by Jane Lark
“You have a connection with horses, and you ride well. I remember from the summer. Why did you not join a mounted regiment? I would have thought you’d be in the cavalry instead of a regiment of foot soldiers.” Ellen stood beside him.
Her fingers touched his arm as his reached out and patted the mare’s neck then stroked its cheek.
“Because I could not have borne to watch a horse that I’d brought to battle, die. I made my choice to fight. My horse would not have had the same luxury.” He patted the animal once more, denying the images of battles crowding into his head. He did not want to remember. He turned to her and immediately all the memories of war and brutality faded.
She did not answer; perhaps he’d said something too morbid.
Her pale blue eyes held questions. Maybe she had seen the memories in his eyes. He did not wish her to see – with her he wanted to forget those memories. Yet he was taking her to a battleground, albeit not to fight.
Perhaps it was wrong of him.
But he could not regret it. In their hours in the carriage, the attachment she’d planted in his heart in the summer had emerged like a shoot from a seed, germinating and growing to full flower. Ellen Pembroke was the woman his soul chose; he could not leave her behind. Love clutched about his heart, a vine wrapping around it. “I love you.” The words slipped from his mouth without thought.
She was young, she knew nothing about brutality. He did not wish her to, but she would learn.
He was young too, but the experiences of war, and now having her to protect, made him feel much older than he was.
She smiled. “And I you, Paul.”
“Come, we had better go. There is no knowing how much ground your father has gained on us, if he is following.” He gripped her elbow, gently, and turned them both.
When they were back in the carriage he kissed her, desire and need roaring in his blood. He could not wait until they were out of this damned carriage and in a bed. But he did not press her for anything more. She was innocent, and they were unwed, he could wait until the moment came. For now he just revelled in her kisses and her tender, beautiful responses as shallow sighs slipped across her lips and her tongue tentatively entwined with his, while the weight of her arms rested on his shoulders.
This girl was a treasure. He was going to protect her and love her all his life. He would not allow the brutality of war to touch her.
~
Ellen woke. Shouts echoed outside the carriage. The vehicle hit a rut, tipping and throwing her into the corner. She gripped the strap above her head fearing the carriage might roll, but it righted itself. Outside another shout rang out, then gunfire. She jolted forward as the carriage suddenly rocked to the side again then slowed.
Paul had been asleep too, but now, wide awake, he moved and turned the damper, to put out the lantern. The light died instantly.
She watched, still half asleep. “Paul?”
“Stay quiet, stay in the carriage and stay down.” The sharp order cut her as he pulled the curtain back from the window and looked out when the carriage came to an abrupt halt.
“I said get down,” Paul whispered harshly, bending down himself, but he was not trying to hide, he pulled something out from beneath the seat. A pistol and a sword. She caught a glimpse of the metal in the moonlight.
Ellen slid off the seat and landed on the cold bricks on the carriage floor. She started to shiver. “What is it?”
“Highwaymen. Do not say a word. Act as though there is no one in here. I’m going out.” He pulled the curtain closed again.
“Paul…” She grabbed his arm, to stop him, but he shrugged her off as he opened the carriage door. The door banged shut behind him.
Her heart thundered. This was a nightmare. She would wake in a moment. But the cold air and the hard bricks beneath her bottom felt real.
Outside Paul shouted, his voice low in timbre and threatening. Her heartbeat rang in her ears, loud and deafening. A gun went off. Then another.
Oh. She could not stay in here. “Paul!” Scrabbling off the floor she reached for the door handle and clicked it open. She heard more shouting and almost fell out onto the frost bound earth. Her feet landed on the ground as her hand still gripped the handle, wrenching her arm as she slipped but stayed upright.
Paul was a silhouette cast by the moonlight and the frost covered earth. He faced away from her, a sword held in one hand, the tip pointing towards the ground. Something dark dripped from it. His other hand still held the pistol. A wisp of smoke rose from the barrel and the cold air carried the bitter smell of gunpowder. He dropped to one knee as she watched. She was unable to speak; shock had solidified every muscle in her body. There was a figure on the ground. A man.
Paul rested his hand which bore the gun, on the man’s chest, while his sword slipped from his fingers and fell on the grass.
He reached to the man’s throat and pressed it for a moment, then searched through the man’s coat.
“What are we going to do with him, Captain?” one of the drivers shouted, climbing down from the box.
The statement brought Ellen back to her senses. This was no dream. “God help me.” she whispered.
Paul rose sharply and turned to face her. “Get back in the carriage, Ellen. You do not want to see this.”
But she had seen it.
Her hand let go of the door handle and she walked forward.
“Ellen, go back.” Paul’s words were barked. But she couldn’t stop herself.
“Who is he?” The man on the ground hadn’t moved.
“A highwayman, chancing his luck. Go back in, Ellen. Please. Let me sort this.”
The man on the ground had still not moved. A macabre desire to see pulled her towards him.
“Ellen,” Paul snapped as she got closer, in another warning. But her body refused to be warned. She kept walking, and it only took a few more steps. The man lay there, as white as the frost stained grass beneath him. Except the grass beside his head was not white but dark, marred by something fluid that glistened in the moonlight… and half his forehead had been blown open.
