The Last Waltz: Hearts are at stake in the game of love... (Dorothy Mack Regency Romances)

by Dorothy Mack

  She winced, and the hot tears that had been crowding in flooded her eyes. “When do you leave?” she whispered, blinking them back.

  “In a few minutes. I want to say goodbye to Becky.”

  “And Lady Tremayne of course.” Adrienne averted her head, desperately trying to contain the tears that threatened to fall.

  “Pamela and I have already said our goodbyes.” Dominic had kept her standing with her back to the room, and now he lifted a gentle finger and caught one crystal drop from each eye. “Come, let us find Becky.” He enfolded the icy cold little hand in his warm one for a moment before placing it on his arm. “Ready?”

  The bright head lifted proudly, though she did not dare to nod for fear of releasing additional tears. “I’m ready. I won’t disgrace you.”

  “You could never do that, little one.”

  No more was said until they met Miss Beckworth. She listened quietly as Dominic told her the Reserves would be marching south at dawn and that he was leaving for the front immediately with messages.

  “You will see to the children?”

  “Of course. Come back safely, Dominic.”

  The earl smiled at her and turned to Adrienne once more, removing the hand that lay limply on his arm. He raised trembling fingers to his lips and kissed them. “Goodbye for the moment, little one.”

  “Vaya con Dios, Dominic.”

  A flame leapt into the earl’s eyes and it seemed he would pull his cousin into his arms, but he checked the motion as he caught Miss Beckworth’s warning look. The line of his jaw went rigid with control, he dropped Adrienne’s hand, sketched a bow to both women, and turned on his heel.

  The noise of the crowd remaining in the ballroom faded from Adrienne’s senses while she stared after Dominic’s retreating back, the fingers he had kissed unconsciously pressed against her lips. Never had she felt so alone in her life. A shudder rippled through her body and she drooped visibly.

  “Come, dearest, let us fetch our wraps and go home.”

  “What?” Blind eyes fastened on Miss Beckworth, who put her arm around the girl’s waist to guide her steps out of the ballroom.

  “It’s time to leave. We’ll order the carriage and get our wraps.”

  With automatic compliance, Adrienne obeyed Becky’s soft commands. Her tears had dried up for the moment; she was composed but absent in spirit, the older woman noted with mixed gratitude and concern.

  It was a matter of a few minutes to go upstairs and locate their light shawls in the ladies’ cloakroom. On the way down the handsome staircase at the front of the house, they almost walked smack into Lady Tremayne easing her way out of a crowd of protesting admirers with the evident intention of ascending. Adrienne appeared not to see the expression of pure venom that contorted the beauty’s face when her glance alighted on the pair. For a second Miss Beckworth feared she meant to speak to them and she girded herself for trouble, but Lady Tremayne evidently thought better of her impulse. She paused fractionally, then proceeded up the staircase without a word. Miss Beckworth relaxed her grip on Adrienne’s arm and quickened their pace toward the carriageway.

  The ride home was accomplished without a single word being spoken by either woman. Miss Beckworth could conjure up no words of comfort that would not sound trite, and Adrienne had simply removed herself from the scene mentally. Even her oldest friend hesitated to demand entrance to her private world of shadows. As she bade the girl an affectionate goodnight outside her bedchamber, she decided to leave her to her own devices in coping with her fear and unhappiness, at least for the present. Tomorrow would be time enough to speak of courage and fortitude, and by then perhaps no remonstrations would be necessary. She would see how Adrienne was handling the situation in the morning.

  When the morning finally arrived, however, neither woman was prepared for the situation that greeted her. Neither had slept well, and the strain was obvious in the shadows under Adrienne’s puffy eyes. They met in the breakfast room. Adrienne was already there, absently crumbling a piece of toast with her fingers when Miss Beckworth entered. After a searching look and a brief salutation, the latter glanced at the third place setting that was untouched.

  “Good morning, Moulton,” she said as the butler appeared in the doorway carrying a platter of grilled kidneys and bacon. “Master Luc isn’t down yet?”

