The Sergeant's Lady

by Susanna Fraser

  Will held her hand in both of his. Anna caught her breath as he explored it, tracing each individual finger, rubbing a thumb against her palm. “So,” he said, “you thought I didn’t like it that you showed you wanted me as much as I wanted you.”

  Her face heated, but she nodded. “Yes.”

  His voice deepened, took on that husky catch that always made her want to melt into him on the spot. “Anna, I do want you, more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Knowing that you feel the same—that amazes me. And it makes me want you more.”

  She shivered with desire almost as strong as she had felt lying in his arms. She leaned closer to him, willing him to pick up where they had left off.

  But Will, curse him, had traded desire for philosophy again. “What kind of man prefers a woman not to be eager?” he asked. “It makes no sense.”

  “Eagerness isn’t ladylike. That’s what Sebastian always said.”

  Will snorted. “It isn’t? I had no idea ladies were a completely different kind of creature than ordinary women.”

  “A true lady rises above her animal nature,” she said. “At least, that’s what he said. I didn’t know what to think, and I dared not speak of it to anyone. I was too proud—and embarrassed—and what if he was right? It didn’t match with anything Great-aunt Sophia ever told me, but she is rather scandalous.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Entirely too much, I’m sure. She married and outlived three husbands, and she’s never lost her eye for a handsome man. She’d like you,” she added. Will ducked his head, and Anna believed that if there had been light to see it, she would’ve caught him in a blush. “I believe her exact words for the marriage bed were ‘the summit of earthly bliss.’”

  “The summit of earthly bliss,” he echoed. “She has a way with words.”

  “Tonight I begin to believe her,” she said shyly.

  “Anna.” He kissed her hand, taking his time about it. “This has been eating you alive since your wedding night, hasn’t it?”

  “Every day.”

  “I wish he were still alive so I could kill him myself for what he did to you.”

  She laughed shakily. Will said he was amazed that she wanted him. Anna was as dazzled by his willingness to slay all the dragons that bedeviled her.

  “But it’s late,” he said, in his sergeant-giving-orders voice. “You should sleep.”

  “Sleep?” She’d hoped for a resumption of a rather more strenuous sort of nocturnal activity.

  “Sleep,” he said firmly. “We’ll only get a few hours apiece tonight, taking turns with watches.”

  But tomorrow they would have a fire to keep the wolves at bay. This wasn’t over. She kissed him softly. “Good night, Will.”

  He caressed her face, tracing her jaw with his fingertips. “Sleep well, Anna. I’ll be here.”

  She fumbled for the blanket she had cast aside earlier, then stretched out on her side. She shifted until she found a spot reasonably free of rocks or roots poking her ribcage, and as near to Will as she could manage. Lying down made her recognize she actually was rather sleepy, and she stifled a yawn as she settled the blanket over her shoulders.

  As she drifted toward sleep, she experienced a fleeting wonder that the Honorable Miss Wright-Gordon, the heiress, she who had danced in spangled silk dresses with ropes of pearls wound about her throat, should have come to this only two years later, sleeping under the stars in a rough army blanket, at her side a Shropshire innkeeper’s lad turned soldier. Equally wondrous that she could feel toward such a man so much admiration and desire beyond anything she could fathom. The Honorable Miss Wright-Gordon would’ve been appalled. But Anna fell asleep well content.

  ***

  No wolves disturbed the night. Will sat alone with his thoughts under the canopy of stars. Occasionally the horse shifted and snorted in its sleep, but Anna lay still beside him, her breathing peaceful and steady.

  What misery her bastard of a husband had put her through. It was a wonder he hadn’t broken her spirit, and a testament to her courage that she was still so vibrant and passionate.

  He’d known that hers had been a failed marriage. If nothing else, its end had proven that. But he hadn’t come close to suspecting how bad it was. He’d assumed the usual unhappy marriage—one that had begun well, only to go sour over some quarrel never resolved or as the couple gradually realized they weren’t well-suited. Never had he imagined that anyone could put a woman like Anna through such a hell.

