Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1) (30 page)

Her hips protested his weight, and
the flesh in her most tender places stung from over-enthusiasm. Still Kate
arched her back from the mattress, twining legs around his. She brushed fingers
from his temple to his jaw and brought her lips a breath away from his. “If you
think you can,” she challenged.

His laugh was muffled behind her
ear, lips raking kisses over her neck. Kate settled back, wondering what she
had gotten herself into.

This time, they went easier.

*          *          *

Golden sunlight blazing in from the
horizon cut through the canvas wall. It burned behind Kate's eyes, bringing her
up through layers of sleep. The soft, worn cotton threads of her quilt rubbed
silkily against her flesh.
She was naked
. Last night rushed over her
like the cool air in the tent.

Sensations tickled at her
consciousness; tangled locks of hair tickling her closed lids, bruised
tenderness between her thighs, and a satisfying weakness in her limbs.
Squeezing eyes tighter, Kate sighed, smiled, and melted beneath the covers.
Arching cat-like, she threw arms out in a stretch across the mattress.
Something scraped the knuckles of her left hand. She wriggled up onto her
elbows, fighting the mattress' give and raking tumbled waves out of her face.

It was a piece of foolscap, folded
into uneven quarters, nestled just below the pillow where Matthew had lain
sleeping only an hour before. She snatched it up with trembling fingers and
undid the creases.

Cmd staff assembling.

Nothing less could pull me away.

Until this afternoon...

Ever Yrs,

Webb

Kate clutched the note to bare
breasts, falling back onto her pillow. Air whipped up from the bedding at her
impact, a heady mix of lavender, cologne and sweat. Turning onto her belly,
face pressed to the sheet over Matthew's side of the mattress, her senses
caught fire at last night's memories. She did not want to leave the bed. Only
the promise of seeing him enticed her to roll out and plant feet on a cold
floor.

They were lovers now
. Kate
shook her head and tried to grasp the idea, slipping into yesterday's shift,
the one which still held a hint of Matthew at its neckline.
Until this
afternoon
. At his words, the day suddenly stretched out too long ahead of
her. Damn Napoleon. Couldn't he keep to himself for a day or two?

Ah, well
. Kate chuckled,
reminding herself that evening would come eventually. They could belong to each
other in the few quiet minutes between obligation and sleep. She sucked in a
breath, chasing away anticipation that was already nipping at her focus.

It might be the first day of June in
Belgium, but if the floor was cold, the water in her pitcher was
frigid
.
She scrubbed head to foot, the fastest she could ever recall, tugging her
chemise back down for any measure of warmth. Once she was dressed, clean
clothes from her stockings to the pale blue dress she kept back for Sunday
service, Kate dug her mother's silver-gilt hand mirror from a trunk of her
belongings at the foot of the bed. Perching on the edge of her chair, she
propped it against a heavy earthenware jar atop her small table, cribbing the
edge with a cloth to keep it from sliding. She looked, truly
looked
at
herself, unable to remember the last time she had used a mirror for more than
examining her own wounds or getting something from her eye.

From a pocket of her apron, she
slipped out a pair of small shears. Tugging down the strands at the nape of her
neck, Kate plucked through until she had gathered a thin lock, and snipped it
off at the roots. Digging silk surgical thread from another pocket, she knotted
a length at the top of the hair, winding it tight around the strands. She
tucked the shears, thread and lock of hair all back into her pockets. When she
inevitably wrote to Matthew over the course of the day, she would slip the hair
inside.

Taking up her boar-bristle brush
from the table, she worked through tangles till her hair was tame and lustrous.
Taking a hairpin from the bowl, the same pins Matthew had removed the night
before, Kate held it with her teeth to free up her hands. She began to twist
her locks into a soft arrangement. Not wildly impractical, she decided.
Certainly more attractive than the everyday, serviceable knot that had become
part of her uniform.

