Virtue v-1

by Jane Feather

  "Charlie!" She looked up in glad surprise, water dripping from her hair. "Thank God, you're safe."

  "Yes," he said, blushing crimson over his tunic as he stammered, "Um… Miss Daven… um… Jud… um… my cousin… my cousin sent me to fetch you. He's with the army at Waterloo. We're to go at once."

  Judith climbed wearily down from the wagon. What had Marcus told Charlie? "Is it far?"

  "No, a couple of miles. The army's in position across the Brussels road," Charlie said. "There's been no fighting today, because of the storm."

  "I have to find my horse and cart."

  "I have it," Charlie said. "Over by that farmhouse. Marcus told me where it would be." He stared into the middle distance, unable to meet her eye. "He said you… well, I gather congratulations are in order."

  "Oh, Charlie, it's too difficult to explain at the moment," she said, taking his arm. "In fact, I don't know whether I can explain it. It happened very quickly."

  "In Brussels, you weren't thinking of-"

  "No," she interrupted, recognizing his mortifying suspicion that he'd been played for a fool by his elders, who'd had their own secret liaison all along. "No. It just happened very suddenly. I don't know how to ask you to understand it when I don't myself."

  "Oh." Charlie still seemed unconvinced as he handed her up into the cart. "I'll tether my horse to the back and sit beside you. There's a tarpaulin we can put over us."

  Judith took the reins. They both huddled beneath the tarpaulin, although they were already so wet it seemed rather pointless. After a minute Charlie said hotly, "My cousin never does surprising things. Why would he suddenly get married in the middle of a battle? I thought people only fell in love like that in Mrs. Raddiffe's romances."

  Judith smiled and patted his hand. "You know what they say about truth being stranger than fiction." If that was the explanation he'd hit upon, then she'd leave him with it. He obviously wouldn't be able to handle the truth: violent passion, mutual seduction, inconvenient encounters, and a most scrupulous sense of honor… along with a quite unscrupulous seizing of an opportunity.

  Wellington's army was drawn up outside the village of Waterloo, straddling the Brussels road behind the shelter of a small hill that would protect them from enemy observation and gunfire. It was a relatively strong position, and the duke was in cheerful mood when Judith, escorted by Charlie, walked into one of the string of farm buildings that protected both the army's flanks. A fire burned in the grate and the smell of gently steaming wet wool filled the air as the soaked inhabitants of the farmhouse jostled for position near the heat.

  "We'll stand where we are, if Blucher promises us one corp in support," the duke was declaring, over a table laden with supper dishes. "Ah, Lady Carrington, you've been in the field hospital at Quatre Bras, your husband says." He waved a chop bone at her in greeting. "Come to the fire and dry off. Carrington's taking a look at the field. Boney's ensconced on the other hilltop."

  Judith dropped onto a bench at the table, exhaustion flooding her so she couldn't even summon up the energy to reach the fire. Charlie murmured his excuses and went off into the rain again to rejoin his regiment. Someone pushed a pewter mug of wine toward her, and she buried her nose in it with a grateful groan. As with last night, her presence was completely accepted. This didn't seem as surprising to her now that she'd met several women that day, laboring beside her in the hospital, all wives of soldiers, all accustomed to following the drum and enduring the same privations as the army while they waited behind the lines for their men. That Lord Carrington's wife chose to do the same was a little more remarkable, but then so was the marquis's position with Wellington's army as a civilian tactician.

  Marcus came in a few minutes later, shaking water off his coat, tossing his soaked beaver hat onto a settle. "It's raining cats and dogs," he said. "The roads are en-mired and the field's a mudbath." He saw his wife and came quickly to the table. "How are you?"

  "Dripping," she said, smiling wearily. "But well enough. I'll be even better for another cup of wine."

  "Take it easy," he cautioned, reaching for the bottle and refilling her cup. "Exhaustion and wine make the devil's own combination. Have you eaten?"

  "Not yet," she said. "I think I'm too tired." "You must eat. Then I'll show you to the chamber I've managed to lay claim to, and you can get out of those clothes."

