Lady Scandal

by Shannon Donnelly

  He recognized the stubborn tone, so he submitted to sitting down for her and undoing the cloth ties of his shirt to let the muslin hang open. The night air wrapped a chill around him, but the cooling did him good. It made him able to think again, or almost so.

  And to curse his unsteady temper. When would he ever learn to be patient and wait for the right time for anything?

  She found more wood for the fire and tossed a dry branch onto the embers. As yellow flames licked upward, she went to rummage through the supplies he had bought which now sat beside the cart. She came back with her own fine lawn chemise in hand. "This will at least be soft on your skin. Now, let's untie the ends of that bandage."

  He smiled at that. He liked the idea of something she had worn now pressed to his skin, her scent wrapping around him.

  She focused on her task, frowning a little as she worked. The firelight played over one side of her face, while darkness cloaked the other side of her. He leaned back on his hands and allowed her to work, too tired to protest, unable to remember when anyone had last shown him such tenderness. His mother had not one to do so for she had swooned over so much as a bruise and left his care mostly to nursemaids. She had adored, however, dressing him as fine as she should could, something he had loathed as a boy. His English cousins had teased him horribly over the lace at his throat and wrists, and his velvet suits. And over his faint accent. And for every other thing that had marked him different. Later, he had enjoyed throwing every convention he could find back into their faces with his defiance and his disdain of them.

  He let out a soft sigh. "Ah, ma chére, why are we so bad for each other? I drag you into this, and now you are left having to patch me. And after being so rude to you tonight as well."

  She struggled and found a smile. "At least you know to bring a decent meal back with you. How long do you think it will take us to reach Boulogne in that donkey cart of yours—must we really travel in that contraption?"

  "It's safer. Even more so if we stay to the back roads. Have you thought as well that we could make for Dieppe from here? It's not so far."

  She glanced at him. "But Dieppe makes for a very long crossing to England."

  He smiled. "You sound like a cat who does not like the water."

  "Cats are sensible creatures. And if you had spent your last crossing hanging over a ship's railing, you might think twice about extending the time you must bob about in the water."

  He grinned at her. She pulled the bandage from his skin, and with a wince, he glanced down. A red gash of perhaps four inches, puffy and deep enough to scar, cut horizontally over his ribs. He had enough vanity that the fact it would forever mar his side irritated him. "Well, at least it no longer bleeds."

  "Yes, but I do not like that swelling or the redness. Did you bring any powders back with you?"

  "A visit to any apothecary seemed as good as leaving my calling card to be found—those soldiers know I've been shot."

  "We shall have to make do with charred wood then."

  He pulled back. "Wood? Since when do you know how to heal, and where did you hear such a wives tale?"

  "From a wife. A midwife, actually. I did my lying in with Jules in the countryside and not with a London doctor. My aunt's advice, and she is someone who knows about these things—she has had eight girls and three boys. The midwife quite shocked me by blackening her hands. But she claimed she never had a lady or child brought to bed with fever after any birth because of it."

  "If it is good enough to suit my lady, by all means, blacken me like a moor."

  By the time Alexandria had his injury attended and bandaged again—using strips of her chemise—she wanted only to collapse. The fire had burnt down again, but she had no energy to rebuild it. Paxten, too, she guessed must be exhausted.

  She noticed how careful they were now with their words, keeping to topics without deep feelings in them.

  That kiss, however, lingered between them, making her far too aware of him, and of her own body's ache for him. She avoided looking at him as much as she could, and did not meet his dark-eyed gaze. She might lose herself in that darkness. Besides, they needed rest just now. After laying out blankets and pillows, she pulled off her shoes and sat on the ground.

  Within what seemed minutes of lying flat, she started to shiver. The earth seemed to suck the heat from her. She twisted, trying to find comfort. A pebble dug into her back. She turned on her side. In the darkness, some animal rustled through the nearby woods. Something small, she hoped. Wings flapped above them—bats or owls? She shivered. And turned again.

