The Bachelor's Bargain

by Catherine Palmer

  “Who will lead the horses?” Anne asked. “You will never be able to shield us and guide the cart through the sticky mud at the same time. I shall take the reins. No, do not even attempt to argue with me, Ruel. There is no choice in this matter. You know as well as I that the horses will never go willingly into such conditions.”

  She pulled her shawl around her head and clutched the leather reins. “Shall we go?”

  Ruel breathed the first prayer he had prayed in twenty years. “Dear Lord, I have failed You in many ways. But now I beg You to protect us. Please guard this woman I love so dearly. And if You can accept me, allow us to have a life together.” Lifting his rifle against one shoulder, he fought the pain in his cheek. “Lead out,” he said as he urged the horses through the barn doorway.

  The horses pulled the cart across the courtyard littered with bodies, and into the battlefield. Coughing in the smoke, Anne jerked on the reins, attempting to guide the cart toward shelter in the nearby forest. The two horses tossed their heads in fear. Walking wounded staggered toward safety. Riderless horses, crazed with terror, galloped aimlessly, colliding with the onrushing cavalry. Scattered corpses blocked the path, and Ruel fought to keep the cart moving.

  “Walker!” he shouted as a steaming horse bolted from nowhere and across their path. His voice was lost in the explosion of a cannonball not ten yards away. Clods of wet dirt splattered over him. Prudence lifted her head in an agonized scream. Deafened by the cannonade, Ruel heard nothing.

  He looked up at Anne. Chin set, she flicked the reins across the horses’ backs. Her loose hair streamed behind her. Mud peppered her face and gown. Glancing down at him, she nodded encouragement. “It’s all right,” her mouth seemed to say, forming words he could not hear.

  “Anne!” He wanted to tell her, had to tell her of his love for her. As he spoke, another missile exploded directly in front of the cart. The horses shied, threw back their heads, bolted. “Anne!”

  He struggled to hold the harness, but the horses tore it from his hands, pulled away, and thundered straight toward the battle lines. Sprinting through the fog, Ruel could just make out the cart lurching toward the line of Wellington’s fusiliers, who somehow still held the French forces at bay from fewer than two hundred yards.

  “Anne!” he bellowed. He plunged through a cloud of smoke, chasing the runaway horses, leaping over fallen men, sloshing through mud. Walker ran at Ruel’s side two paces away, his expression stoic.

  “Anne!” Ruel shouted her name until he was hoarse. She never turned. In the hazy twilight he could just make out Prudence clambering onto the seat beside Anne, grabbing at the reins, attempting to control the horses.

  A cannonball exploded in front of the two men. They both fell, lay stunned for a moment by the shock waves, then scrambled to their feet and continued to run. Bouncing, jolting over ruts, the cart again vanished behind a wall of smoke as another ball exploded, then another.

  Ruel looked to his side. Walker had disappeared. He ran on toward the front line. Anne. Had to get to her. Had to save her. A bullet zinged past his ear. Another knocked the hat from his head. A soldier tumbled from a horse and fell to the ground at Ruel’s feet. Ruel leapt over him and ran on.

  “Anne!” He spotted the cart through a clearing in the smoke. It had stopped, tilted crazily to one side. No! Lungs burning, he jumped across a ditch and fell to his knees against a wheel. The two horses lay dead, mangled by a cannonball’s explosion. Ruel pulled himself to his feet and reached over the edge of the wagon for the seat. His hand closed on soft blue fabric.

  “Come, Ruel!” Walker’s voice shouted into his ear, and the Indian appeared at his side. “Nothing can be done here.”

  As Walker tugged his friend’s hands from the cart, Ruel looked into the wagon. Both women lay sprawled across the seat, their faces, hair, gowns spattered with in blood. Breathless, lifeless, they hung like limp mannequins, arms dangling and mouths opened in wordless screams.

  “Anne!” Ruel howled her name again and again as Walker dragged him away from the cart, across the muddied fields, and finally into the safe haven of the woods.

  Crumpling, Ruel sobbed against the ground as he clutched handfuls of damp earth. He had killed her. Led Anne to her death. Failed the woman he loved, the only woman he would ever love.

