The captain’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he cleared his throat. “Uh, well, my lord,” he began slowly but gained speed as he spoke, “it is my sad duty to inform you that Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Langston was reported missing and presumed killed at the Battle of Plattsburgh on September 11. The War Office offers its—”
Nash snatched the missive from the captain’s still outstretched hand. “Offers its condolences, yes, yes,” he interrupted, anger and impatience creasing his tanned features. Breaking open the seal, he unfolded the thick paper and scanned it before tossing it onto the occasional table next to the chair he’d been sitting in. “Missing?” His tone was furious. “Presumed killed. You’re telling me his body has not been found, but his regiment has reported him dead? How hard did they look before turning their tails and running for safety?”
The captain flushed, and the younger officer, a coronet who didn’t appear to be much older than Harry, looked down and studied his polished Hessians as if hoping he might be able to melt into them.
“I am sorry, my lord, but…we are only the messengers. I know nothing of the circumstances, save that your brother did not return from the battle.”
Nash growled, and the younger officer flinched. The captain, to give him credit, held his ground, but his expression was pained. Walter felt a little sorry for both men. Their job could not be an easy one. Like the herald in Oedipus, they were always the bearers of unwanted news.
“If you can’t tell me anything useful, what the hell good are you?” Nash demanded, heedless of the numerous little pitchers with ears scattered about the room. “Travers,” he said, addressing the butler, “show them out. And if anyone else in a uniform shows up, tell them I don’t speak to cowards.”
After the butler had led the officers from the parlor and closed the doors ostentatiously behind them, a ripple of emotion washed through the room.
“That was a bit harsh, my love, don’t you think?” The mild remonstrance came from Nash’s wife, Lady Leticia—or Tish, as she preferred to be called. “They were just doing their job…and a very unpleasant one, at that,” she said, echoing Walter’s thoughts.
Nash glowered at her for half a second but couldn’t sustain his rage in the face of her entirely reasonable rebuke. His posture relaxed, and he leaned down to kiss her forehead. “You’re right, my dear, but damn it, they’ve just given him up for dead, and they expect us to do the same. What are we supposed to do? Have a funeral for a bloody box of air? How can we even be certain he is dead?”
Walter sighed to himself at the multiple profanities. They were entirely in order under the circumstances, but he and Artemisia would now be spending the next few weeks once again attempting to impress upon Noel and his five older but still impressionable young siblings that these were not words to be spoken in polite company and especially, particularly not in church.
“The evidence for that conclusion seems rather strong,” Freddie pointed out. “We all know—I won’t say 'knew' yet—Geoffrey. There was never a more dedicated officer. If he could have joined his battalion, he would have. And if he had been taken as a prisoner by the Americans, surely they would have contacted their British counterparts to tell them so.” She cast a glance at Thomas, who in addition to being hers and Walter’s best friend in childhood and now her brother-in-law was also a high-ranking diplomat in the Foreign Office. “That is how it is done, is it not?”
Thomas nodded. “Yes, that is the standard practice.” He grimaced and shook his head. “From everything I’ve heard, our boys got their ar—er, got badly beaten at Plattsburgh, and against all expectation. So badly that Sir George Murray’s been dispatched to remove Prévost from command, and I will be surprised if we haven’t signed a peace treaty before the end of the month. What would not surprise me is to learn that a good number of the soldiers reported killed in that battle actually survived and simply used it as an opportunity to slip away.”
“Desert, you mean?” Freddie snapped, her dark eyes flashing with icy-hot indignation. “Are you suggesting my brother would have deserted? That he would turn tail and run?”
Thomas held up his hands in a placating gesture, allowing Jasper to squirm from his grasp and resume his position on the floor next to his now-empty stocking. The child began engaging his toy soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. Although perhaps they were hugging. The boy’s intent wasn’t clear.
