Lord of Fire (18 page)
Authors: Gaelen Foley
“Boots?”
“Army slang for a fresh recruit. Hurry, we’re almost there. We’ll be just in time to watch the sunset.”
“You were in the army?” she exclaimed, hurrying after him.
“Five years.”
“You’re jesting!”
“No,” he said with a sigh. “Would that I were.”
“You, in the army!” She laughed. “I find that hard to imagine.”
“So do I.”
“You don’t strike me as the sort to follow orders. What was your regiment?”
“The Hundred and Thirty-sixth Foot.”
“Oh,” she said with a dubious glance.
“I know—not a very fashionable regiment.” He gave her his hand and pulled her up over a tree root that formed a steep step in the path. “We were going to join the Blues, but Damien actually wanted to
fight
in the war rather than lounge around
“You and he joined the army together?”
He nodded. “We saw our first action in
She laughed as though she could not believe it. “What rank did you attain?”
“Captain.”
“Captain Lord Lucien!” she echoed, laughing harder. “Did you buy it or earn it?”
Taken aback, he laughed in mingled surprise and indignation. “What impertinence! Earned it, I assure you. For your information, Damien and I captained our regiment’s elite flank companies. I was—”
“No, don’t tell me! Let me guess.” Eyeing him in amusement, she tapped her lip in thought. “You’re no grenadier. Grenadiers are big, stalwart souls, the first into battle, or so I’ve been told.”
He raised his eyebrow at her, unsure if he was being insulted.
“No,” she concluded, “you must have been captain of the light infantry company. The quick-witted ones, the sharpshooters.”
“How ever did you guess?”
“I know these things,” she said with a sage look, then turned away and walked on, entirely pleased with herself.
Lucien gazed after her with a smile on his face. God help him, he was utterly charmed. “How do you know about the workings of a regiment?”
“From my brother, of course. He was in the Forty-third,” she added proudly.
“The Glorious Forty-third,” Lucien admitted, impressed. “I heard about Lord Glenwood’s gallantry at
“And a good brother,” she added more softly. “Were you at
“No, I left the previous year, after
“
Lucien was not sure how much her brother had told her. When she laid her hand gently on his arm a moment later, he looked down at it in silence, realizing it was the first time she had touched him of her own accord.
“Captain Lucien, you look so grim suddenly,” she murmured. “Was the battle very difficult for you?”
“It was difficult for everyone,” he countered with a shrug and looked away, irritated with his own habitual evasiveness. He stared into the shadowy woods, routing from his mind the memory of billowing black smoke that parted just long enough to reveal a glimpse of well over a thousand scarlet-uniformed bodies piled against the sun-baked walls of the old Spanish citadel. The British army had battered the French-sympathizing town into submission. “It was not so much the siege itself, but . . . afterwards,” he forced out. He looked at her, searching her face. “Did your brother tell you anything about it?”
held him in a somber gaze. “Some.”
“It is not the sort of thing one normally tells a young lady. . . . But I promised I would not shelter you from the true workings of the world, didn’t I?”
She nodded. “I want to know.”
“By the time the town fell, we had suffered so many casualties that the troops were beyond rage. They were frenzied. They were our men—Englishmen—but they turned into animals. They sacked the town. Looted, raped, murdered civilians. It took us officers three days to bring them under control again.” He watched her face. She seemed to be taking it in stride. Her expression was troubled, but by no means hysterical, and for his part, he needed to speak of it. “We erected a gallows and hanged the worst offenders. After that, I left the army—I thought surely there had to be a better way.”
“You joined the Diplomatic Corps instead?”
He nodded.
She studied him with a thoughtful pause. “I admire you for it,” she declared suddenly. “I’m sure many of your comrades disparaged the choice, but diplomacy is ever more civilized than war. What great strength of will you must have, to have defied the majority’s opinion. I wish my brother had chosen as you did, or better still, had possessed the same strength of will. . . . May I tell you why Phillip went to war?”
“You can tell me anything,” he replied, inwardly dodging the pang of guilt at her misled compliment. His role in the Diplomatic Corps had been anything but peaceful, but of course he could not tell her his true role as spy. He shuddered at the thought. If she knew the truth, it would surely drive her away, as it had driven Damien away. He could not take that chance. Besides, it was dangerous information. It was safer for her to keep her in ignorance.
“Caro made remarks that called my brother’s manhood into question,” she said, fleeting bitterness passing over her delicate features. “But she merely wanted him out of the way so that she could misbehave in
Lucien shook his head. “Men do foolish things in the name of pride,” he said in regret.
