by Diane Gaston
One man answered, ‘We know him.’
She did not mince words. ‘Is he alive?’
Two of the men shook their heads. ‘Don’t know, ma’am.’
‘I saw him fall,’ said a third. ‘Didn’t see him rise again.’
‘Dead?’ She stopped.
The wagon rolled on.
A bitter taste filled her mouth. She ought to continue, ought to search for Captain Fowler, but her vision blurred with tears.
She wiped her tears away with the back of her glove. This was no time to weaken, when these men had endured so much worse than she could imagine. She could still do her duty to Amelie and find Captain Fowler, no matter that she’d lost her dear brother.
And, possibly, Marc. How could she search for Marc? She did not know where he was or if he would return.
But she knew someone she could ask.
She turned around, trying to get her bearings. Using the towers of the cathedral to guide her direction, she started to walk to the Rue de la Blanchisserie, to the home of a duke and duke’s secretary, who undoubtedly would know more about Marc’s whereabouts than anyone else.
She tried to cross the street.
Two wagons rumbled by. A crowd of wounded men staggered behind them. In the midst of the crowd was a lone horse carrying two men on its back. The crowd parted for a moment and Tess could see that a man not in uniform led the horse.
It was Marc! The man leading the horse was Marc!
She ran into the street, trying to reach him, blocked by the poor wounded soldiers.
‘Marc!’ she cried when she came close enough. ‘Marc!’
He glanced up and stopped.
She ran towards him and threw herself in his arms. ‘You are safe! You are safe!’
He hugged her close while men flowed past them. ‘Tess. Tess. You were supposed to be in Antwerp.’
She clung to him. ‘No. I stayed. I feared you would not come back.’
The sea of men washed around them, but it was a while before he broke the embrace.
‘I found them,’ he said.
She did not know what he meant at first, but he turned to the two men on the horse. On Apollo. One man held the other, a man wrapped in a blanket.
‘Captain Fowler.’ He looked like death itself.
The other man said, ‘Hello, Tess.’
She looked up at him. ‘Edmund.’ It was like seeing a ghost.
She ran to him but could only hold his leg. ‘Edmund.’
He flinched. ‘My leg, Tess. It is injured.’
She jumped away.
‘Bring them to my mother’s house,’ she said.
Chapter Twenty
Marc could not believe Tess walked next to him through the streets of Brussels, or that she stayed in her mother’s house.
When they reached it, her mother took immediate charge. She directed rooms to be made ready for Edmund and Captain Fowler. Water was heated; food prepared. The men were bathed, fed and given clean bedclothes as well as clean bed linens. Their wounds were dressed. She’d sent for her physician and surgeon, but neither came. Too many wounded to be cared for in Brussels; too few surgeons and physicians.
Edmund suffered a ball through the shoulder, a sabre cut to his torso and another through his leg. He was feverish, but there was every chance he would recover completely. Captain Fowler, whose wounds were many, hovered near death and was insensible. Tess’s mother did what she could for both of them.
* * *
Marc had to leave Tess again that afternoon, this time to call upon Mr Scott and the Duke of Richmond to make his report. Afterwards he collected his portmanteau from his hotel. Wherever he went there were wounded men. They were on the roads, still walking from the battlefield or riding in wagons. They sat in the pavement or in the parks. They hung out of open windows.
How many more would die before daybreak? A vision of the battlefield, of the dead and dying, came back to him, sickening him all over again. He’d forced himself to walk through it to search for Captain Fowler and he’d carried Fowler back.
He felt sick anew.
That night he dreamed of the battlefield again, again seeing the faces of the dead and dying. He woke with a start.
The battlefield vanished and there was only Tess lying next to him. He held her closer and buried his face in her hair to erase the memory.
She turned to face him. ‘Something woke you.’
‘A bad dream,’ he murmured. ‘It is gone now.’
She nestled in his arms. ‘I cannot believe you are here next to me.’ Her soft breath warmed his skin. ‘I thought you would not come back.’
‘From the battle?’ Waiting, not knowing what was happening must have been its own sort of hell.
‘Not the battle,’ she responded. ‘Although I was afraid of that, too. I meant I thought you would not come back this afternoon. I thought you might be sent away again.’
‘Sent away?’ He sat up.
She sat, as well. ‘You went to see Mr Scott, did you not? To make a report?’ She met his eye. ‘A report on the battle, I suppose.’
She was not supposed to know this. How could she know? ‘Do not make guesses like that, Tess. Making up guesses like that could—could be dangerous.’
‘Do not fear.’ She touched his face. ‘I have said nothing to anyone.’
‘That is because you know nothing, Tess.’ He tried to be emphatic.
No one knew what would happen next. Was Napoleon vanquished? Or would he and his army rise to fight another day? Marc was not yet free of his duties and it still could be lethal for his clandestine life to be revealed.
