by Anne Groß
“Let her be,” sighed Russell. “She’s earned the right to grouse. Get on with you, Mrs. Ferrington. Go take a rest. You too, Thomas.”
Elise tried to slam a roll of muslin down in anger, but it floated lightly to the ground, unraveling in a pretty coil and making her angrier.
“Such a coarse woman,” she heard someone say in a loud whisper as she stormed away.
“Indeed. Shocking.”
Her bath was a cold bucket of well water and a stiff curry brush she found in the barn behind the house—a far cry from the long soak in a hot tub that she longed for. She wanted to burn her clothes, but settled with scrubbing her dress the best she could with it still on. Her apron had taken most of the gore, she was happy to note, sparing her dress the worst of it. She doused her apron in the bucket and wrung red water out. Diluted blood pooled between her feet as she sweated to get clean. Behind her, the queue of soldiers that had formed for their turn at the well were beginning to make noises for her to hurry up.
There were sweaty men everywhere, thousands of them dotting the landscape like zits on a teenager. Elise pulled off her boots and scrubbed her feet and legs, feeling self-conscious. She hadn’t thought about Quidico since Collins had chased him away, but she knew he was there, hidden somewhere, looking at her. It was strange to think that she’d be back in Tucson soon. She’d be able to use real shampoo and shave her legs. She’d get a pedicure. She’d go to the grocery store and buy pasteurized milk and a box of fruity-ohs while wearing nothing but shorts and a tank top. She’d eat bowl after bowl of the cereal in the bathtub.
Dropping the horse’s brush into the bucket, she kicked it to the next man in line and walked across the camp to find someplace quiet to take a nap. Not far from the farmhouse rose an enormous oak, its base surrounded by a stand of deep green rhododendrons. Elise threw her boots and pack over the densely crowded bushes and pushed her way under. The roots of the tree created a small clearing, nearly as big as a king sized bed. The ground was soft with moss and sheltered from the sun. Finally, she had her privacy. She pulled her dress off and hung it and her soaked apron over bushes to dry in the sun, then stretched out in her chemise, bone weary.
Just as she was about to descend into the sweet oblivion of sleep, the sound of feet scraping to a stop outside the rhododendrons made her jerk alert. She caught her breath and peered under the greenery. Although they were the same army-issue shoe that every infantryman in the British Army wore, she recognized the feet as they walked to the other side of the tree. The gait was light, slightly splay-footed, with a surprisingly short stride for a tall man, as though ready to change direction at a moment’s notice. The toes turned to point towards her.
“Elise? I know you’re in there. Why are you hiding in the bloody bushes?”
“Because I’m tired of people looking at me.”
“I told you to go back to the farmhouse.”
“I did, after I finished my job. I was going to come find you. Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“You were busy making eyes at that soldier.”
Elise sighed, remembering the marriage proposal she rejected. “Come in here, you idiot. I’m not talking to you through a bush.”
“Bloody hell.” His curse was the gruff equivalent of a shoulder shrug.
“This way.” Elise reached her hand under the bush so he could see where the entrance was. Grunting, Thomas lowered his chest to the dirt and poked his head through, eyeballing the narrow passageway with skepticism. Seeing his glowering face framed under the greenery made Elise snort.
“You must take me to be a fool. There’s no room for me in there.”
“There’s plenty of room. You’ll see.”
He pushed his pack in first, then passed a skin of wine under the bush.
“You’ve been drinking? You never drink.”
“I’m not drinking,” was his gruff, embarrassed lie. “Help me in.” His hand reached for her and she pulled while he kicked and squirmed through the opening. Suddenly, the little clearing around the base of the oak seemed much smaller. Thomas brushed dust and broken twigs from the front of his shirt and sat cross-legged next to her, looking around and nodding in approval. “Quiet little spot,” he said. “Leave it to the rabbit to find a safe hole.”
“I’m not a rabbit.”
His blue eyes swept her up and down, assessing. “You’re right. More like a porcupine, I reckon.” Thomas rearranged his pack to give them more space and scooted himself backwards to sit behind her, leaning against the trunk of the tree. “Care for a smoke?”
