Viridian (The Hundred-Days Series Book 2)

by Baird Wells

  She shifted from foot to foot, fingers rubbing absently inside his grasp. Ty swore she was looking in his direction, but not at him. “Olivia...?”

  “Mmhm.”

  “Brussels, Olivia. A letter.”

  Now she studied the floor, inhaling and exhaling slowly. Her head nodded with the same awkward rhythm as someone asleep at the dinner table.

  “Olivia.”

  “I'm not going to Brussels!” It came out as more of an exhale than an exclamation, catching him by surprise.

  “What do you mean, you're not going to Brussels?”

  Taking back her hands, Olivia jabbed one finger at an invisible point, “Brussels is here,” she jabbed the other index finger, “And I am going here.”

  “To Spain?” he asked, surprised that he had inkling what she meant.

  “Oh, no. Here.” She moved her finger up an inch.

  “Bordeaux?”

  “Bordeaux,” she repeated.

  His head was already shaking as he spoke. “No! Out of the question.” Had she lost her mind? “Stay out of it. Do you hear me?”

  She smiled sweetly. “I hear you, but I do not have to listen!”

  “Olivia,” he started, but she put a finger to his lips.

  He dodged her interference. “If Therese refuses to flee, prison will not be the worst thing that happens. Not to her, or anyone who supports her.” Marie Therese, Duchess of Angeloume, was the only surviving child of Louis and Marie Antoinette. Under the right circumstances, she could wield tremendous political influence. Unfortunately for her, less than a year of Napoleon's absence hadn't exactly made the people hungry again for monarchy.

  She was also Olivia's friend, one of the few influences to free Olivia from La Force. He could understand Olivia wanting to aid her, but it would be dangerous.

  “She's rallying troops to her cause, Tyler.”

  “Was. Was rallying. They have agreed only to defend her. The men have signed a declaration; they will not fight on her behalf.”

  “But Madame deStael has mocked and defied Napoleon for years,” she argued.

  “Madame deStael? Her sharpest weapon is her pen, and that is obnoxious at best. Therese is a symbol, a rallying point and one very, very long loose end, Olivia.” She was too smart to have missed that significant difference between the women.

  Olivia's face was stubborn. “All the more reason for someone to go and reason with her.”

  “That someone being you, who only moments ago was ready to command her artillery? Now you’re suddenly a diplomat instead?” He struggled to believe, riled up as she was, that Olivia could so easily change tacks.

  “That is not fair.”

  “No, perhaps it is not.” He was yelling. Ty realized it when Olivia was obliged to take a step back. He relaxed, and took a deep breath. “Perhaps it's not. She is a sympathetic character to you, Olivia. I understand why you love her, why you defend her. She’s brave, undoubtedly. The moment Napoleon landed, her family hared off for parts unknown while she stayed to fight. That is damned admirable, but currently not very wise.”

  Olivia came forward again, as fierce as he'd ever seen her. “Then let me help her!”

  “You cannot help her! No one can, not yet. The soldiers in Bordeaux deserve credit for their hefty bollocks. She would not find even conditional support elsewhere.” He raked fingers through his hair, trying to find some way of reasoning with her. “Your Madam Royal will find no purchase on French soil from French soldiers. She will have to be patient, wait for our forces. And remain alive. The most important fight she can carry now is a diplomatic one.”

  Olivia cradled her forehead with a hand, rubbing as though forcing the information to penetrate. Then, she sighed and straightened. “I am still going to Bordeaux. I gave my word.”

  He started to protest, but she laid a hand on his chest. “But you are right. I concede that. I will go and reason with her. She is proud, but hardly reckless; I think she will see that it's time to retreat.”

  Resting a hand over hers, he drew a steadying breath. “If anyone can explain it properly, Olivia, it's you. I know you are just as wounded at leaving.”

  Olivia slipped her arms around him, wrapping him tightly. “But I know I shall be back soon.”

  He kissed the top of her head and drew back. “You will have to move as though your life depends on it, because it does. Hers too.”

  “How long until he arrives?”