  “Not that I know of, ma’am, unless he went riding early. No,” he corrected himself, “that he didn’t do because the door was still bolted when I came down.”

  “I see. No, nothing for me, thank you. I’ll just have coffee.”

  As the butler poured the dark liquid from a silver pot into the cup she was indicating, Miss Beckworth’s forehead puckered and she bit her lip thoughtfully. “Moulton, would you ask Antoine to inform Master Luc that breakfast is ready?”

  “Certainly, ma’am.”

  Adrienne spoke for the first time as the butler left the room. “He has most likely gone in to see Jean-Paul before coming down.”

  “Most likely,” agreed her companion, but she did no more than sip at her coffee until footsteps were once more heard outside the hall door.

  One look at the perturbed face of the young footman had Adrienne going paper white and clutching at the edge of the table for support. Miss Beckworth, scarcely less pale, reached out a hand for the envelope Antoine was extending to her.

  “His bed hasn’t been slept in, ma’am!” blurted the footman.

  Neither lady looked at him. Miss Beckworth tore into the note with clumsy fingers, and Adrienne fixed huge frightened eyes on the sheet of paper that emerged. Someone’s harsh breathing could be heard in the hiatus.

  “Oh please, Becky, no!” whimpered Adrienne brokenly when her companion looked up at last, her eyes blank with shock.

  “He has taken the place of a sick private in the Ninety-fifth Rifles and gone with the army,” said Miss Beckworth.

  CHAPTER 18

  An almost unrecognizable Luc Castle passed a green sleeve over his face to clear away perspiration and tried to recall what day it was. It had been Thursday evening when he left, stealing out of the house after Adrienne and Becky had driven off to some ball or other. From the talk about town that afternoon, he had felt sure that the army would move out before morning. His friend Josh Thornapple of the Ninety-fifth, who had been teaching him to use his weapon these past days, had fallen ill the night before and was intermittently delirious with fever when he had visited him where he was billeted with a Belgian family. The idea of going off in Josh’s place had been born at that moment and was full grown by the time he had returned to Dominic’s house for dinner. Knowing the family would never understand his yearning to be part of the upcoming battle, he had confined his explanations and goodbyes to the written word. When the drums had started beating, he was completely dressed in Josh’s uniform with his gear all ready. The Belgian housewife nursing Josh had tried to dissuade him from going, but he had paid her no heed.

  At the start, it was greatly exciting to form up in the Place Royale amid the trappings of an army on the move and march off with the others in the predawn greyness, down the Namur Road, through the gate of the same name, south to meet the enemy. He had done a lot of marching since then under far less salubrious conditions. As an activity it had palled even before they had reached their ultimate objective that first day. They had lingered for a time in Waterloo village before being ordered south to a crossroads called Quatre Bras, where fighting was already in progress. His first encounter with real warfare occurred when he nearly tripped over the body of a soldier when moving to take up a position. The sight of the young man, not more than a few years his senior, lying on the ground with his eyes open and a gaping hole in his forehead had turned Luc sick, but there had been no time to indulge his weakness. The Ninety-fifth had been thrown into the fighting, which lasted until dark. They had bivouacked in the fields that night, though he certainly hadn’t slept well. In fact, he couldn’t remember when he had last been rested, well-fed, dry,
and safe.

  At this point, it seemed his whole life had been spent defending this gravel pit near the Charleroi-Brussels highroad, first from waves of French infantry, then from cavalry attacks. He’d lost count of the number of cavalry charges that had moved up the slope in an awesome precision that chilled the blood but quickened the admiration. So far, none had succeeded in breaking through the squares to open up the British line.

