Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1) (14 page)

Kate raised a brow, bringing Nelson
almost to a stop. “I'm now well acquainted with French foragers. I can manage.”

She was ignoring his point. Of
course Kate could manage, but he did not want her to. The idea of something
going wrong and not being able to defend her...he couldn't even entertain it.
He wagged a finger under the tip of her nose. “If we get into trouble, you ride
for help. Do not hesitate, or turn back for any reason. Is that clear?”

“So I should not have brought this
with me?” Kate flipped back her coat's skirt on the right side, revealing a
pistol butt at her waistband.

He was impressed. “Can you shoot
it?”

Kate smiled. “I certainly did not
bring it for the enjoyment of a bruised hip bone.”

Matthew looked her over a moment,
appreciating a good deal more than her practicality.

He fell into comfortable silence
beside her. Away from the light and noise of the garrison, Matthew kept watch
around them, at the same time indulging in a rare opportunity to take in his
surroundings. To the right of their horizon, the moon's half circle beamed
above crenelated trees, represented now by black silhouettes in the distance.
They were framed by the dusky peach hue of a sun well below the horizon, fading
up through the spectrum of blue till colors gave way to pinpoint stars
overhead.

He glanced to Kate, whose head was
tipped back, studying the dome of the sky. She pressed her eyes shut with a
shake. “It makes me sick to do anything on a horse, except imagine myself off
of it.” She glanced upward again. “It is beautiful, though. I was a little sad
when we buried Doctor Addison, thinking of him never returning to England,
where the rest of his family lie... But now,” she sucked in a slow breath, “I
suppose there are worse places to slumber eternally.”

“A bit too close to France for me to
be truly at peace.”

She clucked her tongue and laughed,
a deep infectious sound. It made him feel better than he had any right to.

Beside him Kate inhaled
dramatically. “All right. Prepare me for your mother. If she is half as
formidable as you, I feel I should approach with my eyes completely opened.”

“Oh, twice as formidable,” he warned
theatrically.

“Impossible!” She matched him,
feigning shock.

“I'm quite serious.”

Kate pressed him, jokes aside. “Tell
me the truth. Paint me a picture of the woman who raised a man such as
yourself.”

“Meaning?” Her words had him a bit
sensitive.

“Meaning second in command of the
last army standing in the way of Napoleon's despotism.” She paused, smiling
slyly. “A brave and perhaps dangerous man, with enough unearthly willpower to
keep from strangling me. And I am certain you've wanted to.” She bumped him
with an elbow. “You must be a frightful whist player, to bluff so well.”

“Keep that in mind, if we are ever
in a game together.”

“Trust me, I have already made note
of it. Now, about your mother...”

Where should he start? There were
hardly words to do justice to his proud, beautiful mother. “She was really the
only parent to me. My brother Charles was the heir, and what few sober moments
my father experienced were lavished on him. I never recall her losing her
temper with either of us, which nominates her for sainthood, because we were
utter hellions. But my mother is clever, and she never had to resort to the
switch because her punishments were far worse than a smarting backside.”

“I like her already.”

He chuckled. “I was afraid you
might.”

Kate was studying him in the dark.
“She did well. You seem to have come out all right.”

He preened a little at the
compliment, then shook his head at Chas's memory.

“There was no saving Charles. He
inherited the estate at twenty-one, and idleness encouraged all his worst
habits. Drinking, gambling. He lived with a –” Matthew caught the word
whore
and
quickly traded it for
actress.
“Every time Chas went to
London, it took a year off our mother's life, and I began to march behind. I
was eighteen and showing a touch too much hero-worship. Mama had me down to the
recruitment office by the ear.” He laughed, remembering the afternoon
perfectly. Mother's beautiful oval face pressed into worried lines as he stood
before the sergeant-major, being circled like horseflesh. “When the sergeant
warned her that India was a place of discipline and deprivation, her only
concern was how quickly he could get me there.”

Kate chuckled, head shaking with
disbelief. “You must have been furious, packed off like that.”