  “At his current pace, three days at most.” The memory of Philipe's capture made him shudder. “And his eye will be fixed on her the moment he arrives.” He watched Olivia, knowing her well enough to hear the calculations in her head, that she would recall how La Porte had fared under the emperor’s single-mindedness. “She could leave by the Garonne, set sail, if the garrison in Bordeaux doesn't turn on her. That's one day.”

  He didn't envy her task, but he also did not doubt her success. “You can do this, Olivia, if it is truly your aim. You are rather persuasive.” He gave her a saucy grin, despite the fear in his chest.

  Her fingers feathered the hair at the back of his collar. “I have studied the master.”

  Reaching back, he grasped her left hand. Cradling it, he rubbed a thumb across his ring, pressing at its small viridian teardrop. Panic rose up at the idea of letting her go, and his words came out strangled. “Brussels. Three weeks. In one piece. I have your word.”

  Her lips on his were the temptation of Lucifer himself, wearing at his resolve, testing his allegiance. “You have my word.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Quatre Bras, Belgium – April 28th 1815

  Ty poked his head inside Matthew's tent without being invited, and without waiting to be announced. It had always been that way between them.

  He had been back in the garrison well over a month, and despite thinking of Olivia every waking moment, he had to admit that he’d missed it. There was a simple honesty about life in the army and a routine that was enormously appealing after months of cloak and dagger work. Every day was the same, and every night he knew where he’d be sleeping and that he could trust the men at his side. Even after weeks being back, though, he was still trying to properly divide himself. Whitehall Tyler. Society Tyler. Military Tyler. Ty Burrell, Matthew's friend, was all and none of them, and was about as honest as things got outside of his relationship with Olivia. After a decade, there was little fooling the man he called brother.

  Coming fully into the tent, he grimaced at Matthew, who sat on his cot. “Webb. What the devil do you mean, dragging me over here from the depths of a sound sleep? You had better be missing a limb.”

  “Every man, woman, and stray cat in this garrison can hear your goddamn fiddle screeching, major. You were not sleeping. In fact, I'd wager it's you who's in danger of losing a limb,” Matthew glanced meaningfully at both of Ty's arms, “Or two.”

  Ty sat heavily, letting some strain from his shoulders. “Some of us do things other than doodle battle maps and polish our medals in our leisure time. Merely a suggestion.”

  “Will you help me or no?” demanded Matthew.

  “Fine. What is your aim?”

  Matthew, seated in a suspiciously unimposing fashion atop his cot, waved an arm at his jacket on a peg near the flap. “Get my coat, and help me put it on.” A sniper’s handiwork nearly a week earlier had the general laid up and at the peak of ill temper.

  “Dress you! Where the hell is McKinnon?” The general's aide-de-camp was nowhere in sight. “This is his job.”

  “Well, just now I'm asking you to do it, and I don't damn well want McKinnon. If I had, I would have sent for him and preserved my sanity!”

  “Calm yourself, Webb.” He raised a hand in supplication. “If you're feeling neglected, you need not suffer a rifle wound to gain my attention.” Ty wiggled his brows. “Or Kate's.”

  Matthew’s face hardened in the way that sent soldiers running to polish his brass, but Ty knew him better. “Miss Foster – no. Absolutely out of the questio
n. I did not ask you here to speak about her, or to be badgered about her.”

  Lord and saints preserve the whole bloody garrison if General Webb didn't admit defeat and surrender to Kate Foster. Or vice versa, he didn't care. Everyone, from the command staff down to the cook's boy, could see where the pair was headed. And they would all happily be spared their general's frustrated snapping and barking along the way.

  Considering his own change in fortune along those lines, recently, Ty was happy for his friend. Or at least, he’d be happy if Matthew could get his head on straight. All for the best. Matthew and Kate were cut from the same ornery, stubborn cloth. No one else could tolerate them.

  Ty propped his boot on the desk in front of him, jostling an inkwell. “Why Matthew, what an ungrateful tack to take. She even sewed your parts back in their correct places. I would have made more of such an opportunity.”