“He was invalided home with terrible saber wounds that had become infected. Peg and I—she’s our old nurse, who minds Harry now—we tended him day and night, but we knew he wouldn’t recover. Phillip knew it, too, but at least he got to see Harry again and we got to say good-bye.”
“Were you close?”
She nodded. “Losing our parents at a young age drew us together.”
Lucien tensed, scanning her face.
She looked away. “He lingered for three weeks before he died. He was twenty-nine.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She gazed at him for a long moment as though sizing him up while the wind riffled through their hair and clothes. Then she smiled wryly. “Don’t be. If Phillip were alive, he would have challenged you to a duel and shot you dead for all of this.”
“Ah,” he said in chagrin as she turned away with a chiding smile and walked on.
Feeling rather penitent, Lucien caught up to her a moment later, then forged ahead to the crest of the path where he searched out his visual marker: a dead, gnarled tree trunk, hollow and gray. Going past it, he stepped out onto the limestone outcrop that was their destination. It jutted out from the hill, affording a stunning view of the valley in all its jewel-toned, October glory, lit up by the fireball of the sun, which had just begun to set.
The shot of wind that rushed up the cliff face lifted his hair and ran riot through his long black wool greatcoat so that it billowed behind him as he stood on the edge. “Behold, madam,” he said with a sweeping gesture full of theatrical grandeur as she appeared a moment later, rosy-cheeked with exertion. “The legacy of my ancestors.”
He turned and offered her his hand. She glanced nervously at the precipice, but took his hand and came slowly to him. He drew her to his side and they stood together.
“Oh, Lucien, it is magnificent,” she said softly, her gaze drinking in the vista of the hills clad in amber, maroon, rusty orange, and scarlet.
“Indeed,” he murmured, gazing at her delicate profile and her milky skin illumined by the dazzling light. Then he glanced at the valley again, lest she catch him staring. “How I ever wound up with all this to my name is beyond my comprehension, but it does keep one in comfort.”
She visored her eyes against the sun. “I did not know the marquesses of Carnarthen were related to your family and the dukes of Hawkscliffe.”
“They’re not,” he said drily. “To be specific, the lords of Carnarthen no longer exist. They are a lost breed, alas. The title went defunct when the legitimate line died out with the death of the tenth marquess.”
“There is an illegitimate line?”
He held his arms up at his sides. “You’re looking at it.”
Her eyes widened, and her fingertips flew to her lips. “Oh! I’m so sorry—”
“Not at all,” he said frankly, amused at her discomfiture. “My father was Edward Merion, the last marquess of Carnarthen, a rum chap, and I am proud to be of his blood, bar sinister or otherwise. Carnarthen’s ancestral pile in
“Well . . . yes! I thought the duke of Hawkscliffe was your father!”
“That’s what it says on my birth certificate,” he replied with a shrug. “Of course, it is a lie.”
“You are telling me you are a . . .
bastard,
” She whispered the last word.
He grinned. “Aye, what of it? It’s as good a family as any to belong to. The clan issues from the area around
She gave him a dubious look. “I think that is more of your foolery.”
“As I stand here, it’s true. He told my mother that Damien and I are the final flowering of our line. Twins, you know, are magical beings.”
She scoffed halfheartedly, eyeing him as though she knew not what to believe.
“I tell you, it’s true. Damien and I always had this superstitious notion—which we conceived of when we were quite small—that as a pair, we were invincible, that nothing could ever harm us if the other was close by. That’s the only reason I joined the army. I was sure that Damien would get killed if I weren’t on hand. But, then, even after I left, he proved more than able to fend for himself,” he added with a wistful laugh, as though his estrangement from his twin were not one of the greatest thorns in his heart.
She appeared uncertain of whether he was teasing her or not. “So, which one are you, warlock or warrior?”
“Why, it’s just an old peasants’ tale,
ma chérie,
” he said with a coy smile and lifted her hand to his lips, placing a breezy kiss on her knuckles. “Still, it’s strange to think that one night my mother went to the Grotto, met my father, and voilŕ—”
Her gasp interrupted him. She yanked her hand out of his grasp. When he looked at her again, her eyes were as round as china-blue saucers. “Your mother went to the Grotto?”
“I’m afraid so. On the other hand, if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t exist, and then where would I be? The Duchess Georgiana was a wild, flamboyant hussy, God rest her soul, but she spoke her mind and was true to herself. She was an original, I’ll give her that. You still look shocked.”
