by Autumn Rain
Lucien, who'd spent much of the day in his saddle, riding up and down the assault lines, returned to his tent to discover Leighton's letter. Bone-weary, he ordered his aide to pour him a cup of port, and he sank to his cot to read.
My dear Luce,
It is my not altogether sad duty to apprise you that Arthur Kingsley has died by his own hand, which may or may not surprise you. The poor fellow was confined to his bed, and I suppose ultimately it affected his mind.
In any event, in his final disposition, he proved more than fair, leaving Elinor her widow's portion as well as a fortune in her jewelry. Most of the rest goes to the child, Elizabeth, with yourself chosen to act as guardian and conservator until her majority. Under the terms stated, in your absence, I am to carry out your directions and act in your behalf, until such time as you are come home to deal with matters more directly. So I suppose I must ask what you would that I did, although I cannot think it much, for the infant is too young to require more than her mother provides for her.
Lady Kingsley herself is well, having routed Ashton from Stoneleigh, and her mother remains with her. Whenever I can, I intend to ride over to guard your interests there. One disquieting bit of news has come my way, however—Sally Jersey writes that Bell is seeking to purchase a place in Cornwall. Shall I give him the heave-ho for you?
I remain, as ever, your friend. George.
For a moment, Lucien was too stunned to think, then he reread the letter. Kingsley was dead. Elinor was free. He looked at the date at the top of the page and realized that Arthur had not waited very long after he'd left to do it. And now he sat in a stinking tent waiting to strike another blow against the French.
He read the words again, feeling a sense of unease over the bit about Bell, thinking perhaps he ought to have told Elinor he loved her, after all. But then there was the question of his own mortality. If she'd believed him, if she'd loved him in return, he'd not have her grieve twice. No, it was better to wait. Still, Arthur's will gave him a reason to write to her.
Ordering his paper and pen, he sat there, trying to compose something to encourage her. What he wanted to say, he could not—it had to be small, this opening, like the first breech in her defenses. Otherwise, she might consign his words to the flame. She might anyway. Finally, he sucked in his breath, exhaled fully, and began to write.
"My dear Lady Kingsley," he began, then stopped. Too formal, considering what they'd once been to each other. He crumpled the paper and tried again, this time addressing her as "Elinor, Lady Kingsley." That too landed in a wad at his feet. Perhaps just Elinor. But even that did not satisfy him. Telling himself he'd soon run out of the precious paper, he started over the last time.
My dear Nell,
I am in receipt of George's letter, and had I liked Arthur better, I should offer my condolences. Suffice it to say that I leave it to God to judge him. George tells me that you and Elizabeth are both well, and for that I am thankful.
It's odd that you should have chosen to call her Elizabeth, for that was my mother's name. May she have a happier life than that namesake.
He stopped. There was so much that he yearned to tell her, but none of it was suited to a letter. If he wrote his thoughts, he should sound as moonstruck as Charley. No, this was his opening, nothing more. He went on.
If you should find Arthur's instructions onerous, if you would rather have another guardian for the child, I can recommend none finer than George. However, lest you think I want out of it, let me say I will count myself honored if you will but let me be a part of Elizabeth's life.
I saw her, you know, while you slept. And were it not for that black hair, I should count her a beauty like her mother. Myself, I rather preferred your red hair.
He stopped again. If he ran on like that, he'd be declaring himself before the end. The child. He had to focus on his daughter.
I do not suppose there is much a guardian does for an infant, but if she has need of anything, I shall direct George to provide it. It will not be until later, when she is possessed of your looks and Kingsley's fortune, that we shall have to guard her against the rakes and rogues like Bell and myself. In between, we have but to look forward to governesses, schools, dancing and music masters, all the while taking care that she does not become merely another insipid cipher for some self-centered fellow. If we are fortunate, perhaps she will be like you—possessed of everything from wit to kindness.
He'd said enough. Every sentence tried to turn to that of a lover rather than a guardian. He quickly penned a closing of "Until I may see the both of you again, Lucien, Longford."
But long after his aide had taken it out to add to the dispatch bag, he sat upon his cot, thinking of her. Despite the discomfort, despite the flies, he could close his eyes and smell the lavender in her hair, and he could remember the feel of her beneath him, the yielding of her body to his, and the answering urgency of her passion. His mouth was dry, and his whole body ached with the memory of how it had been. Mad Jack had been wrong—there were more than the right holes to a woman. There was tenderness, there was giving—even where it was undeserved.
When he got home, he was going to win her again, even if it took every power of persuasion he possessed. And God willing, he could make her remember the good times, the times before she'd come to hate him.
"My lord—?"
"Huh?" He looked up. It was Barry, come to drag him back to the present, to the war, to the terrible, awful onslaught that was coming. He wasn't going home to Elinor. He was going to France over the Pyrenees, and he was going to fight until the last Frenchman laid down his arms. And then if he survived, he was going home.
"Are you quite all right?"
"Yes." It was then that it came home to him, that Arthur Kingsley had made him guardian to his own daughter. And he knew why—he knew that Lucien would keep that enormous fortune intact for the child. "Yes," he repeated.
