Teresa Grant

by Imperial Scandal

  “But you could hide in the needs of the moment.”

  She jabbed a pin into her knot of hair, hitting her scalp. “I’m used to living with sins on my conscience.”

  “With peace you’ll find you have leisure to dwell on the past. To question actions, to rethink decisions, to play the damnable game of what if.”

  She pushed two more pins into her hair and draped the mantilla over her head. “What makes you so certain?”

  “Because I’m quite sure I’ll be doing the same myself.”

  She spun round to look at the man who had always subsumed guilt to the goal in front of him. He returned her gaze. The scars in his eyes had never been plainer. “Raoul—”

  He gave a faint smile. “Don’t worry. It won’t be the first time I’ve pieced my life back together.”

  She crossed the room to him, took his face between her hands, and kissed him on the lips for the first time since her marriage. For the last time. “Keep safe.”

  He squeezed her shoulders for a moment, as though catching onto the past, then released her. “Look after your family, querida.”

  Suzanne stepped back into the house in the Rue Ducale to the smells of beef tea and laudanum and the sound of a ball being tossed. Colin and Robbie were playing catch across Christophe’s pallet. Rachel was spooning beef tea to Henri Rivaux, who protested feebly. Aline was changing Angus’s dressing. The smile she gave Suzanne indicated that he was doing better. Brigitte came through the door from the kitchen with a tea tray.

  Normal life, or at least what now passed for normal life. Raoul O’Roarke seemed a world away. She might never have been a Bonapartist spy. Save that the ache in her chest and the bitterness in her mouth told her she’d never forget.

  With that uncanny instinct children often have, Colin ran across the hall and flung his arms round her knees. She scooped him up, held him close for a moment, then settled him on her hip, letting the solidness of his body and the milky smell of his skin pull her back to the reality of her life. However egregious her sins, she couldn’t indulge in wallowing. She had obligations.

  Malcolm and David returned just before dark with Edgar. He had a leg wound but no sign of fever or infection. They laid him on Malcolm’s and her bed. When she checked his dressing, he opened his eyes and gave her a weak smile. “Malcolm is a capital brother.”

  “Yes, he is.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead.

  “Probably the most positive interaction Edgar and I’ve had since our mother died,” Malcolm said when he and Suzanne were outside in the passage.

  “I’m glad you found him. I mean, I’m glad he’s all right, but I’m also glad you were the one to find him.”

  He gave a bleak smile. “Foreseeing neat tidy endings, Suzette?”

  “Trying to take what we can from the wreckage.”

  He brushed his fingers against her cheek and studied her face for a moment. “Are you all right?”

  She smiled and leaned her cheek against his hand. “Yes. Especially now you’re back.”

  What else could she say?

  Harry woke to the smell of barley water and beef tea. He opened his eyes onto an intent young face framed by a fall of pale blond hair.

  “Mummy said I could come sit by you if I was quiet,” Livia said. “Because you need to sleep.” She frowned. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “Not in the least. You were quiet as a sniper.”

  Livia grinned. “I sat very still. Do you want some broth? It’ll make you better.”

  Cordelia moved into view. Her hair was pulled back into a simple knot, with the cropped bits escaping about her face uncurled, her cheeks were hollow, and purple shadows showed beneath her eyes. He couldn’t remember when she had looked more beautiful. “Do you think you can sit up?” she asked.

  He started to tell her not to be ridiculous and then realized that sitting up would indeed be a complicated maneuver. Cordelia perched on the edge of the bed, slid her arm under him, and bunched up the pillows, then half-held him while Livia carefully spooned the broth.

  Pain shot through his cracked ribs, but he controlled his reaction to a wince. It took an absurd amount of strength to hold his head up. A ridiculous position to be in, but oddly he didn’t mind as much as he would have expected. Perhaps that was because he was so tired.

  “That’ll do,” he told Livia when he’d managed about half the broth in the cup. “No sense in pushing things. But you’re an excellent nurse.”

