Teresa Grant

by Imperial Scandal

  She nearly did cry then. It was only all her years of training that preserved her self-command.

  45

  Black smoke swirled through the remnants of mist. The French guns sounded, the Allied cannon thundered back. Most of the French fire focused on the château of Hougoumont. Harry, sent with a message from Wellington, who was directing the battle over the château personally, to the Prince of Orange, who had command of the troops involved, drew Claudius up on the ridge above the château at an angle that gave him a good view of the scene below. French and Hanoverians clashed in the wood south of the château. Howitzer shells rained down from the Allied ridge, but the French pushed on. Through the thick smoke, Harry saw that some of the French were already scaling the walls and attempting to drag British muskets out of the loopholes the British had cut in the stone.

  “Do you think the battle hangs on this?” A Dutch-Belgian lieutenant pulled up beside Harry.

  “Not necessarily, but if the French take the château they’ll be in a damned good position to fire on us.” Davenport turned and then started as he recognized the thin, intent face of the lieutenant he had last seen at Le Paon d’Or with Rachel Garnier. “Rivaux.”

  “Colonel Davenport.” Henri Rivaux sketched a salute. “The prince has sent me with a message for the duke.”

  “I’m bringing a message from the duke to the prince.” Harry ran his gaze over Rivaux. His shoulders were straight, his hands steady on the reins, but his face was as pale as linen fresh from the laundry basket. “Your first battle?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Not in the least. When did you last see your lady in Brussels?”

  “Rachel? Just before we marched.” Rivaux gave a brief smile. “Thank you. For asking. For calling her that. For understanding—”

  “What she means to you?” Harry prided himself on having little use for love, but he vividly recalled the way Rivaux’s gaze had clung to Rachel’s face. It had taken Harry back to the ballroom at Devonshire House five years ago. His first glimpse of Cordelia’s brilliant, discontented face, and the start of a longing that tore at the soul. “If there’s any good that comes of war, I think perhaps it’s that it makes us understand what’s important.”

  Rivaux nodded. “How true. If—Good God.”

  Below them, French infantry had pushed through the northern gates of the château. Five men in the uniform of the Coldstream Guard fell against the gates, pressing them closed against the force of more French who would pour through. The gates shuddered. The French pressed forward, the guards pushed back, while inside the French who had already broken through battled the Allied defenders. At last, the gates slammed closed.

  “Pity the poor French bastards left inside,” Harry said.

  Rivaux, who had been a spy among French sympathizers, grimaced. Then he gathered up the reins and gave a quick salute. “I must be off. My compliments to you, Colonel Davenport.”

  “And mine to you.” Harry returned the salute.

  Rivaux galloped toward Wellington’s position. A few moments later, a howitzer shell fell short of its mark and slammed into Rivaux’s horse.

  Horse and rider tumbled to the ground. Harry touched his heels to Claudius and galloped forward. Rivaux’s horse had had its front legs blown off at the knees. Its chest was a pulpy mess. Harry swung down from the saddle, cast a quick glance at the horse, and put a bullet through the poor animal’s head. Then he bent over Rivaux. A fragment had struck the lieutenant in the chest and another in the head. His eyes were closed, but as Harry bent over him they blinked open. “Davenport. Silly. Must—”

  “I’ll take your message. After I get you behind the lines.”

  Rivaux struggled to draw a breath. “Can’t—”

  “Don’t be a damned idiot, Rivaux.” Harry lifted the young lieutenant in his arms as gently as he could, but Rivaux sucked in his breath. By the time Harry levered him over Claudius, Rivaux seemed to have fainted, which was probably a mercy. Harry swung into the saddle and touched his heels to Claudius.

  His quickest route took him to the Prince of Orange, whom he found with March and Rebecque beside him. “I’ve a message for you, sir,” Harry said. “And one of your men who needs attending to.”

  “Good God!” the prince exclaimed. “Poor Rivaux. Is he—”

  “He will be if he doesn’t receive attention quickly.”

  March had already set about issuing orders. As two soldiers lifted Rivaux from the saddle, he opened his eyes and looked at Davenport. “Tell Rachel—”

  “My dear fellow, I daresay you’ll see her before I do.” Harry took Rivaux’s hand and pressed it between his own. Then he looked into Rivaux’s eyes, making no attempt to maintain his usual ironic defenses. “But should the need arise you have my word on it. I’ll tell her precisely how you feel.”