"Soult's coming. If St. Sebastian falls, it will have to be tomorrow. Old Douro means to attempt a daylight assault."
"Daylight?"
"Got to, he says—for the artillery to be effective. Cannot afford to fire on our own men. Going to start firing in the morning." Barry looked away. "A lot of us are going to die."
"Probably one in three," Lucien agreed grimly.
"He wants a staff meeting over supper."
"I'll be there."
After Barry left, Lucien drained the last of his cup of port. It was as well that he'd not written anything else to Elinor. He'd be damned lucky if he saw the sun go down tomorrow. And if he survived that, there were dozens, perhaps a hundred such battles to be fought between St. Sebastian and Paris.
There was smoke and fire everywhere—from the belching guns to the flames that licked along the walls of the little fortress town. And the roar of the cannon was deafening, so much so that Lucien had stuffed lint into his ears against the sound. With a handkerchief tied over his nose to allow for breath, Lucien rode along the wall of men, urging them on, watching helplessly as they fell back. The hills were covered with red-coated bodies, some still quivering and jerking, while others heroically braved the fire to carry those that lived back down. And through it all, he told himself that he had to survive-that he had to go home this time.
Later, it was calm save for the cries and the moaning. Above, St. Sebastian was naught but a smoldering ruin, over which flew the British flag. It had been another costly victory—some regiments reported casualties of more than half, some more than one-third, and nearly every one had lost at least a quarter. Outside the fortress itself, four thousand French, those who'd come in vain to raise the siege, lay dead. In the twilight, a French flag, its standard still clutched in a stiff hand, fluttered alone.
This time he'd been lucky. Aside from soot and blood that smeared his face and uniform, he'd been untouched by it all. He sat on the grass alone, wiping the bloody blade of his bayonet with the dirty handkerchief that had covered his face.
"One down—God knows how many mor
e to go," Barry murmured, dropping down beside him.
"It's a long way to Paris."
"Aye—but that's how it's done—one victory at a time."
"I know."
"Mad Jack would have savored this."
Lucien threw his handkerchief away, then rose. "I'm not Mad Jack. I've got someone to go home to." He looked down at Barry. "Jack didn't have anyone. Fool that he was, he didn't know he needed somebody." Then, feeling somehow ungracious to the older man, he clapped his shoulder. "Your pardon, but I've got a letter to write."
On September 3, a semaphored message was received from offshore, telling that Austria and Prussia had joined Russia against France. It was what Wellington had been waiting for. But first the British army had to break through Soult's mountain defenses. They were going to have to fight their way through the heights and passes, pushing the French back mile by bloody mile.
All manner of alien places came into Lucien's vocabulary, rolling off his tongue as though he'd been born to speak them—Hendaye, the Bidassoa, the Nivelle, St. Jean de Luz. They had to close off any means of restricting supplies from the sea.
On October 7, the light companies of the 5th Division waded armpit deep across the Bidassoa River to surprise the French on their frontier. Another bloody battle, and then the Pyrenean heights, from whence they looked down into France itself. And still Lucien lived as the lists of casualties sent home mounted, some of them taking a full dispatch pouch crammed to the buckle.
By November, they'd broken through Soult's lines along the Nivelle. It was rough country—hard, high, craggy—in some ways as barren and rocky as parts of Cornwall. But they took it and moved on. And again Lucien wrote to Elinor, not as a lover, but as Elizabeth's concerned guardian. But with each subsequent battle, he began to feel as though he would eventually go home alive.
Now as they pushed into France, there were half-buried, half-decayed corpses of Napoleon's Grand Armee everywhere, but the Little Corporal would not yield, preferring to live with the fantasy that he could somehow survive. It was going to be a fight to the death between the French and the world, for little countries once subjugated, fell into the fray on the allies' side now. And Wellington, fearful of an early peace, one that would not leave Napoleon beaten, pushed harder and harder.
To Lucien, it began to seem as though the war would never end. Christmas, the new year of 1814, a winter of battle after battle, of heavy casualties offset by heavier ones on the other side, of massive French desertions, of surrenders that strained the supplies. Still, he wrote Elinor, sending perhaps a letter a week, telling of where he was, what he did.
And to his surprise, she finally answered. It was old news, having followed him for two months, but it was from her nonetheless. But he read it and reread it, seeking something not said, and found nothing. She talked of the child, of its first tooth, of how much the little girl grew—but nothing beyond "as for me, I am quite well." Not much to pin great hope on.
By now, he knew he loved her desperately, that if he could have honorably done so, he would have gone home to put it to the touch. He no longer even worried about Mad Jack—he'd proven to himself he was different. Yet still he could not bring himself to write it. When he poured out his soul, he wanted to be home.
CHAPTER 36
Elinor read and reread every letter over and over again. As his letters were more news-filled than loverlike, she took to sharing them with Leighton. And she prayed silently. And prayed. And prayed.