  Livia’s serious face brightened. Cordelia settled him back against the pillows.

  “I was afraid you were going to die,” Livia said.

  “I was a bit concerned about it myself. I had a particular reason to want to survive this battle, you see.”

  “What?” Livia asked.

  “I’d met you.”

  “Oh.”

  A small hand twined round his arm. A strange and wonderful sensation. He squeezed Livia’s fingers. His eyes drifted closed despite himself. When he opened them again, Cordelia was sitting beside the bed. “You were smaller when I fell asleep,” he said.

  “Livia’s gone to have something to eat with the boys, but only after I assured her that she could see you again later. I hope you don’t mind. I thought seeing you would reassure her.”

  “Difficult to imagine the sight of me like this reassuring anyone.”

  “One’s imaginings are always worse than reality. And children are blessedly practical. Much more so than adults.”

  “Very true. And no, I don’t mind. On the contrary.” He turned his head on the pillow so he could see her better. The light from the window fell across one side of her face, showing lines about her eyes that hadn’t been there five years ago and marks of strain that hadn’t been there when he said good-bye to her at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. It wasn’t only those on the field who’d been touched by the battle. “I meant it, you know,” he added.

  “What?”

  “That having met Livia I wanted to come back. It’s an odd thing, that sense of being responsible for another person. I’d never felt it before.”

  “No.” Her gaze locked with his own. “Nor had I until she was born.”

  He let his head sink deeper into the pillows, his gaze still on her face. “I meant the other thing as well.”

  Her finely arced brows drew together. “Which thing?”

  “Your name. My last word before I lost consciousness on the battlefield. For a moment I was one of those romantic idiots who can think of nothing but that he’ll never see his wife again. War does damnable things to a man.”

  She turned her head away. To his amazement, he saw the prickle of tears against her skin. “Damn it, Harry, don’t.”

  “I admit it’s not the most elevated language, but I would have thought it would take more than that to make you cry. Haven’t you been hearing the like from starry-eyed undergraduates since you were sixteen?”

  “Don’t turn me into something I’m not. You idealized me as all sorts of things I wasn’t five years ago. Don’t form another false picture of me now.”

  He tried to push himself up against the pillows and winced at the stab of pain through his chest. “Harry, no,” she said, hands on his shoulders.

  “I’m at too much of a disadvantage flat on my back.”

  She eased him up and propped the pillows beneath him. He set his shoulders against them and regarded her with a hard stare. “I’m not a fool, Cordy. Not such a fool as to think a kiss in a ballroom with bugles sounding in the distance and the fact that you’re sitting by my sickbed have anything to do with our future.”

  “That’s not—”

  He grabbed her wrist, ignoring the fire that shot through his chest. “I don’t know if you’ve been nursing me out of some sense of obligation, but for whatever reason you have my thanks.”

  Her gaze fastened on his face, wide with shock. “Harry, don’t be silly.”

  “It’s a reasonable assumption. Of course, you’ve been nursing all sorts
of men—”

  “Harry.” She linked her fingers through his own. “For the past three days I’ve been consumed by the terror of losing you.”

  Something sang through him, something he’d never known or ever thought to feel. “Damned odd, considering—”

  “I didn’t have you to begin with. Quite. The irony isn’t lost on me.” Her gaze moved over his face. “I’m not a fool, either, Harry. I don’t expect the past week to wipe away the past four years.”

  He inched up against the pillows. Amazing how much less it hurt. “I think the past is less important than the future.”

  “The past is always going to be there between us. I’ve done quite unspeakable things to you, Harry.”

  “I think you’re puffing yourself up a bit. You haven’t done anything half the wives in Mayfair haven’t done.”

  “But their husbands aren’t—That is—”

  “I was in love with you. That made it worse. Granted. Go on.”

  She stared at their linked hands. “There’d be a sort of rosy glow at first. But eventually I’ll do something or say something and you’ll realize I haven’t really changed. That I’m still the sadly commonplace woman you married in the first place.”

