Gallant Scoundrel (4 page)

Though Harry knew he should stop her, should at least demand to know what sort of precautions she had taken, his desire for her now burned too fiercely for caution. In a fever of eagerness, he worked with her to divest both of them of the majority of their clothing. Still, just enough sanity remained for him to whisper, “Xena, are you sure?”

“Yes, Harry.” It was the first time she’d used his first name. “I wish to know
all
.”

With a groan, he gave himself up to what they both wanted so desperately. So aroused was he, he’d barely entered her when he felt his climax coming. Determined that her first experience of the act of love be an enjoyable one, he reached between them to pleasure her, but there was no need. Already she was gasping and bucking against him as she reached her own peak. He followed only seconds later, clasping her tightly to him as he drove into her one final time.

“That was…remarkable,” she murmured once their breathing had slowed. “If there were time right now, I should rather like to do it again.”

Harry, still completely overcome by the experience, managed a shaky laugh. “I, ah, fear I would not be able to oblige you for some minutes, in any event.”

“Oh, yes, I seem to recall hearing… ’Tis just as well, for I really must get back before Yamini comes in search of me.”
 

With a sigh that sounded sincerely regretful, she pulled her dress back around and began buttoning up the front. “Thank you, Harry, for a
most
instructive and enjoyable lesson. I quite look forward to my next, for I should like to further expand my education as soon as may be.”

*
       
*
       
*

The very next day, the 45th was again obliged to pack up and continue their grueling eastward march across northern Portugal. Nevertheless, Xena’s eagerness for more lessons in “lust”—she still refused to admit the existence of love—continued unabated.
 

Though no true privacy could be contrived while on the march, she used the excuse of discussing Shakespeare, on whose works Harry was fortunately well-versed, to walk a bit apart with Harry so that they could at least talk without being overheard.

“I have thought quite a lot about my lesson in the fernbrake,” she commented on the third day of the march. “Now that I better understand the pleasure involved, I see how women might be lured by such into the slavery of marriage, as most cultures give them no other acceptable way to enjoy such a wondrous experience regularly.”

“You, however, feel no such lure?” Harry couldn’t help asking. Occasional fantasies had begun to intrude into his waking as well as sleeping hours wherein Xena wished to continue their exclusive relationship even after they were safely back in England.
 

She snorted derisively. “I’d like to think myself far too rational to be seduced into lifelong subjection by a mere fever of the flesh, no matter how pleasurable I find it. Men frequently partake of such delights without being obliged to marry. Should not a woman also be allowed to enjoy a purely physical relationship without trading her freedom for the privilege? I mean to prove it possible.”

“Given a choice, most women seem to prefer the married state to spinsterhood,” he carefully replied. “Surely that must mean there is
something
to be said for it?”

“They simply believe what they’ve been told by their fathers and brothers: that they are incapable of handling their own affairs, so must allow some man to provide for them—as well as their progeny, since most
English
women have no idea how to avert pregnancy.”

During a previous conversation, she had confided to him that a surgical sponge soaked in juice from the lemons so prevalent in Portugal, combined with the added precaution of ingesting wild carrot seeds, was known to prevent such a consequence. Harry could only hope she was correct.

“Then you still maintain that love is a mere invention of poets and playwrights?”
 

For the first time, she shrugged rather than nodding. “Given how much has been written about it, I cannot completely discount the possibility of its existence in specialized cases. Though it’s likely many infer that emotion simply because they happen to find more pleasure in the company and attentions of one particular person in comparison to others.”
 

Harry kept his smile to himself, privately thinking there might yet be hope of changing her mind on that particular issue.

As the days passed, Harry had cause to be grateful that their first coupling had been under such relatively ideal conditions. Even when they again made camp, never again did they have the luxury of a blanket or the leisure of knowing they were unlikely to be discovered. They instead had to settle for the occasional private moment behind a tent or quick interlude in some nearby woods for any subsequent lovemaking.
 

