Viridian (The Hundred-Days Series Book 2) (37 page)

Her lips on his were the temptation
of Lucifer himself, wearing at his resolve, testing his allegiance. “You have
my word.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Quatre Bras, Belgium – April 28
^th
1815

Ty poked his head inside Matthew's tent without being invited, and
without waiting to be announced. It had always been that way between them.

He had been back in the garrison
well over a month, and despite thinking of Olivia every waking moment, he had
to admit that he’d missed it. There was a simple honesty about life in the army
and a routine that was enormously appealing after months of cloak and dagger
work. Every day was the same, and every night he knew where he’d be sleeping and
that he could trust the men at his side. Even after weeks being back, though,
he was still trying to properly divide himself. Whitehall Tyler. Society Tyler.
Military Tyler. Ty Burrell, Matthew's friend, was all and none of them, and was
about as honest as things got outside of his relationship with Olivia. After a
decade, there was little fooling the man he called brother.

Coming fully into the tent, he
grimaced at Matthew, who sat on his cot. “Webb. What the devil do you mean,
dragging me over here from the depths of a sound sleep? You had better be
missing a limb.”

“Every man, woman, and stray cat in
this garrison can hear your goddamn fiddle screeching, major. You were
not
sleeping. In fact, I'd wager it's you who's in danger of losing a limb,”
Matthew glanced meaningfully at both of Ty's arms, “Or two.”

Ty sat heavily, letting some strain
from his shoulders. “Some of us do things other than doodle battle maps and
polish our medals in our leisure time. Merely a suggestion.”

“Will you help me or no?” demanded
Matthew.

“Fine. What is your aim?”

Matthew, seated in a suspiciously
unimposing fashion atop his cot, waved an arm at his jacket on a peg near the
flap. “Get my coat, and help me put it on.” A sniper’s handiwork nearly a week
earlier had the general laid up and at the peak of ill temper.

“Dress you! Where the hell is
McKinnon?” The general's
aide-de-camp
was nowhere in sight. “This is his
job.”

“Well, just now I'm asking
you
to do it, and I don't damn well want McKinnon. If I had, I would have sent for
him and preserved my sanity!”

“Calm yourself, Webb.” He raised a
hand in supplication. “If you're feeling neglected, you need not suffer a rifle
wound to gain my attention.” Ty wiggled his brows. “Or Kate's.”

Matthew’s face hardened in the way
that sent soldiers running to polish his brass, but Ty knew him better. “Miss
Foster – no. Absolutely out of the question. I did not ask you here to speak
about her, or to be badgered about her.”

Lord and saints preserve the whole
bloody garrison if General Webb didn't admit defeat and surrender to Kate
Foster. Or vice versa, he didn't care. Everyone, from the command staff down to
the cook's boy, could see where the pair was headed. And they would all happily
be spared their general's frustrated snapping and barking along the way.

Considering his own change in
fortune along those lines, recently, Ty was happy for his friend. Or at least,
he’d
be
happy if Matthew could get his head on straight. All for the
best. Matthew and Kate were cut from the same ornery, stubborn cloth. No one
else could tolerate them.

Ty propped his boot on the desk in
front of him, jostling an inkwell. “Why Matthew, what an ungrateful tack to
take. She even sewed your parts back in their correct places. I would have made
more of such an opportunity.”

Matthew was eyeing the offending
boot. “Miss Foster's skill has never been in question.”

“Her obedience, then? And I thought
you two were getting on so well.”

“We are! I am not even cross with
her. I'm well, she is well. Our attitudes are in agreement. Just...” Matthew
sighed, scrubbed hands over his face and jabbed a finger at the peg. “Just my
coat
if you please, major.”

It was probably hard for the
average spectator, or even Matthew, to discern Ty's genuine concern. When the
general had been taken down by a sharpshooter four days earlier, he'd been
certain his friend was dead. If not for Kate's skill and timely intervention,
Matthew might have been.

Ty claimed few genuine
acquaintances, owing to family circumstances, and even more to professional. Of
the few people he had truly loved, Matthew ranked chief among them. That did
not mean, however, that he intended to cut the general even an inch of slack.
Webb could be taciturn, prone to brooding, and occasionally steeped in the
bitterness of a loveless marriage. His order and discipline kept Ty anchored.
His own goal was to keep Matthew from becoming a lead soldier. On that front,
he now had Kate's help.