  “Are you saying you’re planning to resume your affair with George Chase?”

  “No, of course not, but—”

  “Or with someone else?”

  “That’s not the point. My past is there. People are going to gossip. They’re going to give you sad looks like they do William Lamb because you’re saddled with an impossible wife.”

  “I’ve just survived a battle against Napoleon Bonaparte’s army, Cordy. I think I can cope with the London gossips.”

  “And inevitably you’ll remember. Some unthinking comment will bring it all flooding back. I don’t want to find you looking at me across the breakfast things recalling past betrayals, knowing you’re trapped but unable to say anything because we’ve papered over the past. Some cracks can’t be papered over.”

  “All right.” He rested his head against the pillows. “That’s what you don’t want. What do you want, Cordy?”

  “I don’t see—”

  “It’s a fair question. I don’t want a wife who isn’t happy. Do you want me to leave you free to go your own way? Do you want a divorce so you can marry again? I can afford it. I can make it as easy for you as possible.”

  “No, I told you—”

  “Because I can be Livia’s father without being your husband.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  He kept his gaze steady on her face. “What then?”

  Her brows drew together in the way he remembered from when she was trying to puzzle out a particularly difficult bit of translation. “What do you want, Harry?”

  “Oh, that’s easy.” He tightened his fingers round her own. “I want the same thing I’ve wanted for five years. I want you, my darling.”

  50

  “Malcolm.” Billy turned his head against the pillow. The curtains were closed to allow the prince to rest, but the heat of the day leached into the room. The air smelled of toast, beef tea, and lavender. “Glad to see you alive.”

  “I could say the same.” Malcolm looked down at his boyhood friend. The inexperienced general who had sent men to their deaths. Amelia Beckwith’s lover.

  “So many friends gone.” Billy’s fingers twisted in the fine linen sheet. “You know about Gordon?”

  Malcolm nodded. “But Fitzroy looks as though he’ll pull through.”

  “I heard he lost his right arm.”

  “He’s already learning to write with his left hand. He’ll be buried in paperwork again in no time. Apparently he made them stop and remove the ring Harriet gave him from his amputated arm before they carried it away.”

  Billy gave a weak smile, then searched Malcolm’s face. “You haven’t come to congratulate me on cheating death. Do you know what happened to Julia?”

  “Not yet.”

  The prince regarded him in silence for a moment. “You’d better sit down, Malcolm.” His gaze was dark in his pale face. “And then ask me whatever it is you’ve come to ask.”

  Malcolm dropped down on the edge of the bed. “Amelia Beckwith.”

  Billy’s brows drew together. “Amy? What on earth does she have to do with—”

  “You were her lover.”

  Billy flinched. “I was in love with Amy.” He tried to push himself up against the pillows. “I wanted to marry her.”

  “But you didn’t.” Malcolm put a hand on Billy’s shoulder to still him before he could do himself an injury.

  Billy turned his head to the side, gaze fastened on the bar of light spilling between a gap in the curtains. “I was only eighteen. I wanted to elope to Gretna Green and damn the consequences, but Amy was afraid. I had to go to my parents for the Christmas holidays. I meant to tell my father, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to. Then I had to go to a damned house party in Devon. I wrote to Amy telling her to be patient. Perhaps one of my letters went astray. Somehow they—my parents—learned about us. I was summoned to London. They sent Rebecque to talk to me.”

  “I doubt I could have held out against such pressure at that age.”

  “No.” Billy’s voice cut with surprising force. “I refused to give her up. I stalked out and ordered my carriage. I got back to Carfax Court only to learn that Amy had died.”

  Malcolm studied his friend’s indignant face. “Did you know Amelia was carrying your child?”

  “What?” Billy pushed himself up, then winced in pain.

  Malcolm gripped the prince’s shoulders. “She confessed to a friend that she was pregnant just before she died.”

  “But—” Billy’s eyes were wide with confusion. “Malcolm, Amy and I never—” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have. I was going to marry her.”

