Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady

by Diane Gaston

‘It is Edwin!’ Mrs Vernon ran up to him.

  ‘Good God,’ he said, his voice dripping with disdain. ‘It is you.’

  She ignored his rudeness. ‘Your father. Do you know of him? Is…is he—?’

  Edwin rubbed the scar on his face. ‘He was struck down!’ he wailed. ‘Struck down in the battle. In the hedges near the sunken lane. Our men saw him fall. I—I could not be in the battle, you must understand. My horse went lame. I was forced to stay behind.’ He dropped his hands and gazed heavenwards. ‘If only I had been there.’

  Mrs Vernon turned white. ‘Edwin. Do not say he was killed. Do not say it.’

  He lifted a shoulder in a casual gesture. ‘He did not come back from the battlefield. That means he is dead or will be shortly.’

  She rushed at him, clutching the front of his coat. ‘He might still be alive and you left him there?’

  He pried her fingers away. ‘Madam. The battlefield after the battle is a very dangerous place. Looters do not care who they kill.’

  She seized his coat again. ‘You tell me exactly where the men saw him fall. Exactly where.’

  He gave her the direction, although his description meant little to Ariana. Mrs Vernon released him, and Edwin brushed himself off and started to walk away.

  Ariana stopped him, fear of his answer nearly keeping her from speaking. ‘What of Jack?’

  He snorted in disgust. ‘Last I saw he was standing, but one can always hope.’

  She struck him across the face.

  He raised his arm and she expected him to hit her back but a general hurried by and he gave it up, leaving her only with a scathing look.

  Mrs Vernon came to Ariana’s side. ‘I am going to go and find Lionel, Ariana.’ Her chin was set in resolve.

  ‘You will do no such thing!’ Ariana exclaimed. ‘It is ten miles away.’

  ‘I do not care.’ She started for the hotel. ‘I will never forgive myself if I do not try.’ After the rigours of travel and exhaustive work helping care for the wounded, Mrs Vernon already looked ready to drop.

  ‘You cannot do this,’ Ariana cried.

  ‘I must. I cannot bear to think he will die in some field.’ Her whole body trembled.

  Ariana held her by the shoulders and took a deep breath. ‘I will go. I will find him.’ And as she searched for Tranville, she would look for Jack and hope not to find him among the dead.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jack shifted the burden on his shoulder and told himself to take one more step, then another, and another. The sun was hot and he was thirsty, but he dared not stop. Furrows from wagons that had travelled the road after the rains made walking even more difficult.

  His burden groaned.

  ‘Stay still, Tranville.’ Jack almost lost his footing.

  ‘Ought to walk.’ Tranville’s voice cracked with pain.

  ‘Faster this way,’ Jack managed.

  Tranville couldn’t walk. His leg was broken and the wound in his side would start bleeding again if he tried to hobble on one foot. There was nothing for it but for Jack to carry him.

  During the fierce fighting of the first infantry attack, Jack had glimpsed Tranville fall. After the battle, he heard that Tranville had been left on the field. No one could verify he’d been killed, and because it was getting dark, no one was inclined to go and search for him.

  The end of Tranville and his threats. Jack ought to have felt…something. Triumph? Relief? He did not know.

  All he could feel was hunger and thirst. Jack ate and drank and his mind cleared.

  What he felt was grief—on his mother’s behalf. Tranville’s death would break her heart.

  No matter how Jack felt about the man, his mother had loved him for more than twenty years. How could Jack look her in the eye if he did not at least try to find him?

  Covering his mouth and nose with a cloth, Jack had returned to the battlefield and picked his way back through the dead to where he’d seen Tranville struck down. He found him.

  Alive.

  After a hellish night listening to the wails of the dying and fending off looters who were combing the fields and stripping the dead, Jack carried Tranville out and joined throngs of wounded soldiers walking on the Brussels road.

  He shifted Tranville on his shoulder and staggered on, wishing they’d not missed the wagons carrying the most seriously wounded. He tried to keep his mind blank, but the sights, sounds and smells of the battle forced their way back in. He again saw flashes of the artillery canister that had struck down his horse, and the shock on the Imperial Guard’s faces when the British squares refused to break. He again saw his men cut down, heard their screams and smelled blood, excrement, gunpowder and sweat.