He grabbed Matthew's red wool coat
down from its place. “Dare I ask why, at this hour of the night, you feel the
need to dress from head to toe?”

Groaning, Matthew turned himself an
inch at a time until both legs hung over the cot. Then he panted a moment. “I
wish to go out, walk the camp. Stretch my legs and get out of my damned
quarters.”

“No. Oh, no.” Ty stopped halfway
between the door and the general's cot, shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”

“Why the hell not?”

He wagged a finger at Matthew's
scowl. “I know what you're about, and I won't be party to it.”
            “Party to what?”

“
Nonsense
.”

Matthew leaned forward, as if he'd
misheard. “What?”

“This is precisely what Kate refers
to as 'nonsense.’ She'll have your neck and mine if I aid you.”

Arms crossed. “I am
ordering
you, major.”

“Hm-mm. No.” Ty laid the jacket
over the back of a chair at Matthew's high round card table. “I am far more
afraid of her than I am of you. The worst
you
can do is hang me.”

Matthew sputtered, then sagged
back. “Then what do you suggest?”

He pulled out the chair supporting
Matthew's coat and patted its ladder back. “Gentlemanly entertainment. We shall
play some cards, lay some wagers, and imbibe a good measure of spirits. But I
warn you,” he frowned at Matthew's wide eyes. “We may be forced to converse at
times.”

Webb studied him with a sideways
eye that always paired with a jest. “These are desperate times, major. That is
a risk I will simply have to take.”

“Long live the king. Now get your
arse up off that mat and into this chair. And no belly-aching about how much
your gut hurts. That well is all dried up.”

He reached out an arm to help
Matthew up, earning a broad grin. “How did we manage apart for so long, Tyler?”

“I have no idea. And I'm bloody
well glad you're not dead. You owe me a lot of coin.” He tugged Matthew up and
hung an arm around his neck for a moment, before stepping back.

Matthew patted his arm. “That's
quite enough. Two soldiers cannot reasonably embrace any longer without the
threat of death at their heels.”

Ty dropped into a chair across
table, fishing the deck of cards from his inside pocket. “You have the threat
of something on your heels, Webb. It's known as bankruptcy.”

“Amusing.” Matthew squinted as the
cards were dealt between them. “Is that fifty-two cards? How many kings are in
your deck this evening?”

Ty grinned, planting the remaining
stack on the table. “Enough to give you a fighting chance, you old goat.”

He settled into his chair, resting
a boot heel on the edge of the table, and studied his cards. The game was as
much for him as for Matthew.
Three weeks
. He'd promised Olivia, and they
had vowed not to be apart any longer.

Her flight from Bordeaux and her
journey north had been complicated by rapid troop movements on both sides,
leaving her stranded for days now beyond Genappe, well into Napoleon's
territory. Meanwhile, his own little kingdom of the Crossroads had presented
shifting fronts for weeks.

Nothing was certain for those
inside the garrison; he certainly couldn't have her moving about outside the
safety of its walls, not after Matthew's brush with death. Kate and her
Jamaican assistant had even been assaulted at a nearby farmhouse recently.
Thank God Porter had been there to help her.

All rational, reasonable excuses
for the separation, except where his heart was concerned. He had openly teased
Matthew about a descent into madness over
amor
, but was now forced to
admit he wasn't far behind. How had he existed before her?

He’d been unprepared, having to go
through the motions of daily army life without showing signs of his loneliness.
Every conversation with Matthew was fraught with peril; he wasn’t in the habit
of keeping secrets from the general except on Whitehall business. The dance was
growing exhausting.

“Burrell?” Matthew rapped on the
table top.

“Hmm? What?”

“Are you paying attention to your
hand? The Sisters of Mercy give away less coin.”

He blinked, then rallied. “I have
my strategy,” he shot back, “and you have yours.”

Chuckling, Matthew winced and
leaned back in his chair. “Mine is to
win
.”

“Speaking on that very subject,
have you seen Von Bulow's reports on movements to the east?”

Matthew sorted his cards around in
his hand. “Mm. I gave them a foggy once-over this morning, in between Miss
Foster's poisonings. You've read them too, I gather.”

He had. Matthew already knew the
answer. Ty made everything his business, read every document on which he could
lay a finger. He did so under the guise of being nosy, without a soul
suspecting he had other motives.

Matthew paused just long enough to
draw another card. “What do you make of his remarks regarding Bonaparte's
target?”