  Wellington’s hodgepodge army was strung out over a three-mile front above some sloping fields around Mont St. Jean, where they had retreated — was it only yesterday? How could he ever forget that march that started out in dry conditions and turned into a mud- and waterlogged trial of endurance when summer thunderstorms turned the fields and roads into quagmires? Only the oldest Peninsular veterans had been able to sleep last night. The rest of his comrades had merely waited for morning, wet and shivering in the inundated fields of uncut corn and rye. He still wasn’t completely dry but he couldn’t complain of being cold any longer. The temperature on the battlefield was reaching hellish proportions after hours of fighting in the summer heat. His senses were dulled from overexposure to the sounds of artillery firing in his immediate vicinity and the appalling sight of growing mounds of enemy corpses in front of the allied position. Men on either side of him in the square had fallen, but so far he had escaped with a slashed sleeve and a stinging sabre cut from a French cuirassier who was falling from a bayonet thrust at the time. A semi-clean handkerchief was binding the wound at present, thrown down to him by a passing staff officer and tied around his arm by a fellow rifleman.

  The waiting between attacks was almost worse than the attacks themselves because there was time to think about the fear, discomfort, hunger, continual raging thirst, and the imminence of one’s own death. The fighting had commenced in the early afternoon, but that seemed aeons ago. It was almost impossible to tell the time of day, since the smoke of battle obscured the sun, if indeed the sun was out. It had rained earlier, he recalled. The enemy was forming again at the bottom of the slope in preparation for yet another charge. The defensive squares were thinning out with each attack, though more real damage was done by French skirmishes as a prelude and in the wake of the actual charge. The Ninety-fifth had lost both colonels, its major, and two out of three captains. The Duke himself had lingered to steady them during the last attack, but still they stood and still the French challenged the squares all along the centre of the line. The Duke was everywhere assessing the situation, rallying the defenders, calling in reinforcements where defences were collapsing, in constant communication via his aides with the situation all along his line. Once or twice, Luc had caught a glimpse of his cousin riding Trooper, but pride had kept him from bringing himself to Dominic’s attention. The incurious men of the Ninety-fifth had accepted him as one of them, though he had seen raised eyebrows that first day. For their own protection, they made sure the men on each side of them understood their assignments.

  The French were coming again. One of the ADC’s had told the men it was Marshal Ney who was directing the battle. He had managed to reform remnants of the cavalry for another charge. Luc could feel the ground under his feet move to the slow steady beat of the horses’ hooves as they breasted the slope. The British gunners waited to fire until the last minute, bringing down the front rank of charging horses before they abandoned their pieces temporarily to take shelter inside the squares. It had been happening for hours, the same dreadful war dance, starting with the drone of enemy artillery, giving way then to the rhythmic hoofbeats, rising in tempo with the shrill battle cry of “Vive L’Empereur” sweeping along the wave of attackers, and ending with a mad crashing as horses met bayonets and horsemen tried to drive through the ranks of the defenders. It had become a recurrent nightmare by now, but it seemed once again he would wake unharmed as the charge failed to break the square despite the bitter fighting.

  Luc turned his head to follow a cuirassier whose charge had carried him into the space between two adjacent squares. In so doing he looked straight into the eyes of a mounted staff officer riding across the cuirassier’s path. Dominic drew up in shock, and Luc saw his own name forming on his cousin’s lips. At that instant the Frenchman fired, and to Luc’s horror, Dominic fell forward. He found his own Baker rifle at the ready and pulled the trigger, noting with satisfaction blunted by fear that he had struck the cavalryman in the back of the neck. He was already running toward Dominic when a lieutenant grabbed his arm.

  “Get back there, man! Stand firm! It’s not over yet!”

  “My cousin! He shot my cousin, and it was my fault!” Luc struggled in the grasp of the officer, the strength of his desperation pulling the larger man forward.

  “Whoa there! That’s one of the Duke’s aides!”

  “He’s my cousin Dominic, I tell you! Colonel Lord Creighton!” Luc was still tugging to release his arm as he ploughed forward to where Trooper was pawing the ground with Dominic slumped over in the saddle.

  The lieutenant had come with him, and together they supported the limp body of the rider and eased him to the ground.

  “He’s alive,” said the officer after a cursory examination. “The ball got him in the leg.” He glanced up at the boy, who was ashen beneath the dirt and sweat of combat, and his jaw dropped. “How old are you, lad?”

  Luc didn’t see the lieutenant’s astonishment at the answer; his attention was all for the man on the ground.

