“Don’t be a fool!” Perce snarled, suppressing an impulse to take his friend by the neck and dash his brains out against the floor.
But it was too late, and he couldn’t think of any way to mend the situation. If it had not been forbidden by his code, Perce would have burst into tears of frustration and fury and fatigue. Fortunately he still had enough sense to say no more and take himself up to the room. He nearly wept again when he saw it. The bed was filthy, marked with blood spots from where previous sleepers had been bitten by the multitude of resident fleas and bedbugs. Nor would he have the bed to himself. Pëtr’s bags were in a disorderly heap on the floor.
Shuddering with distaste, Perce began to peel off his outer clothing. He would have been glad to sleep in the stable with Sergei and Pëtr’s orderly. At least there he would have had clean straw; but that would be a social solecism that would really offend Pëtr Pavlovitch. Even the floor of the room held charms in comparison with that bed, but that simply was not practical at the end of November. He would take a chill, and this was no time to be sick. A few bites wouldn’t hurt him, nor would sleeping in the same bed with Pëtr Pavlovitch, he told himself firmly. Then, as he got into the clammy, icy bed, clenching his jaws to keep his teeth from chattering, he thought wryly he would probably be glad of Pëtr Pavlovitch’s warmth before the night was over.
Actually, Perce never knew when his companion joined him, nor was he aware of the gourmet dinner he provided for the bedbugs, fleas, and lice. Physical and emotional fatigue solved all of Perce’s problems within minutes. By the time Pëtr Pavlovitch came up to bed, he was so soundly asleep that his companion was able to roll him over like a log to make room for himself.
Sabrina stood on the landing, watching Perce until he disappeared into the darkness of the shop. She knew he would not turn back. Still, she waited until she heard the door close and Charlot shoot the bolts. Then she went into the dining room. It would be stupid to let Charlot find her standing there with tears streaming down her cheeks. It was stupid to cry, stupid! Perce had said he would try to come tomorrow.
She wiped the tears from her face and eyes and began to eat the cold, tasteless food on her plate. It wouldn’t be hard to find a reason to cancel any engagements she had for the next day. But even as she decided on the excuse she would use, she knew it was hopeless. Perce wouldn’t come. Tears started to her eyes again, but she brushed them away impatiently. Stupid! That wouldn’t help. Perce was right. If they found themselves alone, they would end up making love, regardless of the danger. And if they weren’t alone they would betray themselves.
It was impossible! Impossible to live without Perce, equally impossible for them to conduct an affair. Neither of them wanted an affair. It was also impossible to break with William at this moment. She had her duty to her country; just as Perce had his duty. His duty! War! He hadn’t agreed that the battles would be put off until spring. In fact Sabrina had the feeling that Perce thought there would be fighting soon, possibly as soon as Alexander found out what Bonaparte had done with his letters to Queen Louise and could order his forces forward. Sabrina shivered.
Don’t be a fool, she told herself. You’ll end up with the vapors, and everyone will think William has passed along some dreadful news. Sabrina knew that her principal purpose was to attend as many social functions as she could, looking serene and happy and talking with knowledge and hopefulness of the political situation. She couldn’t make excuses tomorrow. Her shoulders sagged. She would have to make her usual round of visits and attend the dinner to which she was invited. She might miss Perce! Don’t be a fool, she repeated to herself. He won’t come.
Chapter Ten
Sabrina was quite correct in her assumption—Perce did not come—but wide of the mark on the reason. Although it was quite true that he trusted neither himself nor Sabrina, his desire was stronger than his caution. He would have come if he could have. He was trapped into a round of meetings and conferences all designed to extract information from him or to push Bennigsen into a particular path of action.
The avidity with which he and Pëtr Pavlovitch were received and passed from person to person bespoke the desperation of the Prussians. Aides-de-camp were high-class messenger boys most of the time. Although there were cases in which officers made confidants of their aides, Bennigsen was definitely not among that grouping.
