Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1) (25 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

The rumble woke her abruptly, but it
had not
frightened
her awake. French howitzers had lost that sort of
power long ago. Crouched in a hospital at the rear, elbows deep in guts waiting
for the enemy to retreat or occupy, a person would go mad if she could not make
peace with the roar of heavy guns.

Boots pounded in pairs up and down
the path beside her tent, cavalry running for their horses and riflemen heading
for the walls. She groaned and rubbed her eyes, dumping herself from bed. A
hand slapped at the table for matches until she heard the small box rattle. One
candle offered barely enough light to see her hands, let alone her supplies,
but she was in no hurry. Her work didn't start until the battle was underway.
Porter would be up, hitching the wagon, stocking it with spare blankets if
there were any to be had, filling canteens with grog-laced water. Their routine
had been established years ago, on the far side of Spain. Porter held up his
half of the partnership with the regularity of a clock-work man, and she was
grateful.

Snugging up her apron's ties, Kate
filled its pockets. Scissors and a small set of forceps, and a roll of
bandages. Her red canvas bag accommodated two bottles of laudanum, alcohol
spirits, more bandages and a worn flintlock pistol.

Fingers raked around inside the bag,
and when she found the brown jute cord of her name badge she pulled it free.
She looped it over her neck, tucking the small wooden square into her bodice. A
morbid necessity, it was carved with her full name for identification in case
she was too badly mangled to be identified.

Dressed and laced tight into leather
boots, Kate grabbed the bag and ducked from her tent, pausing for a break in
the soldiers who were running to muster. She loped straight ahead instead of
left toward Matthew's tent. By now he would be with his officers at the command
post.

To someone who did not know better,
it would be impossible to tell that Matthew had just been woken from a sleep as
sound as her own. Astride Bremen with looking-glass in hand, he studied the
hills to the southeast. Kate stopped short at a table where his aide-de-camp
scribbled furiously, and took him in for a moment.

Here, Matthew was a different animal
than the dogged bureaucrat who had hounded her about daily reports and bandage
inventories. His body was taut and ready, hawk-like gaze raking the field for a
chance to strike his prey. Matthew always impressed her as brave, determined.
Now he was
dangerous
and
entirely in his element.

She rocked up on tiptoes, looking
out over the wall into shadows too deep for her to see a thing. “Should I find
the scotch, or go back to bed?”

Still squinting through the lens,
Matthew shook his head. “I cannot say. The Prussians have pushed Napoleon's
main body toward the river, but this force is too small. I think it likely
Marshal Ney is bored and testing our mettle with a handful of skirmishers.”

A low wail overhead warned of a
descending mortar shell. Bremen reared back steadily under Matthew's hand. Kate
ducked, turning just in time to catch a face full of dirt and fine gravel. The
skin of her neck and cheek stung like a sunburn.

“He's got his guns into position.”
His jaw twitched, eyes sweeping over something to the left. “But so do I.”
Matthew snapped the glass shut and stuffed it into his saddle bag, affording
her a grin. “Be a good girl and stay put for now.”

Kate tossed her bag beside Thomas
McKinnon, his young aide. “I tremble and obey.”

She swore she saw a wink at her
parting shot, but Matthew wheeled past too quickly to be sure. He spurred
Bremen's flanks, charging him through the gates and into the pock-marked fields
between lines of men.

She slipped into Matthew's empty
chair and pulled a dog-eared deck of cards from her bag. McKinnon watched her
uneasily. “Well, there goes my partner for
Beggar My Neighbor
. Don't
suppose you'd like to take his place?”

His baby-face colored, brows
arranged in a serious line, and Thomas fixed eyes on his dispatch. “No, miss.
I'm not permitted,” he mumbled to the table-top.

Smiling, Kate began to deal for
solitaire.

*          *          *

After an hour weighing his own men
against what he could see of the French lines, Matthew felt satisfied enough to
return to the garrison. Their shells were empty threats, more for mental injury
than any true physical damage. Under darkness with rough terrain ahead, the
French had a way to go before they made themselves a target for his own
battery.