  A soft mutter, like a caress of rough velvet, brushed over her. "You are keeping me awake with all that noise you make."

  She frowned into the darkness in the direction of Paxten's deep voice. "I am sorry, but I am freezing."

  "Come here."

  At his order, propriety warred with physical need. Sharing body heat did sound utterly sensible, however. And they were far indeed from anything that even resembled Society, so why heed its restrictions? Bundling her blanket and pillow into her arms, she scooted toward his voice.

  "Spread your blanket down to lie on, then you may share mine over both of us."

  His suggestion sounded indecent. But warm. She did as he asked, careful of his injured side. Within moments he had his arms around her. Her arms nestled between them, elbows bent and her hands pressed up against his chest. The warmth of him soaked into her.

  "Better?" he mumbled against her temple, his voice already drifting.

  She held herself still. "Yes. Thank you." Oh, heavens, what had she gotten into with this?

  "De rein," he muttered the words trailing off.

  She lay there, tense, uncertain, embarrassed.

  How absurd was that? Who, after all, was there to see them lying with each other?

  Letting out a breath, she snuggled closer, and her lashes brushed his jaw as her eyes closed.

  #

  Birdsong woke Diana, light, soaring, bursting with life. She opened her eyes and lay in the back of the cart, her knees bent to fit. Sleep still held her arms and legs. But the world beckoned.

  The air smelled of spring—flowers opening to scent the dawn and new grass pushing up through the warming ground. Slowly she stretched. Why did everyone shut themselves up under roofs rather than wake this way every day?

  Sitting up, she poked her head from the back of the cart.

  And she stared, her jaw slackening.

  Not ten paces from the cart, beside the charred remains of the fire, her aunt lay entwined with Mr. Marsett. Her aunt's skirt had ridden up, and her stockings had fallen to reveal a bare calf. Mr. Marsett's shirt lay open, and her aunt's hand rested lightly on his naked chest. A blanket twisted about their middles, hiding...well, it did not hide enough, Diana decided.

  Ducking back into the cart, she lay down again. How charming they looked. She frowned. How ghastly they had been to each other last night.

  Her parents fenced in just such a way—always seeking to wound the other with hard words. Not an enjoyable thing to live around and she could not imagine it would be very nice to be a participant in such verbal battles.

  Thankfully, her parents generally left their children out of such matters. They certainly had left her out. An older sister—who was being presented to Society this year—and a younger brother, allowed her to mostly go unnoticed. She would never have been permitted to go to France, however, if either of her parents had thought she would end up sleeping in donkey carts and running away from soldiers. She had Henrietta's presentation to thank for that.

  "Every gentleman who pays a call takes one look at you and cannot even see your sister!" her mother had complained.

  Her father, of course, had not wanted her to go. He had thought it dangerous. He had protested that he would miss her too much. But her mother had won the disagreement, as she did most quarrels. Father would certainly never let Mama forget it that circumstances had proven him right.

  Diana peeked o
ut again at her aunt and Mr. Marsett. They had not moved. She rather liked how his head angled towards hers and how his arm lay around her aunt. So protective. Possessive almost. But did he really care for her?

  She lay back again. She did not understand them. Love ought to soften the heart. It ought to be kind. And gentle.

  An image of the French officer who had stopped their coach came to her. There had been nothing gentle about that harsh, handsome face. Nor anything kind in his words and manner. Still, he had stopped his men from rifling through their things. And he had allowed them to leave. Kind acts certainly. And hidden under brusque words and a hard expression.

  Was there also something hidden that she did not see between her aunt and Mr. Marsett?

  She let out a sigh. Why could the world not be a simple place with everyone honest about their intentions? It seemed to her that most people did not even know why they acted as they did. Which meant that Aunt Alexandria needed a chaperone far more than she ever had.

  Well, she could provide that for her aunt. After all, some danger on an adventure could be expected. But too much of anything violated the bounds of good taste.

