A Reckless Beauty (14 page)

Whoever was out there couldn’t possibly see in the dark any better than he could. Besides, he and Fanny had mounts, and whoever was out here with him was on foot, or else either Shadow or Molly would have sensed the other animals, even with the smell of Jupiter’s blood in their nostrils. A clear thirty yards would protect them as they rode out of the cow shed and back the way they’d come.

Fanny should have counted to at least one hundred and fifty by now. He still hadn’t seen anyone, heard anything, but he knew better than to dismiss the uncomfortable feeling that someone else was out here with him in the dark.

He was halfway into his third circle when he tripped over Rian Becket’s boot, crashing to the ground, his head not two feet away from the boy’s handsome face.

“My lord…” Rian said, his voice weak as he lay awkwardly propped against a tree trunk. “Pardon me for…for not rising.”

Valentine pushed himself into a sitting position, running his gaze over Rian’s body. “Where?”

“My hip. Jupiter went down with me landing beneath him. Something…something’s probably broken inside somewhere, I think.” Rian grimaced. “My leg, too, but that’s not as bad. And then this…”

“Christ,” Valentine said as Rian struggled to raise his left arm. Back in the cow shed, Fanny was still counting. “What happened?”

“I…I rode straight into them. They came at me from both sides, grabbing for Jupiter’s bridle. Never saw them coming. Four…maybe five of them, on foot. Jupiter reared—clipped one of them with his hooves, and we were off.”

“Easy, Rian. We’ll talk later. Once we’re clear of here.”

“Oh, I don’t think so, sir.” Rian smiled, his teeth showing white in the pale moonlight revealed when one of the clouds scudded farther across the night sky. “They were on foot, so I figured we’d outrun them. Jupiter must have…must have stepped in a hole. We got up but…couldn’t leave Jupiter, could I? Not that I could go far with this hip. Hurt like the devil for a while. There was nothing for it but to…Saw the cow shed, figured it would give good protection. But it was like…as if they were hunting me. Must have wanted Jupiter, don’t you think? They…they overpowered me.” He stopped, took several shaky breaths. “Jupiter? He’s all right? I heard a pistol shot. Woke me up, actually.”

“Your horse is fine,” Valentine lied smoothly, swiveling about on his haunches, peering intently into the brush that surrounded them. “How the hell did you get out here?”

“It wasn’t my idea, I assure you,” Rian told him, lying back against the tree trunk once more, clearly losing his grip on what small strength he had left to him. “They overpowered me. I said that, yes? Dragged me out of the cow shed, dragged me away along with their dead—two dead, my lord. I have at least that to take with me to hell. I’m afraid…I’m afraid I passed out then. Woke…woke only when I heard the pistol. They’re gone? I suppose the shot scared them away and they dropped me like…like so much unwanted baggage.”

They’d left him here? So they knew where he was, out here in the dark. But Valentine couldn’t know where they were, how far they’d retreated at the sound of his pistol shot. He put a finger to his lips. Listened. Wondered where Fanny was in her count. “Four or five, you said. And two dead? That leaves two or three. But we’re not going to wait around here in case they come back, merely in order to count noses, are we, Lieutenant? I’ve got to get you and Fanny out of here.”

“Fanny? Sweet Jesus—you brought her out here?” Rian struggled once more to rise, but his injuries were too much for him and he fell back once more. “You stupid bastard.”

Valentine smiled slightly. “I agree completely. And, much as I’d like to stay here and talk about how well
you
were able to keep her where she should be, I think it’s time we were on our way. I’ll get Shadow, bring him here. You can’t ride, not with those wounds, but I can tie you to the saddle.”

“No,” Rian said, shaking his head. “I’m done. We both know it. Look at me, for God’s sake. I’d only slow you down, and for no purpose. Just…just take Fanny and get out of here.”

“I can’t do that, Becket,” Valentine told him quickly. “Fanny’s back there, half out of her mind, believing you dead.”

“I
am
dead, at least most of me is, and the rest will soon follow. Have some compassion, man. I don’t even hurt anymore. We both know what that means. Don’t…don’t make her see me like this…remember me like this. Take her away from here.”

Valentine opened his mouth to protest, but whatever he was going to say was silenced by the sound of rifle shot that, he noticed with half his brain, came only a split second after the dirt a few yards away was kicked up by the impact of the ball. Someone had fired in the direction of their voices, which made whoever it was too damn close.

“They’re back. I wonder why.” Rian reached out his right hand. “Your pistol, man. Give it to me. At…at least I may get one of them…slow them down. Give it to me, and go. Get Fanny and go.”

