An Infamous Marriage (21 page)

He watched as a black horse was lowered over the side, much too quickly, striking its hind leg against the hull on the way down. How many horses would be lamed beyond hope of recovery if this continued?

“Captain Sluggett!” Jack bellowed.

The captain turned to face him, annoyance and impatience written on every feature. “What is it, General?”

“What is the meaning of this unseemly haste?”

The surrounding din lessened as all the soldiers and sailors within earshot stopped to listen. Jack saw several of the regimental officers watching him with curious, wary interest. In the three days they had spent together in Ramsgate and aboard the transport, he’d sensed that the officers hadn’t accepted him yet. Oh, they had shown him every mark of respect and obeyed his orders readily enough, but he could tell by a certain guardedness and stillness that they weren’t yet ready to treat a young major-general who’d only commanded in the American war, and briefly at that, with the same acceptance they would’ve given a commander who’d served with them on the Peninsula. It was understandable, and Jack couldn’t fault them for it. But perhaps now, if he could make Sluggett see reason, the officers and their men might begin to trust him.

“Duke’s orders, sir,” the captain said, thrusting his chin out belligerently. “The Duke of Wellington’s positive orders. We’re to unload our cargos with all haste and waste no time going back to England for more of you.”

“Never tell me,” Jack said coldly, “that His Grace ordered you to throw us and our baggage overboard with no thought to the ruination salt water does to our equipment and ammunition.”

“Trust an army man to be afraid of a little seawater.”

“Does the navy have gunpowder that will ignite when it is wet? If so, do share the trick of it with us. It will give us a great advantage should we meet with Boney on a rainy day.”

A chuckle rippled over the listening crowd. Jack could tell even the sailors were on his side. There was Elizabeth, too, watching from the far end of the deck where she waited with the little knot of common soldiers’ wives who were the only other women aboard. He couldn’t read her expression from this distance, but he wanted her to be proud of him. It meant just as much—more, even—than winning over the officers and men.

“Our orders said
all haste,
” Sluggett said stubbornly. “Do you want me to disobey them?”

Jack ground his teeth. God spare him from such literal interpretations of his own orders. “As the senior officer on the spot, I am amending your orders to
all deliberate haste.
You will keep our powder dry and see our guns safely to land. You will tell your brother captain across the way there to have a care with our horses, so that they may remain uninjured and we will be able to hitch them to our guns and make our own deliberate haste to join our army.”

“The duke—”

“If the duke does not like my amendment of his orders, it shall be upon my head, not yours, so you need not fear.”

Sluggett met his eyes for just a few heartbeats longer, then looked away. “Very well,
sir.
Upon your head be it.”

After that the unloading of the transports proceeded smoothly. Jack noted that the sailors treated Elizabeth with particular courtesy, more than they had shown when they boarded. She didn’t hang about him—she was most scrupulous about avoiding any appearance of distracting him from his duty—but she grinned and gave him a jaunty wave as she was lowered over the railing in a bosun’s chair.

As she vanished from his sight for the moment, he resisted the urge to hang over the rail to watch her progress to the waiting boat below. Turning, he saw the artillery captain who had informed him of Captain Sluggett’s folly. “Thank you, Captain, for summoning me when you did,” he said. “You saved us more loss and trouble than I care to contemplate outside of engaging the enemy.”

“Thank
you,
sir, for putting a stop to the madness.” The officer nodded respectfully, and Jack felt cheered. He was, after all, where he belonged, doing the work he’d been meant for.

That happy sense of rightness and satisfaction began to dissolve once they were all safe ashore. Such was the chaos at Ostend that no one seemed to be in charge of directing each new set of British arrivals to their first night’s billet, and it was long after dark before they were all safely settled around a pair of farms a good two hours’ march from the city. Only when he was sure all was secure and all the men and horses fed did Jack join Elizabeth in the farmhouse bedroom that was their quarters for the night. She had fallen asleep, but she sat up at his entrance.