“Oh, hell yes,” Elise said.
The silence that rose between them felt comfortable as she watched him pull his pipe out and fill it with three pinches of tobacco, the first gentle, the second more firm, and the last a deep squeeze into the bowl. “Damn, I’ve no flame,” Thomas said suddenly. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.” He had some trouble wiggling out of the clearing on his own, but once he was back on his feet he growled through the bush, “do not touch my wine whilst I’m gone.”
Elise froze with the wine skin already at her lips, then went ahead and took a deep gulp. “There wasn’t much left!” she called, and smiled at the curse she got in response.
It didn’t take long for him to return with a lit pipe, a second skin of wine, and a loaf of bread. “Where did you get all this?” Elise sighed in wonder at the bounty.
“I stole it.”
She couldn’t tell if he was kidding, and decided not to press.
Thomas again leaned back against the oak and spread his legs to either side of where Elise sat cross-legged. They passed the pipe back and forth and the smoke rose prettily up into the canopy of leaves. The wine was cool and sweet. It opened her pores and flushed her skin. The bread was warm and aromatic. Not five hours ago, she’d taken a leg and thrown it out the front door of a farmhouse, but now the softness of the moment was blurring the edges of the memory.
“Where is Richard?” Thomas asked, breaking the spell. “He should be here. It’s not for me to be sitting with you like this, in the bushes no less. You’re not even decently dressed.”
Elise blew smoke over Thomas’s scowling face. “Come on, we were having a nice time. Don’t ruin it.” Thomas knew full well where Richard was—he was sneaking off somewhere with his Lady Letchfeld and making reckless plans. Later, it wouldn’t be his violin he would be fiddling.
“He should treat you with more respect,” Thomas grumbled.
“I think you’ve had enough,” Elise laughed, taking back the wine. “He does treat me with respect. He’s never tried to kill me for the emerald. I’d call that pretty respectful.”
“How do you know he hasn’t asked me to do it for him?”
Elise sputtered on a badly timed swallow. “Did he? When?”
In response, Thomas twisted a fold of her chemise into his fist and pulled her towards him to cage her between his legs. His other hand clamped around her neck. His palm was warm against her throat, his fingers pressed along either side of her spine. She looked into his eyes as he squeezed gently, a caress.
“You’re not frightened?”
“Of you? No.”
Thomas’s mouth turned up at one corner, stretching the white scar bisecting his lip. “I’ll kill you and Richard both and keep the emerald for myself. Don’t think I won’t.” His hand squeezed tighter. Elise felt the pressure on her larynx and had a flash of doubt. Then he let go to steal the wine back. “To hell with you, you hateful wretch,” he said affectionately, taking a long sip. “How dare you not fear me?”
Elise leaned against his thigh and sucked air through the stem of his pipe. “It’s cashed,” she said, and knocked the ashes out on a root.
His hand slid under her hair to pull a lock of it forward and let it slide through his fingers. “Where did you get such a lion’s mane?” he murmured.
His scent was like smudged sage. Elise took a deep breath and the emerald pressed hot against her breastbone.
“You don’t want it?” The jewel appeared in her hand, although she hadn’t thought to pull it from her breast and didn’t remember doing so. It glowed eerily in the shadow of the oak.
“No, I’ll not touch that devilish stone. It’s brought nothing but pain to all of us. Why would I want it?”
“Money.”
“Look at it move. It’s alive.”
“That’s just the pulse in my hand.”
“Think what you will, but I’ll believe it’s living and breathing. Put it away.”
Elise studied Thomas’s features. As usual, he was unreadable. “Maybe Richard’s just hoping I die on my own,” she said tucking the emerald back into her corset. “That’s a pretty good gamble, I suppose.”
Thomas shrugged.
“I don’t want another day like today. I feel like I’ve been battered. I don’t think I can do this again.”