  Matthew was eyeing the offending boot. “Miss Foster's skill has never been in question.”

  “Her obedience, then? And I thought you two were getting on so well.”

  “We are! I am not even cross with her. I'm well, she is well. Our attitudes are in agreement. Just...” Matthew sighed, scrubbed hands over his face and jabbed a finger at the peg. “Just my coat if you please, major.”

  It was probably hard for the average spectator, or even Matthew, to discern Ty's genuine concern. When the general had been taken down by a sharpshooter four days earlier, he'd been certain his friend was dead. If not for Kate's skill and timely intervention, Matthew might have been.

  Ty claimed few genuine acquaintances, owing to family circumstances, and even more to professional. Of the few people he had truly loved, Matthew ranked chief among them. That did not mean, however, that he intended to cut the general even an inch of slack. Webb could be taciturn, prone to brooding, and occasionally steeped in the bitterness of a loveless marriage. His order and discipline kept Ty anchored. His own goal was to keep Matthew from becoming a lead soldier. On that front, he now had Kate's help.

  He grabbed Matthew's red wool coat down from its place. “Dare I ask why, at this hour of the night, you feel the need to dress from head to toe?”

  Groaning, Matthew turned himself an inch at a time until both legs hung over the cot. Then he panted a moment. “I wish to go out, walk the camp. Stretch my legs and get out of my damned quarters.”

  “No. Oh, no.” Ty stopped halfway between the door and the general's cot, shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  He wagged a finger at Matthew's scowl. “I know what you're about, and I won't be party to it.”

  “Party to what?”

  “Nonsense.”

  Matthew leaned forward, as if he'd misheard. “What?”

  “This is precisely what Kate refers to as 'nonsense.’ She'll have your neck and mine if I aid you.”

  Arms crossed. “I am ordering you, major.”

  “Hm-mm. No.” Ty laid the jacket over the back of a chair at Matthew's high round card table. “I am far more afraid of her than I am of you. The worst you can do is hang me.”

  Matthew sputtered, then sagged back. “Then what do you suggest?”

  He pulled out the chair supporting Matthew's coat and patted its ladder back. “Gentlemanly entertainment. We shall play some cards, lay some wagers, and imbibe a good measure of spirits. But I warn you,” he frowned at Matthew's wide eyes. “We may be forced to converse at times.”

  Webb studied him with a sideways eye that always paired with a jest. “These are desperate times, major. That is a risk I will simply have to take.”

  “Long live the king. Now get your arse up off that mat and into this chair. And no belly-aching about how much your gut hurts. That well is all dried up.”

  He reached out an arm to help Matthew up, earning a broad grin. “How did we manage apart for so long, Tyler?”

  “I have no idea. And I'm bloody well glad you're not dead. You owe me a lot of coin.” He tugged Matthew up and hung an arm around his neck for a moment, before stepping back.

  Matthew patted his arm. “That's quite enough. Two soldiers cannot reasonably embrace any longer without the threat of death at their heels.”

  Ty dropped into a chair across table, fishing the deck of cards from his inside pocket. “You have the threat of something on your heels, Webb. It's known as bankruptcy.”

  “Amusing.” Matthew squinted as the cards were dealt between them. “Is that fifty-two cards? How many kings are in your deck this evening?”

  Ty grinned, planting the remaining stack on the table. “Enough to give you a fighting chance, you old goat.”

  He settled into his chair, resting a boot heel on the edge of the table, and studied his cards. The game was as much for him as for Matthew. Three weeks. He'd promised Olivia, and they had vowed not to be apart any longer.

  Her flight from Bordeaux and her journey north had been complicated by rapid troop movements on both sides, leaving her stranded for days now beyond Genappe, well into Napoleon's territory. Meanwhile, his own little kingdom of the Crossroads had presented shifting fronts for weeks.

  Nothing was certain for those inside the garrison; he certainly couldn't have her moving about outside the safety of its walls, not after Matthew's brush with death. Kate and her Jamaican assistant had even been assaulted at a nearby farmhouse recently. Thank God Porter had been there to help her.