“I wouldn’t blame you in the least,” he said, “if you repented of accompanying me and said you wished you’d taken the packet, or even stayed at the Grange.”

Elizabeth chuckled. “What would be the use of repenting now? You know I would never have stayed behind altogether, and I’m certainly not going to sail back to England with that mad captain for the pleasure of making the journey again in a different ship.”

He grinned and began undoing his coat buttons. “It should be better tomorrow. That quartermaster’s aide finally found us, and it seems as if the worst of the confusion is here around Ostend. Once we move inland, everything should be better regulated. My brigade is to be quartered in and around Brussels. I’m glad the Langs have room in their house for us, or I’d have to go begging for a headquarters.”

“Surely for a man of your rank, there wouldn’t be any difficulty.”

“I’m sure I could commandeer something, but it sounds as though the city is overflowing already.”

“I’ll be glad to see the Langs again.”

“And I’m glad you’ll have Louisa for company, once the campaign begins in earnest.” He didn’t like to think of Elizabeth alone and eating her heart out with fear while he rode into battle.

“At least we know we have a place to stay. That gives me one less thing to worry over.”

“No one would’ve thought you were worried today. You did splendidly, keeping the women organized and useful.” Jack was beginning to think the army had lost a brilliant quartermaster when his wife had been born a woman, not that he would’ve had it any other way.

“It was the least I could do. You were the one who was splendid, telling off our captain like that. I hope it won’t get you into any trouble with the duke.”

“Surely not,” he said, though at her doubt he felt the first doubts of his own on that score. “I’m certain he did order them to make haste, but unless he’s a complete fool, which I cannot believe possible of a man who’s had so much success, he only meant they mustn’t wait for berths, and they mustn’t allow their crews to go ashore and waste time in taverns and the like.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” she said comfortably.

Jack finished stripping to his shirt and climbed into bed alongside Elizabeth. “I must confess that I am utterly exhausted.” At the moment he wanted nothing more than to sleep with her nestled in his arms. He put his arm around her waist and drew her against him, spoon-fashion.

“So am I,” she admitted, shifting her shoulders to a more comfortable angle. “And I suppose we’ll need to make an early morning of it.”

“Yes. We should have more time when we’re in Brussels. It won’t be all duty. No one expects to march for the French frontier before July or so. We’re not ready yet—we want more of our more seasoned regiments back from America, for one thing—and the Austrians and the Russians certainly haven’t had time to get in place to the east.” That was the plan, and it was far from secret. The great powers were to assemble their armies in numbers Bonaparte could not hope to match, march into France and put an end to his pretensions. Of course, Boney could force a change anytime he chose to move, but all available intelligence had him firmly ensconced in Paris, consolidating his regained power.

“We’ll have to see if Bonaparte waits for your attack,” she replied, unconsciously echoing his thoughts. “He certainly hasn’t made a habit of waiting upon the actions of others.”

“No, but perhaps this time he will. He’s trying to portray himself as a man of peace who only wants to be left alone to govern France.”

Elizabeth responded to this with the derisive snort it deserved, and Jack bent his head to kiss her neck. “In any case, he won’t attack tonight, so let’s take the rest we’ve earned.”

“Mm,” she murmured sleepily. “At least it’s a comfortable bed.”

“Someday we’ll really have our Grand Tour, and we’ll sleep in the finest hotels.”

She entwined her fingers with his. “As long as we’re together, I’m content.”

Chapter Fifteen

Elizabeth awoke early on her first morning away from her native soil. She didn’t count the two nights on the transport, for it had been an English ship, and it had been all but impossible to sleep in any case.

She blinked at the strange, shadowy chamber. There was nothing about it to mark it as a Belgian room. The furnishings were too plain, and there weren’t even any books in sight to indicate its foreignness by their unfamiliar words. But for all that, Elizabeth couldn’t forget she was in a strange and new place. She heard voices outside the house, the familiar rhythms of the soldiers’ English mixed with the stranger sounds of Flemish. Even the air felt different somehow, heavier and warmer than May in Yorkshire or Northumberland.