  Judith toyed with a cold mutton chop and listened to the conversation. Marcus sat beside her on the bench and, when her head drifted onto his shoulder, put an arm around her.in support. Her clothes dried a little in the steamy warmth of the crowded room and she sipped wine sleepily, trying to make some sense of the discussion. Everything seemed to hang on the Prussians. Could they send a corps in support? If not, Wellington's army was alarmingly outnumbered by the French across the hill.

  The tension in the room was too powerful for her to wish to go to bed, and she shook her head when Marcus suggested he show her to the bedchamber he'd found in a cottage across the yard. At three in the morning, a drenched runner tumbled through the door bearing the message they'd all been waiting for. At dawn, two corps of the Prussian army would move from Wavre against Napoleon's right flank.

  "Twice as good as we'd hoped for!" Peter Welby exclaimed.

  Marcus examined a map with a pair of compasses. "It's ten miles from Wavre to Waterloo and it'll be slow going during this terrible storm on muddy roads. I expect they'll be here midday."

  "If the French attack before then, we'll have to hold the field until they get here," the duke said.

  But there was renewed confidence in the low-ceil-inged room and men rose from the table, intending to snatch what hours of rest they could before the attack opened.

  "Come, Judith." Marcus shifted her head from his shoulder and stood up, pulling her with him. She obeyed readily, stumbling slightly as he led her out into die storm, across the swamped stableyard, and under the low lintel of a small cottage.

  Men were asleep on the earth-packed floor and Judith trod delicately over them as Marcus hushed her with a finger on his lips. They climbed a rickety staircase and entered a tiny loft, smelling of apples and hay. A blanket-covered straw mattress lay on a roped bedframe. To Judith at that moment, nothing could have seemed more luxurious.

  "Are the French expecting the Prussians?" she asked, sinking onto the mattress. There was another violent crash of thunder from outside.

  "We're calculating that they won't be." Marcus bent to pull off her boots. "Napoleon's had Grouchy chasing a phantom Prussian retreat toward Liege, when in fact Bliicher's been moving toward us. I think we've caught him unawares." He sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his own boots. "I hope we've caught him unawares… You can't sleep in wet clothes."

  "Neither can you," she responded, struggling upright again, fumbling with the buttons of her jacket. "My fingers are all thumbs."

  "Let me do it." He pushed her hands away and unbuttoned her jacket. His hands brushed her breasts as he pushed the coat off her shoulders and her nipples instantly hardened, pressing darkly against the thin lawn of her shirt. Slowly he laid his hands over the soft mounds. Her tongue touched her lips as she stood immobile, her eyes locked with his. The rain beat against the closed shutters of the tiny window. Downstairs a soldier stirred and groaned in his sleep, the hilt of his sword scraping on the floor.

  With abrupt urgency, and in total silence, Marcus stripped the clothes from her body. Her eyes were on fire but her skin was cold as he ran his hands over her nakedness. "Get under the blanket!" he rasped, pushing her to the bed.

  Judith obeyed, huddling under the scratchy wool, watching as he threw off his own clothes. She held up the blanket for him as he slid beneath, pulling her against him, fitting her body to his. Soon there was warmth where her skin touched his and cool places where they were apart. His palm cupped the flare of her hip, flattened against her thigh, drew her leg across his own thighs, opening her body.

  Judith shuddered, unfolding to the fervid, searching car
ess, the deep exploration of the heated furrow of her body. Her thighs slithered against the muscular hardness of his and her tongue dipped into the hollow of his shoulder, tasting the salt on his skin before her mouth locked with his. Their tongues warred, danced, plunged in a wild spiral of passion that excluded all but their partnered bodies and their frantic need.

  "Love me," Judith whispered against his mouth. "Now, it must be now."

  Marcus drew her beneath him. He parted her thighs, then paused for an instant on the threshold of her body. Her eyes were closed, her face lost in joy, but as he gazed down at her, the luxuriant fringe of her eyelashes swept up, showing him those great golden-brown lynx eyes awash with passion. "Love me," she whispered again.