  Jack shook his head. His back ached and he faltered under Tranville’s weight. Pausing to balance himself again, he was relieved when Tranville lost consciousness. It made it easier to pretend he carried a sack of potatoes instead of the man he’d detested almost his whole life.

  Jack pretended he would see Ariana again if he only kept moving. One step, then another. The ploy worked; his pace picked up. He wished he’d painted a miniature of her. The days of battle had blurred her image in his mind. After Quatres Bras he tried to draw her, but the rains soaked his paper and her image washed away.

  It might take months or a year before he’d be able to leave his regiment, and by then who knew what changes might have occurred in her life.

  In the distance, coming in the opposite direction, Jack caught sight of a horse led by a man and woman. His mind immediately became riveted to that horse. He’d give anything for it…

  He kept his eyes on the animal as best he could, but it was often out of view in the thick crowd on the road. He wondered if Tranville had enough money in his pockets to buy the horse.

  Suddenly it seemed as if the men in front of him parted like the waters of the Red Sea, giving him a clear view of the horse and the woman who led it. He could not see her face, but something about her made it hard for him to breathe. She stopped and seemed to stare at him.

  He did not dare believe.

  ‘Jack!’ She ran towards him.

  His voice came out no more than a whisper. ‘Ariana.’

  She reached him and gaped at the burden he carried. ‘Oh, my,’ she cried. ‘Oh, my.’ She reached for him tentatively. Because he was so laden, she merely touched his face.

  Her hands felt too gentle, too real.

  The men surrounding them called out in approval, and her companion led the horse over to where they stood. Jack had to blink. His mother’s manservant, Wilson, held the horse.

  ‘Master Jack.’ The man’s voice cracked. ‘I’ll help you.’

  Ariana quickly took hold of the horse’s head while Wilson relieved Jack of Tranville, who groaned with the shift in position and roused momentarily while Wilson lay him over the horse’s back.

  Ariana wrapped her arms around Jack. They stood still, simply holding each other. He inhaled the scent of her hair, savoured her familiar curves, felt as if he were where he most belonged. Holding Ariana. His throat was so tight with emotion he could not speak.

  ‘I told you I would not say goodbye to you,’ she rasped. ‘I never will.’ She clung to him, then suddenly moved out of his embrace, putting her hands on his face, his arms, his chest. ‘Are you injured?’

  He shook his head, but, truly, he could not remember.

  ‘Come.’ She draped his arm around her shoulder to bear some of his weight. ‘I will tell you of Brussels.’

  She asked nothing of him, instead filled the long walk with details of their journey, descriptions of their time in Brussels. When they finally reached the hotel, she took him straight to her room. Jack collapsed on her bed and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Jack woke to bright sunlight pouring into the room and to the scent of hot tea and porridge.

  Ariana stood nearby with folded clothing in her hands. ‘You are awake at last.’

  He sat up. ‘How long did I sleep?’
/>
  She smiled. ‘About fifteen or sixteen hours. It is Tuesday morning.’

  He looked around for his clothes. ‘I must report to my regiment.’

  She handed them to him. ‘Wilson has performed some magic and found you a fresh laundered shirt and stockings. He has cleaned and mended your uniform so it looks almost new, and he polished your boots.’

  Jack grasped her hand and pulled her down next to him, placing his lips upon hers. ‘I fear this is all a vision. I fear that you, the food, those clothes will disappear—’ He stopped himself and shook the thought from his mind. ‘How is Tranville?’

  ‘He is much better. Wilson found a surgeon to set his leg. Your mother is taking care of him.’ She melted against him and kissed him in return. ‘You need not worry about reporting to your regiment,’ she murmured. ‘Wilson got word to someone that you saved Lord Tranville. You do not have to hurry back.’

  He released a deep breath, too grateful for words. ‘Wilson has been a busy man.’

  She stood. ‘Eat your breakfast and get dressed. All the hotel could provide today was porridge.’