“No, not that I had a choice.
Anyway, I was pampered nobility. India was going to be an
adventure
. I
would get rich, be the bravest soldier in the infantry and come back with
enough tales of both to woo every lady in London.”

“And you were successful, I gather.”

He nodded. “To varying degrees. The
army got the last laugh, however. When I finally inherited Chas' title and
could easily have gone home, I had no desire. It pained my mother, who was
living in town, completely alone.”

“She and your wife –”

“No.” His mother and Caroline could
pass at arm's-length and pretend with ease that the other did not exist.

“Oh,” breathed Kate.

Lady Adelaide had made it clear that
Caroline would not be welcome in her home, ever. In his younger years, Matthew
had mistakenly attributed his mother's feelings to a kind of snobbery.
Caroline's family had suffered absolute financial ruin during her courtship
with Charles. It had not dawned on him until well after their own marriage how
quickly Caroline had transferred her affection from his brother to the new heir
of Highgate. His mother had been infinitely wiser, while he was too enraptured
to wonder at Caroline's easy change of heart.

They trotted at a jarring pace, down
the root-bound face of a low bluff, terrain indistinct between the blue pockets
of moonlight. Just as they dropped to the plateau spreading out from the Senne,
Matthew spotted Brussels' twinkling cluster of warm golden lights on the
horizon.

It was a breathtaking sight, and he
drew to a halt, silently appreciating the view.

Beside him Kate was quiet, shifting
uncomfortably in her saddle. He could feel that she was still mulling over the
tense exchange about his mother and his wife. Matthew grasped for something to
break the tension.

“I think you will get on very well
with Lady Louisa. She is my mother's companion. If not for her intervention, I
would have no idea that my mother is ill.”

“Hmph. Did she give any hint what
might be wrong?” asked Kate.

“I'm not even certain she knows.
There's hardly been any cooperation with the doctor, and my mother refuses to
admit any frailty, even at her advanced age. We are discussing the same woman
who walked two miles in the throes of childbirth when her coachman collapsed
and the horses could not be tamed.”

Kate's lips formed a low, airy
whistle. “I am impressed. And terrified. That is a degree of stubbornness that
even I may not be qualified to address.”

“But God bless you for trying.”

“Hah.” Kate chuckled. “Be sure you
put that on my headstone.”

They passed through the outskirts
now, small stone cottages flanking the road here and there, houses he would
guess had not changed in construction or ownership in four-hundred years. In
front of one, a rusty lamp glowed merrily at its post, suspended from a
horseshoe nail over the split-rail fence. In the next crumbling little house,
shadowed faces appeared behind the darkened glass, peeking again and again,
acquainting themselves with the common but still uncomfortable sight of
strangers passing through their little village.

Nelson's pace slowed, Kate's head
turning slowly in every direction. “It is so beautiful here. My heart
practically aches.”

He smiled down at her, at the
breathless way she spoke without any reserve. For all their quarrels, she left
herself unguarded. Matthew realized it was something that put him at ease
around her. There was no pretense to Kate. She raised no artificial barriers
between them. If she thought it, or felt it, he would know.

He followed her gaze to the winking
lights up ahead. “You should see it in the daylight.”

“I cannot say I would love it more.
Look at that tower against the moon, and all these stars, the brambles tangled
around the base of those ruins...” There was wonder in her voice, like reading
from a fairytale.

He grinned. “Those are walls.
Were
walls, until our dear Napoleon convinced everyone a city is safer without
them.”

“Safer, for him.” Kate chortled at
her own joke, then sighed. “Walls, ruins. I'm satisfied either way. It makes me
think of the way they describe Camelot in novels.”

“Wait until we reach the town
proper,” he promised.

“You've been here before?”

“I was here just before returning to
command of the division.”

And that was the
last
time, a
voice added. Colonel Stratton's pretty young wife had been an attentive
hostess, enthralled by his stories and eager for conversation. He'd had the
sense that she was mostly overlooked by her older, more studious husband, but
she had never shown a hint of impropriety when he came to dinner.