She knew they must make an early start, and soon Macmillan would be pounding on the door to ensure they were awake. A commander couldn’t be seen to dawdle, and Elizabeth knew Jack was working especially hard to prove himself to the many battle-hardened Peninsular veterans among his men. But Macmillan hadn’t come
yet,
so they must have a
little
time. Surely they could use it to celebrate, to mark their arrival on Continental soil.

Heat and hunger built within her at the thought of it alone. She shifted, rubbing herself catlike against her husband’s body, and she took his hand from her waist and moved it to cup her breast.

It was enough. She’d married a light sleeper.

“Mm?” he murmured. He squeezed her breast lightly, then drew circles around it through the fine lawn of her nightdress, starting at the outside and moving in to caress the peak of her nipple.

She sighed her pleasure and arched back against him.

“So that’s how it is.”

His voice dripped equal parts lust and smug self-satisfaction. Elizabeth decided she didn’t mind. So he knew she wanted him—at least he felt the same. “Always.”

He nipped gently at the spot where her neck met her shoulder. At the small of her back she could feel him growing hard. “This will have to be quick.”

“Quickly or slowly, I want you.” He liked it when she talked to him like that, she’d noticed, and she’d grown to enjoy the brazen abandonment of admitting her own hungers.

He ran a hand, quick yet caressing, along her side, from her waist to her hip and down to the hem of her nightgown, which he slid up. She gasped at the feel of his hand on her skin as he stroked her thighs and her stomach, then trailed a finger down to her curls. She shifted to her back and let her thighs fall open to give him easier access.

He rose up above her, and as she reached up to span his broad shoulders with her hands, in the dim light she could just see his grin. “Good morning, General,” she said with a wink.

“And to you, my lady.” The courtesies concluded, he returned his attention to the seat of her pleasure, rubbing with the firm strokes they’d discovered she enjoyed best until she couldn’t keep her hips still. He slid his finger down and thrust inside her. “Like that, do you?”

“So do you,” she pointed out.

“Oh, yes, but as we’ve no time to linger over our love today...” He drew his finger out and shifted, taking her hands in both of his and pinning her to the bed. She sighed with pleasure at the feel of his cock sliding between her folds to her entrance, and she shifted her hips to just the right angle.

He thrust into her, and she closed her eyes, the better to savor the sensation. He fit her so well, filled her so fully. He began to thrust, fast and hard, and she met him, locking her knees around his hips.

He kissed her. “I love you,” he said, all flippancy gone.

“And I, you.”

Half a minute more, and he came, still and shuddering in her arms. He made sure she had her release, too, reaching down to stroke her to her own peak of bliss.

Before they’d had time to catch their breaths, the knock came at the door. “Beg pardon, sir,” came Macmillan’s voice through the thick wood, “but you said you wanted to be up at dawn.”

“Thank you, Macmillan,” he called.

Elizabeth felt her face heat. “That was suspiciously timed. I hope he wasn’t listening at the door.”

Jack, already half out of bed, stopped to frown at her. “If he was, he’s a good enough valet to never let on. And we were quiet, all things considered.”

She sat up, stretching. “Don’t worry, I’m not having a sudden fit of missishness.”

He winked at her. “I should hope not, after that brazen way you attacked me this morning.”

She tossed her head. “You like to be attacked, my general, and you made no effort at all to defend yourself.”

“On the contrary. Like any commander with spirit, I simply counterattacked.”

She lobbed a pillow at him, and they helped each other dress for the day.

