A Summer to Remember (32 page)

SLIGHTLY MARRIED

On Sale April 2003

Toulouse, France, April 10, 1814

T
HE SCENE WAS ALL TOO FAMILIAR TO THE
man surveying it. There was not a great deal of difference between one battlefield and another, he had discovered through long experience—not, at least, when the battle was over.

The smoke of the heavy artillery and of the myriad muskets and rifles of two armies was beginning to clear sufficiently to reveal the victorious British and Allied troops establishing their newly won positions along the Calvinet Ridge to the east of the city and turning the big guns on Toulouse itself, into which the French forces under Soult’s command had recently retreated. But the acrid smell lingered and mingled with the odors of dust and mud and horse and blood. Despite an ever-present noise—voices bellowing out commands, horses whinnying, swords clanging, wheels rumbling—there was the usual impression of an unnatural, fuzzy-eared silence now that the thunderous pounding of the guns had ceased. The ground was carpeted with the dead and wounded.

It was a sight against which the sensibilities of Col. Lord Aidan Bedwyn never became totally hardened. Tall and solidly built, dark-complexioned, hook-nosed, and granite-faced, the colonel was feared by many. But he always took the time after battle to roam the battlefield, gazing at the dead of his own battalion, offering comfort to the wounded wherever he could.

He gazed downward with dark, inscrutable eyes and grimly set lips at one particular bundle of scarlet, his hands clasped behind him, his great cavalry sword, unsheathed and uncleaned after battle, swinging at his side.

“An officer,” he said, indicating the red sash with a curt nod. The man who wore it lay facedown on the ground, spread-eagled and twisted from his fall off his horse. “Who is he?”

His aide-de-camp stooped down and turned the dead officer over onto his back.

The dead man opened his eyes.

“Captain Morris,” Colonel Bedwyn said, “you have taken a hit. Call for a stretcher, Rawlings. Without delay.”

“No,” the captain said faintly. “I am done for, sir.”

His commanding officer did not argue the point. He made a slight staying gesture to his aide and continued to gaze down at the dying man, whose red coat was soaked with a deeper red. There could be no more than a few minutes of life remaining to him.

“What may I do for you?” the colonel asked. “Bring you a drink of water?”

“A favor. A promise.” Captain Morris closed parchment-pale eyelids over fading eyes, and for a moment the colonel thought he was already gone. He sank down onto one knee beside him, pushing his sword out of the way as he did so. But the eyelids fluttered and half lifted again. “The debt, sir. I said I would never call it in.” His voice was very faint now, his eyes unfocused.

“But I swore I would repay it nonetheless.” Colonel Bedwyn leaned over him, the better to hear. “Tell me what I can do.”

Captain Morris, then a lieutenant, had saved his life two years before at the Battle of Salamanca, when the colonel’s horse had been shot out from under him and he had been about to be cut down from behind while engaging a mounted opponent in a ferocious frontal fight. The lieutenant had killed the second assailant and had then dismounted and insisted that his superior officer take his horse. He had been severely wounded in the ensuing fight. But he had been awarded his captaincy as a result, a promotion he could not afford to purchase. He had insisted at the time that Colonel Bedwyn owed him nothing, that in a battle it was a soldier’s duty to watch the backs of his comrades, particularly those of his superior officers. He was right, of course, but his colonel had never forgotten the obligation.

“My sister,” the captain said now, his eyes closed again. “Take the news to her.”

“I’ll do it in person,” the colonel assured him. “I’ll inform her that your last thoughts were of her.”

“Don’t let her mourn.” The man’s breath was being drawn in on slow, audible heaves. “She has had too much of that. Tell her she must not wear black. My dying wish.”

“I’ll tell her.”

“Promise me . . .” The voice trailed away. But death had still not quite claimed him. Suddenly he opened his eyes wide, somehow found the strength to move one arm until he could touch the colonel’s hand with limp, deathly cold fingers, and spoke with an urgency that only imminent death could provoke.

“Promise me you will protect her,” he said. His fingers plucked feebly at the colonel’s hand. “Promise me! No matter what!”

“I promise.” The colonel bent his head closer in the hope that his eyes and his voice would penetrate the fog of death engulfing the agitated man. “I give you my solemn vow.”

The last breath sighed out of the captain’s lungs even as the words were being spoken. The colonel reached out a hand to close Morris’s eyes and remained on one knee for a minute or two longer as if in prayer, though in reality he was considering the promise he had made Captain Morris. He had promised to take the news of her brother’s death to Miss Morris in person though he did not even know who she was or where she lived. He had promised to inform her of Morris’s dying wish that she not wear mourning for him.

And he had sworn on his most sacred honor to protect her. From what—or from whom—he had no idea.

No matter what!

The echo of those last three words of the dying man rang in his ears. What could they possibly mean? What exactly had he sworn to?

No matter what!