  “You can’t know—”

  “Oh, but I do.” An image of the twenty-year-old Cordelia hung vivid in his mind. For once, he didn’t try to banish it. “Love’s a remarkably universal emotion.”

  Raoul O’Roarke reined in his restive horse, sweat dripping from his forehead, and muttered a curse. The damned assault on Hougoumont, intended as a diversion, had sucked up far too many French troops. They should have taken the château within the first hour. It was now almost half past one, nearly two hours since the assault on Hougoumont had begun. Jerome Bonaparte, Napoleon’s youngest brother, was leading a ferocious fight, but he was pulling precious resources away from the rest of the battle.

  Raoul had spent the time supervising the placement of a battery of guns—twelve-pounders and eight-pounders and horse artillery—in front of d’Erlon’s infantry divisions. Now, with a crashing rumble, a renewed cannonade thundered across the valley. The cannonballs should have ricocheted over the crest of the opposite ridge and reached the Allied soldiers sheltering behind it, but they fell into the mud. The poor Dutch-Belgian devils at the front of the Allied lines were cut to pieces, but most of the Allied army remained safely behind the reverse slope of the ridge or the thick hedges that bordered it.

  Though the assault of the guns was less effective than it should have been, the French infantry began to advance in columns. Save that instead of the narrow columns that Raoul had seen prove ruinously ineffective against British infantry, d’Erlon spread his men into shallower, wider columns that were closer to line formation yet still deeper than the Allied lines they faced. “Clever,” Raoul murmured to Flahaut, who had pulled up beside him. “The British muskets cut our columns to pieces in the Peninsula.”

  Drumbeats and voices raised in “The Marseillaise” echoed across the valley. Flahaut scanned the mass of advancing French. “They look as though they’re going to sweep right over the British and Dutch-Belgians.”

  Raoul frowned at the Allied ridge. It wasn’t like Wellington to sit this quietly and let the enemy overwhelm him. “I wouldn’t cry victory yet. ‘That island of England breeds very valiant creatures,’ ” he added in English rather than the French they’d been speaking.

  “Must you start quoting now of all times, O’Roarke?”

  “It’s rather apt. Wellington’s sure to have a counter-measure up his sleeve.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it.” Flahaut gathered up the reins, then looked back over his shoulder. “O’Roarke,” he said, over the roar of cannon fire and blare of martial music.

  Raoul looked into the younger man’s eyes, dark with fear and uncertainty. “If I live through this and you don’t, of course I’ll tell Hortense. Not that she doesn’t know already.”

  “Thank you.” A smile crossed Flahaut’s smoke-blackened, blood-smeared face. He regarded Raoul for a moment, eyes narrowed against the smoke and the glare of the sun. “What about Suzanne?”

  Raoul drew a breath. His neckcloth seemed to have tightened round his throat. “Tell her that I have every confidence she’ll make the right decisions.”

  Flahaut looked at him a moment longer, then saluted and rode off. Raoul turned his gaz
e to the opposite ridge. Quiot’s left brigade had success at the walled farm of La Haye Sainte, driving back the King’s German Legion troops in the orchard. His right brigade drove Prince Bernhard’s Saxe-Weimar brigade from the twin farms of Papelotte and La Haye and pushed the 95th from the sandpit opposite La Haye Sainte. A Dutch-Belgian light brigade either withdrew or fled.

  But Wellington had indeed had a counter-measure up his sleeve. Squadron after squadron of Allied heavy cavalry charged down the slope. The French cavalry met them near La Haye Sainte. The French cuirassiers should have been able to hold them, but the Allied cavalry were fresh and ready for blood after missing the fighting at Quatre Bras. The French cavalry broke in confusion before the Allied charge. Much of the infantry followed suit in a tangle of fallen men and blood-spattered ground.

  Raoul spurred his horse forward from his station at the gun battery, calling to the retreating soldiers to rally and re-form. His cries fell on deaf ears. Formations dissolved, men ran away, others stood their ground and hacked wildly at the onrushing Allied soldiers only to be mowed down by the tide. The eagles of the 45th and 105th glittered in the hands of Allied soldiers, drunk on their success.