Valentine thought with his head, not his heart. Staying alive counted on him thinking with his head. But now there was Fanny. He had to get her to safety. That was paramount. Whoever was out there would see her for a woman with only a cursory glance. What they might do to her wasn’t to be imagined. He could hope that the sound of the rifle shot had shaken Fanny from her misery, and that she’d ride off on her own, as he’d instructed. But he already felt that to be a futile hope. She wouldn’t leave, not until she was forced to do so.

What she’d do to him, if she ever learned that he had left her brother here to die, to most probably be hacked to pieces now that he couldn’t be used as a hostage or shield, didn’t bear thinking about at all.

To stay here, try to guard Rian and still protect Fanny, thirty yards away from him, really wasn’t possible. Not with a sword and a single pistol. Not when he couldn’t even see the enemy.

His thoughts took only seconds, but they seemed like hours; wasted time, when he already knew what he had to do. He was a survivor. He stayed alive because he had long ago made it a point to stay alive. He should already be gone. If he stayed, they’d all be dead, Fanny worse than dead. If he left, Rian would die within moments. He’d die anyway, most probably. His injuries were that numerous, and that grave.

But if he left now, ran away, Fanny might survive. She’d live, and he’d never be able to look her in the eyes again, knowing what he’d done.

“They haven’t fired again, so they may be out of powder. I can circle around to the north…come up behind them,” he said, keeping low, shifting his gaze left and right, for the Frenchmen must be on the move by now, trying to outflank him.

“No time. Would you, for Christ’s sake,
go.
”

There was a rustle in the tall brush, over to Valentine’s left. If there were two, if there were three, they had doubtless moved off singly, spreading themselves out, just so they could close in on their quarry. That’s what he’d do. One of them could even now be inching toward the cow shed. They’d want the horses, definitely. He knew he’d go for the horses.

There was no decision to make, not really. Rian couldn’t be readily moved, and Fanny couldn’t be allowed to stay.

Valentine cocked the pistol, fairly certain Rian didn’t have the strength to do so, and handed it to him. “Godspeed, Lieutenant Becket.”

Rian took the pistol, looked at it. “I wonder. Should I use this on the Frogs, or on myself. Hmm? No, I’m too much the coward for that, and I think I’d like to take another one of them with me. Promise me. Promise me you’ll take care of Fanny. That you’ll…you’ll make her forget me. She…she has to forget me.”

Valentine didn’t understand what Rian was saying to him. Forget him, her own brother? Why? But there was no more time for conversation. “I’ll take care of her, Rian, for as long she needs me. You have my solemn word on that.”

Rian smiled wanly. “I’ve just cursed you, my lord, haven’t I? But there’s worse fates than Fanny, I imagine. Wait.”

Valentine was already off his knees, standing in a low crouch, ready to run. “I can still take you. On my back.”

“No,” Rian said, shaking his head. “Just…just this. Did we win? Did we send those bastards all to hell?”

Valentine smiled grimly. “Oh, we did that, my friend. We most certainly did do that.”

Rian closed his eyes, seemingly satisfied. “Good. Wish I’d seen it. Now, get her out of here.”

Valentine took off low, keeping himself small against the surrounding brush and thin tree trunks, the saber transferred to his left hand as he pulled out the stiletto he felt more comfortable with, the knife that had served him well in the past.

The pale moonlight served more to cast confusing shadows than it did to reveal the area higher on the hill, in front of the cow shed. All he could do was risk it, dash into the shed as quickly as possible, weapons at the ready, and hope to God that Fanny was still there, still safe.

When he crashed into the shed she was still sitting in the corner. She had her arms folded on her bent knees, her head resting on her forearms. She looked up, surprised, but said nothing. Stayed where she was.

Valentine grabbed her arm, ruthlessly yanking her to her feet, and nearly threw her up into the saddle, pushing her head down over Molly’s neck before mounting Shadow and grabbing the mare’s bridle. “Keep low so you’re not knocked off as we go through the doorway,” was all he said to her, then did the same as he kicked Shadow forward.

The two horses burst from the cow shed, Shadow’s muscular shoulder coming into abrupt contact with a dark figure holding a rifle in both hands.

“Merde!”

Valentine saw the man’s face for a moment, less than a moment, only two feet in front of him in the moonlight. He knew he’d see that face in his nightmares. The hatred, the animal cunning in those pale gray eyes. Thank the stars that the rifle was obviously unloaded and that the man had chosen to swing it like a club, and not advance with bayonet attached. He’d also remember, puzzle over it, that the Frenchman was not a soldier, not in uniform.

And then the attacker was on his back in the dirt and Shadow and Molly were straining to fly across the dark, unknown landscape.