Ellen turned away and cast up what little she’d eaten when they’d stopped for supper. Paul’s hand touched her back. “Ellen, I told you not to look.”
She was sick again.
He pressed his handkerchief into her palm as she fought to catch her breath. “Ellen.” Paul’s voice was quiet, as though he was afraid of her reaction.
After a few minutes, she straightened, the world about her turning to dust. “You killed him.”
“I had to–”
“Could you not have merely wounded him?”
“It was self-defence, madam. The Captain had no choice. The highwayman had his pistol aimed at the Captain’s head. If he’d not sliced the man’s leg open to get him off that horse–”
“Would that not have been enough?” Ellen’s words echoed back on the night air.
Paul raised a hand, his fingers reaching for her. “Ellen, come.” She backed away. “That man would have raped and murdered you without a thought. I had no choice.”
“I’m glad, you did it, Captain. The bastard hit me.”
“Hit you?” Paul turned away, facing one of the men who drove the carriage.
The man walked towards them, clutching his upper arm.
He looked as pale as the dead man.
“Bullet’s gone clean through my arm, Captain. I was riding postilion. He wanted to stop the horses.”
“Sit on the backboard, before you fall down,” Paul said. Then he glanced at her. “Ellen, tear a strip off your petticoats.”
She bent to do it. Any moment she would wake up in her bed at home, and this whole journey would be a dream.
She could not tear the cotton.
“Wait.” Paul walked back for his sword. She straightened as he wiped it clean in the grass.
Her gaze caught on the dead man. Paul seemed so unemotional. He rose and turned to her.
Ignoring her observation
, he squatted, gripped her hem and sliced into it with the sword’s edge. After he’d done it, he dropped the sword and tore a strip with his hands. She stood still. Frozen.
When he straightened, he said, “Ellen, can you tie this about the man’s arm?”
Her fingers shook.
“Here.” He gripped one of her hands and pulled her towards the postilion rider who sat at the back of the carriage. “Do not worry about taking his coat off, just tie it over the top, just above the wound, as tightly as you can to stop the bleeding. Do you understand?”
She nodded and began as the man watched her in silence, in pain, looking faint as blood dripped from his limp hand onto the ground.
Paul walked away. She heard him talking to the driver behind her. They were moving the body. Her fingers shook so much she struggled to tie the cotton off, but she managed.
Cold seeping deep into her flesh, she shivered, her teeth chattering.
“Ellen, get in the carriage.” Paul’s words were an order. Not knowing what else to do, she did. It was just as cold within, and dark, and lonely.
After a moment he opened the door. “I am going to ride on the box to the nearest inn. We will sort everything out there.” There was a dark stain on his grey pantaloons. Blood.
She nodded; she’d left everything she knew behind her. This was a world of unknowns. She’d never imagined anything like this.
The carriage lurched into motion. She heard Paul talking on the box above her, but not his words.
Images of the man lying on the grass and Paul standing over him cluttered Ellen’s mind. Her senses waited for something to happen as the carriage rolled slowly on towards the next inn, their pace restricted by the wounded man who sat on the box beside Paul.
Every sound reverberated through her body. She could still smell the gunpowder as if it was in the carriage. She shivered, gripping her arms as she swallowed, trying to clear her dry throat. Then she gritted her teeth to stop them chattering.
The next inn was in the middle of nowhere at the edge of the road. The golden light of an oil lantern bleached out the moonlight when they turned into the courtyard, but the carriage was still dark inside, since Paul had put out the lamp.
Ellen looked through the window, her fingers shaking as she put on her cloak and bonnet.
Yawning men appeared from the stalls, grooms ready to change their horses.
She saw Paul jump down from the box and say something, and a man’s eyes opened wide, staring at Paul. Then the man ran into the inn.
Paul turned to the carriage, opened the door and knocked down the step, not meeting her gaze until he offered his hand to her. The hand that had recently killed a man. But then it must have killed many men during the Peninsular War. Her fingers shook as she took it.
“Ellen,” he whispered, “I’ve told them you are my wife. I’ve asked for a private parlour for you to wait in while I sort this mess out. Do you wish me to order a warm drink for you, chocolate? You look in shock.”
She nodded. She was in shock.
His fingers holding hers, he lead her across the courtyard, and she tried not to think of the dead man whose body lay sprawled over the back of the carriage, on top of Paul’s trunk.
But she did think of the injured man as she heard him climb down behind her. There was a word spoken, “Surgeon.” Then a single rider left the courtyard.
Paul had killed the man to protect them.
This was the ugly world he knew, she’d only known the sanctuary of her father’s property.
“Ellen, wait here,” he commanded when she was seated in the parlour. But he did not then walk away; he squatted down and rubbed her gloved hands as he held them together, as if warming them. Then he said more gently. “I will be back in a while, as soon as I can.”
She nodded.
He had not returned when her warm chocolate arrived. She sat in silence, sipping it – drowning. How would she cope on the edge of a battlefield? Paul was not who she’d thought he was, the man who overflowed with vibrancy, who smiled and laughed easily.