  With a little sigh he entered the moist tenderness of her core, and she closed around him. He eased deeper, feeling the suppleness of her body, and bent to brush her damp temples with his lips, to touch the corners of her eyes, trailing his tongue over the sensitive corner of her mouth. She smiled at the caress and reached down to touch him where his body was joined with hers. He drew breath as his pleasure surged. His hands closed over her buttocks, lifting her to meet him as he plunged to the very center of her being. The blossom of delight within her burst into full bloom, and she cried out against his mouth.

  Marcus thrust once more, deep within her, feeling in his own flesh the pulsating throb of her climax. As he moved to withdraw from her, her arms tightened around him as if to hold him within, but he resisted the pressure, leaving her body the instant before his own core burst asunder.

  They lay entwined as the fever abated, and Marcus felt Judith's heart slow as she slipped into sleep. He held her, wondering why he had withdrawn at the last. She was his wife now. She could carry his child. But the truth was that he hardly knew her, and had little reason to trust her.

  He awoke slowly, wonderfully, to the awareness of his body coming alive beneath whispering caresses. He heard Judith's soft murmur of satisfaction as he rose beneath her ministering hands, and he reached down dreamily to twine his fingers into the curls resting on his belly as she concentrated on her task. In the aftermath of passion's extremity, she made love to him now with a languid pleasure, learning his body as she tasted every inch of him, exploring his planes and hollows, and he yielded to her orchestration before conducting his own symphony on her delicate, thrumming femininity.

  Beyond the shuttered windows the rain-soaked sky lightened on the morning of Sunday, June 18, 1815. The storm had passed and a bird in the ivy began an insistent, stubborn song.

  Judith stretched luxuriantly beneath the rough blanket, glorying in her body's satiation, its complete relaxation. She was warm and dry and thought life could hold no greater joy than to spend the day in this loft with Marcus, sharing and exploring their bodies. But her husband was already pushing aside the blanket.

  "Must you?" she asked with a tenderly inviting smile.

  "Yes, I must." He bent to kiss her. "But you stay here and sleep. I'll see what I can find in the way of breakfast." He stood up, shivering in the damp chill of early morning. He picked up his clothes and grimaced. "Everything's still wet. Stay under the blanket, and I'll take your clothes to dry by the fire."

  "You can't hang up my clothes in front of all those men," Judith squeaked.

  "This is neither the time nor the place for such niceties," he said, shuddering as he fastened his britches. "Now stay put and I'll be back soon."

  "Yes, sir," Judith murmured, pulling the blanket over her head. "Without any clothes, I don't have much choice." His laugh hung in the air for a minute, then the door closed and she heard his booted feet on the staircase.

  She fell asleep again for an hour and woke to the sound of a bugle and the tramp of feet. After struggling up on the bedframe, she pushed open the shutters and gazed down at the courtyard where men and horses were splashing purposefully through the puddles. The bugle sounded again, an urgent clarion call that stirred her blood with both fear and excitement.

  The door banged closed below and Marcus's step sounded on the stairs. He came in with her clothes and a basket. "Good, you're awake," he said briskly. He looked distracted as he put the basket on the floor and dropped the bundle of clothes on the bed. "Your clothes are dry, at least. Other than that, there's not much I can say for them. There's coffee, bread, and jam in the basket. I'm going to have to leave you now."

  "What's happening?" She sat on the bed, wrapping the blanket tightly around her.

  "The French are advancing. We're-" A roll of cannon fire shattered the air, and for a second there was an eerie silence. Then it came again. "We've opened the attack," Marcus said, his mouth grim. "I don't know when I'll be back. You're to wait for me here."

  "Where will you be?"

  "With Wellington."

  "On the field?" Her heart lurched. Somehow she hadn't thought of him under fire.

  "Where else?" he said shortly. "Tactics change constantly as the position changes." Bending, he caught her shoulders and held her eyes with his. "I'll come back for you. Be here."

  "Don't go just yet." She put a hand on his arm.

  His expression softened. "Don't be frightened."

  "It's not that… not for me… but for you," she said hesitantly. "I want to be where you are."

  "It's not possible, lynx. You know that." He brushed the line of her jaw with a gentle finger.

  "Answer me a question." She didn't know why she was going to ask this question now; it was hardly an appropriate time or place for discussion of something so serious. But for some reason, after the passion of the night and in their present warm accord, she desperately needed to know his answer.

  He waited.