  “We must get out of this place,” Walker urged. “The French are coming.”

  “I cannot leave her.”

  “She is gone, Ruel. They both are. You saw them.”

  “I want to bury her.”

  “Impossible. It will be done with dignity. Nothing you can do will bring her back, Ruel. We must save ourselves now. Come.”

  “No.” He grabbed the Indian’s shirt and twisted it in his fist. “I love her. I love her.”

  Speaking into Ruel’s face, Walker enunciated each word. “Anne . . . is . . . dead. Dead.”

  “God help me!”

  “Yes, God will help us both. He will watch your woman now . . . and mine. But we have been spared. And we have work to do. We must go to Valenciennes and meet your brother. Sir Alexander may yet be waiting.”

  “No. I shall not go to France.” Ruel gritted his teeth.

  “To England, then. We can return to England. Your father will rejoice at your safe return.”

  Ruel shook his head. “I cannot go back to London. London, where she lived . . . the house . . . the gardens . . . the rooms where I loved her . . .”

  Walker laid a hand on his friend’s arm. In the distance, Ruel could see the Prussian troops arriving to bolster Wellington’s forces. Would they be enough? It hardly seemed possible. The French pressed on, driving the English lines back closer and closer to the forest.

  “We must go,” Walker said. “We must find a place of refuge.”

  “Refuge?” Ruel lifted his head. Refuge. Yes, that was what he needed. Home. “I can think of only one place for my heart to find peace.”

  “Where?”

  Rising unsteadily to his feet, the younger man replied, “Slocombe. I must go home to Slocombe.”

  Sixteen

  Spilled sugar. It lay scattered across the tablecloth, a grand mess to be cleaned up before Mrs. Smythe would notice. The sugar sparkled and glittered in the firelight from the cooking hearth. The tea cloth, a smooth expanse of lustrous black velvet, stretched on and on along the huge table. Sugar . . . endless, endless sugar . . . like stars in a deep, ebony night . . .

  Stars. Anne sat up. A breath of fog whispered past her face. She shivered. Where was Mrs. Smythe? And the sugar . . .

  “Prudence?” she called, but her voice made no sound. Her friend would be near, for Prudence nearly always was seated with her sisters when tea was served. “Sarah? Mary?”

  But this was not the drawing room at Trenton House after all, was it? Nor was it the kitchen at Slocombe. Anne looked around her, searching for signs of the familiar fireplace, the long worktables, the black-and-white-tiled floor. Instead of the massive stone hearth and blazing logs, she saw lights in the distance, the flash of swords glinting in the starlight. Rather than basking in the smell of baking cinnamon and roasting duck, she choked on the smoke. Black, cloying smoke with the scent of gunpowder. In the place of the laughter and fuss of the kitchenmaids, she heard . . . nothing. She heard nothing!

  “Prudence?” Her own voice made no sound. She had gone deaf. Panic gripped Anne’s heart. This was not the kitchen at Slocombe. This was the battlefield. Waterloo.

  “Ruel?” she cried out. Again, she heard nothing, not even the word she had shouted at the top of her lungs.

  Frantic, she felt around her, groping, touching. Her fingers fell on something soft. A hand gripped hers, and she screamed. Again, nothing. No sound.

  Prudence’s moonlit face formed in front of Anne’s, a mask of terror. Prudence’s lips moved, forming words, but saying nothing. Panic widening her eyes, the young woman covered her ears and shook her head violently at her own inability to hear. Prudence clutched Anne’s arms, tears r
unning down her cheeks.

  Oh, Prudence! Anne threw her arms around her friend. They must be deaf, both of them. Deafened by the cannonade. The men . . . where was Ruel? And Walker? And look at the poor horses. Dead!

  They had to get away from this field of destruction. In the distance, the battle continued. It hardly seemed possible that men were still fighting in the darkness.

  No matter what the outcome of the battle at Waterloo, Anne knew she and Prudence had to find Ruel and Mr. Walker. Oh, she could hardly think. If the men were alive, they would be nearby. Or might they have gone on to Valenciennes? And were they alive? Or dead?