Bollocks to Von Bulow's remarks
.
Not that the Prussian wasn't intelligent or a keen tactician. He was, however,
just another soldier, another general like Matthew or twenty other such
commanders. Fortune tellers, peering into the crystal ball of war, casting
bones to discover his enemy's plans.

He, on the other hand, had
intelligence
. Olivia was making the most of her delay in Genappe, spending
quiet evenings in her room above a tavern, a favorite grog shop for French
officers. Late at night, when the taproom was empty and the ale had flowed
freely, the men suffered a shared affliction:
loose tongue
.

Discarding, he took a moment longer
than necessary, rearranging his hand. “He's on the right path, by my
estimation. Too far south; a bit too far east.”

“Where then?”

“Ligny.” He tapped a finger on the
table. “We'll see the first real fighting at Ligny.”

Matthew looked up at him, a
skeptical eyebrow raised. “That’s awfully close.”

He nodded against the dubious note
in Matthew's voice. “Ligny.”

Matthew grinned. “Care to put a
wager on it?”

It felt unfair, taking the bet with
an ace up his sleeve. Almost wrong.

Almost
.

He answered Matthew's grin. “In
fact, I
would
.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Genappe, Belgium - May 1815

Olivia cocked her head, pretending
to adjust the kerchief over her hair so she could stare openly at the men's
activity as she passed by Le Caillou. A wagon stationed along the house's low,
gray stone wall jostled with the efforts of two or three soldiers, hefting
themselves in and out of its compartment. Out came an upholstered chair, its
amber velvet immaculate. It joined a narrow mahogany writing desk in the grass
beside a cobblestone walk. Narrow timbers suspiciously resembling a bed frame
came next, supporting a good yardage of dark green silk, a canopy perhaps.

The furnishings were spare but
expensive. Were she asked to place a wager on the truth of idle chatter in
town, she'd bet every penny: Napoleon was making his headquarters in Genappe.

Fixing her eyes on the blacksmith's
red clay roof just in view on the horizon, she did her best to look neither
obvious nor inconspicuous. The French detachment in the town had been lax thus
far, at ease, drinking and talking freely about the town. A general's arrival
would merit a significant improvement in decorum, and for an emperor doubly so.

From this point on, the soldiers
would be watching, asking questions, keeping tabs. She had yet to decide
whether she would remain in Genappe, or find a more secluded place to encamp,
but one thing was clear: her journey out of town this evening would have to be
the last. Coming and going as she had of late would simply draw too much
attention.

A harmonious double ring from
behind the lean-to up ahead said the blacksmith was hard at his labor. She
didn't envy him. It was unseasonably hot for an afternoon just shy of May, and
the air was balmy and thick. Working over a roasting forge seemed an unenviable
task. She stepped into the stone alcove, shading her eyes against the sudden
change in lighting. “Monsieur Kappel.”

“Hallo!” The big man raised a meaty
hand in greeting, continuing the arc in order to swab perspiration and soot
from his ruddy face. “I thought to see you before the sun got so high.”

“I thought for you to see me then,
also. Punctuality...” She raised her hands and sighed.

Kappel laughed, patting his wiry
shock of black hair. “Meant to be, then. Finished your order two days ago, but
my boy had to run it to a jeweler in Brussels for the fancy bits. Just returned
this morning.”

“I’ve been too preoccupied with
other arrangements to notice.” Arguing with the wine merchant, finding someone
to cook a basket dinner for less than a king’s ransom. Her frustration drained
away at the realization that her errands were done, replaced by a thrill of
anticipation. She clasped her hands. “Can I see it?”

Grinning, Kappel lumbered without a
word through an open doorway into the house. He returned a moment later, arm
outstretched, palm cradling a roughly carved pine box.

“Here.” Fishing inside her
neckline, Olivia tore free a linen pouch sewn into its seam.

“Ten pieces more, for the extra
work.” Kappel raised his other hand as though he expected argument, something
he probably experienced often with his French occupiers. “My expense was more
than that, but given the occasion...”

Olivia shook her head, dropping the
entire pouch into his hand before plucking up the box. “Here is thirty-five
pieces for your trouble.”

Kappel stared at the bundle. “That
is more than twice what we agreed.”

She stared back, drawing out her
words. “Fifteen for the hard work, and twenty to empty your memory.”

Frowning, he pinched the sides of
the fabric, ripped the worn linen, and held aloft one tarnished gold disc.
“These are livres!” He bit the coin's edge, eyes still wide. “Where did you
come by these?”

