The Bachelor's Bargain (30 page)

“Anne! Where is she? I cannot see. Someone find my wife.”

“I am here.” She pushed out from under him, wiping at the blood that dampened her own face. “Ruel . . . oh, dear Lord, please help us!”

“Are you hurt, Anne?” He grabbed her shoulders hard. “Did the ball strike you?”

She stared into his face. His right cheek had been slashed open, ripped downward into a gaping flap of skin. Blood poured from the wound, covering his white cravat and waistcoat.

“Walker!” she screamed. “Walker, you must help him!”

As she cried out, the blacksmith was tearing the cravat from around his own neck. “We must find a physician,” he said, pressing the white cloth against Ruel’s wounded face. “This will need to be stitched.”

“Ruel? Good heavens, what happened?” Sir Alexander dashed up and crouched at his brother’s side. “A saber?”

“A coat pistol,” Walker barked. “Fetch a doctor, sir, I implore you.”

“They will all be leaving with Wellington. Walker, who did this? Was it Droughtmoor? Did you see?”

“I saw only the pistol. A moment before it was fired.” The Indian scooped Ruel into his arms. “We must return to the hotel.”

“I shall sew him myself,” Anne said. “The Lord has given me skill with a needle.”

Dabbing tears and blood from her cheeks, she followed the men down the steps to the waiting carriage. Prudence emerged through the crowd and caught Anne’s hand as all around them the city continued to erupt. Bugles sounded. Drums thundered. Horses clattered through the streets. Men loaded baggage wagons, and soldiers harnessed artillery trains. Officers rode toward the Palace Royale while foot soldiers marched along with knapsacks on their backs and rifles on their shoulders. Flags went up, and children cried.

“Bleed him,” Sir Alexander commanded. “If you do not bleed him, he will die.”

Walker settled Ruel in the back of the open cart and wrapped a blanket around the semiconscious man. “He can lose no more blood, or he surely will die.”

Seated beside Prudence, Anne tucked the frayed and blood-spattered blue silk gown around her legs and lifted Ruel’s head into her lap. At the hotel, she had not had time to put on anything except the black shawl, and she hardly cared. Sir Alexander had spent the hour there dosing Ruel with laudanum. Mr. Walker tried to stanch the flow of blood while Anne carefully stitched the terrible wound in his face.

She had worked in spite of her horror. The ball had entered from the front, just to the side of Ruel’s nose, and had torn its path of destruction all the way to his ear. Though the cheekbone had just been nicked, the flesh had been sliced raggedly all the way to the teeth. Had the pistol been aimed an inch to the left, Ruel would be dead.

“Mr. Walker speaks the truth, Sir Alexander,” she said firmly. “You must trust your brother’s treatment to the blacksmith now. He knows how to keep the wound clean and prevent infection. Ruel has lost far too much blood already. A bleeding would kill him.”

“You think this redskin can save his life?”

“He saved mine.”

“And we are very grateful for that.” With a snort, Sir Alexander slapped the side of the wagon. “Go on, then, all three of you. Take my brother to France. I shall meet you in Valenciennes, as we planned. Two days.”

“Give us three.” Walker climbed onto the wagon’s seat and took the reins. “We may have trouble.”

“Does Ruel know any mode of existence other than causing trouble? Gaming, smuggling, being shot by angry assassins bent on revenge?” He shook his head. “Be at the fountain in Valenciennes in three days, or I shall ride for Paris.”

“Paris?” Anne stared at him. “You would not search for us? But you know we travel directly toward the French border just behind Wellington’s troops. Anything may happen.”

“How do you suppose I shall get to Valenciennes myself? Fly?”

“You are armed and on horseback, sir. We have nothing to protect us but this old cart filled with half-rotted vegetables.”

“At least you will have something to eat.” Still wearing his evening clothes, Sir Alexander slipped his foot into the stirrup and swung onto his horse.

“Why will you abandon us, my lord?” Prudence cried out suddenly. “Your brother needs you.”

“I merely follow Ruel’s own command to me. In fact, Mr. Walker and I were originally scheduled to journey together. My brother wished to travel separately to arouse the least amount of suspicion toward your trunks there.”