  "Why did you withdraw from me last night?" She regarded him steadily, waiting for his reply. When, last night, instinctively, she had tried to hold him within her and he had resisted, she had been drowning in the sen-sate glory of loving and had felt only the barest flicker of loss. In the cool clear light of day, she knew she was not ready for pregnancy herself; there was Gracemere to deal with before she could be ready for other responsibilities. And a husband to get to know before he could be the father of her child. Did Marcus feel the same way about her? About their situation? Or was it something else?

  Marcus didn't immediately reply. He stood looking down at her, his black eyes searching hers, almost as if he would look into her soul. Judith shivered, abruptly convinced that she was hovering on the edge of a chasm where something dark and repellent lurked.

  Then Marcus turned and went to the door. He paused, his hand on the latch, and didn't turn to look at her as he said, "I'll answer that question with one of my own. Did you know who was in the taproom yesterday before you made such a dramatic entrance?"

  The shocked silence stretched between them, and when she didn't answer him, he quietly opened the door and left.

  He believed she had trapped him into marriage. Cold nausea lodged in her throat. Of course he wouldn't want children by a woman capable of such calculating deceit. How he must hate her. But it was a hatred and contempt that didn't extend to her body. As far as Marcus was concerned, she was his wife in name but his whore in body and soul.

  Bitter bile rose into her mouth, and her head began to pound. Why hadn't she denied it? Why hadn't she poured out a torrent of violent denial, protestations of innocence, anger that he could think such a thing? But Judith knew why she had sat in silence. Because in essence he was right. He believed she had married him for his fortune and his position, and so she had. What did it matter that she hadn't known who was in the taproom when she'd strolled in. She'd still taken advantage of the situation… of Marcus's sense of honor. Why should he ever see her as anything other than a grasping, deceit-nil gold-digger?

  Shivering and queasy, she dressed in her crumpled, stained riding habit. The ring on her finger caught a shaft of sunlight and the gold glowed dully. Once she and Sebastian had done what had to be done-once Sebastian was again in possession of his birthright, their father
avenged, and Graccmere defeated-she would tell Marcus that no legal ties bound them. She would set him free. But until then, she must play out the masquerade. And what else was new? she thought with grim cynicism. Her whole life had been a masquerade.

  Outside, she stood looking around, trying to decide where to go. The sounds of battle were loud and terrifying, the clash of steel, the boom of the cannon, the sharp volley of muskets. Men were running backward and forward, and wounded were beginning to trickle in. Judith ran out of the yard and behind the group of farmhouses to a small hill. When she reached the top, she gazed in fascinated horror at the scene spread out before her. It was a field, bounded by hedgerows. Swaying backward and forward over those few acres were two massed armies, banners waving in the breeze, trumpets blaring. Wellington's infantry charged the squares of French soldiers. Cavalry rode over men and guns, lance and sword hacking and thrusting. Lines of infantry dropped to their knees, muskets aimed, there was a crashing boom, and the line of advancing French was decimated. From the distance of her observation post, the scene looked like some kind of anarchical play, wrested from the twisted imagination of a demented playwright. What must it feel like to be in the middle of that hand-to-hand melee, men facing men with but one intention-to kill? Bodies carpeted the field, men and horses falling on all sides, and it was impossible to believe there was any direction, any coherent strategy to the killing on either side. And yet there had to be. Marcus was somewhere in that murderous scrimmage, presumably making some kind of sense of it.

  She went back to the yard to work with the wounded but in the late afternoon climbed the hill again. The Prussian advance on Napoleon's flank was beginning to have its effect now, although Judith didn't know that. But she could tell that the French seemed to be falling back, or at least that there seemed to be fewer of them. Peering into the melee, she distinguished a massive cannonade centered on a small rise, behind which a brigade of British Foot Guards sheltered. It seemed to Judith that the cannonade must split the earth with its violence. And then, abruptly, the firing ceased. There was an unearthly moment of silence. Then the smoke of the guns wafted away and she stared, transfixed, at the column of French Grenadiers, Napoleon's Imperial Guard, advancing toward the rise. A great cry of "Vive I'Empereur" seemed to reach the heavens as the column moved forward in deadly formation.