  Porridge smelled like ambrosia.

  She moved a table near to the bed and placed the breakfast tray on top of it. ‘I will be right back.’

  He looked at her in alarm. ‘Do not leave.’

  She smiled. ‘I will not be long.’

  He hated to have her out of his sight, even for a second, but hunger took over and he devoured the porridge and drank all the tea. By the time he was buttoning his coat, she had returned as promised, carrying something else wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.

  ‘This is for you.’ She placed it on the table and took away the breakfast dishes.

  He untied the string and removed the brown paper.

  And gazed in wonder at the contents.

  She had brought him a box of charcoal and one of pastels, as well as a stack of fine drawing paper protected between two thick sheets of pasteboard.

  He glanced up at her, unable to believe his eyes. ‘How? Where?’

  Her expression turned so loving it was almost painful for him to look on her. ‘A shop in Brussels. I knew you must draw.’

  He felt as if he’d been imprisoned in a dark dungeon and someone had given him a key back into the light. He could not speak. He only knew one thing for certain—he would never say goodbye to her again.

  She started for the door. ‘You need time to draw. I will return later.’

  ‘No! Wait.’ He lifted his head. ‘Stay for a moment. I first must draw you.’

  She returned to him and brushed her fingers through his hair. ‘Very well, but there is no hurry, Jack. You will have many chances to draw me.’ Again her face wore the loving expression his fingers itched to capture on paper. ‘Because I intend to love you for ever.’

  ‘As my wife?’ he asked.

  ‘As your wife,’ she replied in a breathless voice.

  He laughed with joy, catching her in a quick embrace that made them tumble on to the bed. ‘No hurry, wife? Then there is something I must do before filling this paper with drawing.’

  She laughed along with him. ‘You place loving me before drawing?’

  He looked deeply into her eyes. ‘I place loving you before everything.’

  Epilogue

  London—June 1817

  The walls of the exhibition room at Somerset House were again filled with paintings of every sort covering every inch of wall space, but this year, with Canova’s visit and the excitement around Elgin’s marbles, sculpture was all the rage.

  Jack, virtually alone in the room, gazed up at his painting. It hung in a slightly more advantageous position than his paintings of three years before.

  ‘Progress,’ he chuckled to himself.

  He’d become successful since returning from the army. His painting of Cleopatra, unbeknownst to him at the time, had made his reputation. He’d come a long way from the artist who had stood in this very room, fighting for his sanity.

  He stared at his painting and remembered that day.

  ‘Which painting pleases you so?’ a low, musical—and amused—voice asked.

  He turned and beheld a breathtakingly lovely woman, looking precisely as if she had emerged from one of the canvases.

  She had: his canvas.

  He greeted her with a kiss upon her alluring pink lips, a liberty the nearly empty room afforded him.

  She smiled. ‘Do say it is the portrait of the mother and child.’ She pointed to his painting.

  ‘Do you like that one?’ he asked.

  ‘I do, indeed.’ She stood on tiptoe and repaid his kiss with one of her own. ‘It is most lovingly painted.’

  ‘Lovingly painted?’ Jack tore his gaze away from her face and back to the painting. ‘I agree. Most lovingly painted.’

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured.

  The painting showed Ariana seated in a garden, smiling down at an infant with curly auburn hair and green eyes. Their daughter, Juliet, the very image of her mother.

  Members of the Royal Academy hailed the painting as a modern Madonna. It brimmed with emotion, the members said, perfectly capturing maternal love.

  He and his wife remained arm in arm, gazing up at it.

  It was a long time before Jack spoke. ‘Where are my mother and Nancy?’

  ‘They are all with everyone else looking at the sculptures. Nancy said to bid you adieu, though. She was feeling a little fatigued. That happens, you know, in those first months. Michael took her home.’

  Nancy was expecting her second child. Her first had been born over a year ago, a boy who delighted in stacking blocks. You’d have thought the sun rose and set with him the way Nancy and Michael doted on him.

  Jack understood perfectly. All little Juliet had to do was break into a smile and his insides melted like candle wax.