* * *

As Jack had promised, the remainder of their journey to Brussels passed far more smoothly than the landing at Ostend. Halfway through the second day, they, along with the infantry battalions they were accompanying, left the road behind them for the ease and comfort of a little flotilla of barges. Jack perforce spent most of his time in conference with the other officers, but Elizabeth didn’t mind. It was enough to know he was there and that she was his beloved. They still had the nights.

On such a day as this, the war and all her fears about its outcome seemed far away, even as she traveled surrounded by redcoats. Everything in the country they floated past spoke of peace—all the level, green, fertile land, lushly planted with grain already well up, rippling in the gentle spring breezes. The laborers in the fields and pastures used the excuse of the passing barges to stop work for a few moments and stare at them with all the eager interest Elizabeth felt at seeing them.

At length the level countryside began to ripple into low hills and ridges. It was still a gentler, flatter country than she was accustomed to in Northumberland or Yorkshire and, oh, so green. She wasn’t the only one struck by the verdant richness of the country. She overheard a group of soldiers, weather-beaten veterans who had served in Portugal and Spain, admire the beauty of the countryside and talk of what a pleasure it would be to campaign here. She longed to ask them what the Peninsula had been like, but she was unsure of the protocols for her, a general’s lady, to open a conversation with a group of common soldiers.

When they arrived in Brussels, it too revealed itself to be a place of wonders. It reminded her of her native York, in that it still stood encircled by its ancient walls, but within them it was entirely itself, with its elegant streets of tall, many-windowed houses.

The house that she and Jack were to share with the Langs was as fine a place as could be found in the city now, packed as it was with British officers and visitors. It was by no means large or grand, but they were just a short walk from the park, within easy reach of the Duke of Wellington and most of the other important English personages, military or otherwise.

“Who owns the house?” Elizabeth asked as she walked through the drawing room alongside Louisa, admiring the beautiful, new furniture and light, elegant draperies at the windows.

“A merchant, and I gather a successful one,” Louisa said. “But I did not meet him. The house was already empty when we came. He has a young wife who is increasing, the baby expected within a month, I believe, and they concluded they would prefer to retire to her parents’ home in the country for the duration, rather than be obliged to share their house.”

Elizabeth nodded. Many of the townspeople and dwellers in the surrounding countryside had British soldiers billeted on them. While most of the arrangements seemed amicable enough—evidently British soldiers were considered preferable to their Prussian allies for being more polite and more willing to pay for their food rather than simply commandeer it—she could understand not wishing to have one’s elegantly comfortable home crowded with strangers, especially not when the lady of the house expected to be confined any day now.

“I couldn’t help smiling to learn the lady left because she’s increasing and yet here
I
am,” Louisa continued with a conscious hand on the burgeoning curve of her stomach.

“Well, you’ve many months to go yet. Who knows where we’ll be by then?”

“George swears we’ll be in Paris, or else home safe in England.”

“I pray he’s right.”

“As long as we’re not back home because we’re driven out,” Louisa amended. “Don’t tell George I said such a thing, though. He swears all will be well now that Wellington is here.”

“I won’t,” Elizabeth promised. Wellington was the best commander the British had, and it was reassuring that soldiers like George Lang who had served under him for years placed such confidence in him. Yet Wellington had never yet faced Bonaparte. Elizabeth couldn’t forget that, and she was sure Louisa hadn’t either.

“In any case, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, and we’re fortunate enough to be lacking in any especial evils at present. Now that you’re here, I’ll have someone to walk with me in the park every morning. My mother says daily exercise is important when one is in my condition,” she said importantly.

Elizabeth hid a smile. She supposed she would be as proud and careful when her time came—if it came. It had been about three months now since she and Jack had consummated their marriage, and though she knew it was premature, she couldn’t help worrying a little each time her courses arrived on schedule. She was thirty now. Had she and Jack left it too late?

“I’ll be glad to walk with you,” she said. “It’s a delight to be settled in one place, even for a little while, after all those days shut up in carriages and aboard ship.”