  Raoul waited for the British cavalry to rally and draw back. But the Scots Greys instead pounded on across the valley. Good God, the madmen. They would be slaughtered.

  The thunder of hooves shook the ground. Cries of “92nd” and “Scotland forever” carried on the breeze over the screams and groans and neighing of horses as the Allied cavalry fell beneath the blows of the French cuirassiers and lancers who had been sent up as reinforcements. For a moment Raoul could almost smell the salt breeze off Dunmykel Bay in Perthshire.

  More Allied cavalry pounded after. Life Guards and King’s Dragoons judging by the helmets and crests. They slammed against Travers’s cuirassiers, British swords smashing against French breastplates. Raoul drew in his breath. Dear heaven, was that Lord Uxbridge leading the Household Cavalry? Why the devil hadn’t the cavalry commander remained behind to direct the reserves?

  The breeze carried the sickly-sweet smell of fresh blood. Buglers sounded the rally, but by then the British cavalry were tired, scattered, and deep in enemy lines. Raoul drew his sword as the British swept over the French guns. Instinct took over, honed through the Revolution, the United Irish Uprising, the Peninsular War. He cut, parried, slashed, dispatching soldier after soldier.

  He ran his sword through the throat of a dragoon, pulled it clear, and wheeled his horse round to parry an attack from a hussar lieutenant. He dispatched the hussar with a cut to the chest, then nearly fell from the saddle as his horse stumbled. He looked down to see that his horse had tripped over the body of a French private. He found himself staring into the dead blue eyes of Philippe Valery.

  Later, when the numbness wore off, he would feel grief. If he survived.

  Someone touched his arm. He spun round in the saddle, sword raised.

  “O’Roarke.” Flahaut grabbed him by the arm. “Pull back. The British are trapped.”

  French lancers and hussars filled the valley, cutting the British cavalry off from their lines. The British cavalry circled in disarray. One colonel, both his arms shot off, gripped his horse’s reins between his teeth. French swords and lances hacked and stabbed those who tried to ride back to their own lines. Raoul saw Sir William Ponsonby, with whom he had shared a glass of champagne at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, fall to a lance thrust.

  “Christ,” Flahaut said. “Only a handful of them can have survived.”

  Raoul wiped his hand across his face and realized he’d smeared blood over his forehead. “They took two eagles. And more than a dozen of our guns are disabled.”

  “Are you saying the fight went to them?”

  Raoul tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and dragged it across his forehead. “I’m saying it was a damned waste.”

  Livia’s and Robbie’s nurses managed to take the three children to the park for a bit of fresh air in the early afternoon. The nurses, two sensible girls, reported that the city was eerily quiet, though there were horses drawn up before a number of houses, poised for flight. The children were a bit subdued but did not appear overly alarmed. After they’d been fed, they were happy to settle down in the hall beside the healthier of the wounded.

  “Geoff says keeping one’s spirits up is half the battle to recovering,” Aline said, watching Colin and Robbie build a fort for Colin’s lead soldiers in Christophe’s sheets.

  “I used to carry Colin about with me when I was nursing the wounded in Spain,” Suzanne said. “It always seemed to cheer them. And it’s rendered Colin wonderfully unflappable.”

  Simon and David returned a short time later, with a towheaded ensign with a head wound and a redheaded Highlander who had died on the journey into the city. Simon, who had been holding the dying man in his lap, sprang down from the carriage without speaking, cheeks streaked with damp.

  “People are drinking beer in the suburbs,” he said to Suzanne, when the towheaded boy had been settled in the hall with Aline, and they were in the kitchen gulping down cups of tea Cordelia had made. “Quite as though it were an ordinary Sunday.”

  “But a bit farther into the forest the road is littered with baggage.” David stirred sugar into his tea as though he’d forgot what he was doing with his hands. “The wounded are picking their way over the wreckage and all too many have dropped in their tracks.” He flung down the spoon, spattering tea over the deal table.