Kate finished tucking the ends and
pinned them down with a groan. The unintended side effect of being smitten with
Matthew was that she suddenly worried over her appearance. She was not entirely
certain how she felt about the change. It was uncomfortable, knowing without a
doubt that he had been watching her. How often did she go waking to sleeping
with blood, dirt and God knew what else on her clothes? Not that new debris
stood out from old stains dyed into the weathered gray linen. The pockets of
her apron were always lumpy, overflowing with whatever she needed at hand or was
too busy to put away. It could not have been flattering to her figure. For
years she had intentionally discouraged male attention, to earn her place or
keep the unwanted at bay. Credit to Matthew, she chuckled, for persevering.

On her walk to the command post,
Kate swore every pair of eyes glanced her way. It was almost the exact
sensation she'd had coming down to breakfast with Patrick the morning after
their wedding night. She felt different, inside and out, and she was certain
everyone could tell. The men
always
looked, she reminded herself. They
said 'hello' and 'good morning', nodding over an armload of wood or glancing up
from swabbing a musket to offer a polite smile. She ground teeth into her
cheek. Maybe it was just hard to imagine, after the night she had spent with
Matthew, that no one had heard them.

In sight of the officers' camp, she
groaned. Posed behind his desk under the awning was John Thomas, her least
favorite of Matthew's aides. Thomas had a flat round face, set with flat round
spectacles over a pointed mouth, making him appear older and more stern than
his late twenties. He tended details with the precision of a bird snatching
worms from the grass, but the man had no sense of humor. Worse, he was
unhelpful.

She forced a smile, glancing around
them. “Lieutenant Thomas.”

“Miss Foster.” He did not ask or
even seem to wonder at her purpose.

“Where might I find General Webb
this morning?”

“Out.” Thomas smacked a seal against
the wayward flap of an envelope, laid it on one of his three-tiered rows, and
returned the stamp to his egg-shaped silver wax-jack without ever looking up.

She rolled her eyes, smiling harder
at Thomas, who creased another dispatch with the precision of a straight-edge.
He went right on ignoring her, transforming sheets of paper into letters. No
matter. There was a less painful way to gather information. “Where is Colonel
McKinnon?”

“With General Webb,” he bit sourly.
Kate sensed a little jealousy in the clipped words.

Of course McKinnon was with Matthew.
He had all the capability of Thomas, except speaking to him did not make one
want to strangle him. “When do you expect them back?”

“Tomorrow afternoon, at the
earliest. More likely the day after.”

“That's ridiculous!” Kate cried,
forgetting herself a moment. “I need to see the general...now. This afternoon!
He cannot be gone until
tomorrow
.”

Thomas continued scratching his
quill across the foolscap in front of him, but poked a finger over her shoulder.
“Take it up with the major.”

There may as well have been a wild
animal behind her, waiting to pounce. Kate turned around slowly, not making any
sudden movements.

It was impossible to tell how long
Ty had been there. He leaned casually onto one hip, arms crossed loosely.
Long
enough
, if she guessed by his obnoxious grin.

“Miss Foster.” His bow was
ridiculous. “The general has left the garrison under my command. Tell me how I
may be of service.”

Glancing left and right, she closed
the distance between them. “You know very well you cannot,” she hissed. “When
will Matthew be back?”

He arched a brow, lips twitching. “
Matthew
?”

Lacing arms tightly over her chest,
she answered with a glare.

It only served to make Ty laugh.
“It's as Thomas says. The
general
got word from Blucher this morning
that the French were closer than we'd anticipated. He's taken a patrol south,
for surveillance on Charleroi.” She swore Ty smirked. “In last night's
clothes.”

Ignoring him, Kate dug fingernails
into the meat of her palms, willing her cheeks not to give her away. A burn
from the tip of her nose to her ears said she was failing. “Gone until tomorrow
afternoon?”

A slow nod. “Mmhm. At the earliest.”

A wave of irrational anger swept
over her. Matthew had no choice, of course. Enemy movement required his
attention, and, by all accounts, he was a brilliant tactician in the field. He
would want to have a look for himself at just what the men were facing. But no
word? Could he not spare even a moment while Bremen was being saddled to send
her a note? Suddenly she felt like crying, and sleeping.

Instead, she tipped a curt nod at
Ty. “Major.”