Anne stared at the baggage in the cart. “But . . . is the lace machine in my trunks?”

“Of course. Where did you suppose it was?” With a flick of the reins, Sir Alexander spurred his horse. “Three days, Walker, or I am off to Paris and the arms of my fiancée. Gabrielle Duchesne has been waiting far too long.”

Anne stared at the man’s back as he vanished down the alley. Then she turned to the trunks lying amid piles of cab- bages and baskets of green peas, strawberries, and early potatoes. “Mr. Walker,” she whispered, “is the loom truly in these trunks?”

The Indian jostled the reins and set the two horses to pulling the cart toward the sunrise. “Yes, Lady Blackthorne. Not many days before we left London, Ruel returned to Tiverton and packed Mr. Heathcoat’s unassembled lace-making machine inside the trunks. It has been with us all along.”

“With
me
, you mean.” She let her focus drift down to the man whose head lay on her lap. Sleeping from the laudanum, Ruel looked nothing like the devil she knew him to be. A tangle of dark curls fell over his pale brow. Thick black lashes lay like twin fans on his cheeks. The lips that tilted so easily into a cynical curl had softened. Only the wound that slashed across his cheek reminded her that this man was scarred both outwardly on his flesh and in the depths of his black heart.

He had lied to her. Dared her to open the trunks. Counted on her to trust him. Counted on her to believe his every word and not to use the iron key he had tossed so casually onto the trunk lid. She had trusted him, of course, especially when she saw the blue gown packed at the top. She had trusted him, fallen into his arms, loved him.

The cart rolled out onto the main road, and Walker steered the horses toward a little town called Waterloo.

Fifteen

They had traveled fewer than five miles when English soldiers put a halt to the journey. Camped along high ground near the main road into Brussels, the troops wanted no interference from wandering vegetable sellers. Seeing the wounded man in the cart, they sent the four sojourners to wait out the expected confrontation with the French in the stone barn of a landowner named Hougoumont, whose château had been converted to an English stronghold.

While Walker tended Ruel, Anne and Prudence climbed to a window in the top of the barn and studied the French troops camped fourteen hundred yards away on the opposite ridge, a place they had called La Belle Alliance. Hearts hammering and palms clammy with helplessness, Anne and her friend witnessed two horrific battles that day. Both times, Napoleon’s men forced their enemies to retreat. Even though the French fell short of a complete victory, the allied troops suffered countless casualties. Gradually the barn filled with wounded men, and the two young women went down to help Walker and the military physicians who arrived to treat the victims.

All the following day, the seventeenth of June, rain poured, turning the hard ground to deep, sucking mud. Lightning slashed across roiling gray skies while thunder shook the barn’s thick rock walls. Wellington’s men assured Anne that this was a wonderful omen. Every one of the duke’s peninsular victories, they told her, had been preceded by violent storms. This hardly encouraged a woman who put her faith in God and not in atmospheric portents.

Inside the barn, soldiers sat in clusters, talking, playing at cards, singing. Others helped tend the wounded. Plans for engaging the enemy in battle were abandoned, for the rain made fusils, cannons, and most of the other weapons useless.

When night fell, Anne sank onto a pile of dank hay beside the vegetable cart. Mr. Walker and Prudence sat in the hay together, the woman lying half asleep on the older man’s shoulder.

“So . . . how is he?” Anne asked.

“Who?” the blacksmith returned.

“The marquess, of course.”

“I am surprised you care. You have not visited your husband’s side a single time today.”

Anne closed her eyes and let out a breath. “As you and Prudence both know very well, Lord Blackthorne is my husband in name only.”

“He would not agree.”

“How little you understand him, then.”

“I know him better than I know any man. In you, Lady Blackthorne, he believes he has found the healing of his heart.”

“Only God can heal a man so villainous as my husband.” Anne let out a bitter laugh. “Healed, indeed. This is a man who elected to store contraband in his wife’s baggage. A rogue who would see her turned over to the authorities and thrown in prison should her trunks be opened and the lace machine discovered.”