Inside the gate, he slid from Bremen
and handed off his reins. The horse flicked his mane and whinnied in protest,
looking distraught that they were already home. Matthew gave him a good scrubbing
along his wiry muzzle. “I know, sir. And we shall soon enough.” He patted
Bremen's neck. “Just be patient.”

He turned to find Kate had abandoned
her post at the command tent. She had not made it far. Seated on the ground,
her back rested against the timbers. Head tipped up, her eyes were closed,
mouth gently slack. He chuckled. It was the soldier's way: sleep, any time you
could. Despite her oblivious state, her fists clutched at her field kit with a
death grip. He tossed his hat atop the table beside McKinnon's quill and
settled next to her. Dampened from buttocks to the backs of his knees, Matthew
sat against the chilled earth, waiting for the French to fire or advance. She
stirred at the rattle of a gun carriage outside the wall. Rolling her shoulders
stiffly, she glanced around them, seeming to gain her bearings. “See what you
needed to see?”

“I did. A damned good sight, too.
They have the ridge, but no cover. That is Major Burrell's specialty.”

“What
isn't?
” she quipped.

“Meaning what?”

“You've known him longer than I. Do
you ever get the feeling –” Kate shook her head. “Pay no mind. I'm just tired.
I am not even sure what I intended to ask.”

Did he ever wonder about Ty?
Continually. Sometimes it felt as though Ty were four or five people, all in
the span of a day. Matthew chuckled inwardly.
Whoever
Ty was, he was
luckily always a friend.

Realizing he had been lost in
thought for some time, he glanced to Kate, staring ahead looking just as
absorbed by something. The impulse came over him without warning. “Tell me
about your family,” he blurted.

She laughed, hands coming up. “I've
already told you about them. How much would you like to hear?”

Matthew popped up, snapped a look
through his glass over the wall, and ducked down again. They had time. “Every detail.”

“That would bore you,” Kate
protested.

“I will take that risk.” He would.
She was incapable of telling a boring story.

She laughed and shook her head.
“Hmm. There isn't anything recent I can tell you about my parents. My mother
was my father's second wife, and he had no children before-”

“Mother...father's second wife,
first children...I have to get a pencil so I can draw this out.”

“Stop!” She made a mock swipe at his
sleeve, as if to stop his leaving. “
Anyhow
, my father was already old
when Fann and I came along. My mother wasn't exactly young, either.” She
paused, eyes turning down. “They died just after I was married.”

“I'm sorry, Kate.” He recalled a
deep sense of relief when his father had finally died, and an inevitability at
his brother's loss, but Kate obviously shared a stronger bond with her family.

“It was hard,” she admitted. My
mother succumbed to winter fever, and I think my father was just heart broken.”

“Just you and your sister left
behind?”

“Mmm. I wish you could meet her.”
Kate's face brightened, luminous. “I love her so very much. No one who knows
her can help it. She really is the
prettiest
thing you have ever seen.
Inside and out.”

He took in the ocean depths of
Kate's eyes, the pert curve of her nose above the soft cupid's bow of her
mouth, and found her claim impossible to believe.

“We took care of each other for
about two years. There was no making her wait any longer to marry her Colonel
Livingston.” Kate's hand pressed to her heart. “Fann was in love with Will from
the first time they danced. An entirely innocent gesture on Will's part, I
think. He was in his middle twenties and Fann was just a charming little girl.”
She laughed. “He thought he was humoring her, but my sister is headstrong.”

“You don't say,” he drawled.

“Impossible to believe, I know.”
Kate threw up her hands. “She was smitten with William and that was final. My
father had discouraged her up until he died, because of their difference in
age, but they suit each other perfectly. Fann is wonderfully domestic and
William dotes on her like a queen.”

He whistled softly. “More than a
decade between them? That is a long bridge to cross.”

“They have been inseparable for
nearly four years. At least when Will was not away with the army.”