“Miss Foster?” Thomas's voice cut in
before Ty could answer, turning her around.

He held an arm out, pinching a
folded paper between two fingers and shaking it at her, continuing to scribble
at his writing. “General Webb left this for you.”

She strangled a mouthful of colorful
oaths in her throat. Snatching the note with enough force to smack Thomas's
hand down, she turned to Ty. He shrugged, looking helpless when she stormed
past.

Perhaps she would simply close the
hospital today. Men were not ranking high on her list.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

31 May, 1815 – Quatre Bras

Fann,

Something terrible has happened:
Matthew and I are lovers!

Matthew. His name sounds sweet as
I say it in my mind. And bitter, too. I know him now, but I am a stranger to
myself. In all these years I have had no one to care for, to truly worry over.
Now everything is fearful. Matthew has been gone for two days, and I swear my anxious
feet have worn a trench between here and the look-out. He has taken a piece of
me, without my knowledge or my say-so. There is no sense agonizing over it; I
can never get it back.

Should we have dared? I will not,
cannot entertain that question yet. Today I can manage only joyful
unrepentance. Whoever this woman is who awoke in my place today, she feels
beautiful, complete, and filled with purpose. Matthew has given all this to me,
and so I trust him as we enter the dusky territory ahead.

Two days with only half my heart,
or worse when it is time for bed. Are you shocked? Of course not. You are
laughing at me, as well you should.

Know you this: If General Webb
does not return from the field tonight, Napoleon will have an adversary on his
hands the likes of which he has never before conceived...

Matthew lifted his hat, eyes dazzled
by midday sun, and wiped a sleeve over his forehead at the line of sweat left
behind by his hat band. Two days of overcast sameness, sun-up to sundown, had
offered a reprieve from the dusty heat beyond the river's swampy out-wash. This
afternoon's break in the clouds brought the scorching elements to bear on his
patrol.

They had camped out two nights in a
thicket at the river bend. He'd had to see it for himself, not trusting the
Prussian soldier's claim that a body of French soldiers was stirring up dust,
beyond Charleroi to the south. He had no doubt the small picket had seen
something
;
his allies south of Brussels were seasoned veterans and hardly prone to
exaggeration. How much they had truly seen nagged with a pang in his gut. For
all his own talk that real battle could be upon them at any time, Wellington's
intelligence said they should expect
Le Grand Armee
to fuse and drive
north no earlier than July. Logistically, Matthew thought it impossible for the
emperor to arrange anything more quickly. He knew it from experience that
Napoleon would not be hurried. If it seemed to an outside observer that
Napoleon acted quickly and decisively, it was because they did not comprehend
the reach of his perception and how long he truly contemplated a matter before
pouncing.

Expecting battle any day made him
confident of advanced warning. The Prussian dispatch hinted he could no longer
expect that benefit, and what he spied through his glass a day later had proved
them right. A double-snake of heavy guns and supply wagons slithering up from
the ripple of afternoon heat wave seemed to confirm that sinking suspicion. It
was not enough to constitute a whole army, not yet, but what was a whole army?
Puzzle pieces of companies, regiments and battalions, infantry and artillery
moved up a square at a time, until an empty field became a battleground.

He trotted Bremen over the rolling
terrain back to the garrison, only in half a hurry at the front of the patrol.
McKinnon had galloped ahead at point, laden with handfuls of dispatches and
instructions that would be well underway on his arrival.

In sight of the walls now, the idea
of Kate washed over him. Heart drumming double-time, blood pounding at his
throat, the memory of her lips and hands should have added to the slow burn of
a baking sun. Instead, Matthew enjoyed a calm, easy confidence rooted deep in
his gut, the same sort he felt when making a sound tactical move.
She was
not a tactical move
, a voice protested. There were too many emotions in
play to be so rational about her. About
them
. His sense of peace was
made even stranger by that same voice hushing away anxiety, reassuring him that
the bond he now shared with Kate deserved his every ounce of trust.