And she followed the war through the posts. Every paper that came from London was filled with the glory of great victories. December brought not only Christmas, but also the chilling news that while the British had taken Bayonne, the cost had been horrifying, a "slaughter" of the victors, the papers called it, and the lists of the dead went on for page after page after page, on and on, and Elinor read every one with dread. They would not notify her, after all, for she had no legal claim on Longford.
In January, when a packet of his letters arrived, some bearing dates beyond the battle, she literally wept with relief. Had it not been for Leighton and her daughter, Elinor thought she would have gone mad. But by now Elizabeth had discovered she could propel herself about by scooting, something that Elinor promptly wrote of to Lucien.
But sometimes in the night, sometimes when the house was silent and dark, she lay awake thinking of him, wondering if he cared anymore. If he did, he never spoke of it in his letters. If he did, he gave her little to believe so. And still she lay there, her body aching with remembered passion, her mind longing for him to hold her again, to tell her he loved her.
In March came letters from Longford, describing Britain's new weapon, the Congreve rocket, which was "extraordinary inaccurate but nonetheless useful, for it sets whatever it hits on fire. We shoot them into the air, and regardless of where they come down, something French burns." And the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians crossed into France over the Rhine.
There also was word of another terrible, costly battle, this one costing more than two thousand British lives. And again, Elinor and Leighton scanned the papers looking for Longford's name. But still Britain rejoiced—the Allies were advancing on Paris. At the end of the month, Lucien's letter mentioned sleeping in a "real bed for the first time in months."
Days after, April 5, two things happened—Bell Town-send returned to Cornwall, and the papers finally printed the news everyone had been waiting for—Paris had been taken, and thirteen thousand French defenders had died. Elinor prayed for them also, and Bell chided her that it was silly to pray for the enemy.
By Easter, Napoleon was facing abdication, but the British still fought in southern France, and then word came that Toulouse had fallen. The war was over. Even in the relative isolation of the Cornish countryside, church bells rang and there were as many fireworks and bonfires as on Guy Fawkes Day in November. As Elinor breathed her relief, Bellamy Townsend decided he'd wait no longer. He was going to offer for her.
Leighton had come over, played dutifully with his goddaughter, and shared hugs with her that it was over, then he had gone home, leaving Townsend to sup at Stoneleigh. Although it was chilly, Bell suggested after dinner that she wrap herself in a warm shawl so that they could go out and watch the fires sparkle against an unusually clear night sky.
As they walked up a rocky path to the crest of a hill, he caught her elbow, and she knew she ought to go back. But the night was crisp, the smoky air exhilarating, reminding her of the autumn, of another year when she'd been so terribly besotted of Longford. But this was different. As she stole a sidewise glimpse of Townsend's extraordinarily handsome face, she felt nearly nothing.
He knew he ought to wait, that the year was not yet over, that Arthur had died in August, not April, but the news that the war was over, that Longford would surely be coming home soon, pushed him. Finally, he chose a place where a fallen log provided a seat.
"We can see the fires from here."
She didn't know why she'd come, loneliness perhaps, but she knew she ought to go back. For all that she ached with longing, for all that she wanted to be held, she had no right to let Bell think she could care for him. But his hand tugged insistently, pulling her down beside him, and when she dared to look at him, there was no mistaking the almost lazy desire in his eyes. His fingers traveled lightly up her arm.
"Lady Kingsley," he murmured huskily, "I've waited a long time for this."
"No."
"I'd not ask you to do anything you do not want," he whispered, brushing strands of hair back from her face.
"I'd best go back, my lord. It was wrong of me to come. Elizabeth—"
"It does not bother me that she is Longford's, Elinor," he said softly, drawing her stiff body into his arms. "Come on—" His breath rushed against her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. "It's been far too long for you, hasn't it? You haven't been held by a man in a long time." As he spoke, he turned her head with his hand, and bent to kiss her. For a moment, she yielded to the feel of his bo
dy against hers, of his lips on hers, and then she pulled away.
"It's wrong, Bell."
"You want it—admit it."
"Yes—but I owe both of us more than this."
"I can see it in your eyes every day, Elinor."
"That does not make it right."
"Forget Longford," he murmured, tracing the flesh along the edge of her shawl. "I'll marry you. Tomorrow, if you'd like. Take you anywhere—anywhere."
"Bell—"
His lips moved lightly along her jaw, then played with the lobe of her ear. "Want you more than anything, Elinor."
She held herself very still, trying not to respond. "I— I cannot, Bell."
"Yes, you can." He nibbled at her ear, and the warmth of his breath was enticing, tautening every nerve. "Waited through the boy, Longford, Kingsley—don't mean to wait any longer."
She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Please—"
He tipped her over onto the grass and lay beside her. His gray eyes were like silver in the moonlight. A slow, sensuous smile curved his mouth as he watched her. "I know how to please you—I'll make it good."
She turned her head, torn between physical wanting and the certainty that she did not, could not love him. It would be so easy to let him slake her desire, to feed the need within her, to close her eyes and pretend that once again it was Luce that held her, but she knew she couldn't, that it had to be Longford or none.