“That was not what I meant,” Walter’s best friend said, his tone even without sinking into placation. That was Thomas to a T. Ever the diplomat. “I am simply saying that in the chaos, a lot of men probably didn’t get back to Canada with their regiments, so the fact that Geoffrey didn’t make it does not necessarily mean he didn’t survive. There are any number of possible explanations for his failure to return to his regiment, not just that he died or that he deserted. But given the circumstances, it doesn’t seem odd to me that, after a few months with no word, his superiors might not be inclined to investigate further.”
Nash fixed Thomas with an intent expression. “But we might.”
Walter expelled a slow breath. “After this long, if he is dead, there’s very little chance anyone can find and identify his remains.” He hated voicing such a maudlin thought, but someone had the point out the obvious, if only to prevent everyone from getting their hopes up.
But for some unfounded reason, his own hopes were up. Geoffrey’s body hadn’t been found, and it appeared that no one had seen him fall in combat, as that information would surely have been included in the letter from the War Office. After twenty-five years of military life, his brother was a canny fighter and a consistent survivor. He’d made it through countless other battles. It was almost unthinkable to imagine he’d have allowed himself to get killed in the stupidest of clashes, one undertaken after peace negotiations were already underway.
Maybe Thomas was right. There might be some reason other than death or deliberate desertion that had kept Geoffrey from returning with his regiment and from contacting his superiors. An injury, perhaps? Or rogue American soldiers holding him hostage? All right, that was farfetched, but there could be some other explanation.
“But if he is alive,” Freddie countered, “we might be able to find him. To bring him home.”
“And if we don’t find him,” Nash added grimly, “at least we will know we tried.” He glanced at his wife. “I will book passage to Quebec City in the morning.”
“The he—devil you will,” Tish retorted. “Parliament is in session. You cannot just up and leave, and you da…shed well know it.”
Nash’s complexion reddened. “The House of Lords will roll on in its usual fashion with or without me. He’s my brother, damn it all.”
“He’s your brother, but you are a father, and your children depend on you. I depend on you. What if you were to be lost at sea? Or—I don’t know—attacked by angry Americans? Will you orphan your children on the off chance your brother is still alive?”
“I’ll go, then,” Freddie said. She glared at her husband, thrusting out her chin mutinously. “Just try to stop me.”
His lips twitched despite the gravity of the situation. Conrad Pearce was well aware that if his wife took it into her head to do something, nothing short of shackling her in a dungeon would prevent her. “I wouldn’t dream of it, my sweet.”
Walter felt a niggling sense of shame that he could not jump in and demand that he be the one to sail to the Americas in search of their brother. No one in the room would expect it of him, of course. Not only because he was a vicar and could hardly leave his parishioners in the lurch, but because he and Artemisia had six children between the ages of seven and eleven. If Tish had erupted at the prospect of Nash leaving her and their three sons—all of whom were above the age of eleven and would be away at boarding school once the holidays were over—Walter could only imagine Artemisia’s reaction to his announcing that he would be the one to travel across the ocean on a wild goose chase. To say she would be displeased with him was a colossal unders
tatement.
Fortunately, he was saved from having to throw in his hat and risk his beloved’s wrath just to demonstrate his willingness to make the sacrifice by Thomas Pearce’s calm but implacable voice. “None of you are going. I am.”
Every eye in the room turned to stare—or glare—at him. Even the children who were too young to know what he meant seemed enthralled by the finality of his words.
“Now see here, Pearce,” Nash sputtered, “you aren’t even a member of the family. Not by blood, anyway.”
Conrad flinched, and his posture stiffened in a way that suggested he might explode and go straight for Nash’s throat, but Thomas’s expression remained as bland as a blancmange.
“All the more reason I should be one to go. Not only do I have no apparent interest in Geoffrey that might cause people to fear relating bad news to me, but I also have diplomatic papers and can make inquiries of people none of you can meet with. Also, I won’t be leaving vacant a seat in Parliament, and my superiors can doubtless find some additional tasks for me to take care of while I’m in Canada. To all intents and purposes, I can be there as a representative of the British government, not a private British citizen on a desperate quest for a relative.” He glanced around the room, daring any of the twenty-three people in the room to argue with his faultless logic.