  Simon tossed down a sip of tea as though he wished it were brandy. He had removed his coat and his shirt was soaked with blood. “We talked with one lieutenant who said that from what he had observed he didn’t see how the French could be prevented from cutting straight through to Brussels. Of course he’s only one man and didn’t have a view of the whole field.”

  “But it’s good you’re ready to leave if necessary,” David added.

  Raised voices drew them back into the hall. A chestnut-haired woman in a blood-spattered white and green dress ran across the floor tiles to Suzanne. “Mademoiselle Garnier,” Suzanne said, taking her hands.

  “Forgive me, Madame Rannoch.” Rachel’s breath came quick and hard and her hair tumbled free of its pins. “I’ve found Henri. He was brought in on a cart and simply left in the street. Le Paon d’Or is already overflowing with soldiers, and you were closer. I thought perhaps—”

  “Of course. Where is he?”

  David and Simon went with Rachel to bring back the young Belgian lieutenant. He had a bandage round his head and a wound in his chest that looked to have been hastily dressed on the battlefield. “Could you get my medical box?” Suzanne asked Aline. “It’s a mercy he’s lost consciousness for the moment, but perhaps you’d hold him steady in case he stirs, Mademoiselle Garnier?”

  Rachel nodded, eyes dark, mouth set with determination. Suzanne realized how very young she was. Probably little more than eighteen.

  Suzanne cleaned the wound and found some bits of shell casing the battlefield surgeons had missed. Lieutenant Rivaux opened his eyes with a cry of pain when she was midway through. “Hush, Henri.” Rachel tightened her grip on his shoulders and put her face close to his. “Madame Rannoch’s almost finished. Do you want some brandy?”

  “Rachel.” His voice was a harsh rasp. “Thought I’d never see you again.”

  “Well, that was silly. You know where to find me.”

  “Not that.” His pain-glazed eyes focused on her features. “Sure I was done for.”

  “You should have had more faith in yourself. I did.”

  He gave a weak laugh and tried to reach for her hand. Rachel curled her fingers round his.

  Suzanne packed the wound with boulettes of lint to absorb the blood and secured a bandage over it. “You’re a brave man, Lieutenant Rivaux. Thank you for making that so easy.”

  Aline poured a glass of brandy and gave it to Rachel to hold to Rivaux’s lips.

  “Stupid,” he muttered. “Fell when the bat
tle had barely begun. If it wasn’t for Davenport—”

  Porcelain shattered on the marble tiles as Cordelia, who had just come in from the kitchen, dropped the cup of tea she’d been carrying. She ran forward over the shards of porcelain and dropped down beside Rivaux, “Harry Davenport?”

  “Yes.” Rivaux’s gaze focused on her. “He’s a friend of yours?”

  “He’s my husband.”

  Rivaux’s mouth curled in a faint smile. “He saved my life. Got me behind the lines. He was unhurt then, madame. It must have been—not long past noon, I suppose.”

  Hours ago, but Cordelia’s face broke into a smile. She pressed his hand. “Thank you, Lieutenant Rivaux. Don’t try to talk more.”

  Rivaux turned his head toward Rachel. “I asked Davenport to find you if I didn’t make it. Couldn’t give him a proper message, but he seemed to understand what I meant.” He turned his gaze back to Cordelia. “I suppose it must be how he feels about you, madame.”

  Rivaux managed another sip of brandy, then collapsed against the pillows and closed his eyes, still gripping Rachel’s hand.

  David walked into the bedchamber he and Simon were sharing to find Simon bare chested, clutching the bloodstained shirt he’d been wearing.

  He seemed not to have heard the opening of the door. David almost retreated. Instead he stepped forward and touched Simon’s arm. “He was beyond our help. You made his last moments easier.”

  Simon started. “Who—Oh, you mean the Highlander who died on the drive back to Brussels. Yes, poor devil. Though I think some of the blood is Rivaux’s.” Simon flung the shirt aside and went to the chest of drawers. “How is he?”

  “Rivaux? Asleep holding Mademoiselle Garnier’s hand. Suzanne says he’s at risk for wound fever, but she hopes she can pull him through.”

  “Suzanne’s amazing. But she can’t save all of them.” Simon yanked open a drawer and tugged out a clean shirt. His hands froze on the linen. “Damn. Damn everything.”