  Maybe there was a reason he had met her and been drawn into an intimacy that should’ve been impossible between a lady so grand and a man so common. Sebastian Arrington had served her ill and made her fear her very nature was corrupted. Maybe he, Will, had been put in her path to counteract that evil.

  What if he did lie with her? Maybe she needed someone to show her how wrong her husband had been—wrong about her, wrong about how it ought to be between a man and a woman—and that the pleasures of the body were meant to be given generously and taken with abandon.

  He bit back a bitter laugh. No use to think with his cock and pretend he was on a mission from God.

  When he judged that the night was half over, he gently shook her awake and gave her instructions about the pistol and under what circumstances she must wake him. She listened with grave alertness—a good soldier—and tucked him under the blanket with a kiss on his cheek. He’d never changed watches so pleasantly before.

  Eleven years in the army had made Will a good sleeper. Despite his turmoil, he slept within minutes, awakening only when the first rays of sunlight appeared on the eastern horizon. Anna had somehow got his head onto her lap and was smoothing his hair. He blinked at her, and she smiled, radiant as the dawn.

  Efficiently, and with commonplace conversation punctuated by uncommon glances and not-quite-accidental touches, they breakfasted on the remainder of the bread and dates, drank long from the stream and encouraged the horse to do the same, packed all their gear, and departed.

  Will turned the horse south. He doubted the Frogs would continue their pursuit, though he remained watchful. Tempting though it was, they couldn’t dawdle. They owed it to the rest of his company and the convoy’s wounded to make all possible haste back to British lines. The sooner they let someone know what had happened, the sooner a rescue mission could be mounted.

  And yet they couldn’t push the horse in this heat. The earliest they could reach their destination was sometime the next day, and that was if the army hadn’t marched since the convoy had left.

  At the beginning, he and Anna chatted easily of small things, exchanging memories of home and discussing books both had read. He fought shy of bringing up the previous night’s revelations and suspected she did the same.

  But her history nagged at him. When they fell silent for a few minutes as the late morning sun began to assault them, he spoke.

  “May I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why did you follow the drum? I’d have thought both of you would’ve been happier if you’d stayed behind.”

  “That was our plan before we married.” The tense, bitter twist was back in her voice. “I’d divide my time between Dunmalcolm and Gloucestershire, perhaps wintering in Lisbon so we could see something of each other before the war ended, at which point he’d sell out and live as a gentleman of leisure.”

  “On the strength of your fortune?”

  “Yes. Yet somehow I didn’t realize I was marrying a fortune hunter. He wasn’t the usual type. In any case, no one thought of a pampered butterfly like me following the drum.”

  “You, a butterfly?” That was the last word he would’ve chosen to describe his tough, brave Anna.

  “That’s right. You’ve never seen me as I was then—barely seen me not covered with road dust from head to toe.”

  “Fishing for compliments, Anna?”

  “A little,” she confessed.

  “Do I really have to tell you I think you’re beau
tiful?”

  “You never have before,” she chided.

  He brushed his lips across her temple. “I thought it was obvious.”

  “A woman still likes to hear the words.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said dryly. “But you can be beautiful without being a butterfly. You’re hardly delicate, and you didn’t have a pampered childhood.”

  “Perhaps I could outride and out-swim most young ladies, but I’d never known a day’s hardship. No, everyone agreed that I was to wait at home in my finery, dancing, playing my pianoforte, and generally being an ornament to society.”

  “What changed?”

  She sat up straighter. “Need you ask? Sebastian decided he didn’t trust me out of his sight.”

  “He made you come to war with him because he didn’t trust you?” Will understood, although grudgingly, why Sebastian Arrington had doubted her on their wedding night. But he could not comprehend why the man had remained unbending. How could anyone who spent any time at all in her company be so blind to Anna’s nature?