Between the first meeting, aimed at pumping out information, and the first conference, designed to convince them that one particular military objective was more important than any other, Perce and Pëtr Pavlovitch found time for a hurried consultation of their own. They did not have to decide whether or not to be truthful and admit they knew nothing—their ignorance would soon be obvious—but rather how to admit it. Also, Perce had to arrange a visit to Sir Robert. He did not need to lie to Pëtr Pavlovitch about that, only to tell him half the truth—Sir Robert had been ferreting out information about the Jena-Auerstedt battles and the subsequent condition of the Prussians, and Sir Robert might be willing to pass some of this information on to a fellow Englishman.
Possibly Perce’s evasion to visit Sir Robert planted suspicions in the minds of the Prussian officers; possibly it had nothing to do with Perce’s actions, and they had already decided that it was unwise to have two bright-eyed and big-eared young men wandering loose for too long in Königsberg. The Prussians thought it safer to sequester the aides in endless meetings. They were not actually trying conceal the magnitude of the military disaster. What they did not wish transmitted were the strong efforts being made to push King Frederick William into making peace and abandoning his Russian ally. If Bennigsen knew of that, he might withdraw, leaving them utterly defenseless.
The result, whatever reason the Prussian staff had, was that when Perce retuned, he found that he would not be able to get away again. Every moment of the day and evening was arranged, and they were scheduled to leave as soon as it was light enough, with “urgent” letters for General Bennigsen. Perce’s countenance gave no evidence of his bitter disappointment. He was surprised himself by the fury he felt at not having used his free time to be with Sabrina rather than Sir Robert. In the next moment he was shocked at such a thought. The hour he had spent with Robert might be of great value to his country. Surely it was more important than making love to Sabrina.
Whatever his mind might dictate, Perce’s body did not agree that the British nation preceded Sabrina in importance. He knew his duty, but he felt he should have gone to Sabrina. At any event, the opportunity was gone. Perce barely found time to scribble a note, which he pressed into Sergei’s hand.
“Give it to Lady Elvan,” he murmured, “only to her or Katy—Mrs. Petersen—not to Charlot, understand?”
Perce hated to confide even in Sergei, but he had no time to think, no time to phrase a letter of regret that would pass Elvan’s scrutiny and still convey meaning to Sabrina. Besides, he felt a desperate need to write what he felt. Thus, although Sabrina could have burst into tears of disappointment when she came home from her visits to dress for dinner and found Sergei waiting in a dark corner of the cobbler’s shop, she had some recompense.
“Darling, darling,” she read, when she had broken the seal in the privacy of her bedchamber. “I will not be able to come at all. We are held almost prisoners and must return to Bennigsen at dawn tomorrow. I hate the Prussians. I hate my duty. I hate everyone in the world but you. I am not sure letters will get to me, and I am almost certain any letter will be read by others before being delivered in any case, so, although it breaks my heart to write this, do not write to me unless you must. At need, address me care of General Levin August Bennigsen at Pultusk. I beg you to forgive me for taking the soft sweetness of your body, yet I would do it again and still again, knowing it to be wrong and unable to resist. I want you. I need you—and what I have is Pëtr Pavlovitch, who is hard as a rock and not overnice with regard to bathing. Pity me. Love me. Perce.”
With tears on her face, Sabrina burst out la
ughing. How like Perce to add a comic note to a love letter. She read it again, her eyes refilling, and spilling over. Fool that she was! Fool! She had had so many love letters from William, far more beautifully phrased, carefully written on rich paper, and she had never felt the falseness in them. She sat back, and the tears dried on her cheeks as a smile twitched her lips. Pieces of a half-remembered sonnet jumped into her mind:
My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
And then there were verses about loving her as much as those whose charms were vaunted as beyond compare.
Sabrina read Perce’s letter once more and sighed. The naked need for her, just raw wanting, leapt out of the page undisguised and as stimulating as a caress. This was no pretty game to Perce. It was not when she denied herself that she became more desirable. What were those other lines from the same poet? No, it was not poetry, it was in a play, Hamlet: “As if increase of appetite had grown/By what it fed on.” That was right. That was how it should be. Having her, he wanted more.