He pulled another of her curls forward just to see it rebound when he let go. His eyes crinkled in a smile. “It’s not today anymore. It’s tomorrow.”
“No wonder I’m so tired.”
Thomas nodded in agreement and settled his broad shoulders against the trunk of the tree. “Are you sure you don’t want to join the others? Mrs. Gillihan will be wanting to see you.” He tugged off his red jacket and rolled his sleeves up over his strong arms. The buttons of his shirt strained across his chest as he filled his lungs with a long, exhausted yawn, and his black hair fell into his eyes. “It’s beginning to warm up, isn’t it?”
“Oi!” Thomas cried out in surprise, rubbing the back of his head after it had cracked against the tree. His blue eyes flashed angrily. “What do you mean by lunging at me like that?”
“Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Have you gone completely mad? I’ve already a knot on my head from a week ago.”
Elise hid her face in her hands, muffling her apology and feeling ridiculous. Through her fingers she could see him glaring at her. Slowly, his initial shock melted from his features as understanding bloomed. “Were you meaning to. . .” His eyes narrowed with suspicion. He took her wrists and gently tugged her hands from her face. “You were. You were aiming for a kiss, weren’t you?”
His long black lashes shaded the emotion that shone in his eyes. That, and the mop of hair he constantly struggled against. Elise would have brushed away his forelock for him but he held tightly to her wrists. Instead, she leaned forward, uncertain how she’d be received a second time, but determined to find out.
His mouth was surprisingly soft, but unresponsive. He dropped her wrists like he’d been burned.
Elise placed her hands on his shoulders and breathed his name in his ear like a question. She tried to meet his evasive eyes. His shoulders trembled. His hands balled into self-resistant fists. “I’ll not be drawn in,” he whispered. “You’re a married woman.”
“Richard doesn’t love me,” she reminded him. “He’s never loved me.” She slid her fingertips along his jaw, tilting his chin so that he would look at her. “But you do. I know you do.”
Elise gasped as Thomas suddenly crushed her to him and buried himself in the crook of her neck, breathing in the scent of her. He raked his hands through her hair, then slid them over her arms and up her back, as though he couldn’t get enough but didn’t know where to start. Her name was strangled deep in his throat, a hoarse mangling of vowels that ended in expelled breath. Then he placed his palms against the sides of her face and kissed her.
It burned. It dissolved her into particles then rebuilt her, airless and gutless, empty of everything but rushing blood and flesh. Tasting his kiss was like tasting smoke curling over her tongue, flavored with clove, leather, and gunpowder. The kiss made her eyes close and her fingers spread open. It made her arch her back and thrust her hips. When he left her lips, she clutched at him for balance as he painted her skin with his mouth and tugged at her chemise.
She pulled herself back just enough to help him. There were ribbons and knots and stays, all complicated notions that made it impossible to undress quickly. But he, at least, had buttons. She could manage buttons.
She pushed away his shirt and was confronted with the history of his violence. A long scar crossed against his hard stomach, another parted the black fur along his breastbone. The third floated over his ribcage, white and thin like the silk thread that had once tied him together. But here along his flank was the last place she’d touched him, weeks ago. She’d reticently kept her hands right here, sewing his skin together along the gaping knife wound he’d earned saving her life. Now the stitches were gone, but shadows of them remained as tiny dots where she had pierced his flesh with a needle. She ran a finger along each suture line, and he sucked in a long breath. She was piercing his flesh, even now.
Thomas flipped her underneath him and the earth rose up to meet her. He reached down to pull her skirt higher as her burning spine sunk into the cool moss. Elise wrapped her legs around his waist and set the rhythm, encouraging him with her thighs and hips. She led until her vision blurred and her breath exploded. Then, when his mouth covered hers again, she gave herself to his pleasure.
THE NEW MOON
Thomas and Elise didn’t get much sleep.
It was three, maybe four hours before the call came to march again. They dressed quickly, heads reeling with the wine, with their thoughts, with the scent of each other. He was the first to crawl underneath the bushes and back into the world so he could rush to line up for inspection. Elise paused to breathe before pulling her damp dress over her head and crawling out, knowing she’d be heading to the hospital where her own needs would be set aside for hours.