“That is no one's concern,
particularly not yours, because we do not know one another and have never met.”
She smiled, softening, and offered Kappel her hand. “You'll have no trouble
melting those down and getting something from them?”

His head nodded out of time with
his handshake, eyes still on the coin. “Gold is gold, mademoiselle.”

“Oui. So it is.” She tucked her box
deep inside a pocket, considering that Kappel's words had been a common theme
today. “And often so much more.”

*          *          *

Ty waited until the camp, and
Matthew in particular, had turned in for the night before darting from his
tent. Light snores from general's quarters said Matthew was already out cold,
probably exhausted by a day spent quarreling with Kate.

Hefting his pack higher up on his
shoulder, Ty picked his way through the officers' camp, now a silent range of
shadowed tent peaks. He barely acknowledged the sentry before starting up the
low rise that led to the stables. Smith, the stable master, unfolded his long
frame from his chair but Ty waved him back. “Just a ride to clear my head. Help
sleep along.” Thrusting out a bottle of good scotch, he waved it at the man.
“If anyone comes looking, I’d rather not be disturbed.” He smiled.

“Understood, major.” Looking as
relieved as any man to be excused from work at a late hour, Smith nestled back
into the chair, took a nip of the scotch, and tugged down his straw hat.

Not another soul spoke to him as he
passed through the camp. Even the guards at the gate seemed not to take his
departure amiss. Good. The less people were concerned, the less they typically
remembered.

He brought Alvanley to heel,
dismounting into the high grass a few hundred yards from the garrison. Rifling
through his pack by the dim light offered over the walls behind him, Ty pulled
out his dress coat. He traded it for his great coat, feeling the nip of an
April night's breeze as sweat chilled at the back of his neck.

Reaching back inside, his hand came
up empty. He peered in, fruitlessly raking aside the other miscellaneous
belongings in the dark for his sash. It had been packed along with the coat, he
was sure, as he’d done it not an hour ago.
The ground
. Groaning, he
realized it must have fallen into the grass. “By God, Alvanley…”

Kneeling, he patted his hand over
webs of tangled roots while his horse snorted and shuffled, stomping one hoof.
“If you're in such a bloody hurry, come down here and help me, you old jar of
paste.” At last, his hand located the silk fringe. He stood up and began to
wrap the sash. His head throbbed and his hands shook. “Like a bloody skirmish,”
he muttered. He forced himself to stop and simply breath. He clenched his
fingers into fists, willing them into stillness. Finally, he gave Alvanley's
neck a solid pat, earning a nuzzle. “And you were worried for nothing. No matter,
we'll have this over soon enough, and we can climb down out of the boughs.”

He felt better once they reached
the edge of the wood, out of sight from the garrison. The overgrown road was
not as difficult to navigate in the dark as expected, mostly thanks to the
markers he had placed over the past few days.

Squinting for several long minutes,
he debated the reality of the glow up ahead until he was nearly in the clearing
he’d been headed toward. It was not a great deal of light; a small campfire was
set, barely licking above its ring of stones, and an uneven stump was crowned
by a squat brass lamp. They cast deep shadows up the face of an old farmhouse,
their efforts swallowed by black spaces and holes between the bricks.

A man puttered near the fire, scuffing
a foot atop some tree roots. The minister. His low, wide- brimmed black hat and
cassock, in silhouette, gave him the appearance of a giant mushroom.

Drawing up on the reins where dark
teased light just inside the clearing, Ty dropped from Alvanley's back.
Consumed with nerves and logistics, with forcing shaking hands to hitch leather
to branch, he missed Olivia's approach. He knew she was there when her perfume
enveloped him. His heart slowed, shoulders unknitting, and for a moment he
stood and simply felt her presence, his eyes closed. When he could bear no
more, Tyler allowed himself to turn around.

“Oh… My God.” The woman before him
was Olivia, undeniably, but so very different. Her brown satin coat was modest,
its collar falling from her chin into gentle capes at her shoulders. Wide
shoulders and sleeves gathered at the wrist lent her an innocent, doll-like
appearance. Even her wide satin belt hugged her waist without an ounce of
suggestion. She was soft and girlish, all darting glances and every bit the
anxious bride. Different from Olivia as he’d ever seen her and still so much
the woman he’d fallen in love with.

Ty would never have called her
immodest, but the roles they played demanded her clothing convey a certain
worldliness. Now, all the layers had been stripped away, all the roles she had
played. Absently, he wondered if she, too was experiencing the strange
sensation of seeing him laid bare.