  All rational, reasonable excuses for the separation, except where his heart was concerned. He had openly teased Matthew about a descent into madness over amor, but was now forced to admit he wasn't far behind. How had he existed before her?

  He’d been unprepared, having to go through the motions of daily army life without showing signs of his loneliness. Every conversation with Matthew was fraught with peril; he wasn’t in the habit of keeping secrets from the general except on Whitehall business. The dance was growing exhausting.

  “Burrell?” Matthew rapped on the table top.

  “Hmm? What?”

  “Are you paying attention to your hand? The Sisters of Mercy give away less coin.”

  He blinked, then rallied. “I have my strategy,” he shot back, “and you have yours.”

  Chuckling, Matthew winced and leaned back in his chair. “Mine is to win.”

  “Speaking on that very subject, have you seen Von Bulow's reports on movements to the east?”

  Matthew sorted his cards around in his hand. “Mm. I gave them a foggy once-over this morning, in between Miss Foster's poisonings. You've read them too, I gather.”

  He had. Matthew already knew the answer. Ty made everything his business, read every document on which he could lay a finger. He did so under the guise of being nosy, without a soul suspecting he had other motives.

  Matthew paused just long enough to draw another card. “What do you make of his remarks regarding Bonaparte's target?”

  Bollocks to Von Bulow's remarks. Not that the Prussian wasn't intelligent or a keen tactician. He was, however, just another soldier, another general like Matthew or twenty other such commanders. Fortune tellers, peering into the crystal ball of war, casting bones to discover his enemy's plans.

  He, on the other hand, had intelligence. Olivia was making the most of her delay in Genappe, spending quiet evenings in her room above a tavern, a favorite grog shop for French officers. Late at night, when the taproom was empty and the ale had flowed freely, the men suffered a shared affliction: loose tongue.

  Discarding, he took a moment longer than necessary, rearranging his hand. “He's on the right path, by my estimation. Too far south; a bit too far east.”

  “Where then?”

  “Ligny.” He tapped a finger on the table. “We'll see the first real fighting at Ligny.”

  Matthew looked up at him, a skeptical eyebrow raised. “That’s awfully close.”

  He nodded against the dubious note in Matthew's voice. “Ligny.”

  Matthew grinned. “Care to put a wager on it?”


  It felt unfair, taking the bet with an ace up his sleeve. Almost wrong.

  Almost.

  He answered Matthew's grin. “In fact, I would.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Genappe, Belgium - May 1815

  Olivia cocked her head, pretending to adjust the kerchief over her hair so she could stare openly at the men's activity as she passed by Le Caillou. A wagon stationed along the house's low, gray stone wall jostled with the efforts of two or three soldiers, hefting themselves in and out of its compartment. Out came an upholstered chair, its amber velvet immaculate. It joined a narrow mahogany writing desk in the grass beside a cobblestone walk. Narrow timbers suspiciously resembling a bed frame came next, supporting a good yardage of dark green silk, a canopy perhaps.

  The furnishings were spare but expensive. Were she asked to place a wager on the truth of idle chatter in town, she'd bet every penny: Napoleon was making his headquarters in Genappe.

  Fixing her eyes on the blacksmith's red clay roof just in view on the horizon, she did her best to look neither obvious nor inconspicuous. The French detachment in the town had been lax thus far, at ease, drinking and talking freely about the town. A general's arrival would merit a significant improvement in decorum, and for an emperor doubly so.

  From this point on, the soldiers would be watching, asking questions, keeping tabs. She had yet to decide whether she would remain in Genappe, or find a more secluded place to encamp, but one thing was clear: her journey out of town this evening would have to be the last. Coming and going as she had of late would simply draw too much attention.

  A harmonious double ring from behind the lean-to up ahead said the blacksmith was hard at his labor. She didn't envy him. It was unseasonably hot for an afternoon just shy of May, and the air was balmy and thick. Working over a roasting forge seemed an unenviable task. She stepped into the stone alcove, shading her eyes against the sudden change in lighting. “Monsieur Kappel.”