She found George Russell in the same place she’d left him, making her wonder if he’d allowed himself some rest. He was busy prepping patients to travel with the moving army. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was pale, but his energy hadn’t flagged. “I know you’d like to stay with your husband,” he said, smiling at her as she walked towards him, “but you’ll be traveling with us instead. I hope you’ve already said your goodbyes.”
The recent memory of her long goodbye crashed over her, sending zinging currents of electricity down her arms and into her hands. She took a deep breath. “Aren’t we all going to Lisbon?”
“No longer. We’re heading back to the beach. We’ve word that more ships are arriving and Wellesley wishes to protect the disembarkation of the new forces and send these wounded men home. The army will be moving quickly, too quickly for us, burdened as we are.” He waved an arm encompassing the soldiers who could no longer walk.
“I want to be with my husband,” Elise said quietly, knowing it was a lie. It was Thomas she wanted to be near.
“I appreciate your loyalty, but your husband will be marching overnight without stopping. Even if you wished to see him, there would not be time.”
Elise turned and took two wistful steps towards the troops as they lined up.
“It’s no use,” Russell said gently. “They’re already as good as gone.”
Elise sighed in resignation and went to find Jenkins, who would help refill her pack so she’d have the necessary supplies for nursing along the road. That was it, she thought, that’s all she’d get. That moment she just had with Thomas was her sweet goodbye. There wouldn’t be time to see him again before the new moon and if the spell worked, she’d be gone forever.
If the spell didn’t work, she would leave the army and head to Lisbon on her own. There, she’d sell the emerald and buy passage to the States. Either way, there wouldn’t be a second time with Thomas. She might as well get used to it.
She should have been excited to be so near the end of her nightmare, so close to returning to her old life, but instead she felt rocks in her stomach as she helped bed the men down in mule carts. She should have been planning for what was coming, but her thoughts constantly returned to the sun dappled afternoon. Each flash of memory churned her, flushed open her capillaries and flooded her mouth. As the carts rolled out and the m
iles along dusty trail began to slip behind her, the sensation caused by recreating scenes in her mind from that afternoon with Thomas became an addiction. She hated herself for going back to it, over and over.
While the infantry continued through the night, the men and women following them camped in the fields after traveling miles of gently rolling hills. Elise bunched a blanket under her head and tried to make herself comfortable in the dirt. The night air was warm, full of the scent of wild rosemary and sage, and hinted at the ocean nearby. The gnarled trunks of small plots of tied grapevines, standing like crippled soldiers in formation, were eerily silhouetted by the thinly slivered moon. While everyone slept under the stars, Elise stared at the sky.
A dark shadow passed in front of the stars making the sky flicker like a disruption in the electrical current. Elise sat up in alarm, her heart pounding. “Who’s there?” she hissed, straining to see in the darkness.
No one.
Cautiously, she laid back down. Her heartbeat slowed. Her eyes became heavy again. A log fell in a nearby campfire and the sound of sparks drew from her a sighing yawn. Exhaustion draped across her like a veil of brightly colored scarves caught on a breeze. Long black hair tickled her arms. A hand caressed her cheek. She opened her eyes again. Quidico smiled and held out his hand for her to see the green beetle in his palm.
“This night,” he whispered, “I swallow my grandmother so that tomorrow night, when you swallow me, we will all live as one for eternity.” He placed the metallic beetle in his mouth. His golden eyes locked with Elise’s green eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed unpleasantly. “Come to us tomorrow night. We will await you. Follow the sound of our music.”
Elise woke up in the early morning with a painful kink in her shoulder and a low-grade tension headache. Her midnight encounter with Quidico, if it had truly been an encounter and not just a nightmare, haunted her. Quidico was like the blister women endured for a new pair of snakeskin heels. The horrible thought of what she’d promised to do with him to gain her freedom from the nineteenth century weighed on her as she walked the final miles.