  Malcolm pulled up the pillows and settled Billy against them. “Scruples have a way of giving way to need. Especially when one’s eighteen. I’m the last person who’d be scandalized by a love affair, Billy.”

  “I’m not saying it because you’d be scandalized. I’m saying it because it’s the truth.” Billy stared at Malcolm with mingled indignation and confusion. “What does this have to do with Julia?”

  “Lady Julia may have uncovered information about Miss Beckwith’s death.”

  The prince’s eyes went wider still. “And you think—Malcolm, I got back to Carfax Court the day Amy died. Just after they found her in the lake.” Remembered loss suffused his young face. “She couldn’t have been carrying a child.”

  Billy’s gaze held genuine torment. Malcolm drew a breath and placed his hand over Billy’s own. “She couldn’t have been carrying your child.”

  Suzanne had just finished changing Henri Rivaux’s dressing when the door opened. She looked up, expecting Malcolm, and saw instead a slender figure in a lavender muslin gown and a chip straw hat standing on the threshold, looking about with an uncertain gaze.

  It was Violet Chase. Suzanne got to her feet and went to meet the other woman. “Miss Chase. Do come in. I’m afraid we’ve quite abandoned any pretense of ceremony. Our footmen are too busy tending the wounded.”

  “Of course,” Violet said. “I’m sorry to disturb you.” Her gaze swept the hall and settled for a moment on Robbie, as usual sitting with Colin beside Christophe. “I came to see if you’d had any news of Captain Ashton.”

  “Colonel Davenport saw him alive and unhurt late yesterday,” Suzanne said. “But nothing since then, I’m afraid.”

  Violet nodded, put her hand to her face, and burst into tears.

  “Oh, my poor dear.” Suzanne steered Violet into the empty study, exchanging a glance with Brigitte, who had emerged from the kitchen with tea for the wounded.

  Inside the study, Suzanne pressed Violet into a leather armchair. Violet collapsed, hands pressed to her face, tears streaming between her fingers. Suzanne tugged a clean handkerchief from her sleeve and knelt beside the chair
, waiting for Violet’s tears to subside.

  “I’m sorry,” Violet said at last. “It’s just so hard not knowing.”

  “I can well imagine.” Suzanne put the handkerchief into her hand. “Captain Ashton is a capable soldier. From what my husband says it’s still chaos at the battlefield. I wouldn’t infer anything from none of us having heard from him.”

  Violet nodded, twisting the handkerchief between her fingers. “So many have fallen.” She wiped her eyes with tugs of the handkerchief that were almost vicious.

  “I’m sorry about Captain Chase,” Suzanne said. “How is Mrs. Chase bearing up?”

  “Almost frighteningly calm. But then Jane has much better self-command than I do. A Captain Flemming called on us last night with news of the battle and to give his condolences. That seemed to make her feel better.”

  Suzanne drew a breath, greatly relieved for Jane Chase’s sake that Will Flemming had survived the battle.

  “And Major Chase?” Suzanne asked.

  “He came through without injury. He came to see us this afternoon. He got leave to return to Brussels and see Annabel and the children.”

  Brigitte knocked at the door with a fresh pot of tea. Suzanne poured a cup, stirred in liberal amounts of milk and sugar, and pressed it into Violet’s hand. Violet managed a sip, sloshing some into the saucer. She cast a quick glance at the door. “What must they all think of me.”

  “With everything that’s happened these past days, what anyone thinks seems singularly unimportant.”

  Violet opened her mouth as though to protest, then gave a sudden, desperate laugh. “How very true. And how odd to think that I would ever say so.” She managed another sip of tea. “I heard Colonel Davenport had been wounded. How is he?”

  “Weak but recovering. Cordelia’s with him now. She’s scarcely left him.”

  Violet’s mouth twisted. “All the things Cordelia did to him, and yet she’s had the right to worry and ask for news all this time and now she has the right to sit by his bedside and nurse him and no one can look askance at it because whatever she’s done to him he’s her husband.”