  She made a show of stretching and thumping around in the cart to find her shoes and of remarking loudly what a glorious day had dawned. By the time she swung down from the back of the cart, Mr. Marsett had vanished and her aunt stood near the dead fire embers, running her fingers through the tangle of her hair.

  She smiled at once, but with her cheeks flushed. "Good morning, dear, I trust you slept well? I believe Mr. Marsett has gone to fetch us water. Do we have any apples left for breakfast?"

  They had no apples. Nor much of anything else to eat. Paxten advised them to drink a good deal of water. "It fills the belly," he said, and gave Diana a wink.

  She frowned at him.

  By the time the sun had risen high, she had forgotten to disapprove of him and instead begged, "Can we not stop somewhere for a meal? I am famished!"

  Alexandria gave her niece a smile, but her empty stomach echoed the sentiments. The cart rumbled along under them, Paxten's hands loose on the rein and the donkey proving remarkably quick in its walk. They had seen nothing more of anything resembling soldiers, but then they had avoided anything but open countryside.

  Abruptly, Alexandria straightened. "Look. There must be a farmhouse or village ahead—you can see the smoke there above the trees. Paxten, do let us stop. After all, we cannot not eat again until we reach England."

  He argued against stopping, but agreed finally when both Alexandria and Diana protested to halt should the smoke prove to come from only a farmhouse. "But, mind, I should do the talking for us. Now do your best to look poor peasants."

  "We have the starving part down quite well," Diana answered, her tone pert.

  Alexandria smiled. Despite her hunger, despite the sore muscles from having slept on the ground, she had never felt so happy. So lighthearted. Was it that she had at last been able to tell Paxten everything? Or was it just having slept in his arms?

  Her face warmed at that, but she could summon no guilt. Not when she had enjoyed it so much. But she knew better than to take it as anything other than what it was—a pleasant memory now, and nothing to indicate any hope for the future.

  Remember that only a few days ago he had someone else in his arms.

  But had he really called another woman by her name?

  Satisfaction curled inside her. She could not stop it. However, she knew enough to recognize the danger of pride in such a dubious accomplishment. Still, how nice that he had not been able to forget her.

  The smoke she had glimpsed came indeed from a rough farmhouse. The thatched roof needed repair. The stained walls had yellowed from mud and rain and needed whitewash. The gray stone fence around a pen of recently shorn sheep had rocks missing from its jagged top.

  In the yard, a dark-haired woman dressed in black scowled at them as Paxten drew the cart to a halt. Four thin, black chickens clucked and scratched the dirt around her, heads bobbing down to peck at the dirt. With weathered skin and her lined face, the woman might have been seventy or a badly-aged fifty. Her mouth pulled down and black eyes glared at them as Paxten gave her a cheerful bonjour.

  Easing himself from the cart, Paxten handed the reins to Alexandria and strode across the dirt yard to converse with the woman. Alexandria quickly lost track of his rapid French. She started to look about her, but straightened and looked back when the woman burst out with an angry tirade of words.

  Leaning close to her niece, Alexandria asked, "What is it? Did he offend her?"

  "I...well, she seems to be insulted by his offer to pay for food. She is going on and on that even with her husband and sons away in the army she needs no such charity."

  "Oh, dear. She is proud." Alexandria glanced at the chickens, thinking longingly of how good an omelet would taste. Such a delicacy seemed unlikely, unless....

  She turned to Diana. "Perhaps there is something we can do here?"

  Her niece smiled, and Alexandria swung out of the cart, calling in her awkward French, "Pardon, Madam."

  Her words stopped the tirade and the woman stared at her, eyes narrowed. Paxten also shot her a warning frown and started towards her, his French too quick for her but his gestures unmistakable. He wanted her back in the cart and to stay out of this.

  Folding her arms, she smiled, and said, "Non!"