“
Army
, eh?” He poked a finger
into her ribs, proud at being the first to make the jest for a change.

“The war has been over for two
years, general.” Her scowl was cutting, and totally undermined by the twitch on
her lips. “Will was a colonel.
Very
patriotic. His family is one of the
oldest in Albany. His grandfather signed the Declaration or helped author the
constitution – one of those things I am sure you'd rather pretend did not
happen.”

“You know, I wasn't even born when
that all transpired,” said Matthew.

“You weren't? Well you still have to
carry a grudge. It's unpatriotic if you don't.”

He rolled his eyes. “About
William...”

Her elbow jostled his arm. “He makes
fantastic sums of money from the family mills, enough that I'm not obliged to
tell people he's in politics.” She pressed fingers to forehead in a dramatic
show of relief. “I'm only teasing. He is a decent man. Henry worships his
father, and no one could treat my sister with any more affection. Besides
myself
,
of course.”

He was envious. “I cannot fathom how
you bear being away from them.”

“It's painful some days, I'll
admit.”

A rumble, low constant thunder,
caught his ear from somewhere out over the ridge. It was the sound of gun
carriages jostling over rough terrain, moving into position; he would know it
in his sleep. Matthew turned and crouched behind the fortifications, searching
shadows on the horizon. Nothing moved in the semi-darkness, and if a torch was
lit, it was too far below the ridge line to be seen.

His scouts would be back any time
now. Steeling himself, he settled back against the timbers to wait for answers.

Beside him, Kate curled against the
wall, staring at the sky where stars where just visible, winking down from the
top of its dome. Matthew leaned farther against the knotted wood, resting his
head on his left shoulder to study her unnoticed. A whole spectrum of emotions
turned and pulled at her features. Sometimes the openness of her expressions
made him uncomfortable, unchecked by artifice or vanity. He was not used to a
woman for whom every word or glance was not a weapon. He watched a smile play
at her lips, eyes widening then turning down, hooded and somber. He did not
know what she was thinking, but he certainly knew what she was
feeling
.

Stuffing hands inside his coat,
Matthew gathered his courage, following her gaze to the sky overhead. “You
haven't told me about the most important member of your family.”

“Most important?” she asked,
puzzled.

“Perhaps
influential
is the
word I'm searching for. He drove you from your home, so the superlative seems
fitting.” It occurred that he was desperately curious about Kate's husband, how
a man fortunate enough to earn her love could have been such an unrepentant
ass.

Kate scratched a fingernail over a
pinpoint stain on her cuff, refusing to meet his eyes. “I don't talk about
Patrick. It was long ago.”

“Speaking from my own experience,
time heals wounds of the body far quicker than the heart. Months and years have
no care for injured feelings.” He had no right to press her, but Matthew hoped
they were close enough for her to confide willingly. “Paint me a likeness of
him in the honest, anatomical way in which only you are able.”

“Why?” she protested.

“I would know my enemy.” It was the
first time he had been completely honest about his feelings.

A broken smile curved her mouth,
small tears pooling inside her lower lids, spiking her lashes. Her hand rested
on his sleeve.

“I was smitten with Patrick, or at
least something about him from the first moment I remember seeing him. Eight years
old, perhaps? He was ten and tall for his age, and played lacrosse on the
church green every chance he got. When mother walked Fann and me home from
town, he would trot out toward the road, roll up his little shirt sleeves and
make a huge show of flexing his arms. Pretending no one was watching, of
course.”

“But it worked. You noticed,
obviously.”
            “I did!” She grinned. “Even at the tender age of eight. Two years
passed, and he was sitting behind me at service, yanking my braids. He knew I
wouldn't
dare
turn around or shush him in church, and sometimes he would
provoke me until I cried.”

Matthew recalled a good run of hair
pulling, especially the silky brown plaits of Charlotte Lennox. “Where the
adolescent boy is concerned, there's no greater sign of attraction.”

Kate smiled, exasperated. “I know
that
now
, but explain it to my gentle ten-year-old heart.”