She smiled. ‘Your father guessed. He guessed you were not simply running off; you were off doing a job.’ She held the covers over her nakedness and looked down at him. ‘It all suddenly made sense why you left and why you made up the story about the Alps.’ She sighed. ‘And here I thought you left me because of the lovemaking.’
‘Because of the lovemaking?’ Leaving her bed had been wrenching.
‘You explained it to me,’ she went on. ‘You thought making love to me would bring us unhappiness, like your parents, or death, like your brother and your friend.’
‘That is correct, Tess,’ he admitted. ‘I did not know of any man who felt so powerfully for a woman who did not experience disaster.’
‘It pains me to say it, but I believe the count and my mother have not experienced disaster,’ she repeated. ‘I mean, my mother hurt me terribly by running off with him, but look at them. They are still besotted with each other. They are happy.’ She spoke sadly of their happiness.
‘They might have managed together, but they left children without a mother,’ he said.
She nodded.
He sat behind her and held her tight. ‘I thought I lost you, Tess. I thought you would never forgive me for leaving you again.’
She twisted around to look into his face. ‘You were only doing your duty.’
He held her face in his hands and kissed her, a long, lingering kiss, and felt the passion flare between them again.
‘I love you, Tess,’ he said.
She rested her forehead against his and smiled. ‘I have my love match after all.’
Epilogue
February 1816—Lincolnshire, England
Marc had insisted upon bringing Tess back to Lincolnshire after they’d spent Christmas with his family in the country house. Lord Tinmore was hosting another house party to which they’d been invited and Marc had convinced Tess they must accept. It was a chance to see Lorene and Genna and Edmund, so Tess acquiesced.
They’d left Brussels as soon as Edmund and Captain Fowler were well enough to make the journey. Edmund healed well. Fowler returned to his parents and, his health still poor, had broken his engagement with Amelie. Amelie had become depressed and her parents had taken her to the country house to recuperate.
Marc and Tess had the house on Grosvenor Street to themselves. For all the turmoil of their meeting and marrying,
the life they’d settled into was quietly wonderful. No longer did Marc disappear now that Napoleon had been exiled to St Helena. He and Tess spent much of their time together.
Spending Christmas with his parents at the country house had been their first trip together. This was their second.
Marc had suggested they make the trip on horseback—he, riding Apollo, she, riding her Christmas gift from him, a sweet mare she’d named Artemis. Somehow they’d taken a wrong turn. Instead of familiar roads, they wandered places that she could not recall ever having seen.
‘I cannot believe you got us lost,’ she complained.
‘I got us lost,’ he countered. ‘You are from here. You should know where we are.’
She glanced around at the fields on each side of her. ‘I have no idea where we are. We could be in the Alps, for all I know.’
‘The Alps? Very amusing, Tess.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘Well, we had better find Yardney or Tinmore Hall or some place soon, because it looks like it might rain.’
‘Wonderful. We are going to be caught in the rain again,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I cannot believe our luck.’
He grinned at her. ‘I, too, cannot believe our luck.’
The roads turned this way and that and became narrower and narrower.
‘Marc, I am starting to worry. What if we do not find our way?’ She remembered how it felt to be lost and caught in the rain. At least this time she would not be alone.
Apollo pulled ahead of her a little distance and Marc turned down an even narrower path.
‘Marc!’ she called to him. ‘This cannot lead anywhere.’
He did not heed her.
The path led to a small cabin with a small stable next to it.
Tess laughed with joy and cantered up to ride next to him. ‘It is our cabin!’
He grinned. ‘I’ve arranged for us to spend the night.’
They settled the horses and walked to the cabin door.
Marc put a key in the lock. ‘I have the real key this time.’
She blinked. ‘How did we get in last time?’
‘My skeleton keys.’
He opened the door and she stepped forward to enter.
He stopped her. ‘Last time I carried you.’
He scooped her up in his arms and carried her over the threshold.
She gasped at what she saw. The table was set with bread and cheese and biscuits and tarts. There was a tin of tea and bottles of wine. A fire already burned in the fireplace and their chairs and the cot were arranged the way they’d left them.
‘I cannot imagine how you arranged this!’ she cried.
He put her down and enfolded her in an embrace. ‘My luckiest day was when I found you in the rain and we wound up here. I wanted to celebrate it.’
At that moment lightning flashed, thunder rumbled and rain pattered the roof.
Marc swung Tess around as they both laughed in delight.
They stopped and stared into each other’s eyes.
Tess touched his face. ‘It was my luckiest day, too.’
He leaned down and took possession of her lips as the sound of the rain filled their ears.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from STOLEN BY THE HIGHLANDER by Terri Brisbin.
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Chapter One
Arabella Cameron understood how the layer of ice on a frozen lake felt. The smile she held on her face as another Mackintosh offered a poem about her beauty would crack soon, just as that brittle ice did when hit by a stone. She did not hold out much hope that she could keep smiling as the words reached a new level of ridiculous praise. The tip of her nose tingled and the worry over her face cracking disappeared when presented with the larger concern of laughing.