She had neither taken her bonnet nor her cloak off, and the fire in the hearth blazed, but she was cold.
When Paul arrived an hour later – an hour which she’d endured in the form of a statue, sitting in the chair staring at the cup of chocolate gripped in her hands.
He shut the door behind him; the action sent her nerves reeling. She was unused to being in a room alone with a man, and yet they’d spent days confined in the carriage. But now she knew she’d spent those days with a man who could kill brutally and close his heart off to it.
An expression of pain passed across his face as she looked up, he’d seen her flinch.
He no longer wore his blood stained clothes and he’d put on his greatcoat.
“Have I made you dislike me?” The words held anguish. He looked younger. His age. “I am sorry, you–”
She stood, setting her cup down.
How could she balance the man she loved against the soldier who could kill? There was a lethal warrior living inside the gentle man she’d met in a drawing room.
He was not gentle.
But she did not dislike him. Her heart loved him. She’d known he was a soldier, she’d just not understood what that meant. Now she was terrified of the choice she’d made.
She went to him, sobbing, and her arms embraced his midriff; doing what she’d longed to do for an hour – hold him and cry – and pretend that what had happened, hadn’t happened.
His hand slid her bonnet back so it hung from her neck, then he kissed her cheek and her forehead, holding her. “I’ve spoken to the magistrate. The villain was known here. There will be no prosecution against me, and the driver who is injured is being replaced. The injured man will stay here until he is well enough to travel back. I have given him money for his lodgings.”
Ellen nodded against his chest, not knowing what else to do.
His palm lay on her hair, a gentle weight of reassurance.
How could he touch her with such gentleness yet do what he’d just done?
“You’ve had a taste of death tonight, Ellen. Has it made you wish to turn back? I will take you back if it’s changed your mind.”
Had it changed her mind?
She could not remain with her family if she’d stayed at home. Her father would force her into marriage with another man, and what then? She would have to endure ugliness anyway, perhaps ugliness worse than the death of a thief who chose to kill or be killed.
But Paul had killed a man…
She pulled away, although her hands still gripped Paul’s greatcoat either side of his waist in fists. “Was killing him the only way?” Maybe she showed her naivety by asking. But she was a little afraid of him.
His eyes studied her in the flickering orange light of the tallow candles which burned in the room. “Not the only way, no. I could have brought him down from his horse and shot him in the shoulder or the arm. But it is my instinct, Ellen. In battle, a soldier cannot risk simply wounding a man. Otherwise, as you fight on, a dozen men could be aiming a pistol at your back and…. you were in the carriage… and I did not know if there were more men in the woods.”
She could not judge the colour of his eyes in the candlelight, but she could see regret and pain. He had killed, but he did not wish to kill. He was not a murderer. Sorrow caught in his gaze, as if ghosts walked about him.
She pressed herself against him, holding him. This time it was not to receive comfort but to give it.
“Ellen?” His hand ran over her hair. “Do you want me to take you back?”
“No.” She did not want to go back, but she did not know how to go forward.
~
Ellen’s answer was warmth seeping through the clothing covering his chest, into his heart. It would have hurt to let her go. But he would have done it, if she’d wished it. Thank God, she did not. He’d promised himself barely hours ago to protect her from the brutality of this world, and he’d not even reached Gret
na before he’d failed. “You are strong, Ellen. You are going to have to face unpleasant things if you follow the drum with me. But you will survive.”
She sobbed and more tears dampened his collar in answer. He held her tighter for a moment. But then he set her away. If her father was behind them, they’d lost hours… “We need to leave, Ellen. Are you ready?”
Her gaze met his, flooded with the uncertainty he’d dispelled before this incident. She was brave and strong, and she loved him, he knew it, but he could see she was also a little afraid of him now.
A sigh left his throat. He could do nothing. He had been trained to kill, and he had killed. He was a soldier; it was his instinct to fight and protect.
He pushed his thoughts aside, along with the memories of dead, dying and wounded men. They had to reach the border before her father reached them. If he’d followed.
Within a quarter hour they were in the carriage with freshly heated bricks, his weapons tucked away once more, and blankets piled over them as the temperature had dropped still further. The next stop would be Penrith. They were nearly there… nearly.
Ellen pressed against him, seeking comfort, her arms about his midriff, but her body felt stiff and her fingers trembled a little, implying her shock had not really ebbed.
Neither had his.
She went to sleep, her head resting against his chest. He laid his arm over her shoulders, and took comfort in her beauty.
As she slept, he could not. The call of battle still raged in his blood. There had never been any real danger, he was by a mile more experienced in a fight than the highwayman, but a murderous desire had swept over him; the same which captured him on a battlefield.
Kill or be killed.
Ellen was right; he was skilled enough to have maimed the man and no more. But the thought of her in danger… God, he could not bear it. He had not stopped for one moment to consider doing anything less than kill. Visions of battlefields, of corpses, and men’s eyes clouding with death before they fell, had played through his head, but his heart had only felt Ellen and nothing of the bitter world he fought in.