  ‘And Mother? Is she fatigued as well?’ he asked.

  ‘She very well may be, but you know she will not say a word about leaving if she thinks Tranville wishes to stay.’

  Tranville.

  Jack had certainly failed to separate them from Tranville. Jack’s mother had married him. Tranville proposed after Jack’s mother had nursed him through the fevers that came after his injuries. He recovered eventually and his broken leg healed, thanks to her care. During those months Tranville became rather dependent upon her. She, predictably, forgave him everything.

  Jack had hired solicitors to make certain she had an excellent marriage settlement and generous pin money, both of which Tranville could not alter under any conditions.

  Tranville acted as if the whole episode with Jack’s family and Ariana, even his rescue, had never happened. Jack was not quite so forgetful. He tolerated Tranville out of love for his mother. As it had always been.

  Jack and Ariana did not see them often. The ton apparently had forgiven Jack’s mother her fall from grace as soon as she became Lady Tranville and their lives ran in a different social circle.

  At least Jack did not have to endure Edwin’s company. Edwin was unwelcome at his father’s house and there was nowhere else Jack might encounter him. Tranville paid Edwin’s allowance, but rarely spoke of him. It seemed Tranville could forget a son as easily as forgetting the havoc he’d created in so many lives.

  ‘You are looking serious,’ Ariana told him.

  He smiled at her. ‘Well, you mentioned Tranville.’

  She made an annoyed face. ‘Do not let him spoil our enjoyment of your success.’ She gazed back at the portrait and sighed. ‘Is our daughter really so perfect?’

  ‘She is like her mother.’

  She held him tighter. ‘More talk like that and I might allow you to paint me as Katharine.’

  Ariana was rehearsing for an August production of David Garrick’s Katharine and Petruchio.

  ‘I would be delighted.’ Jack glanced around the exhibition hall and saw they were alone. ‘This room will always signify a moment when my life was altered for ever.’

  ‘W
hen your first paintings were selected for the exhibition?’ She smiled.

  He shook his head. ‘When I first saw you.’ Jack placed one hand against her cheek and gazed into her eyes. ‘There is something I wanted to do then, but could not.’

  ‘What?’ Her voice was breathless.

  ‘This.’ He took her in his arms and placed a kiss upon her lips more scandalous than the portrait of Cleopatra.

  Author Note

  My apologies to Miss O’Neill, the actress who really did play Juliet to Edmund Kean’s Romeo at Drury Lane Theatre, January 1815, and Katharine in Katharine and Petruchio, August 1817. There was no performance of Antony and Cleopatra at Drury Lane Theatre in April of 1815, but Kean, who played many Shakespearean roles, might have performed the play. My story is peppered with other real people and places. Mr Arnold, the theatre manager, was hired when Sheridan’s newly rebuilt Drury Lane Theatre almost fell into financial ruin. A committee similar to the one to which Lord Tranville is appointed really did exist and included Lord Byron for a brief time. The places my characters visit in London were all real, the Egyptian Hall, Somerset House and its Royal Exhibition, the perfume and colourist shops.

  The Royal Scots and East Essex regiments were part of the same brigade and fought together at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. Lieutenant-Colonel Hamerton, Major-General Pack, and Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton really were in the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. The depiction of those battles is as accurate as I could make it.

  The glimpse of Brussels in June 1815 is from a memoir, Waterloo Days; The Narrative of an Englishwoman Resident at Brussels in June 1815, written by Charlotte A. Eaton, who travelled to Brussels with her brother and sister, arriving on 15 June one day before Ariana, the day of the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. Accompanying Miss Eaton was Aide-de-Camp, Major Wylie, although I made him travel with Ariana one day later. It is Miss Eaton’s account of Brussels that showed me what Ariana witnessed there.

  Miss Eaton visited the Waterloo battlefield after all the dead had been buried. She wrote:

  …but it was impossible to stand on the field where thousands of my gallant countrymen had fought and conquered, and bled and died—and where their heroic valour had won for England her latest, proudest wreath of glory—without mingled feelings of triumph, pity, enthusiasm, and admiration, which language is utterly unable to express.