Drawing in a slow breath, she blinked several times, hoping the danger of being impertinent or disrespectful would pass soon. As she raised her eyes, Arabella was horrified to meet the dark and brooding gaze of Brodie Mackintosh. Seated at the end of the table to her right, the older of the two men who were possible heirs to The Mackintosh stared back at her, not flinching and not looking away. In the short time since they’d met, she did not ever remember him smiling.
Nothing in his mahogany-brown eyes gave her any indication of how he felt about these men regaling their clans with tales of her beauty and graciousness. Or how he felt about her. Or the possibility that they might, within a few months, be man and wife. Distracted by his intense stare, she had not noticed the poem had ended or that the room silenced in anticipation of her reaction.
Until he turned his glance away and angled his head towards... Towards the Mackintosh bard who had stopped speaking and now looked expectantly at her, awaiting her reaction to his words. Arabella nodded and clapped her hands.
‘I am honoured by your kind words...’ She could not remember his name.
‘Dougal was not being kind, Lady Arabella,’ Caelan Mackintosh interrupted. Seated to her left, he met her gaze and winked, knowing she’d forgotten the bard’s name. ‘He was speaking the truth as we all see it to be.’ She turned back to the man who’d spoken and nodded.
‘Still, I am honoured by your praise, Dougal. And I thank you for composing and sharing it with our clans.’
The bard bowed and returned to his seat amidst the cheering of those gathered for this feast. Caelan leaned in closer and whispered so that others did not hear.
‘You have bewitched all of the Mackintoshes with your beauty and grace, Arabella. The Camerons could have won this feud long ago if they’d used you as their secret weapon.’ He touched her hand, a slight caress, and then lifted his cup to his mouth, all the while his gaze never straying from hers. ‘You have bewitched me.’
She’d heard these words before. She’d been praised for her beauty, a gift from the Almighty that had nothing to do with her own accomplishments, all of her life. But watching Caelan’s piercing blue eyes deepen as he spoke now made her want to feel something for them. She wanted to believe them.
He offered her his cup, turning it so that her lips would touch the place where his had been. Arabella allowed this gesture, this small intimacy, from the man she might marry. The corners of his mouth curved into an enticing smile as she drank the wine. The heat that spread throughout her was not from the strong wine but from the way Caelan watched as she swallowed and licked her lip where a drop yet remained. He leaned closer as though he would dare a kiss, here, now, and she held her breath, waiting.
The crashing sound of metal hitting the stone floor startled her and she turned towards the interruption. Brodie leaned over and picked up his heavy cup and placed it back on the table. Whether done a-purpose or by accident, it had ruined the moment between her and Caelan. And any hopes of rekindling it were dashed when her father spoke.
‘Yer aunt awaits ye there, Arabella. Seek yer chambers.’
Although she might have challenged her father were they in their own keep and with only her clan present, she would never do so here and now. Not with so much depending on her being an obedient, dutiful daughter whose only task was to save their clan from continuing slaughter and destruction.
Forming that hated smile back on to her features, she rose and curtsied to her father and to The Mackintosh, before walking around the table and down the steps. Her aunt Devorgi
lla stood there, watching her every move. No doubt, there would be instructions this night about her behaviour and appearance. Arabella nodded and smiled at anyone who spoke or whispered her name as she passed and her graciousness, after so many hours of being forced to it, tired her.
With a servant leading the way with a torch, she followed through the corridor and up the stairs to the chamber assigned to her for her stay here. Once there, she waited for only a moment to pass after the door closed before collapsing on the bed, allowing her face to relax from the hours of tortuous smiling. Pressing her palms against her cheeks, she knew what would come next.
‘You sat too close to the one and ignored the other, Arabella.’ Even with her eyes closed, she could tell from the changing direction of the high-pitched voice that her aunt was pacing around the edge of the bed. ‘You must not be seen to favour one over the other.’
‘Aye, Aunt Devorgilla,’ she said without opening her eyes.
‘You were not paying attention during that last poem. You must not show disrespect to the Mackintosh’s bard or his harpist or his—’
‘I understand, Aunt Devorgilla,’ she said before her aunt went on. ‘And my mother would be terribly shamed by my lack of manners at the feast...and by not paying enough heed to your warnings...’ Those words and more poured out of her and from the silence, Arabella knew she was not the only shocked person in the room.
‘Child,’ her aunt whispered. ‘Your mother would be proud of you. Proud that you are carrying out the duty you were born to fulfil.’ Her aunt’s voice grew deep with emotion and Arabella raised her head to look at her mother’s youngest sister. ‘She would be proud that you are doing your duty when it would be easier not to. When it means you must live the rest of your life among our enemies.’
‘Aunt Gillie,’ she said. The tears would not be held back now. ‘I am so sorry. I did not mean to act the wilful child to you. I value your advice, I truly do. I am exhausted and will be ready to face this on the morrow.’