He caught the hint of a blush in
the lamplight before she ducked her head, shading her face with the high crown
of a cream silk bonnet and its little garden of chocolate satin roses. “It's
all a bit plainer than I might have chosen, given different circumstances.”

“I cannot agree with you.” He
reached out, taking her gloved hand in his own.

Her other hand brushed his chin.
“It’s not fair, really. You just have to put on your uniform, and you’re all
done.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but
her sly smile quieted him. Still not meeting his eyes, Olivia ran her fingers
along the scarlet wool of his coat sleeve. “You look
very
handsome.”

Mollified, he ran a finger down her
cheek. “Then my aim has met with some success.”

“Only some?”

“My mission in its entirety was to
charm and then to wed you.”

Now Olivia met his gaze, and her
eyes widened over the barest smile, a smile he returned in full measure. She
breathed in slowly ahead of a deafening silence. His was held completely,
stoppered by the irrational but suddenly all-consuming fear that she had
changed her mind in the last minute.

Biting her lip, Olivia laced her
arm through his and nodded. “I'm ready.”

Only dignity and a stiff wool coat
prevented him from going slack with relief. Ty leaned in to press a kiss to her
forehead. He sniffed, jerking his face away instinctively, then sniffed again.
“Olivia, you smell like a Scotsman's breath.”

“You took a rather long time in
coming,” she accused, one hand shielding her mouth.

He grinned, looking her over. “Did
you leave any in the bottle?”

Laughing, Olivia tugged his arm,
pulling them toward the fire. “There's only one way of getting your answer.”

He had intentionally avoided
spirits of any sort, and now experienced a good measure of jealousy at Olivia's
relaxed state. Concern over who had more self-discipline in their relationship
would have to wait, though. She was moving forward, her hand pulling his.

His first good look at their
minister did not inspire confidence. Aside from a traditional wooden cross, the
man hung with the symbols of nearly every faith Ty could recall, and a few he
had never seen. A third-eye medallion, several colorful ropes of dyed reed
grass, and something on a leather thong that might have been an ear, or perhaps
testicles, were draped from nearly every surface of his body. On the knuckles
of his left hand, clasping a bible to his chest, were tattooed the letters
J-E-S-U. One ear was pierced nearly to its arc with gold earrings, and the
other was missing its lobe entirely. The small window of face visible between
hat brim and collar was pale and sweaty.

Ty drew back on Olivia's arm,
slowing their approach. “What, um, sort of minister is Reverend…?”

“Ackermann.”

“Reverend Ackermann. Is he a traditional
sort of holy man or –”

“He's the only sort willing to
marry us in the woods. At night.” Olivia huffed, throwing the minister a narrow
glance. “For a princely sum.”

Ty looked him over again, watching
the man nod at nothing in particular, as though he could hear their thoughts.
“Are you certain this is even binding?”

“Probably not,” she whispered back.
“He wrote out our license and certificate on the back of a recipe for quail.”

“Those men?” He pointed out two
slightly potato-shaped men who appeared from behind the house. They were
whispering and chortling at the minister's side, nearly camouflaged by the
various natural substances painting their clothes and faces.

Olivia spread her hands in put-upon
helplessness. “They are our witnesses.”

Forgetting himself, Ty poked a
finger at Ackermann. “He won't balk at wedding us in the middle of a forest,
but he's set on the finer points like witnesses?”

Olivia let him go and crossed her
arms. “Do you want to marry or not? Besides, they were the cheapest I could get
on short notice. They agreed to come for a bottle of brandy and a…” Olivia
lowered her voice, waving a hand across her bodice, “glimpse of my breasts.”

He regretted that the noise which
came out of him sounded like some sort of dying animal, while his fingers
twitched with the urge to strangle the men. He raised his eyes at Olivia's
silence, and she flailed her arms, clearly exasperated. “For which I substituted
some francs. I'm not going to simply
give
away that much brandy.”

“
And
?” He narrowed his eyes,
and she responded in kind.

“And that was
all
.”

“Hm.” He still wasn't certain the
pair were off the hook. He grabbed her hand when she turned away. “Olivia.”

“Yes?” The word came out on a sigh.

“You did as well as anyone could,
under the circumstances. Better. I'm sorry I wasn’t able to help.”

Tension in her arm give way, and
she smiled. “We both did all we could. That seems a fair start to a marriage.”