Molly stumbled slightly just as a rifle shot split the night, and Fanny cried out, began to fall toward Valentine. He caught her, cursing the scarlet of her uniform, the startling white of her braces, the flash of brightly polished brass on her buckles that had made her the obvious target.

As Molly caught her stride once more, Valentine lifted Fanny by the crosspoint of her braces and threw her unceremoniously across his saddle, all the while using his booted feet to urge Shadow into a full gallop now that they’d gained the ridge.

Behind them came the sound of another shot, this time the sharp report of a pistol. If there were a God, Rian had done as he promised, greatly increasing his sister’s chances of escaping the area.

If she weren’t already dead…

Molly followed just behind the stallion, and Valentine cursed and prayed and cursed again, all the way back across the ridge, all the way past the posted sentries, not stopping until he reached the area where the surgeons were busily cutting off arms and legs, stacking them like cordwood beside the tents.

F
ANNY SAT IN THE SMALL
walled garden behind Lady Whalley’s rented town house in Brussels, her back straight, her hands folded in her lap, the bandage around her head reduced just that morning to a thick white patch covering her right ear and cheek.

She barely noticed the change. She’d not complained of pain, not once, nor had she asked if the bullet that had grazed the side of her head would leave a scar. Physical pain meant nothing to her, a scar less than nothing.

She ate, if someone put food in front of her. She slept, sometimes for twelve or more hours at a time. Asleep, she was safe. No memories, no absurd fears, no empty future.

She’d barely heard Lucie tell her that Bonaparte had abdicated just four days after the leaving the battlefield, or that the Allies were now, a week later, already in Paris. Because none of that meant anything to her.

Lady Whalley’s maid, Frances, dressed her and undressed her, tended to her bandage, took her out into the sunny garden in the afternoons for some healing air.

Fanny lived. Fanny breathed. She ate and she slept.

But that was all she did. All she’d allow herself to do.

She hadn’t spoken, not so much as a word, in eight days.

In the afternoon of the ninth day, Lady Whalley decided that eight days was more than enough of
that!

Her brother was driving her to distraction, for one thing. Visiting every day ever since he’d returned from wherever he’d run off to, wearing a hole in the carpet in the small drawing room—not that it was Lucille’s carpet, so that really didn’t matter. What mattered was that Valentine had become an absolute
bear.
Why, he hadn’t even shaved in days, and one could only hope he’d changed his linen.

Honestly, the dramatics of the man! Bringing Fanny to her, declaring first that he thanked God she was there to help him, then cursing her for remaining in Brussels when he’d given
distinct
orders that she should leave.

As she’d told him she was made of sterner stuff than that! Run away? Ridiculous. She’d never had a qualm, had been certain the Iron Duke would put Boney to the rout.

That she’d spent several hours of that fateful June day cowering in the dank basement, Wiggins standing at the ready at the head of the stairs with a blunderbuss—Well, her brother didn’t have to know everything.

She
certainly didn’t know everything, did she? Rian Becket, like so many others, was dead, poor pretty thing. That she knew. Fanny had been shot doing Lord only knew what; she knew that, as well. But Valentine had merely ridden out not ten minutes after depositing the unconscious Fanny with her with orders to keep the girl alive or suffer the consequences, and not returned for six long days. She had no explanation for Valentine’s bizarre behavior.

The way he was constantly pacing her carpets now? Lucie wished he had stayed away longer. Perhaps a month or more would have sufficed.

And it wasn’t as if he came to actually
visit
with Fanny. He never asked to see her, but only wanted to hear how she was doing, if she’d spoken yet, if she’d cried, if she’d—Well, if he wanted to know all of that all he had to do was step into the garden and find out for himself.

But he wouldn’t. Really, for an intelligent man, and she’d always thought him at least intelligent, her brother was behaving like a near lunatic. Which was what she’d told him in no uncertain terms not two hours earlier. She’d sent him packing back to his own town house with a flea in his ear, demanding he not show his face again until he was washed and dressed better than some ragman, and then presented himself to Fanny because she, Lucie, wasn’t going to be flogged anymore with his horrid mood.

Now, feeling rather full of her new power, it was only left to Lucie to shake some sense into Fanny Becket, rouse her from the depths of despair that were understandable, but not to be indulged any longer without the possibility of causing permanent harm. That’s what Frances had said at least, and since having Fanny up and about once more suited Lucie’s plans, she was more than willing to lend her maid’s opinion credence in the matter.

After all, everyone was leaving Brussels now, and those who remained were certainly not jolly sorts at the moment; holed up in their rented houses, tending their own wounded. Everyone else was in London, celebrating their grand victory. That Lucie was still moldering here was past comprehension!