Unconsciously, he must have urged
Bremen with a subtle kick or nudge. The horse's pace ate more ground, answering
Matthew's hotly kindled need for Kate. His contemplation of the French problem
was far from done; he could be occupied with preparations into the night, but
if he could just see her, feel her nearby, the even-keeled effect she had would
sustain him. There had been a time, when he first returned to the regiment,
that he would go nearly a week and not see her at all. Now, two days had practically
killed him. Hunkered in the wood, lying in the brush under fading twilight, a
hundred things had crossed his mind to tell her. In camp, she would have helped
him pass the boredom with cards or reading aloud from her book while he worked.
And when the laughter and conversation were spent...

Matthew snapped his head, shaking
off a memory. The brush of her foot along his calf when they were slow and just
beginning. How burying himself in her heat did not cure his madness, only alter
it. His name as a gasp on her lips at the end. He shook his head again and
tried to catch his breath.

His eyes scoured the camp as he
trotted in through the sharp timbers. He looked for her all the way to the
paddock, gaze landing on faces and shapes, cataloging and dismissing. It was no
good; Kate was nowhere in sight.

It was a powerful application of
willpower upon stabling Bremen not to turn south toward the hospital. Instead,
he dutifully traipsed the muddy trail toward his command post. For anything
less than the news he had carried back, Matthew thought the officers could be
damned.

Her distinctive scent had teased him
for two days, not helping with his pressing duties or his self-denial. It had
lingered at his nose, diffused by the damp heat building inside his coat. Under
Kate's sheets until a suggestive hour that first night, he had been waylaid
tripping back to quarters by Captain Greene rampaging to an early-morning
cavalry formation, dashing his attempts to change clothes.

Ty's smile had been calculating, all
through the command staff meeting. He was the only officer to notice that their
general, who had seemingly been up as long as they, had yet to scrape a razor
along his jaw. He had cursed Ty for knowing him so well.

Some interruption or another had
kept him from his tent, and a change of clothes, from that moment until the
message arrived from his Prussian hawks, sending him scouting from the garrison
with unavoidable haste.

Inhaling deeply, Matthew let the air
rush in along with her lingering scent, tightening a good measure against his
breeches. It was not the first or even tenth occurrence today, the fault of a
dozen memories seducing him at once and days spent too far away. The softly
calloused pads of Kate's fingers inching beneath the tail of his shirt, their
harshly bitten pleas to each other just at the brink, when he could hardly be
enough inside her. How she had curved to his ribs, molded in the crook of his
arm, slow breaths painting his chest when she stirred from a dream.

Waking beside her when the moon was
still well up in the sky, Matthew knew he should leave, slip back to his own
quarters while the camp was blanketed by silence. Kate's worry at being
discovered was well founded. For her sake and his, their adventure together as
lovers could not become gossip fodder in the garrison. But watching Kate
slumber beside him, silken skin of one leg twined with his and looking as
contented as he felt, she might as well be water in the desert. There was no
tearing himself from her. Complete in a way he had never been, French lines on
the horizon might have pulled him from her bed, but not the simple risk of
being discovered.

In view now of the command post, he
could tell it would be a damnable afternoon. The long tent's flaps at one side
had been raised, making it a half pavilion, the back side left closed in a vain
effort to staunch the breeze-less heat. A handful of camp stools and two
rickety old farm chairs had been planted around a table's weathered driftwood
rectangle. Someone, likely Westcott, had brought a map. It was of questionable
scale and at best, out of date. Four large sheets of dirty, dog-eared vellum
glued together, it dominated the center of the table, canted at an angle to
give the officers hunched on two sides the best view. McAuley and a seated
Major Burrell traced invisible lanes and hillocks with their index fingers, the
military equivalent to casting tea leaves, guessing at Napoleon's battle plan.
In response to their deducing, Captain Greene slid tiny painted blocks of wood,
vermillion or royal blue, into position atop the paper.

Aides raced stag-legged past him,
both coming and going. They clutched missives in piles like a lady's fan, ready
to be stuffed into eye-glass cases, riding crops with hollow shafts, or a
canteen with a false bottom. The British army had always run to keep up where
encryption was concerned, but Matthew admired the War Office's ingenious
methods of concealment.