For how long? The horrid question buzzed into her mind, and she swatted it like a fly. Not Perce. He said he had never been in the petticoat line, and it was true. Sabrina had heard a great deal from Philip about his bits of muslin and the easy delights of a bawdy house compared with the stiff agonies of a formal courtship. But Perce engaged in neither. Philip had teased him, sometimes within Sabrina’s hearing, about his lack of enthusiasm for paid female companionship, and Sabrina knew from her own experience at places like Almack’s that he did not flirt. He was pleasant and easy with women in general, the result of having a mother and sisters he genuinely liked, but no one could mistake his manner for flirtation or seduction.
Anyhow, it was lunatic to worry about Perce becoming surfeited with her charms when they might not see each other again for months…or ever. Sabrina instinctively pressed the letter against her breast as if she could shield Perce in the circle of her arms. The crackle of paper drew her attention to the physical existence of the note. It was dangerously open, a total betrayal of their relationship. She should destroy it at once, but she would sooner have put out her own eyes.
It must be hidden, but where? There was no place private from Katy. Of course, Katy was no danger to her, but it was wrong, Sabrina thought, to burden Katy with this knowledge. She needed time to think, and besides, she could not bear to be parted from her letter. Hastily, she folded it and thrust it down inside her breastband. Sabrina smiled at her own silliness, but nonetheless she felt a square of extra warmth where the letter lay.
That was a comfort. Unfortunately, all else was a misery. No matter how she struggled not to think of it while she dressed, Sabrina could not help fearing that the letter and her memories might be all that would remain for her of Perce. In court circles there were a number of black-clad women whose men had died at Jena or Auerstedt or in the other lost battles and sieges that broke the Prussian army. There was also a pervading aura of failure and melancholy that fed on itself, increasing fear as fear increased.
Until now Sabrina had been resistant to that miasma. She had been careful not to sparkle, not to flaunt her sense of reliance on a secure island kingdom that had never been beaten. She had, however, tried to counteract the prevailing oppression with sturdy common sense and hope. Many nations had been defeated and had risen again to conquer. This, although quite true, was not in the case of Prussia very practical, since most of the effective means of waging war had been lost as well as the battles. However, there was also the fact that the Russians were coming.
The trouble was that now Sabrina was racked by personal fear. When the Russians had come—at least, the advance units—there was assurance that the remainder of the army would follow as speedily as they could. She should be glowing with assurance, reinforcing hope. But she was quite terrified, and ready to sink into despair. While the Russians “were coming”, Perce had been safe. The presence of Bennigsen’s army guaranteed that Bonaparte could not simply walk into East Prussia and gather it up at will, and thus substantially increase the safety of those in Königsberg. But it exposed Perce to danger.
But did it? Sabrina asked herself. Not every man in an army was on the front line. A ray of hope broke through the gloom enveloping her. The day of the knight who led his own men into battle was gone. Kings and generals tended to sit on a hillside at a safe distance to watch and direct the action through spyglasses. Captains and sergeants led the men, not generals. As a general’s aide, Perce probably would be no closer to the action than the general. Or would he? Sabrina realized she would have to discover the duties of an aide, and the way to do if was to get a general to tell her.
Suddenly her interest in the clothing she was putting on, her choice of jewels, the way the coiffure she had chosen framed her face, escalated dramatically. She began to primp with more real interest in her appearance than Katy had seen in months. Yet it was not anticipated pleasure Katy saw in the lovely face reflected in the mirror; it was an excited determination.
“Brina,” she said sharply “I dinna like the look of ye.”
“I’m fine,” Sabrina said absently, pulling a curl forward, then back, then lifting it higher to see the effect. “I feel fine.”
“I dinna doubt that, but yer plannin’ some mischief. I see that fine. This isna the time to be runnin’ wild.”