  No. Anne could not reason beyond her unbearable thirst and the ringing in her ears. Not dead. Ruel was not dead. Impossible.

  She set Prudence away from her and pointed toward the forest and safety. Prudence nodded, seeming to understand. Hoisting her skirts around her knees, Anne climbed down from the cart and began to unharness the horses. It was hard, unpleasant work, but determination to escape drove her. Too many times in the past days, she had witnessed near victory, only to see it followed by another onslaught of Napoleon’s forces. Though it looked as if the French were retreating and the Prussians and British were racing after them, slaughtering their enemies without mercy, Anne dared not trust her eyes.

  Gesturing and mouthing silent words, she indicated to Prudence that they each must capture another horse from those wandering loose on the battlefield. They must take the cart with them into France.

  Coming out of her shock, Prudence slipped down to the ground. Together the women trudged around the clusters of dead soldiers until they found two horses calm enough to approach. They led them to the cart, harnessed them, and climbed back onto the wooden seat.

  Anne pointed toward the west. “France?” she mouthed.

  Prudence’s lower lip trembled as she nodded. Anne knew it might be easier to return to Brussels and take refuge there. Even if Napoleon took the city, there would be food to eat, water to drink, and hope for passage back to England. But Anne had no doubt where her heart belonged. They must find the men.

  The horses slowly pulled the cart across the gruesome farmland that had become a killing field. Anne shut her eyes, allowing the team to take the lead until she could bear to look again. Her thoughts drifted as she tried to make sense of her situation.

  What had happened to Prudence and her in the passing hours? The last thing she recalled, a cannonball had exploded near the cart, and the horses had bolted in fear. Anne remembered Ruel clinging to the harness, running alongside the cart, trying to stop the frightened animals until he could hold on no longer. Though she had fought for control, the cart had bounced and jolted directly toward the front line. Men had been shouting, mud flying, hooves pounding. And then . . .

  Oh, then a runaway horse had galloped toward the women. The frenzied beast had crashed full force into the cart just as a second cannonball flew whistling toward them. Falling. Falling.

  Anne remembered nothing after that. Not the ball hitting the earth. Not the explosion. Not the cart slamming into the pit created by the blast. Nothing. Where was Ruel during all that time? Had he been killed? Surely not.

  Yes. Anne squeezed her eyes more tightly shut against the reality. If he had been alive, Ruel would have come and found her and Prudence. Anne had doubted much about her husband, but this one thing she knew for certain. Alive, he never would have abandoned them on that battlefield.

  Glancing at Prudence, Anne saw that her friend must have come to the same conclusion. Prudence sobbed into her skirt, shoulders shaking in sorrow. The men were dead. Ruel, Anne’s husband. Walker, Prudence’s love. Gone forever.

  The moonlit night brought little comfort. The two horses pulled the cart along muddy lanes and byways, westward away from the battlefield and toward France. Anne took turns with Prudence driving the wagon and sleeping in the back amid the trunks. Neither woman could hear the other, but it hardly mattered. Lost in their grief, they had nothing to say.

  Two full days and nights passed before Anne and Prudence crossed the border into France and drove their little cart into the city of Valenciennes. After leaving the carnage behind, they had stopped along a riverbank, slaked their thirst, and washed themselves. The horses also drank deeply and grazed in the tall grass at the water’s edge. Though Ruel had taken the keys to the trunks, Anne used a stone to break the lock on one.

  The women dressed in two of the simple gowns they found inside—pale cotton garments and soft woven shawls. As they traveled the highway, passing through an occasional village, their hearing slowly returned. Neither Anne nor Prudence spoke French well, and they had no way of understanding the news of the battle. Was Napoleon defeated or victorious? And how would either result affect them—two young Englishwomen in France?

  “The fountain,” Anne spoke up, tugging on a rein to turn the horses down a street in Valenciennes. “That is where Ruel agreed to meet his brother.”

  “Sir Alexander gave us but three days to travel from Brussels, and many more than that have gone by, Anne. You know he will have gone to Paris to stay with his fiancée’s family.”

  “Then I shall write him a letter and beg him to come to our rescue.”

