Improper Ladies (50 page)

“Small,
querido?”

“Well, perhaps not so small.”

“No.” Carmen smiled. “Yet have you thought of after the war, when we must leave here and go to England, and you must present me as your countess?”

“Of course I have thought of it! It is almost all I do when we are apart. It will be wonderful. I have a sister and an estate that I have neglected these many years, so we must go there as soon as we can.”

“You have been doing your duty for your country ‘these many years.’ Surely your family must understand that?”

“Yes, but it does not make it any easier to be parted from them. Sometimes, when I cannot sleep at night, I think of them, Elizabeth and Clifton Manor. I can almost smell the green English train....” His voice trailed faintly away.

Carmen looked out over the lights of the camp. She had never been to England, or indeed anywhere but Spain. It was all she knew, warm, sunny, tradition-bound Spain. How would she fare in a new, English life?

She leaned her head against his shoulder, her eyes tightly shut. “Will they like me at your home? Will your sister like me?”

Peter tipped her chin up with one long finger, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Elizabeth will love you; you are very much like her. They will all love you at Clifton. As I do. Believe me, darling, it is much easier to be an English countess than a Spanish one, and you have done that wonderfully. You must not be afraid.”

Her jaw tightened. “I am not afraid.”

Peter laughed “Excellent! I knew that a woman who does the things you do could not possibly be frightened of the English
ton.”
He kissed her lightly on her nose. “Are you ready to return to camp?”

“Oh, yes.”

The encampment was uncharacteristically quiet as they made their way hand in hand to Peter’s tent. A few groups of men played desultory games of cards around the fires. Outside the largest tent, Colonel Smith-Mason stood with some of his officers, talking in low voices over a sheaf of dispatches.

Peter glanced at them with a small frown.

“Do you think there is something amiss?” Carmen whispered. She had lived long enough with the intrigues of war to know that events could change in an instant, but she had hoped, prayed, that her wedding night at least could prove uneventful.

Outside the bedchamber, anyway

“I do not know,” Peter answered, his watchful gaze still on the small group. “Surely not.”

“But you do not
know?”

He shrugged. “We have more important things to think of tonight,” he said, bending his head to softly kiss her ear.

Carmen shivered, but waved him away. “No, you must find out. I will wait.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. Go on. We have many hours before dawn.” He kissed her again, and she watched him walk away, his polished buttons gleaming in the firelight. Then she turned to duck into his tent.
Their
tent, for that night.

It was a goodly size, but almost spartan in its tidiness. The cot was made up with linen-cased pillows and a blue woolen blanket; a stack of papers and books was lined up exactly on the table, and the chairs pushed in at precise angles. His shaving kit and monogrammed ivory hairbrush were flush with his small shaving mirror. The only bit of personal expression was in the miniature portrait on a small stand beside the cot: of his younger sister, Elizabeth. Next to it was a portrait of Carmen, painted when she was sixteen, which she had given him as a wedding gift.

Carmen laid her small bouquet of wild red roses beside the paintings and went to open her own small trunk, which had been brought there while they were at the church. In it were the only things she had brought away on her journey from Seville: two muslin dresses and a satin gown, a pair of boots, rosary beads, men’s trousers and shirts, and a cotton night rail that was far too practical for a wedding night.

She slipped out of her simple white muslin wedding dress, and took the high ivory comb and white lace mantilla from her hair. She brushed out her waist-length black hair. Then she sat down on the cot to wait.

She was quite asleep when she at last felt Peter’s kiss on her cheek, his hand on her back, warm through her silk chemise. She blinked up at him and smiled. “What was it?”

“It is nothing.” He sat down beside her and gathered her into his arms. He had shed his coat and shirt, and Carmen rubbed her cheek against the golden satin of his skin. “There were rumors of a French regiment nearby, much closer than they should be.”

“Only rumors?”

“Yes. For tonight.” He wrapped his fingers in her loose hair and tilted her face up to his, trailing small, soft kisses along the line of her throat. “Tonight is only ours, my wife.”

“Oh, yes. My husband.
Mi esposo.”
Carmen moaned as his mouth found the crest of her breast through the silk. Her fingernails dug into his bare shoulders. “Only ours.”

 

The bridal couple was torn from blissful sleep near dawn by the horrifying sounds of gunfire, panicked shouts, and braying horses.

Peter was out of bed in an instant, pulling on his uniform as he threw back the tent flaps.

Carmen stumbled after him in bewilderment, drawing the sheet around her naked shoulders. “What is it?” she cried. “A battle?”

“Stay here!” Peter ordered. Then she was alone.

Carmen hastily donned her shirt and trousers, and tied her hair back with a scarf. She was searching for her boots when she heard her husband’s voice and that of Lieutenant Robert Means, a young man she had sometimes played cards with of a quiet evening. And fleeced regularly.

“By damn!” Peter cursed. “How could they be so close? How could they have gotten so far without us knowing?”

“Someone must have informed them,” Robert answered. “But we are marching out within the quarter hour.”

“Of course. I shall be ready. Has Captain Hollingsworth been alerted?”

“Yes. What of ...” Robert’s voice lowered. “What of your wife, Major?”

“I will see to her.”

Carmen stuck her head outside the tent. “She will see to herself, thank you very much! And what are you doing running about unarmed,
husband?”
She rattled his saber at him.

“Carmen!” Peter pushed her back into the tent. “You must ride into the hills and wait. I will send an escort with you.”

“Certainly not! You require every man. I have ridden about the country without an escort for months. Shall I ride to General Morecambe’s encampment and tell him you require reinforcements?”

“No! You are to find a safe place, and wait there until I come for you.”

“Madre de Dios
!” Carmen pulled her leather jacket out of her trunk and thrust her arms into the sleeves, glaring at him all the while. “I will not hide! I cannot play the coward now. I will ride for reinforcements.”

“Carmen! Be sensible!”

“You be sensible, Peter! I have been doing this sort of thing for a long time.”

“But you were not my wife then!” he shouted.

“Ah. So that is it.” Carmen left off loading her pistol to go to him, and framed his handsome, beloved face in her hands. “I cannot give up what I am doing to become a fine, frail, sheltered lady again, simply because I am now your wife. No more than you can stay safely here in camp because you are now my husband.”

He turned his head to kiss her palm. “No. Even though I wish it so, you are quite right.”

“We shall have many, many years to sit calmly by the fire,
querido.”

He smiled against her skin. “And will you long for your grand adventures, Carmen, when you are chasing babies about Clifton Manor?”

“Never!”

Peter caught her against him and kissed her mouth, hard, desperate. “I will see you at supper, then, Lady Clifton.”

“Yes.” Carmen clung to him for an instant, an eternal moment, then stepped away. “Promise me you will fight very, very carefully today, Peter.”

“Of course, my love.” He grinned at her, the crooked white grin that had won her heart. “I never fight any other way.”

Then he was gone.