Even so, despite the war raging around them, Harry’s focus increasingly centered on Xena and the stolen moments she contrived for them. If he had any illusions that her aversion to a permanent commitment might be fading, however, they were disabused one evening when he stopped by her tent to return a translated Greek battle account she’d lent him.
 

“Your young man is here,” Colonel Maxwell called out teasingly when Harry appeared at the tent flap. “Have you come courting again, Lieutenant?”

Before he could respond, Xena emerged from her side of the tent with a frown. “Pray do not be ridiculous, Father. Lieutenant Thatcher is not
courting
me. What would be the point, when he knows as well as you do that I’ve no intention of marrying? We simply share several common interests.”

Harry was impressed that she could claim that without a blush, given their
primary
common interest. At the same time, he was disheartened to learn she had not unbent her stance on matrimony at all, despite her obviously increasing fondness for him.

Just how engaged his own feelings had become was driven home to him the following week during one of their increasingly frequent clashes with the French. Having recently crossed into Spain, the 45th was beset by a fairly large force less than a mile from camp. After a sharp engagement, the British proved victorious, though with losses. Harry was escorting a cart full of wounded back to camp when a shout from ahead warned him it had also been overrun by the enemy.

Xena!
 

His heart in his throat, he wrested the reins of the closest horse from the soldier leading it and leapt astride. Heedless of the rough terrain, he urged his mount to a gallop, his only thought to reach her side and assure himself she was safe. If she were not…

On reaching the camp bare minutes later, he saw Xena, dressed in her private’s uniform and wielding a pair of pistols, holding three French soldiers at bay. Two others lay bleeding at her feet. Behind her huddled the few other women in the camp, while a patient or two sound enough to hold a weapon appeared to be assisting in the defense.
 

Just as Harry came thundering up, another French soldier came round the corner of the surgery tent, rifle raised. Without hesitation, Xena shot him dead. A moment later more of the 45th arrived and the three still standing threw down their arms to surrender.
 

That evening Xena was hailed by the entire regiment for her heroism in preventing the massacre of those left behind in camp, for it was she who had sounded the alarm and rallied those able to the defense. Though he cheered with the rest, Harry was more than a little shaken by the discovery that, completely without intending to do so, he had fallen head over ears in love with her.

“It appears that my father is not the only one who has noticed how much time we are spending in each other’s company,” Xena commented two days later as they adjusted their clothing after a brief but passionate encounter in a deserted barn near the camp.
 

“And that concerns you?” In truth, Harry would as lief the other soldiers recognized Xena’s clear preference for him, as it would make them less likely to pursue her affections.

“Of course. I’ve no more wish than you to be pressured into a commitment neither of us desires. Perhaps it would be wisest if we avoid being seen together for a while. In public, I mean. I have no wish to curtail
this
sort of activity.” She winked at him.

“Nor I.” Though it cost him an effort, Harry winked back. “Very well, if you think it best, I will keep my distance and strive to conceal how you affect me. In public.”
 

Over the next week or two, Xena all but ignored Harry in public while making a point of talking frequently to others in camp. He would have found the change impossibly hard to bear were it not for the notes she continued to slip into the hollow of the little elephant-shaped clock he kept near the flap of his tent, naming the time and place of their next rendezvous.

Suspicions against them seemed to subside, just as Xena intended, their names no longer linked in the conversations he overheard in the mess. He was startled, therefore, to return to his tent one evening to find Colonel Maxwell waiting for him inside.

“Sir?” he inquired in what he hoped was a tone of respectful curiosity, though his stomach clenched with sudden nervousness. Only two hours earlier, he and Xena had enjoyed one of their most passionate encounters yet, in the copse behind the livery tent. Surely her father’s visit could have nothing to do with that?

He was wrong.

“Lieutenant Thatcher. I understand you and my daughter have entered into a liaison that can only end in marriage—and quickly.”

Harry swallowed, hard. “Entered… Did Xena—?”

“She has admitted the whole to me, yes, and agrees that a speedy marriage is the only option.”

He could hardly believe it. “She…she does?”

“Of course. I assume you also see the necessity. But whether or no, you will reveal no reluctance you might feel to my daughter. I have already sent for the chaplain from battalion headquarters.”
 

Though he’d hoped to change Xena’s views on marriage once the war was over, Harry could scarcely believe that Xena herself would force the issue by telling her father about their activities! This was no time for questions or arguments, however, unless he wished to be run through or court-martialed.
 

“Of…of course, sir.”

Half an hour later, he found himself facing the battalion chaplain in Colonel Maxwell’s tent while Xena was led to his side by her father. Still perplexed by this sudden turn of events, Harry turned a curious glance her way. She did not meet it, instead staring straight ahead, her face set—seemingly determined to forge the very bond she had claimed to despise.
 

Persuaded that she would soon explain the reason for her apparent
volte face
, Harry repeated the vows steadily, as did Xena. But the instant they were pronounced wed, Colonel Maxwell stepped between them before Harry could so much as kiss his new bride.

“Thank you, Chaplain. You may go. And you, Lieutenant, will come with me. Xena, bide you here until I return.” So saying, the colonel took Harry by the arm and frog-marched him from the tent and all the way to headquarters.

“Major Thorne,” he addressed the startled officer on duty, “I request that this man be posted to another regiment. The 48th is currently below strength, is it not?”

The major nodded, his eyes darting curiously from Colonel Maxwell to Harry and back. “It is, sir. I, er, can see to it first thing in the morning.”

“Tonight would be preferable. I’ll leave him with you until the reassignment can be effected. Send an orderly to pack up his tent.”

Colonel Maxwell turned on his heel and left both Major Thorne and Harry to stare after him—one merely curious, the other stunned.
 

Harry never saw Xena again.

On arriving at the 48th, bivouacked several miles to the north, Harry was greeted by two other young lieutenants he recognized from his days at Oxford—Lord Peter Northrup and Jack Ashecroft. Sharing the dangers and challenges of battle soon strengthened their earlier acquaintance into bonds of friendship. Even so, Harry never revealed the true reason he had been transferred to the 48th.
 

For the first week or two, he daily expected some word from Xena—a note of apology or explanation, or perhaps a demand for half his pay. Nothing came, however, and as skirmishes with the French intensified, his attention was necessarily diverted to other concerns.

Not until a week after their unexpected and spectacular victory over the massed French forces at the Battle of Talavera did Harry finally receive a letter—but from Colonel Maxwell rather than Xena herself.
 

Lieut. Thatcher, regret to inform you my daughter, whom I sent back to England as a result of your actions, never reached her homeland. I have just received word that the frigate Mary Anne, on which she sailed, was sunk by the French on the eighteenth of July and all souls aboard her lost. I write with the assumption that you held her in some degree of affection and therefore extend condolences, despite your being nearly as much at fault for her death as the French.
 

Yours, etc.

Colonel Geo. Maxwell
 

Jack and Peter stopped by Harry’s tent while he still sat stunned, the letter in his hand. Jack jovially called out that they were on their way to the mess tent, but Peter, unusually perceptive even then, waved him to silence.

“Bad news from home?” he asked sympathetically.

Harry stuffed the letter into his pocket. “You might say that.” Hard on the heels of shock, grief and guilt, came the realization that he would likely never know why Xena had decided to marry him. Perhaps it shouldn’t matter now, but…
 

“Occurs to me I never did celebrate our recent victory properly. I’m minded to get roaring drunk tonight. Care to join me?”

Though by then his friends were well aware that Harry never drank, they both agreed without question—Jack enthusiastically, Peter with reluctant concern. It was the beginning of a pattern that was to endure for the next seven years.