No one did. Because his logic was faultless.
Nash opened his mouth, preparing to say something, but Sabine’s precise, French-accented English broke the long pause. “And I will accompany you, of course.”
Thomas gaped at her. “Now, see here—” he began.
Her blue eyes flashed in a face that had suddenly gone thunderous. Walter realized for the first time that Sabine was every bit as iron-willed and ferocious as his twin sister. Which explained, he supposed, why the two women were such fast friends. “No, you see,” she interrupted and then slipped into French, which she sometimes did when speaking to her husband, who was as fluent in the language as she. Walter understood French, of course—in fact, they all did—but her words were rapid-fire enough that he had to concentrate to understand everything she said. “It is one thing for you to go off to the continent for short periods of time, and I did not object when you had to go as far as the Levant when Jasper was only a few months old, but I am not about to allow you to sail an entire ocean without me. If you try to board a ship and leave me here, it will be over your dead body.”
“But what about the children?” Thomas asked in the same language. “Surely you cannot mean to bring them.”
Sabine’s shrug was a thing of Gallic beauty. “They are old enough to stay a few months with their Aunt Freddie and Uncle Conrad. You know how much they love staying overnight when we have to attend one of those dreadful multiple day soirees the ambassadors are so fond of.”
Marie piped in, also in French, “Oh, yes, Papa, may we stay with them? Aunt Freddie lets me wear breeches. Please?”
Thomas and Sabine both gave the child identical looks of surprise.
“Do you prefer breeches to skirts?” her mother asked.
The little girl shrugged. “I like them both. But breeches are much better for climbing trees and running foot races.” Pouting, she looked over toward the table where the board game was laid out and added, somewhat accusatorily, “Honora always beats me anyway, though.”
Given that Honora, Freddie and Conrad’s youngest child, was eight and fairly tall for her age, this was hardly a surprise.
A few bursts of laughter broke out and were almost instantly stifled when Thomas said, in English, “And if we do not…” He trailed off without completing the sentence, but the implication was clear to the adults and near-adults. And if we do not come home?
“Always a possibility,” his wife observed. “Whether we sail across the sea or only go as far as Bath.”
Thomas frowned uncomfortably, but then smiled wistfully and nodded. “You’re right. As you always are.”
And so it was settled.
Thomas and Sabine Pearce set sail for Canada two days after Christmas.
Chapter Eighteen
Plattsburgh, New York – February 27, 1815
Nothing in his experience had prepared Geoffrey for an upstate New York winter. Lancashire was considered by many of his countrymen to be a cold and snowy wasteland in the winter, fit for neither man nor beast, but even the most severe winter he could recall from childhood could not hold an icicle to Plattsburgh.
It wasn’t merely that it was cold. That, he thought he could have soldiered through without much difficulty. Nor was it that it was damp, although there was certainly a surfeit of precipitation. It was just that said precipitation came not primarily as rain or sleet or even light snowfall, but in torrents of bitter shards of ice. The locals called this snow, but it was more akin to frozen bits of buckshot. No, it was that despite all the iced liquid that fell from the sky, the air was dry as salt crystal and sucked every ounce of moisture from his skin, to the point that his lips cracked and his face felt like sandpaper.
And every bit of the discomfort was worth it. He would suffer a thousand winters just like this and account himself the most fortunate of men as long as Laura was with him.
Of course, the intemperate weather was also not without its rewards. One of them was that, when the snow fell in sheets for days on end—as it had for almost the entirety of the previous week—there was not much to do once the livestock had been tended but to huddle indoors. Together. Often in bed, whiling away the hours in learning new ways to pleasure one another, some of which turned out to be new even to him. Perhaps tedium, not necessity, was the true mother of invention.