  She sighed. “He believed I’d already had at least one lover before we even met. Left to my own devices, there was no telling what scandal I might get into or whose bastard I might foist upon him.”

  “So he dragged you here against your will.”

  Her hands curled around the saddle’s pommel. “Yes, and I was obliged to pretend I was so in love that I couldn’t bear to stay behind. I was too proud to let anyone know the truth.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t imagine how it was for you.”

  “Well, I learned that I could survive away from my luxuries,” she said briskly. “Though I do miss my pianoforte. I never realized how much I loved my music until it was taken away. It’s such a comfort in misery.”

  “Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast,” he quoted.

  “Congreve,” she said. “You’re a well-read man.”

  He stiffened. “You wouldn’t say that to a gentleman who’d remembered a quotation.”

  She sat silent for a moment, head cocked to one side. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Will. I didn’t mean to patronize you.”

  “I know,” he said, mollified. “And to tell the truth, I didn’t remember who said it. I would’ve guessed Shakespeare.”

  “But still, you can’t tell me every sergeant in the army would’ve known it at all.”

  “Well, no. But I’ve had some schooling—” he worked the math in his head, “—six years in the village school, and I’ve always read anything I could get my hands on.”

  “I’m not surprised. I remember you reading that sonnet. It seems so long ago.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” He shrugged and shifted in the saddle to ease his aching legs. “It didn’t take me long to gain a reputation in the regiment for bookishness. Got teased for it at first. But I earned some coin at a time when every penny was precious, writing letters for those that couldn’t.”

  “Lucy and my cousin Flora sent me the latest novels,” she said, “and Helen and I read them aloud on nights the regiment was out on patrol.”

  “Cousin Flora? I thought all your cousins were boys.”

  “My mother’s eldest brother, the earl, only had sons. Her second brother, my Uncle Charles, is Flora’s father.”

  “I see.”

  “They live in Edinburgh. Flora is a few years older than I, and she used to visit Dunmalcolm every year to give me feminine companionship. She’s wed to a Lowland gentleman, happily at first, but less so now. She’s barren like me, you see. As was Great-aunt Sophia.”

  “I don’t see how you or your cousin could know such a thing, having only been married once.”

  “But I do know,” she said. “Sebastian cast it in my face on a regular basis.”

  “How could he know he wasn’t to blame?”

  “Easily. He had a bastard son by an old mistress.”

  “He condemned you for supposedly having a lover, then boasted of his bastard? That’s hardly fair.”

  She sniffed. “It’s the way of the world.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  She twisted around to lift a dubious eyebrow at him. “Are you a virgin, Will?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “I didn’t think so. But I’d assume your sisters were before they married.”

  “Not exactly. Kate’s first came six months after she wed, and a fine, strapping, nine-pounder he was, too. Though Mother did think it was shameful.”

  “Still, anticipating one’s wedding night is hardly the same as keeping a mistress or consorting with whores.”

  “I don’t consort with whores,” he said. He couldn’t quite say he never had, but that had been years ago.

  “I never said you did. You’re a good man, Will, but you’ve had freedoms your sisters never could’ve dreamed of and still called themselves respectable.”

  “That’s so. I know that. But still—what your husband did was beyond cruel.”

  “Perhaps,” she said with a delicate shrug. “But the facts remain. He got a child on his mistress, so I am barren.”

  Her voice held a world of loss and regret, and he fumbled to console her. “Are you sure? I can’t imagine that you often…maybe if you were happily married…”

  She laughed bitterly. “Oh, no. Sebastian always asserted his rights whenever we had a sufficiently private billet. He wanted an heir—he and his older brother were the last of their line, and he didn’t trust Hal to secure the succession before he drank himself to death or fell in a duel. And, I suppose Sebastian didn’t want me to forget to whom I belonged.”

  Will’s grip at her waist tightened. He had a hard time restraining himself from kicking the weary, overburdened horse into a gallop just to relieve his fury.