That had lasted until the until the
first time he had been invited to stay the night with them, an offer made in
light of the late hour and a long ride ahead. What had bothered him most was
not that Charlotte had appeared in his room once the house was dark and silent.
It was how close he'd come to succumbing to her advances. Charlotte was tender
and complimentary, feeding a ravenous hunger for affection built on the neglect
he'd suffered at home. She had kissed at his face, squeezing his hands and
begging him not to send her away. She was in love, she claimed, and willing to
forsake her marriage for him.

He had quit the house almost
immediately, throwing the excuse of a regimental crisis over his shoulder to a
gritty-eyed, night-shirt clad Colonel Stratton. He had avoided the city since,
long after Colonel Stratton took retirement and shipped his wife back to
England.

Kate's voice broke off the
uncomfortable memory. “From Ty's stories I gather you were away a long time.”

“A few years. I went home, sat in
parliament for a time believing I could affect changes there which I had failed
to make with the army. And I did to some extent, but it was the most boring, if
necessary, expenditure of my days. I was glad when I returned to command, but with
a different division it was hardly the same. The thirty-third is my home. Three
years with other regiments felt like a lifetime.”

“After Sintra, I'm surprised you
returned.”

“You know of it?” She continually
surprised him.

“Of course. I perform reconnaissance
of my enemy, same as you.” It was hard to say, in the dark, but she may have
punctuated the admission with a wink. “Jesting aside, Major Burrell took it
very badly. He protested a great deal over your treatment.”

“I still swallow some bile at the memory.
Every man I lost at Vimeiro was a worthy sacrifice once it became plain we
would beat the French. To be made to put those same Frenchman on
our
ships with their gunny sacks of Portuguese booty, tolerate their disdainful
manner...” His hand crushed the reins. The rage never dulled no matter how many
years passed. “We treated them as victors because some lord-general's spine had
weakened too much for him to do his duty and fight like a man.” Matthew snorted
his disgust. “We pacified our enemy. Our
humbled
enemy. What did we
gain? We only fought those same Frenchmen again in Lisbon and paid double our
own men for it.”

“Disgusting. You must have suffered
twice as much, being their general.”

“In the field and at home. I was
made to sign that damned agreement under orders, but no one at home knew the
truth of it. Disembarking at Portsmouth, I earned just as many curses and boos
as the two powdered wigs who engineered the betrayal.”

“Everyone must realize now that you
had no choice.”

“I would hope, but the matter was
never really settled. Dalrymple and Burrard were quietly swept away, I was
acquitted with Wellington in a formal hearing, and that was the end of it.”

“Well, your men at least are glad to
have you back. They sang your praises even before you arrived.”

“Strange. I do not think myself much
different than any other general.” He discharged his duties the best he knew
how, tried to be fair and firm with his men, and expected only the best, most
skilled maneuvers on the field. If anything, Matthew believed himself accounted
of making more unpopular decisions than most other commanders. What the men
liked better about him was a mystery, but he would not complain.

Beside him, Kate dragged a ragged
breath through her nose. “Major Braddock was –” She stared ahead, quiet for a
moment. “I won't embellish. It's enough to say he did not add to the dignity of
the regiment. Or the division.” She breathed deeply again. “The point of the
matter is that your men are glad for your return.”

No matter how much he loved and
respected the men of his division, at the end of the day, he still had to point
them toward the French artillery and give the order to march. He was touched
that they felt some preference for him.

Kate's mention of Braddock dug
something up from his memory, something in the disturbing letters the major had
left behind. He agonized over the detail, wondering if they were familiar
enough for him to mention it. He decided on an oblique approach. “Were there
any particular complaints about Braddock, before he was transferred?”

She was silent, just the clatter of
hooves against a wooden bridge filling the silence for a moment. When Kate
spoke, he could hear her annoyance at being baited. She was too smart, he
realized, for anything but directness. “I trust you know that there was. I am
friends with Major Burrell, just like you, and he surely mentioned it. Ty is
hardly the tight-lipped sort.”