Walker sat up, his dark eyes piercing. “Is this what you believe?”

“How can I think otherwise?”

“Have you looked at the trunks since we began our journey from Brussels, madam?”

“No.” Anne glanced at Prudence, whose pale face shone in the darkness of the barn. “I have been tending the wounded.”

“Your name was painted over, Anne,” Prudence whispered. “I thought you knew. A new name and direction were inscribed on the trunks.”

Her pulse racing, Anne scrambled to her feet and took hold of the iron spokes of one of the cart’s wheels. Pulling herself on tiptoe, she peered into the wagon bed. Lying on a pallet of rough blankets, the Marquess of Blackthorne turned his head to gaze at her.

“Mr. Hezekiah Cutts,” he said in a low voice. “Tailor.”

Anne’s focus darted to the trunk. The name Ruel had spoken was newly inscribed. “Tailor?”

“Tailor.” His mouth twisted into a pained grin.

When he spoke, she could see how difficult it was for him to form the words, yet she stifled any feelings of compassion. She intended to hear how he would explain himself. “Who is this Mr. Cutts? Where is he?”

“He is right here before you, lying in a vegetable cart with his face half peeled away by an assassin’s ball. I am the tailor, Anne, although you are much handier with a needle. After Droughtmoor shot me, I had no time to tell you about the disguises we were to take on. I am Hezekiah Cutts, a poor tailor traveling from village to village, and these trunks contain my wares—gowns of every size and hue.”

“Gowns.” Her voice held disgust.

“Gowns,” he repeated. Then he dropped his voice. “False-bottomed trunks are the smuggler’s stock-in-trade, you know.”

Anne frowned. “And Mr. Walker?”

“Walker is our friendly village vegetable seller. Prudence is his wife. And you, I trust, are still mine.”

Anne tightened her fingers on the wheel spoke. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I have never lied to you. You asked me that night in Brussels if the machine was in the trunks. I gave you the key to open them and discover the truth for yourself. You chose not to.” He shifted on the hard-plank wagon bed, a grimace contorting his face as pain shot through him. Touching the bloodied bandage on his cheek, he lay still for a moment, breathing hard.

Then he turned his gray eyes on her. “I wanted you that night, Anne. I knew if I told you about the loom you would be angry with me on too many counts. I am well aware you despise my intended industry, and you disdain my machine and all it stands for. I also understand you feared I might betray you if it were discovered. But far more important to me, I knew your safety depended on your ignorance. It still does. I cannot forgive my brother for telling you about the trunks’ contents. It was not his place to do so. The machine is my responsibility, and I alone intend to bear the consequences of my deeds.”

Confused, unwilling to believe he told the truth now when she had been so certain he was a liar, Anne studied the vivid discoloration showing at the edges of Ruel’s bandage. “You already suffer the consequences of your deeds, my lord.”

“What do you mean?” He bolted up, staring at her for a moment, then suddenly grabbed her hand. “Will you now abandon me?”

“I speak of your wounded face.” She pulled away. “Lie down. Your exertions may cause you to bleed again.”

He slumped back onto the pallet. “Send Walker to me, will you please? I need something for the pain.”

Anne stayed at his side for a moment, watching the agony write shadows and lines across his face. How dare her heart ache for him? How dare her heart beckon her to crawl into the cart and curl up against him and lend him her warmth? This was a man who relied on no one but himself—his own wisdom and his own strength. In that, he was too much like her for any good to come of their union. But at least she
tried
to pray. Impetuous and sinful though she was, she made an effort to be obedient to God. Her father had spoken of the changes the Holy Spirit brought about in the life of one who submitted to Christ, of how a person’s old sinful nature was destroyed and a new creation took its place.

Anne believed with her whole heart that she truly had given herself to God in this way. But she could not deny that her stubborn, impulsive will too often asserted itself. How many times must she confess her failings, only to turn around and sin all over again? She could comfort herself only with the knowledge that St. Paul himself had endured similar struggles. He had admitted to the Christians in Rome that while he really wanted to do what was right, he did not do it. Instead, he did the very thing he hated, because he was still sinful and rotten inside.