Acknowledging herself to be a bad, horribly shallow person—and what else had she been reared to be, after all?—Lucie took herself out into the garden, determination in her every step.

“Fanny? Oh, look, what a beautiful day! My stars, one would think nothing had ever—Well, we won’t speak of that, will we? I certainly hadn’t planned to speak of that. No, not at all. How are you, my dear? Valentine came calling again, to ask about you. I think he’s smitten, to tell you the truth, although with Valentine it’s difficult to tell. He plays his cards very close to his vest. But he’s either smitten or he’s gone stupid, and I never thought Valentine stupid.”

Lucie sat down beside Fanny on the stone bench, wishing she’d told Frances to search up a pillow for her, as the stone might snag her gown, which would be a pity. “You know what I’d like, Fanny? I’d like you to blink, my dear. Always staring like that? My stars, it’s disconcerting.”

Fanny turned her head to the woman. Blinked. Turned away again, clearly dismissing her.

“Oh, that’s quite enough!” Lucie said sharply, getting to her feet once more. “What happened was terrible. Such a lovely young man. So many lovely young men. Poor Uxbridge, his leg gone. My stars, he’s ordered it buried here, you know—the leg, you understand—and plans to have a monument erected.
That’s
what we British do. We lift our chins, and we carry on! We do not
wallow.
”

Fanny looked up at the woman dispassionately. “Go away, Lucie.”

“Ah! She speaks! Well, that is above all things wonderful. I’d worried the bullet had struck you dumb, and that would be a pity. I know I’d go mad if I couldn’t speak. Valentine would doubtless order a monument erected to his delight in my lost voice—but no, I won’t be silly. I didn’t come out here to be silly, although I’m not very good at being comforting, am I?”

No, Fanny thought, she wasn’t good at being comforting. But Lucie had roused her, speaking of Valentine. So she asked the question she didn’t really want to hear answered. “Did…did Brede find him?”

Lucie frowned. “Find whom, my dear? Oh! So
that’s
what he was doing, was it? My stars, I never thought of that. He was out looking for your brother’s—Uh, no. No, I don’t think so. He didn’t mention that to me.”

She sat down once more, took one of Fanny’s hands in hers. “But it was imperative that the bodies be buried, my dear, as quickly as possible. It’s this heat, you understand? Wiggins has been helping, poor man. Thousands and thousands dead. Mass graves for most of them, I’m afraid.”

Fanny winced, unable to control her anguished expression at the thought of Rian’s body being dragged to an open pit, then tossed into it and hastily covered with dirt.

Lucie patted Fanny’s hand. “But we’ll put up a monument, won’t we? If Uxbridge can have one for his silly leg, then we can—Fanny don’t look at me that way. I’m so sorry. I’m not doing this well, am I? I’ve had no practice in such things. Even when my late husband died, I didn’t know what to say. I actually giggled during the services, I was that nervous. Quite embarrassing. His harridan of a mother hasn’t spoken to me since. Although that’s no great loss to me, I can tell you that.”

Fanny got to her feet. “I have to go home, I suppose, even without his body,” she said, coming to a decision after so many days of not being able to think at all. “I don’t want to, but I have to tell them about Rian.”

Behind her, Valentine politely cleared his throat. “I wrote to them myself, Fanny, several days ago. To Jack, actually, so that he could choose his own way to inform your family. Sergeant-Major Hart was injured, only slightly, and I convinced him to personally deliver the letter to Romney Marsh. I arranged transport for him.”

Fanny looked around to see Valentine standing about six feet away from her. He was dressed in black, in fine town clothes, and he looked tired, thinner. Older. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and insist that he hold her, just hold her tight. But she only nodded, to acknowledge that she’d heard him. “Sergeant-Major Hart. A good man. Thank you, Brede.”

Valentine stepped closer. The sight of her bandage still put his stomach in knots. The bullet had grazed the side of her head, rendering her unconscious. A relatively minor wound, as wounds went, but accompanied by so much blood that he had been certain she was dead when he’d reached the encampment and pulled her from the saddle. If Molly hadn’t stumbled when she had, the bullet could have proved fatal.

“He told me you’d offered him a home at Becket Hall. As he decided he’d seen his last battle, he accepted. How are you, Fanny? How’s your wound? Do you have headaches?”

She shook her head, avoided looking at him. “Not for days,” she said, raising a hand to touch the bandage. “I don’t remember being shot. Do you suppose Rian didn’t remember, either? Before he died? I can’t bear…I can’t bear to think of him hurting.”