This was not to say the typically female tasks of cooking and cleaning were any less onerous in the winter, but there were more hands to pitch in. Relieved of most of the day-to-day tasks of tending crops and mending machinery, both Daniel and Joseph took on more work around the house, helping with both meal preparation and the washing up, and Geoffrey followed their lead. He wasn’t sure if this was typical for households in the Americas during the winter months or whether this one, having been headed by a woman for a decade, had become more egalitarian in its division of labor.
Which was how it came to pass that he was nearly up to his elbows in kneading a loaf of bread when someone knocked on the front door. It was the second reasonably fair day in a row after nearly a week of snow, sleet, and everything in between. The skies had cleared to a pale gray-blue, and the temperature was above freezing, which meant some of the snow blocking the roads had melted.
Still, the sound came as a surprise. Unexpected visitors were rare in the summer months; to have one in the middle of winter was quite astonishing. And a trifle worrying, judging by the way Laura leapt from the chair in which she’d been sitting as she applied her considerable sewing skills to the problem of providing him with an adequate wardrobe. She dropped the trousers she’d been hemming into the basket at her side and rushed to the door. When she threw it open, however, her expression transformed from mild alarm to total puzzlement.
Geoffrey, who had already begun extracting himself from the dough, brushed off his forearms and hurried to stand beside his wife.
His wife. Just thinking those words still filled him with joy and satisfaction.
When he saw the two people who stood on the stoop, bundled in highly fashionable and obviously expensive winter coats with fur and cashmere trimmings, he understood her bewilderment. No one in Plattsburgh would have had access to such extravagant outerwear locally, even if they could have afforded it, and while there were certainly a few wealthy residents of the town who could purchase such finery in one of the larger cities, most of them decamped to warmer climes in winter.
Also, he recognized them, though they were so out of place it took several seconds for his brain to catch up with his eyes, especially since the woman’s most memorable trait was the fiery color of her hair, and that feature was completely concealed by a fur-lined black bonnet. The man, however, was unmistakab
le.
Geoffrey’s heart did a strange flip-flop in his chest. He’d been found. And he didn’t know whether to be pleased or petrified. “As I live and breathe,” he heard himself say as though he were shouting into a barrel and perceiving only the echo, “if it isn’t Thomas Pearce and his wife, Sabine. What the devil are you doing here?” It was not exactly the politest of greetings, but Geoffrey felt it entirely appropriate.
Laura looked from the handsome couple on her doorstep to her husband. “These are friends of yours?” she asked dubiously.
“More like family, madam,” Thomas said smoothly before Geoffrey could attempt to explain the relationship. “I am brother-in-law to Geoffrey’s sister.” He turned his attention from Laura back to Geoffrey. “And we are here because the confounded British army tried to convince us you were dead, but we are a stubborn lot and decided to see for ourselves. And here you are, quite alive and well.”
Christ. Hell and bloody damn.
It wasn’t that he wanted his relatives to believe him dead, of course, but he had not even considered the possibility that they would send someone to try to find him. After all, his siblings were all well shackled to England by a combination of familial and professional obligations that would prevent any of them from setting sail for another continent on what was likely to be a pointless errand. He had forgotten that Thomas, while not a blood relation, was nearly as much a member of the family as if he’d been born to it, and that he was a diplomat in the employ of the British government and therefore very much accustomed to going on wild goose chases on foreign soil.
And Thomas had brought his wife with him. That seemed almost unaccountable. Didn’t they have a very young infant? The last he remembered seeing her, Sabine had been heavy with child, and though he’d left before the babe was born, he’d received news from Freddie it had been a boy. Geoffrey had still been stationed on the continent then, close enough to home to receive regular letters from his brothers and sister. And now that he thought of it, that had been more than three years ago. That young infant must now be nearing four years old.
Sleeping with the Enemy: Lords of Lancashire, Book 4 Page 14