  Prudence studied her gloveless hands. “Oh, what is to become of us, Anne? I cannot have such faith as you that Sir Alexander or . . . or the other men . . . or anyone will be waiting for us.”

  “I have little faith in it myself. I only know it was Ruel’s plan for everyone to meet in Valenciennes. If we have any hope of help, we must find that fountain.”

  “What then? Do you mean for us to stay here in this enemy land? What shall we do with ourselves in France? We know no one here, and we cannot speak the language. I want to go home. I want to sit with my sisters at tea. I long to see Mary’s baby again, and listen to Sarah’s calming words. Oh, dear . . .”

  “We have little money, Prudence, and we cannot leave until we have made certain whether the men came here or not.” Anne surveyed the town with its bustling market, narrow streets, and crowded, half-timbered houses. “Ruel must have planned to meet a person other than his brother in France. He surely had planned that someone here would set up the machine.”

  “In this small town? It is hardly a commercial center. I presumed he would be going to Paris eventually to join Sir Alexander.” Prudence fingered her shawl as she scanned the streets, her eyes brimming with hope. “Anne . . . do you think Lord Blackthorne and Walker are here already? Could they be waiting for us?”

  Even as Prudence spoke the words, Anne knew they were impossible. Not only would the men not be here, but she and Prudence already were in jeopardy. The two women had driven a cart full of contraband lace machinery into a country where the people spoke no English and most were loyal to Napoleon Bonaparte.

  “I only know we must find the fountain,” Anne said softly. “Perhaps someone will help us there.”

  As she guided the horses toward the center of the little town, she considered what she and Prudence must do after the reality of their situation became inescapable. It was foolish to believe Ruel and Walker could be there. Sir Alexander would not be there either. No one but God could help them.

  They might sell the horses and cart, sell the gowns in the trunks . . . even sell the lace loom. With the money, they would have some hope of returning to England. But what awaited them there? Anne thought of her father languishing in prison. His case depended on the goodwill of the Marquess of Blackthorne.

  Without him . . . without Ruel . . .

  “There it is!” Prudence cried, pointing. “I see the fountain.”

  Anne flicked the reins and sent the tired horses the last few yards toward the trickling cascade. Surrounding the fountain, small booths with colorful canopies offered cheeses, fresh strawberries, wooden clogs, and iron pots for sale. Ladies filled shopping baskets with goods while children played in their mothers’ skirts. It was a scene that brought Nottingham to Anne’s mind, and for the first time in weeks s
he felt the tension begin to slide out of her body.

  “It reminds me of home,” she said softly as she pulled the horses to a stop and set the brake. “The houses. The gardens. The market.”

  “But no one is here. No one awaits us.”

  “No, indeed.” Anne drew her shawl from her shoulders and folded it into her lap. In the quiet of the morning, she could hear birds twittering in the trees overhead. A child laughed.

  “Ruel wished this for me, Prudence,” Anne whispered, suddenly unable to keep back the tears. “We stood in the barn window at Waterloo watching the battle, and his words took me far away from those fields of slaughter. He told me he wanted me to have a stone house and a lace school and . . . and hedgehogs. Oh, Prudence, I would trade a hundred lace schools to see Ruel again!”

  “Anne.” Prudence folded her friend into her arms. “He loved you, Anne. He loved you so.”

  “I cannot believe you,” she wept. “How could he have cared for me? I was awful to him! I was mulish and impertinent. I could hardly bear the society of his acquaintances, and he knew it. I learned Society’s proper manners and decorous speech, but I never belonged in his world. Worse than my own incompetence was my harsh tongue. I accused Ruel of having a black heart, and I told him I found him stubborn, disputatious, and difficult. I was never anything but trouble to him.”

  “But he loved you all the same.”

  “No, Prudence.”

  “Mr. Walker insisted it was so. He told me of the events that occurred one night at Marston House in London. Do you recall the first evening of our stay there? After dinner, the marquess held you in his arms in the garden outside the drawing room. You said the embrace had meant nothing. You insisted Lord Blackthorne was merely acting out a drama for the benefit of visitors to the house. But much later that night, after Walker had . . . after he had spoken with someone in the corridor . . .”