“Then don’t, Fanny. It does no good. Lucille?”

His sister got to her feet, twisting her fingers together in front of her. “Yes, yes. I must go instruct Frances to pack, mustn’t I? We will be leaving now, won’t we, Valentine? Now that Fanny’s so much—Well, she’s talking, isn’t she? That would be a good thing.”

“Lucille.”

“Yes, yes, I’m going,” she said, lifting her skirts as she stepped around him. “You could at least
attempt
to be civil, you know. A simple thank-you to your sister who—Oh, my stars! Don’t
glower
like that!”

Valentine waited until his sister had disappeared into the house, then sat down next to Fanny. “I tried, sweetings. But I couldn’t find him. I’m so sorry.”

Fanny bit her bottom lip between her teeth. Nodded, to show that she’d heard, she’d understood. “We’ll never know what happened to him, will we?”

“No, I don’t think we will,” Valentine said, longing to tell her the truth. How he’d found Rian. How he’d left him. How he’d gone back to the cow shed at first light, but Rian’s body hadn’t been there. Hadn’t been anywhere. How he’d ridden south, chasing the retreating French, searching, searching. And all the time trying to make sense of what Rian had told him, make sense of the light-eyed man he’d seen for that one, taut second before Shadow had knocked the Frenchman to the ground.

Fanny turned forward once more, looking across the gardens, seeing nothing, feeling only the deep, constant dull ache that was Rian’s loss.

Valentine sat quietly beside her, remembering his conversation with Sergeant-Major Hart. He’d told Valentine that he had been approached the morning of the battle already known as the Battle of Waterloo, that a well-dressed Englishman had come into the camp, asking for the whereabouts of Lieutenant Rian Becket.

Hart had informed the man that Rian was serving as a junior aide to Wellington, and the man had thanked him and gone off again. “Seemed queer to me, my lord. Like the fellow had been searchin’ everywheres for the Lieutenant,” Hart had told Valentine. “But then I thought it might be someone from his family, come huntin’ up Miss Becket to take her off home with them. Did they find her, my lord?”

Valentine had answered vaguely, then gone off to sit alone, think some more. But he hadn’t been able to come up with any answers. According to Wiggins, no Beckets had shown up at his door, looking for Fanny. Not in these past eight days. If someone had come to Brussels, surely it would be Jack Eastwood himself, and Jack hadn’t contacted him.

So who had spoken to the Sergeant-Major? Who were the men—not soldiers—who had followed Rian, because Rian had even said he felt as if they had been chasing him? And, most important of all—where was Rian Becket’s body? The burial parties had not been so far flung, searching out bodies so far from the battlefield. Not at first, at least, and Valentine had ridden out that very next morning, to collect the body so it could be transported home for burial.

“We’ll leave tomorrow, Fanny, now that you’re fit to travel,” he said at last. “My yacht is moored at Ostend, and we’ll sail straight to Dover.”

She shook her head. “Not Dover. Becket Hall is on the Channel, with its own small harbor. We can go directly there. We’re to the west of Dymchurch, and I’ll be able to point out where we…Oh, God. I can’t go home. I just can’t. Not yet.”

“Fanny, your family needs to see you, know you’re all right.”

She turned to him, took his hands in hers, not even realizing she’d done so. How could she put into words the irrational fear she’d felt explode from the recesses of her mind ever since seeing all those broken bodies lying on the battlefield—all of the horror bursting out of her nightmare and into reality? She couldn’t, could she?

So she’d say what she could say. “Rian’s there. Everywhere I look, he’ll be there. I can’t go home. Not yet. I can’t face not seeing anything there but his ghost. Don’t you understand that, Brede?”

Promise me. Promise me you’ll take care of Fanny. That you’ll make her forget me. She has to forget me.

“Sweetings, be reasonable. You have to face the truth some time. He’s gone. One day the pain will fade and your memories will be happy ones.” Valentine cursed himself silently as he heard the ridiculous platitudes echo inside his head. Stupid, stupid! If only he could tell her the truth. That her brother had died a hero, saving her…saving Valentine, as well.

But he couldn’t say that. No more than he could tell her that Rian had made him promise to take care of her…make her forget him. Forget her own brother. Why? Why would Becket have said that? Valentine couldn’t sleep, trying to reason out why Rian had said such a strange thing.

Fanny kept tight hold on his hands and allowed the silence to grow as she worked up the courage to put her wild plan into motion. Maybe she’d think more clearly once her head didn’t hurt so much, but for now, she only knew one way to stay clear of Becket Hall until she could beat down her nearly overwhelming sense of dread. And there was only one person who could help her do that.