His boot was just over the tent's
threshold when a flash of color caught his eye over his left shoulder. Arm half
suspended to return his officers' salutes, Matthew forgot to complete the arc
and stared. He breathed a little quicker, unblinking. A masculine throat
cleared from inside the command post, and Matthew half-heartedly finished his
salute, but his eyes never left Kate as she moved toward him.

It took several beats to identify
the sensation gripping his heart, tightening his throat almost beyond
swallowing. It was joy. Pure, unabashed joy. He could never have named it in
the moment, but Matthew realized it was the same feeling he had experienced
while holding Martha's baby. Kate made him honest even while offering her
unconditional affection. She kept his heart safe. He was not entirely certain
what to do with the information. Perhaps just basking in it was enough.

Her gait was easy, gently tossing
the skirts of her dark green dress, but Matthew was not fooled. He had looked
into her eyes enough times to spy the eagerness there. Her steps fell lightly,
but hungrily ate up the ground between them. Apron in hand, work-dress
conspicuously absent, there was no missing her efforts at catching his eye.
More than that, she was different in a way he could feel but could not
quantify. Or it might have been he who was different. She had changed him, and
now he knew her from the inside, body and soul.

If he allowed her to reach the tent,
their vow of secrecy would go up in flames before either of them uttered a
word. With barely a glance at Ty's amused brow wiggling, he cocked his head
toward Kate. “This is urgent. Excuse me a moment.”

He caught her just at the edge of
the yard, between the officer's camp and the last resolute line of tents
snapping in a much-needed afternoon breeze.

“Miss Foster.” They had an audience.
He was dimly aware of curious sets of eyes dissecting the exchange. Matthew
realized he was standing there, staring.
Sod it all
.

“General,” Kate murmured.

Off his shoulder, he caught Greene
trespassing inside their world of two, craning his neck and straining to hear.
Bloody
turncoat
. He would not forget the officers' dinner, no matter how sincere
the man's attempt at an apology. Grinding on a heel, Matthew put his back to
the command staff, blocking Kate from their view and affording them a moment of
tenuous privacy. He stripped the fingers from one glove, daring a caress of
Kate's hand for a few teasing seconds.

A delicate index finger hooked
around his own. She bit at an undisciplined smile, ducking her head. “I have looked
for you for two days.”

He studied her face. The dimple in
her left cheek which only showed when she was delighted or angry, a scar on the
left slope of her chin which he had not noticed until they were twined together
in a blissful half-sleep. He traced every feature, hungry to run his eyes over
them after a famine. “Strange,” he quipped, “since you have been with me,
waking or sleeping, all the while.”

Pink stained her cheeks. “I have
your notes.”

He dared a grin at the breathless
information. “Do you?”

Kate pressed a hand over her right
breast and nodded. “They have kept me company in your stead.”

He ached to be alone with her, even
just to pull her against him for a moment. “I meant every word,
ma belle
.”

They had trespassed well into
dangerous territory. If the exchange did not give them away, Matthew was
certain his body would betray them any moment. She must have felt it, too.
Drawing a breath, Kate composed herself, meeting his eyes and raising her voice
for the benefit of the officers. “And what did you find on your walk-about?”

Stepping away, he held a hand out
toward the awning and indicated she should follow. “A horde of damnable French
soldiers. Well south of the crossroads, but moving up quick.” He looked over
the map. “Concentrating at Charleroi, were I to place a wager.”

“So close!” Kate looked as
disbelieving as he must have two mornings ago. He could see the gears turning
deep behind blue eyes. “The farmhouse,” she muttered, glancing at the map.
“Isn't Napoleon putting himself almost directly between the division and the
Prussians?”

Matthew nodded. “Believing we will
not cooperate with them. Or rather, they with us. His intelligence will have
led to that assumption.” He patted at his pocket. “I had it in writing from
Wellington this morning. Blucher's war-dog chief of staff believes we can't
hold our own on the field.”       Gniesenau, the war-dog in question, was right
to be cautious given some of the allied army's lower moments. An entire
regiment refusing to follow their commander onto the field did not inspire
confidence.