by Baird Wells
“Your family must be very curious about what you do here.” He hoped she would elaborate on 'family': parents, siblings, husband.
Her brows raised into a wry arch. “I doubt they wonder. By now I imagine them sick to death of hearing it. But what is the definition of family, if not making a burden of yourself to others?”
Impossible as it seemed, he felt better already. And she had offered him a perfect opening “Along that subject, Miss Foster, I have come to ask –” He reconsidered his intentions, “– to impose upon you. By no means are you obligated. I cannot and would not order you. But I would fall willingly in your debt...” Matthew swallowed against the quaver in his words, too self-conscious to continue.
Kate set aside her small tome and sat forward. The worry clouding her eyes said he had made the right decision. “You do not have to order me. If there is something needs done that will benefit the men of this regiment, you have only to ask.”
Feeling suddenly weighed down by his news, Matthew cast about for a place to sit. The only chair doubled as a book shelf. He hunched down, settling on the floor across from her. “My mother is in Brussels. I would like you to come with me, this moment, to see her.”
It had come out all wrong, and Kate was obviously confused. Her head shook, auburn wisps brushing her cheek. “Very late tea, or...”
The laugh felt thin in his throat, stretched with worry. “She is ill. Seriously, I fear. Our family physician has been unable to examine her, and my heart tells me if the matter is postponed until she returns to London, it will be too late.”
Kate stood up, scooping her letter onto the cot. “When can we leave?”
He had been hopeful, but Matthew felt there was a chance she would rebuff him. He could not believe she was agreeing. “You understand this is three hours by horse, through territory that is questionably held at best?”
“Isn't that any territory in this part of the world?”, she quipped.
Matthew groaned, nodded, and stretched back onto his feet. He met her eyes in earnest. “You are doing me a great favor. This is beyond repayment.”
Kate rubbed her hands together. “It's you who are doing me the favor. An unfettered opportunity to tell your mother how badly behaved you are.”
“I'm serious.” He grabbed her sleeve as she passed by, pulling her up short beside him. “All jests aside, you cannot conceive how much it means to me, knowing that my mother will be in your care.”
She rested fingers atop his coat sleeve. “This is not easy for you, I know. I certainly do not mean to make light of your worry. I don't want you to think for a moment that you are beholden.” She squeezed harder. “I'm humbled that you came to me.”
The heat of Kate's touch chased away some of the tension in his chest. He let it escape in a slow breath. “Thank you.”
She was already across the tent, stuffing something into her signature red bag. “Have you got horses already?”
He moved to the doorway. “No, I wanted to speak with you first. I'll secure our mounts while you finish preparing.”
Her nod was distracted, hands shoving vials and pouches into the sack. “I'll be ready by the time you return.”
* * *
The camp was a very different place at night. Matthew realized how little he appreciated it. Glowing tongues of the campfires attracted everyone in the evening, when the work was done. Two little girls huddled in a threadbare quilt, narrating the adventures of their wooden dolls. A few men sat up against the walls or lay on the bare earth, heads hanging drunkenly as they snored. In the wide makeshift bailey inside the main gate, couples took advantage of the space, weaving a country dance to the lively wail of a fiddle. A small crowd at the fire passed an earthenware jug, faces red from the heat and the ale. A leathery, white-haired crone handed boiled eggs from inside her cloak into the waiting palms of three or four knobby-kneed children.
The men saluted at his passing, wives and camp ladies bobbing small curtsies. The gestures were no less respectful than usual, but there was an ease about them at this hour of the night. The very same activities, with smarter uniforms, were probably taking place inside the officers' mess. The garrison availed themselves of leisure in the moment; it was impossible to know, with fighting on the horizon, if the opportunity would come again.
Matthew climbed the hill past the supply depot, stopping at the stable master's haphazard tent shored up against the wall of a paddock.
He shook Smythe's cracked leather boot, bringing the groom awake with piercing snort. “General! What's happened...what are we about!” Bony elbows hooked left and right, almost catching Matthew's shin.
He darted back a step, out of range. “Calm yourself, man. I need Bremen and Nelson.”
Bracing a hand on Smythe's forearm, Matthew helped hoist the man to his feet. For someone who spent his days working with horses, Smythe was paper-like, almost prohibitively thin. His unimposing shape belied the wiry net of muscles holding his skeleton together, preparing him to scrap with even the most spirited animal.
Fingers raked the brush of brown curls wreathing his head, eyes still moving with a bit of wild confusion. “Coulda' just sent your aide,” he grumbled, thumbs hitching up his breeches.
Not everyone was sharp when woken from a dead sleep, especially when getting precious little of it at any one time. Even so, he was in no mood to placate the taciturn stable master. He crossed arms, planting himself stonily on the spot.
Smythe nodded, scrubbing his eyes, and shuffled away toward Bremen's paddock.
“I'm ready, whenever you are.” Kate's voice surprised him from only a few paces behind, spinning him around.
First he was silent with confusion. It took a moment to realize what he was seeing. Then he paused a guilty stretch to appreciate the sight. When Kate dropped her left hip impatiently, Matthew caught himself and recovered. “Miss Foster, what are you wearing?” he snapped.
