him more about how a lady likes to be touched. Who would not want to instruct such a willing pupil, especially one blessed with such an agreeably long and well-shaped instrument of pleasure?
Elizabeth frowned, fighting to remain outwardly calm. It was disagreeable—well, infuriating—to read such intimate details of her husband’s encounter with another woman, but it was so long before her time, she reminded herself.
“I wonder at your wife’s keeping such a diary,” she said, “and at you, for not burning it upon discovery. But this tells me nothing I didn’t already know. It’s not as if I supposed I had married a virgin.”
He smiled, thin and cruel. “Read the other one.”
She didn’t want to, and yet she couldn’t stop herself. If she gave the book back, she would wonder for the rest of her life what it had said. Better to know the worst than to live in perpetual doubt. The other notebook’s marked entry was dated 1 March 1810. Less than a month after she and Jack had married, she realized, fighting a sudden onslaught of queasiness.
I was most agreeably pleased to encounter Jack Armstrong, of all people, in a bookshop this afternoon. He is about to sail for Canada, so I urged him to come with me for a private leave-taking, which he was most eager to do once assured that L. is safely away in Portugal.
Time has made him an even better lover—the things that man can do with his MOUTH! I was shocked to learn that he is very lately married, but far from being devoted to his new bride, he mocks her as the plainest, dowdiest creature he ever saw! She has no fortune or family that might compensate for her want of beauty, and were it not for a deathbed promise to an old friend, he would never have chosen her. He wishes himself single again, declares his intent to act just as if he were, and says he would rage at his friend for imposing such a promise on him, if only it were not bad luck to speak ill of the dead. I pity the new Mrs. Armstrong from my heart, indeed I do, but as Jack is to go to Canada and she to stay behind, at least they are not burdened with each other.
Elizabeth slammed the notebook shut. She would not cry before this man. She must not. Biting her lip, she forced both volumes of the diary back into his hands. “Leave at once,” she said, her voice harsh and brittle. “Never speak to me again.”
He bowed, a triumphant gleam in his clear gray eyes. “As you wish, Lady Armstrong.” He slipped away into the shadows. Elizabeth, arrested, stared at his back until he disappeared through the door leading outside.
She sought out a shadowy corner and leaned against the wall. So Jack had gone back to his first lover after marrying her, mocked her to that lover, and lied, flagrantly and deliberately, when he’d claimed to have told her of all the women he’d lain with after their marriage.
The plainest, dowdiest creature he ever saw. This, from the same man who tonight had called her splendid and radiant? Of course, they had hardly known each other when they married. She supposed she was prettier now, despite being five years older, because she wasn’t racked with grief—and she was certainly more fashionably dressed. But—how could he? How could he have failed to understand her grief and make allowances for it, and what kind of man could speak so of his wife while in another woman’s bed?
She had trusted him so much. On the day he’d returned home he’d said he was no liar, again and again, and she’d believed him. When he’d told her those three women in Canada had been his only lovers since their marriage, she had believed that, too. Believed him, and forgiven him all, given him all. It had taken her all of a few days to fall into bed with him and give him every possible intimacy. She blushed with shame now to think of how she had knelt before him to take him in her mouth, and of all the times she’d ordered him to come to bed and touch her in all the ways she liked best. He’d always smiled as he complied, a sly little grin she’d taken for pleasure at her enthusiasm. But now she wondered if it was pure mockery, if it had amused him to have such a plain, dowdy woman panting after him. And of course he’d been willing to go along with it. As she’d said to him, men’s cocks were not nice in their tastes. He hadn’t even tried to argue the point, now that she recalled it.
Oh, she’d been a fool. A lovelorn, pathetic fool. And somehow she had to get through this ball and send Jack off to battle as though nothing were amiss. The confrontation that must come could and should wait until afterward.
* * *
Jack pushed his way through the ballroom, seeking his wife. Until the latest messages on the French army’s movements had reached Wellington here at the ball, there had been doubt over whether the morning’s attack on the Prussian outposts had been the main advance or a diversion. Now they were at last certain it was the former, and Wellington had ordered the army to concentrate upon the crossroads at Quatre Bras.
Where was she? Jack’s brigade was to march in a few short hours, and he wanted to spend all the little time he had alone with Elizabeth. The only dances he’d known her to miss in all the balls he’d squired her to had bee
n the waltzes she’d sat out by his side, and the music the orchestra played now was no waltz.
At last he caught a familiar figure, a familiar way of moving, out of the corner of his eye—Elizabeth, all alone and standing in the shadows. What could be wrong? He knew she was more worried about the battle to come than she let on.
He hurried to her side, but drew up short when he saw her face. All the color was leached from her cheeks, and even her lips seemed paler and thinner. Her eyes were pale and muddy, without any of the lively sparkle he admired. He had seen her so once before—five years ago.
She met his eyes and tried to smile, but it was a transparently false attempt. “Elizabeth!” he said. “Good God—what is the matter?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I am quite well.”
He took her hand. It hung limp and lifeless in his clasp. If he hadn’t known better, he would’ve said she was only allowing his touch. She certainly wasn’t welcoming it. “Don’t lie to me,” he said. “Not now, of all times. Something is amiss, and more than just the war. I haven’t seen you look so since I first met you, when Giles died.”
At that her chin came up and the color rushed back to her face. “Oh. You mean plain and dowdy.”
What? He supposed he might have thought something along those lines at the time, but how could she think so now? And it wasn’t as thought he’d ever said anything of the sort to her. “What do you mean?”
“I believe your precise words were that your new wife was the plainest, dowdiest creature you ever saw.”
The only person he had ever spoken disparagingly of Elizabeth to was...Bella. But she was dead. How could her words come back from beyond the grave to bedevil him now? “You found out about London, after we married,” he said dully.
“Yes. Henry Liddicott showed me his wife’s diaries. I found out you lied to me. And I found out you complained to your paramour about what a plain dowd of a wife you had married, and how you resented Giles for forcing me upon you, and how you intended to live just as if you’d never been wed. Jack, how could you?”
An Infamous Marriage Page 24