“Wild?” The word caught Sabrina’s attention, and she turned her head. “I promise I won’t do anything wild.”
Katy pursed her lips, unable to find much consolation in Sabrina’s pledge. However, she was clever enough to know that her little girl was now grown up. Katy sighed. Brina was more grown up than anyone had hoped. Katy wished she had been at home when Lord Kevern had paid his visit, but from Charlot’s description it had been most innocent. Still, it had made a deep mark on Brina.
“Does Lord Kevern know what yer plannin?” Katy asked.
It was safe enough to ask that. Such a question would not make Brina defensive or indignant. It had been a common question in childhood. Does Philip know? Does Perce know? Many of Brina’s escapades had been attempts to prove her capabilities to her “brother” and his friend. Thus Katy’s litany was to initiate caution, for Brina would hesitate to incur her idols’ wrath when she would ignore Katy’s.
The question did not have its usual effect of bringing guilty consideration to Sabrina’s eyes. Her lips softened as warm memories were evoked, and then lifted in a half smile. “No, he doesn’t, but I don’t think he’d mind. I’m only going to seduce a general or two.”
Katy relaxed. It must be that Brina had just figured out how to do some piece of business for Himself. That was all right. Himself might be a bad husband, but he would never set Brina a task that was dangerous or disreputable. Katy did not misunderstand Sabrina’s remark. The seduction would stop long before anyone could accept it seriously or be hurt. Katy knew Sabrina merely wished to extract some information painlessly.
But the information Sabrina wanted was not for William’s benefit. And in order to obtain a description of the duties of an aide-de-camp in battle, she hardly had to use her charms. Any general she approached was only too willing either to praise or to complain about his aides, depending largely on his own personality. Sabrina could have asked the aides directly, of course, but she was afraid that they would make light of any dangers involved. Accustomed to sifting rumor, Sabrina had no trouble picking out the facts she wanted from the chaff of opinions.
Unfortunately this left her little better off. An aide-de-camp’s duties were multifarious and included duties as widely different as acting as secretary and accountant and escorting female relations on picnics. In battle, however, the principal duty of an aide was as a liaison. Instructions from the general to his subordinate officers and the responses to those orders were carried by th
e aide. Whether this duty was dangerous depended, Sabrina discovered, on the kind of general and the nature of the battle. Generals who planned every action in advance used aides less than those who preferred vague, overall battle plans. Also, victorious actions, in which the aides moved far behind the lines because the troops were forward of the original positions, were less risky than defeats, in which an aide might find himself riding right through the action or across enemy lines.
None of it sounded safe to Sabrina, but she could understand varying degrees of danger. This seemed to depend a good deal on what kind of general Bennigsen was. Here Sabrina met her first check. Everyone to whom she spoke that night and during the following weeks was just as eager as she to discover what General Bennigsen was likely to do, but no one had better predictions about it than she did.
Certain matters were well known. Bennigsen was a Hanoverian who had been in the Russian army for nearly thirty years. He had been deeply involved in the conspiracy to murder Tsar Paul, Alexander’s father. It was said that he had appointed the guards who looked the other way while the murderers entered Paul’s chamber and that he had actually led the party that did away with the tsar. This sounded dreadful—the treachery of a trusted officer. But the general agreement that Paul had to be removed before thousands or hundreds of thousands died because of his lunacy left it undecided whether Bennigsen was a devil or a saint.
December passed slowly. The negotiations in which Lord Hutchinson and William were involved did not progress at all. Although Sabrina was still kindly received by the queen, she sensed that there was a growing resentment against the British. It was difficult not to sympathize with the Prussians. Sabrina felt that her government was being unreasonable. They were asking the Prussians, who had lost so much, to give up the Electorate of Hanover, a territory they had long coveted, and to fight the French, an enemy they had learned to fear greatly; in return, they were being offered encouragement and high-sounding phrases and “possibilities if…“; in other words, nothing.
The Kent Heiress Page 18