  Dominic was not a prepossessing sight at that moment. A bloody bandage tied around his forehead testified to an earlier wound, and his complexion was colourless under the grime. He was unconscious, scarcely seeming to breathe. As Luc looked down at the powerful figure, now so helpless, pity and guilt overwhelmed him and he began to shake convulsively.

  “Put your head down, quick!”

  “I won’t pass out, sir. I’m going to stay with him.” A hint of steel stiffened the boy’s face and voice as he met his officer’s eyes.

  “You do that, lad. I’ll give you a hand getting him into a square to wait for a surgeon to attend to him.”

  Luc’s relief at this tacit acceptance of his desertion of Josh Thornapple’s duty was a transitory emotion soon forgotten in the rampaging worry about Dominic’s condition. It seemed an age before the regimental surgeon could spare a minute to examine him, and then his verdict shook the boy to the core.

  “The leg will have to come off. He could bleed to death if I tried to take the ball out here, and the kneecap is probably shattered.”

  “No! I’ll take him back to Brussels to his own doctor. He’ll remove the ball.”

  The busy surgeon shrugged. “Have it your own way. He may be strong enough to stand the trip, though the pulse is irregular.”

  Luc hesitated, almost paralyzed by the responsibility that lay on his shoulders, but the surgeon hadn’t waited around to see if he would reverse his decision. The supply of wounded that sanguinary afternoon was seemingly endless; his services would be required around the clock. The boy was kneeling there, staring worriedly down at his cousin’s still face when a familiar voice demanded:

  “Is Colonel Creighton here? I was told he was brought in here.”

  “Major Peters, over here!” called Luc, scrambling to his feet as hope and relief stirred in his breast.

  “Good God, boy, what are you doing here?” The major’s unbelieving eyes swept the concerned face gazing up at him and took in the uniform at a glance. “No, don’t tell me!” he added peremptorily as he dismounted. “Where is Dominic? Is he badly hurt?”

  Luc led Major Peters over to where Dominic lay on the ground. “The surgeon says his leg must come off, the bullet is in the knee, but I told him I would take Dominic back to Brussels and let Dr. Martin see if he can save the leg.”

  The cavalry officer had been making his own inspection of his friend’s wounds while the boy was speaking. The line of his mouth was grim, but he said, “Good for you, lad. These damned sawbones are knife-happy!”

  “The only thi
ng is, sir,” offered Luc hesitantly, “there is some question of whether Dominic can stand the trip, and I do not quite see how I am to convey him home.”

  “I’m told the roads north are already clogged with supply wagons, deserters, and wounded, and it can only get worse. This little affair is not over yet by a long shot. There will be another charge any moment now, and if the Prussians don’t get busy soon it could get pretty uncomfortable back here.”

  “Then you advise me to take him away now?”

  “I’ll try to get word to Nelson, his groom. There’s probably no hope of getting hold of anything on wheels, but I see you have Trooper here. Nelson will have the other horses. If you have to tie him on a horse and walk back, do it.”

  “If only his constitution is strong enough to survive the trip. If he dies, I shall feel like I murdered him — it was my fault he was hit!” Luc cried in an agony of anxiety.

  “Steady on, lad. If I know Dominic, he’d much rather chance the trip than concede his leg to these butchers.”

  “Right as usual, Ivor.”

  Both whirled to stare down at the man at their feet. His voice was no more than a thread, but intelligence gleamed in the pain-filled eyes.

  “You’ll be right as rain presently, old fellow,” Major Peters said in a confident manner, awkwardly patting his friend’s shoulder.

  Dry cracked lips twisted into an attempt at a smile. “Get me home, Luc,” Dominic said before he fainted again.

  It would have been a challenge to locate in all of Brussels on that terrible June 16 any persons whose state was more pitiable than that of Miss Beckworth and Adrienne. For several minutes after discovering Luc’s absence, they were too stunned to be capable of coherent speech or thought. Adrienne knew only that she was resisting rising hysteria, that each breath had become an almost Herculean achievement. She was battling for air like a person fighting his way to the surface of the water after falling overboard. At last she gasped: