Slightly Tempted (11 page)

"Many married gentlemen with their mistresses and married ladies with their cicisbeos would applaud your opinion,chérie, " he said.

But she looked at him gravely. "You have not understood," she said. "Anyone who does not intend to keep sacred vows should not make them. Married couples should set each other free to live and learn and find personal fulfillment. They are not two sides of a coin or two halves of a soul. They are two precious individual souls who have joined their freedoms to make something more glorious, more challenging, of their lives."

He was not sure whether to think her foolishly idealistic or wisely mystical. But hewas fascinated by her. He had not expected that they would have a conversation like this tonight of all nights.

"You wish to love the man you will marry in this grand way, then,chérie ?" he asked her.

"Yes." She looked directly at him again. "I do not need to marry for money or position, Lord Rosthorn, or even for security. I would rather wait another five or ten years-or even forever-than marry the wrong man. Though I would hope the wait is not forever."

Would the typical very young lady make much of a distinction between being in love and loving? he wondered. Would many ladies of any age state categorically that love and possessiveness could not exist together? He had not even made that leap of understanding himself. She was right, though, was she not? Would there be so many unhappy marriages if therewere no such distinctions?

"It is a tradition with my family," she explained, "that love be the guiding force of our marriages. Our men are not expected to employ mistresses after they are wed." Her direct gaze did not waver. "They are expected to love their wives and remain true to them. The expectation applies to Bedwyn women too."

He smiled. "And are any of your brothers and sisters married?" he asked. She had mentioned a sister-in-law once, he seemed to recall.

"Three," she said.

"The Duke of Bewcastle is one of them?" he asked. He had not heard of Bewcastle's marrying. But how would he have heard it? He was not up-to-date on all British news and gossip despite these weeks he had spent in Brussels becoming reacquainted with several old friends and acquaintances.

"No." She shook her head. "Aidan is married and so are Rannulf and Freyja-all last year."

"And they were all love matches?" he asked.

"They are now," she said with conviction. "Rannulf and Judith have a new son."

Had Bewcastle loved Marianne? Gervase wondered suddenly. Had he been prepared to love her all his life? To remain faithful to her? He doubted it. It had always seemed to him that Bewcastle was incapable of love.

"And you do not love young Gordon as you would wish to love a husband?" he asked her. "And yet you did not say no to him tonight?"

"I did not quite say yes either," she told him, "but I doubt he noticed. I will have to say a firm no when he returns."

"He will be disappointed," he said.

"He would be more so," she told him, "if I married him. I do not believe I would be an easy woman to live with, Lord Rosthorn, even if I loved with all my heart. Captain Gordon does not love me. He loves theidea of me-a duke's daughter who has just made her come-out and is very wealthy. There is nothing else."

She was doing herself a gross injustice, he thought. But she looked up at him suddenly, her eyes stricken.

"He may die," she said. "Howstupid all this is, Lord Rosthorn. Stupid and deadly serious. How could I have sent him away with the truth ringing in his ears? I allowed him to believe that I feel as he does, that I will wait for him, grieve for him for the rest of my life if he does not return. And perhaps I will too. Who knows?"

Her eyes filled with sudden tears.

He reached across the table and set one hand over hers. She turned her own beneath it and clasped his hand tightly while she dashed at her tears with her free hand.

"I do not want this to be happening," she said fiercely. "Any of it. Can no one understand that war solves nothing? There will always be war,always in the name of freedom and peace. How can there be freedom when men die senselessly? How can there be peace when men have to fight to attain it? Humanity will always run in pursuit of those two desirable states and never ever find them." She looked at him with flushed cheeks and passionate gaze.

Two couples entered the room, took one look at them-and at their clasped hands-and backed out with muffled apologies. Lady Morgan appeared not even to notice.

"I daresay," he said, "Caddick will take you away from Brussels in the morning. Within a week or so you will be back in England with your family and life will seem less tumultuous again."

"It will not," she said. "Please do not patronize me, Lord Rosthorn-not you of all people. I would rather stay here. I would ratherknow . I would rather suffer with everyone else. But even if the Earl of Caddick does not insist that we all leave, Alleyne will. He has been in Antwerp, but he will return tomorrow. He told me before he left that he would insist I leave then if the situation had not improved. It has worsened." She sighed. "What willyou do, Lord Rosthorn?"

"Stay here," he said. "I am not a military man, but perhaps there will be some way in which I can make myself useful."

"That is what I would like to do," she said. "I would like to make myself useful. You cannot imagine how helpless one feels as a woman in a situation like this-or in a thousand other circumstances, for that matter. But I daresay I will be leaving here tomorrow."

"I am on the Rue de Brabant," he said, and he gave her the house name. "If by any chance you have need of me, will you send for me?"

She half smiled at him.

"Because I am too weak to manage on my own? But it is a kind offer and I thank you for it." She looked down at their clasped hands, seemed to notice the connection for the first time, and slid her hand away to rest in her lap. "I believe I have been prattling. I tend to do that when I feel passionately about an issue. I feel passionate about war. It would seem strange, then, would it not, that I felt constrained to come here to Brussels even though my brother did not wish to give his consent? We ought not to be here alone, ought we? But nothing is as it should be tonight. Will you escort me back to Lady Caddick?"

He stood and offered his arm.

"The wars will be over," he said, "at least for a while. And your dream of love will surely come true in time,chérie . You will be happy again."

She laughed softly. "Is that a promise, Lord Rosthorn?"

"Ah, but dreams cannot be captured with promises," he said. "Like water, they elude our grasp. But water is the staff of life. Ibelieve your dream will come true if only because you will not compromise on it and let it go too lightly."

She laughed again. "I have not even asked you about your dreams," she said. "How unmannerly of me!"

"I am far too old for them," he said as he led her back into the ballroom, sparsely populated now.

It was perfectly true. He had dreamed powerful dreams as a very young man, and he had fully expected that most of them would come to fulfillment. But his youth had come to a premature end nine years ago. He had lived firmly within the realm of reality since then.

"But you must have dreams," she told him, "or life loses its focus, its passion, its very meaning."

Wasthat what had happened to his life? he wondered.

Lady Caddick was on her feet, watching their approach with an air of distraction.

"Ah, there you are, Lady Morgan," she said. "We are ready to go home."

Lady Rosamond Havelock at her side looked as if she had been weeping. She cast herself into Lady Morgan's arms, and they hugged each other tightly.

CHAPTER VI

ON THE MORNING AFTER THEDUKE OFRichmond's ball, there was a general exodus from Brussels to Antwerp of those foreigners not connected with the military. By midday the roads were clogged with them and with their carriages and horses and baggage carts.

The Caddicks and Morgan were not among them. Rosamond had awoken with one of her infrequent but crippling migraine headaches. It was indeed more than a headache-it half blinded her, caused nausea and numbness down her left side, and made light and even the slightest sound or movement quite intolerable to her. Despite all the danger of remaining in Brussels and despite the urgings of her husband, who had never suffered from migraines as she herself had and therefore could not imagine how totally incapacitating they were, Lady Caddick remained adamant. Rosamond must remain where she was-quietly shut up in her bedchamber-until the worst of the indisposition was over. Sometimes these bouts lasted for three, four, even five days.

Lord Caddick offered to find someone willing to chaperon Morgan and take her to safety, but she assured him that Alleyne would be back from Antwerp soon and would make suitable arrangements for her himself.

Common sense told her that she should go as soon as possible, even if doing so meant traveling with near strangers. But it was hard to behave with common sense under such dire circumstances. The fact was that she could not bear to leave. She had acquaintances and even a few friends among the officers of the Life Guards and their wives. Most of the latter were remaining. Why not she, then? How could she leave and not know what happened to any of those acquaintances?

She had spoken the truth to Lord Caddick. Even so, she hoped that Alleyne would not return from Antwerp in time to send her on her way today. Perhaps by tomorrow there would be more news from the front. Perhaps the hostilities would all be over by then and she would not need to leave at all.

Alleyne had still not come by midday.

During the afternoon, restless and wanting to leave the house as quiet as possible for poor Rosamond, Morgan obtained permission from Lady Caddick to visit Mrs. Clark, wife of Major Clark of the Life Guards. She lived just a ten-minute walk away, and Morgan promised to take her maid with her. It was while she was taking tea with Mrs. Clark that she heard what at first she took for distant thunder. But Mrs. Clark smiled rather tensely when Morgan expressed the hope that there would be no torrential rain to increase the discomforts of the troops.

"That is the sound of heavy guns," she explained.

Morgan could feel the blood drain out of her head.

"They are far away," Mrs. Clark told her. "It is more a feeling, a vibration, than a sound, is it not? And who is to know where exactly it is coming from or who is involved in the action? Or indeed whether they are our guns or those of the French?"

Morgan half expected that Alleyne would come for her before it was time to leave. But she walked home with only her maid for company.

Alleyne had not called at the Rue de Bellevue. He did not call there for the rest of the day.

During the night they were kept awake for a long time-and Rosamond's sufferings were considerably increased-by the almost-incessant rumbling of wheels on the street, combined with the clopping of horses' hooves and the occasional shouting of men's voices.

They were not to be alarmed, Lord Caddick called from the corridor outside the bedchambers. The commotion was merely that of a long train of artillery passing through Brussels on its way to the front.

Not be alarmed?Morgan, who was standing at her window, a shawl about her shoulders, shivered.

Where was Alleyne? she wondered.

Where were the officers she knew?

By the following day it was too late to leave Brussels even though Rosamond emerged from her room looking like a heavy-eyed ghost to assure her mama and papa that the migraine attack was not as severe as some others she had suffered and that she was ready to travel at a moment's notice.

Early in the morning a troop of Belgian cavalry had ridden through Brussels from the direction of the front-Morgan had been awoken yet again by the noise-shouting to everyone they passed and to the sleepers inside the houses that all was lost and a crushing defeat had been suffered. But they had not stayed to answer anyone's questions.

They left panic in their wake.

Almost all the remaining visitors and many of the permanent residents were hastening to leave the city into which ravening French soldiers might be pouring at any moment. At the Caddick household all trunks and bags were packed and all was ready for departure after an early breakfast.

But there was an unexpected complication. When Lord Caddick sent for the carriage and horses and the baggage coach to be brought up to the front door, he was informed that everything on wheels had been requisitioned by the army for the conveyance of supplies to the front. No matter how much the earl ranted and raved and threatened and cajoled and was prepared to bribe, it quickly became apparent that indeed there was no conveyance to be had. There was no way of leaving Brussels that day unless they were prepared to go on foot, taking with them only what they could carry in their hands and on their backs.

That, of course, as Lady Caddick pointed out in a voice that expressed more outrage than fright, was out of the question.

And so they were trapped in Brussels.

Morgan, although she felt undeniably afraid, was glad.

Rosamond staggered back to bed.