“Yes, and we must also find a modiste for you. There are balls and entertainments almost every evening, and you’ll need to be prepared.”

“Truly? I doubt I’ll receive many invitations. It isn’t as if I’m known in society.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’ll be invited everywhere because of your husband’s rank, you see.”

“Perhaps,” Elizabeth said. She had never thought of a military campaign as a social event before, but she supposed in a capital such as this, it was only natural. “And I know we’ll need to entertain here, as well, for Jack’s sake, though I don’t think we’ll have space for balls.”

“No, but you certainly must give dinners.” Louisa laid a soft hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “I hope it isn’t an intrusion for me to say how happy I would be to be of any assistance. I know you’ve lived quietly, while my family went about in society more. It’s not that I don’t think you’d be equal to anything—the dinners you gave to us in Selyhaugh were always most fine—but I would be happy to offer you my advice, and introductions to any acquaintances I find here.”

It rankled, a little, to be dependent upon anyone, especially a younger woman, and Elizabeth had a vague, nervous fear that as a general’s wife, she ought not to lean upon a lower-ranking officer’s lady. But she also knew she was in above her depth, and she and Louisa were firm friends, after all. If she couldn’t accept Louisa’s help, where would she be? “I’d be glad to have it.”

* * *

Early on the first morning after they arrived in Brussels, Jack walked with his wife and Mrs. Lang as far as the park. After remonstrating with Elizabeth that it was only a walking park, so they could not ride together there, he left the ladies to promenade the paths and admire the statuary while he made his way to the mansion facing onto the park’s green expanse where the Duke of Wellington had set up his headquarters.

“Don’t let your nerves show,” Lang had said the night before as they lingered over their port at dinner. Jack had shifted self-consciously in his chair. He hadn’t said anything about being worried, so it troubled him that his friend had been able to see his fears. “And if you’ve any notes or papers you wish to discuss,” Lang had continued, “make sure you’ve committed them to memory. The Peer hates to see men fumble and stutter over their papers. But don’t worry. He’s a fair man. Most of the time.”

Jack supposed he was safe on that score, at least. He hadn’t been in the country long enough to develop a list of proposed improvements or questions about his post. But he was acutely aware that he had the least proper command experience of any major-general in the army, and that Wellington no doubt had any number of lieutenant-colonels he would rather see in command of a brigade than an untried major-general from Canada.

Jack took a deep breath and knocked on the door. He must simply walk in with confidence and make the best of what knowledge and experience he did have.

A courteous young aide in a captain’s uniform admitted him and directed him to wait in a parlor. Jack took a seat and waited as instructed, ignoring the temptation to rub at his leg. It wasn’t especially sore, but he had developed a nervous habit of massaging the muscles whenever he had the solitude to do so. He wouldn’t have even noticed it had become a habit had Elizabeth not pointed it out to him.

After a quarter hour, during which Jack bent and extended his sore leg but resisted the urge to rub it, the aide returned and led him to a large upstairs room overlooking the park where a lean, fit man of slightly above middling height sat at a table frowning over a stack of correspondence. Jack instantly recognized the Duke of Wellington from newspaper caricatures, which had exaggerated his long, hooked nose and emphatic chin, but not by much.

“Sir John Armstrong is here, sir,” the aide said quietly, then withdrew as unobtrusively as he had arrived.

The duke set aside the letter he was reading and fixed Jack with a cool, expressionless stare. “So,” he said, his voice as neutral and unwelcoming as his face, “you’re the young Canadian frontier general who took it upon himself to countermand my orders as to the speedy unloading of all transports.”

Jack stood straighter and fought to contain his temper by mirroring Wellington’s cool voice. It occurred to him, incongruously, that it was almost like arguing with Elizabeth, but he dared not allow himself a smile at the idea. “I beg your pardon, sir. I would never presume to countermand your orders, but I did take it upon myself, as the ranking officer on the spot, to correct what I believed must be a misinterpretation of those orders.”