She was dressed like Colonel McKinnon, his aide-de-camp, with a black coat buttoned from chest to hips, its skirt hanging wide to brush her thighs. She was also clad in buff linen riding breeches and boots that were an amusing miniature of his own pair.
She laughed at him, shaking her head and walking past up the small slope towards the paddock. “Did you believe for a moment I would ride side-saddle for three hours over rough terrain?”
He had, Matthew realized foolishly. “So you will be riding...astride?”
The sly, low-lidded glance she tossed him over her shoulder would have flustered the stoniest resolve. “It's that, or ruin my favorite riding habit, and you know what a peacock I am.”
Matthew groaned, his body determining that three hours was already beginning to feel more like six. He followed behind, staring fixedly at the plaits of her braid to ignore the way tight buff breeches exactly resembled nude flesh in the dim light.
Securing his baggage while Smythe handed Kate up onto Nelson, Matthew wondered how they could get through camp, passing as few people as possible. Someone was bound to see her, and he was going to get complaints.
Despite her unorthodox approach to riding, when Kate gathered the reins and gave Nelson a measured nudge, it was obvious she was an experienced rider.
He flanked her astride Bremen as they passed through the gate. “I'm sure I do not have to acquaint you with the dangers roaming the countryside. We should be well north of where Major Burrell believes the French now sit, but intelligence is slow. Battalions take up new positions, patrols range out, and deserters have no borders.”
Kate raised a brow, bringing Nelson almost to a stop. “I'm now well acquainted with French foragers. I can manage.”
She was ignoring his point. Of course Kate could manage, but he did not want her to. The idea of something going wrong and not being able to defend her...he couldn't even entertain it. He wagged a finger under the tip of her nose. “If we get into trouble, you ride for help. Do not hesitate, or turn back for any reason. Is that clear?”
“So I should not have brou
ght this with me?” Kate flipped back her coat's skirt on the right side, revealing a pistol butt at her waistband.
He was impressed. “Can you shoot it?”
Kate smiled. “I certainly did not bring it for the enjoyment of a bruised hip bone.”
Matthew looked her over a moment, appreciating a good deal more than her practicality.
He fell into comfortable silence beside her. Away from the light and noise of the garrison, Matthew kept watch around them, at the same time indulging in a rare opportunity to take in his surroundings. To the right of their horizon, the moon's half circle beamed above crenelated trees, represented now by black silhouettes in the distance. They were framed by the dusky peach hue of a sun well below the horizon, fading up through the spectrum of blue till colors gave way to pinpoint stars overhead.
He glanced to Kate, whose head was tipped back, studying the dome of the sky. She pressed her eyes shut with a shake. “It makes me sick to do anything on a horse, except imagine myself off of it.” She glanced upward again. “It is beautiful, though. I was a little sad when we buried Doctor Addison, thinking of him never returning to England, where the rest of his family lie... But now,” she sucked in a slow breath, “I suppose there are worse places to slumber eternally.”
“A bit too close to France for me to be truly at peace.”
She clucked her tongue and laughed, a deep infectious sound. It made him feel better than he had any right to.
Beside him Kate inhaled dramatically. “All right. Prepare me for your mother. If she is half as formidable as you, I feel I should approach with my eyes completely opened.”
“Oh, twice as formidable,” he warned theatrically.
“Impossible!” She matched him, feigning shock.
“I'm quite serious.”
Kate pressed him, jokes aside. “Tell me the truth. Paint me a picture of the woman who raised a man such as yourself.”
“Meaning?” Her words had him a bit sensitive.
“Meaning second in command of the last army standing in the way of Napoleon's despotism.” She paused, smiling slyly. “A brave and perhaps dangerous man, with enough unearthly willpower to keep from strangling me. And I am certain you've wanted to.” She bumped him with an elbow. “You must be a frightful whist player, to bluff so well.”
“Keep that in mind, if we are ever in a game together.”
“Trust me, I have already made note of it. Now, about your mother...”
Where should he start? There were hardly words to do justice to his proud, beautiful mother. “She was really the only parent to me. My brother Charles was the heir, and what few sober moments my father experienced were lavished on him. I never recall her losing her temper with either of us, which nominates her for sainthood, because we were utter hellions. But my mother is clever, and she never had to resort to the switch because her punishments were far worse than a smarting backside.”
“I like her already.”
He chuckled. “I was afraid you might.”
Kate was studying him in the dark. “She did well. You seem to have come out all right.”
He preened a little at the compliment, then shook his head at Chas's memory.
“There was no saving Charles. He inherited the estate at twenty-one, and idleness encouraged all his worst habits. Drinking, gambling. He lived with a –” Matthew caught the word whore and quickly traded it for actress. “Every time Chas went to London, it took a year off our mother's life, and I began to march behind. I was eighteen and showing a touch too much hero-worship. Mama had me down to the recruitment office by the ear.” He laughed, remembering the afternoon perfectly. Mother's beautiful oval face pressed into worried lines as he stood before the sergeant-major, being circled like horseflesh. “When the sergeant warned her that India was a place of discipline and deprivation, her only concern was how quickly he could get me there.”