  That stopped him. He stared at her, blinking. Turning, Alexandria urged Diana out of the cart. She whispered a few words to her niece.

  With his tone low to hide his English, Paxten muttered, "What are you doing?"

  Alexandria replied in her halting French, "Getting us breakfast." She urged Diana forward and the girl approached the old woman, her French low and hesitant. The woman's suspicious expression softened a fraction.

  "What did you tell her to say?" he asked.

  Leaning close to him, Alexandria switched back to English, "She is explaining how you are returned yourself from the army because of a wound. And that you hate to talk about such things, but that you are a war hero."

  The woman began to smile, showing crooked teeth. She grumbled something that seemed to be a question as to why did they not say so at once, and invited them into the Lafeu household.

  Paxten glanced down at Alexandria. "How did you know such an approach would work with her?"

  She tucked her arm into his. "I did not. But I understand how it is easier to give charity than to be given it." She thought of all the dreadful pity that others had tried to shower on her. For Paxten’s leaving, when the whispers had wanted to make her into a broken, abandoned lover. And then after Bertram had died. She had learned very quickly to avoid those who seemed determined to make her into something tragic, for it had only fed her own wish to indulge self-pity and she would not do that.

  "Do you think," she asked, "that we could perhaps stay an hour or two to help her just a little in exchange for her hospitality. She might not want our coin, but she may take some assistance."

  He frowned but lifted one shoulder. "Just remember, we could use some of that ourselves. And the longer we stay, the more time we give others to find us."

  His concern did not touch her. She glanced around at the bright sky, the sheltering trees around the farmhouse, the deep peace of the place. She thought of all that he had done to hide them—selling the horses, changing their clothing, keeping them from even so much as the sight of a city.

  For once, she found herself able to be the flippant, carefree one. She gave him a grin, and said, her words light, "Nonsense. It would take an expert pack of hounds to follow our donkey cart! Now, come and see if Madam Lafeu can be talked into making an omelet."

  #

  Patience. Practice and patience. Drills had taught him that. And now Taliaris told himself again those were the qualities a soldier needed. Was not this matter of stopping at every village and asking the same questions like a saber drill? So why did it not feel a task worth a man's time? Because this
endless asking never gave him the answers he wanted? But going through the pattern of slashes and lunges honed precision.

  This honed boredom.

  If only someone else had been on duty that night, Taliaris thought, weary in the saddle, though he had had longer days under campaign marches. Shaking his head, he thought of the letter from the general that had reached him this morning. General D'Aeth had been ordered to Santo Domingo by the First Consul himself to control that rebellious island. Taliaris knew what that meant. A long ocean voyage, and at the end of it an island in the Caribbean where death came more often from yellow fever than from any battle. D'Aeth had placed the redemption of Madam D'Aeth's honor into Taliaris's hands.

  Taliaris straightened. That letter had been a good reminder of his duty.

  At the sound of galloping hooves approaching, Taliaris reined in his mount. Lieutenant Paulin called for the column of twelve men to halt.

  A horseman rounded a bend in the road, sunlight glinting off the brass buttons on his uniform cuffs. The man bent low over the saddle, his red dolman jacket flying behind him and the plume on his shako bent with the wind. White sweat flecked his horse's dark brown chest. Even before the man slid his mount to a halt, Taliaris could see the hard breathing of both rider and horse. Dust caked the man's face and streaked his blue hussar uniform.

  With his horse fretting from the gallop and on a tight rein, the man saluted, and said, breath ragged, "Sir,...as you expected, the women...in the coach...they were not the English we seek."

  Taliaris nodded. He had anticipated nothing else, but he had needed to check the innkeeper's story. There had been a possibility—a slim one—that the innkeeper had been paid to lie that the coach carried only his cousin and her daughters. It seemed, however, that a few threats had persuaded the man to give the truth.

  "You detained everyone?" Taliaris asked.

  The messenger nodded. "Yes, sir. As ordered."