SLIGHTLY WICKED

On Sale May 2003

M
OMENTS BEFORE THE STAGECOACH OVERTURNED,
Judith Law was deeply immersed in a daydream that had effectively obliterated the unpleasant nature of the present reality.

For the first time in her twenty-two years of existence she was traveling by stagecoach. Within the first mile or two she had been disabused of any notion she might ever have entertained that it was a romantic, adventurous mode of travel. She was squashed between a woman whose girth required a seat and half of space and a thin, restless man who was all sharp angles and elbows and was constantly squirming to find a more comfortable position, digging her in uncomfortable and sometimes embarrassing places as he did so. A portly man opposite snored constantly, adding considerably to all the other noises of travel. The woman next to him talked unceasingly to anyone unfortunate or unwise enough to make eye contact with her, relating the sorry story of her life in a tone of whining complaint. From the quiet man on the other side of her wafted the odors of uncleanness mingled with onions and garlic. The coach rattled and vibrated and jarred over every stone and pothole in its path, or so it seemed to Judith.

Yet for all the discomforts of the road, she was not eager to complete the journey. She had just left behind the lifelong familiarity of Beaconsfield and home and family and did not expect to return to them for a long time, if ever. She was on her way to live at her Aunt Effingham’s. Life as she had always known it had just ended. Though nothing had been stated explicitly in the letter her aunt had written to Papa, it had been perfectly clear to Judith that she was not going to be an honored, pampered guest at Harewood Grange, but rather a poor relation, expected to earn her keep in whatever manner her aunt and uncle and cousins and grandmother deemed appropriate. Starkly stated, she could expect only dreariness and drudgery ahead—no beaux, no marriage, no home and family of her own. She was about to become one of those shadowy, fading females with whom society abounded, dependent upon their relatives, unpaid servants to them.

Judith was the one everyone had turned and looked at when Papa came to the sitting room and read Aunt Effingham’s letter aloud. Papa had fallen into severe financial straits and must have written to his sister to ask for just the help she was offering. They all knew what it would mean to the one chosen to go to Harewood. Judith had volunteered. They had all cried when she spoke up, and her sisters had all volunteered too—but she had spoken up first.

The sky beyond the coach windows was gray with low, heavy clouds, and the landscape was dreary. The landlord at the inn where they had stopped briefly for a change of horses an hour ago had warned that there had been torrential rain farther north and they were likely to run into it and onto muddy roads, but the stagecoach driver had laughed at the suggestion that he stay at the inn until it was safe to proceed. But sure enough, the road was getting muddier by the minute, even though the rain that had caused it had stopped for a while.

Judith had blocked it all out—the oppressive resentment she felt, the terrible homesickness, the dreary weather, the uncomfortable traveling conditions, and the unpleasant prospect of what lay ahead—and daydreamed instead, inventing a fantasy adventure with a fantasy hero, herself as the unlikely heroine. It offered a welcome diversion for her mind and spirits until moments before the accident.

She was daydreaming about highwaymen. Or, to be more precise, about a highwayman. He was not, of course, like any self-respecting highwayman of the real world—a vicious, dirty, amoral, uncouth robber and cutthroat murderer of hapless travelers. No, indeed. This highwayman was dark and handsome and dashing and laughing—he had white, perfect teeth and eyes that danced merrily behind the slits of his narrow black mask. He galloped across a sun-bright green field and onto the highway, effortlessly controlling his powerful and magnificent black steed with one hand, while he pointed a pistol—unloaded, of course—at the heart of the coachman. He laughed and joked merrily with the passengers as he deprived them of their valuables, and then he tossed back those of the people he saw could ill afford the loss. No . . . No, he returned
all
of the valuables to
all
the passengers since he was not a real highwayman at all, but a gentleman bent on vengeance against one particular villain, whom he was expecting to ride along this very road.

He was a noble hero masquerading as a highwayman, with a nerve of steel, a carefree spirit, a heart of gold, and looks to cause every female passenger heart palpitations that had nothing to do with fear.

And then he turned his eyes upon Judith—and the universe stood still and the stars sang in their spheres. Until, that was, he laughed gaily and announced that he
would
deprive
her
of the necklace that dangled against her bosom even though it must be obvious to him that it had almost no money value at all. It was merely something that her . . . her
mother
had given her on her deathbed, something Judith had sworn never to remove this side of her own grave. She stood up bravely to the highwayman, tossing back her head and glaring unflinchingly into those laughing eyes. She would give him nothing, she told him in a clear, ringing voice that trembled not one iota, even if she must die.

He laughed again as his horse first reared and then pranced about as he brought it easily under control. Then if he could not have the necklace
without
her, he declared, he would have it
with
her. He came slowly toward her, large and menacing and gorgeous, and when he was close enough, he leaned down from the saddle, grasped her by the waist with powerful hands—she ignored the problem of the pistol, which he had been brandishing in one hand a moment ago—and lifted her effortlessly upward. . .