Kate chuckled, head shaking with disbelief. “You must have been furious, packed off like that.”
“No, not that I had a choice. Anyway, I was pampered nobility. India was going to be an adventure. I would get rich, be the bravest soldier in the infantry and come back with enough tales of both to woo every lady in London.”
“And you were successful, I gather.”
He nodded. “To varying degrees. The army got the last laugh, however. When I finally inherited Chas' title and could easily have gone home, I had no desire. It pained my mother, who was living in town, completely alone.”
“She and your wife –”
“No.” His mother and Caroline could pass at arm's-length and pretend with ease that the other did not exist.
“Oh,” breathed Kate.
Lady Adelaide had made it clear that Caroline would not be welcome in her home, ever. In his younger years, Matthew had mistakenly attributed his mother's feelings to a kind of snobbery. Caroline's family had suffered absolute financial ruin during her courtship with Charles. It had not dawned on him until well after their own marriage how quickly Caroline had transferred her affection from his brother to the new heir of Highgate. His mother had been infinitely wiser, while he was too enraptured to wonder at Caroline's easy change of heart.
They trotted at a jarring pace, down the root-bound face of a low bluff, terrain indistinct between the blue pockets of moonlight. Just as they dropped to the plateau spreading out from the Senne, Matthew spotted Brussels' twinkling cluster of warm golden lights on the horizon.
It was a breathtaking sight, and he drew to a halt, silently appreciating the view.
Beside him Kate was quiet, shifting uncomfortably in her saddle. He could feel that she was still mulling over the tense exchange about his mother and his wife. Matthew grasped for something to break the tension.
“I think you will get on very well with Lady Louisa. She is my mother's companion. If not for her intervention, I would have no idea that my mother is ill.”
“Hmph. Did she give any hint what might be wrong?” asked Kate.
“I'm not even certain she knows. There's hardly been any cooperation with the doctor, and my mother refuses to admit any frailty, even at her advanced age. We are discussing the same woman who walked two miles in the throes of childbirth when her coachman collapsed and the horses could not be tamed.”
Kate's lips formed a low, airy whistle. “I am impressed. And terrified. That is a degree of stubbornness that even I may not be qualified to address.”
“But God bless you for trying.”
“Hah.” Kate chuckled. “Be sure you put that on my headstone.”
They passed through the outskirts now, small stone cottages flanking the road here and there, houses he would guess had not changed in construction or ownership in four-hundred years. In front of one, a rusty lamp glowed merrily at its post, suspended from a horseshoe nail over the split-rail fence. In the next crumbling little house, shadowed faces appeared behind the darkened glass, peeking again and again, acquainting themselves with the common but still uncomfortable sight of strangers passing through their little village.
Nelson's pace slowed, Kate's head turning slowly in every direction. “It is so beautiful here. My heart practically aches.”
He smiled down at her, at the breathless way she spoke without any reserve. For all their quarrels, she left herself unguarded. Matthew realized it was something that put him at ease around her. There was no pretense to Kate. She raised no artificial barriers between them. If she thought it, or felt it, he would know.
He followed her gaze to the winking lights up ahead. “You should see it in the daylight.”
“I cannot say I would love it more. Look at that tower against the moon, and all these stars, the brambles tangled around the base of those ruins...” There was wonder in her voice, like reading from a fairytale.
He grinned. “Those are walls. Were walls, until our dear Napoleon convinced everyone a city is safer without them.”
“Safer, for him.” Kate chortled at her own joke, then sighed. “Walls, ru
ins. I'm satisfied either way. It makes me think of the way they describe Camelot in novels.”
“Wait until we reach the town proper,” he promised.
“You've been here before?”
“I was here just before returning to command of the division.”
And that was the last time, a voice added. Colonel Stratton's pretty young wife had been an attentive hostess, enthralled by his stories and eager for conversation. He'd had the sense that she was mostly overlooked by her older, more studious husband, but she had never shown a hint of impropriety when he came to dinner.
That had lasted until the until the first time he had been invited to stay the night with them, an offer made in light of the late hour and a long ride ahead. What had bothered him most was not that Charlotte had appeared in his room once the house was dark and silent. It was how close he'd come to succumbing to her advances. Charlotte was tender and complimentary, feeding a ravenous hunger for affection built on the neglect he'd suffered at home. She had kissed at his face, squeezing his hands and begging him not to send her away. She was in love, she claimed, and willing to forsake her marriage for him.
He had quit the house almost immediately, throwing the excuse of a regimental crisis over his shoulder to a gritty-eyed, night-shirt clad Colonel Stratton. He had avoided the city since, long after Colonel Stratton took retirement and shipped his wife back to England.
Kate's voice broke off the uncomfortable memory. “From Ty's stories I gather you were away a long time.”
“A few years. I went home, sat in parliament for a time believing I could affect changes there which I had failed to make with the army. And I did to some extent, but it was the most boring, if necessary, expenditure of my days. I was glad when I returned to command, but with a different division it was hardly the same. The thirty-third is my home. Three years with other regiments felt like a lifetime.”