  “Why, that—he—” Will sputtered. “He forced you—”

  “He didn’t force me,” she said, her voice level and patient. “I allowed it. What else was I to do? I was his wife. I’d made my bed. I had to find some way to lie in it without going mad. So I learned quickly to…almost separate myself from my body. To think and feel as little as possible.”

  When a man lay with his wife, the law said that it wasn’t rape, no matter what her wishes were. But however one labeled it, Anna had lived through two years of hell. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How can you bear for me to touch you?”

  She laid her hand over his with a caressing squeeze. “Well, you’re not Sebastian, are you?”

  “I’m a man.”

  “There was a moment last night when I was afraid.”

  “I felt it,” he said soberly.

  “I know.”

  “I thought it was because of Colonel Robuchon.”

  “It was both. The weight, the feeling of being pinned down. But then I thought that if I gave in, then Sebastian would still rule over me from beyond the grave. And it was you, after all,” she said, twisting in the saddle to look up at him with a crooked smile. “I’ve liked your touch from the beginning.”

  “That’s good to know,” he said huskily, “because I’ve always liked touching you.”

  She leaned back against him. “The only good thing about my being barren,” she said, her color deepening, “is that you needn’t worry, if we—”

  “Anna,” he interrupted. “There’s more to worry about than getting a child. We can’t.”

  “But—couldn’t we? No one would ever know.”

  “We’d know,” he said. “I don’t want you to do anything you’ll come to regret. I don’t like to think of you back in your castle hating me.”

  “Why would I hate you?”

  He reached for the right words to explain. “These aren’t normal circumstances.”

  She gestured expansively at the empty tree-lined valley around them. “That much is obvious.”

  “Well, you might regret any rash choices you made now that you wouldn’t normally make.”

  She sat up straight, bristling. “I think I’m the best judge of wha
t I would and wouldn’t regret. I know my own mind.”

  “I know mine, too. I’m not yours to command.”

  “I know that,” she snapped. “If you don’t want me, or if you think it’s a sin, say so. But don’t deny me because you think you know what’s best for me and I don’t. I don’t enjoy being patronized any more than you do.”

  As he sputtered in search of a reply, the horse pricked its ears and danced restively. Anna gripped the pommel for balance. Will steadied her and tightened his grip on the reins, wishing he had a hand free to reach for one of the pistols. Something must be out there, to so stir up this placid beast.

  The crack of a musket rang out from the hill to their left, and the horse staggered to its knees with a gurgling scream, blood spurting from its throat. Anna fell clear, and Will saw her roll up to a crouching position even as he kicked his feet free of the stirrups and flung himself off the horse’s back before it could crush him in its death throes.

  “French, here?” Anna asked, her voice shrill with alarm.

  He already had a rifle in his hands and was scanning the slope. He saw movement, the flutter of a shirtsleeve, maybe, in the trees some seventy-five yards away. “Spanish, more like.” Maybe the local irregulars hadn’t recognized his uniform, or had recognized the horse’s French saddle and trappings.

  “We’re English!” he shouted. “Somos ingleses, damn you!”

  Another shot rang out, whistling just over their heads. Anna yelped.

  Not partisans who fought the French, then, but bandits who thrived on disorder. Will counted at least ten men partially hidden in the trees, and he could guess their intent—kill him and take as spoils the weapons he carried and the woman he guarded. They were a rough-looking, ill-assorted group, and some of them were armed only with knives, but they had him and Anna badly outnumbered.

  All this he thought in an instant while frantically freeing the second rifle and all three pistols from the dead horse’s saddle.

  Anna joined him as he took cover behind the horse’s body. Her eyes were wild, but her mouth was set in a grim line. No panic for her; she had a soldier’s instincts, a soldier’s courage. In that moment he knew he loved her, and he knew too that he would lay down his life for her and it would not be enough.