An Infamous Marriage (19 page)

She supposed she hadn’t said it, in so many words, though
Oh, love,
and
Oh, my love
seemed to tumble out of her mouth readily enough in the throes of passion. But then again, he hadn’t said the words to her, either.

She felt her face heat, and she looked down at her hands, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. “It’s the truth.”

He caught her hand and drew it to his lips. “Good. Because I love you, too. We’ve done well, haven’t we, for so infamous a beginning?”

“Better than well.” She entwined her fingers with his. “And we’ll have years and years to forget we were ever anything but the most devoted of couples.”

“I look forward to them all, and I hope we have a full half century,” he said grandly, then narrowed his eyes at her. “But you must tell me why my praise of your
account-keeping,
of all things, drove you to confess your love.”

She fumbled to explain. “Because...you trust me. Some men wouldn’t want me anywhere near their money because of my father—”

“You aren’t your father. Let it go, Elizabeth.”

She shook her head. “And others, many others, would never trust a woman to do such work unless they had no other alternative.”

“The more fool they. No son of my mother could believe anything so foolish.”

“But, you see, you trust me. You respect my abilities and value my work. And I love you for that.”

At that he caught her in his arms and kissed her, and they soon adjourned to the bedroom to declare their mutual love more thoroughly.

Chapter Thirteen

The next morning Jack and Elizabeth were lingering over a belated breakfast and discussing an upcoming visit from a potential buyer for one of their yearlings when they heard a horse thunder up the drive at a gallop. Jack scrambled to the window as fast as his legs would carry him, just in time to spot George Lang race past the front of the house toward the stable yard. He rode his chestnut hunter, and the poor horse was so lathered they must have galloped all the way from Alnwick.

“Lang wouldn’t ride like that unless it was dire news,” he said, already halfway to the door.

Elizabeth hurried behind him. “Surely it isn’t anything to do with Louisa, or he wouldn’t have left her side.”

“No, it can’t be his family.”

Jack didn’t have long to wait in suspense. Lang ran to meet them, waving a newspaper, as they stepped out of the house. “Have you heard?” he gasped.

“We haven’t gone for the mail yet. What is it, man?”

Lang thrust the paper at him and pointed at a closely-printed column bearing the label
FRENCH PAPERS, Paris, March 8.
As Elizabeth hung at his arm, trying to read over his shoulder, Jack cleared his throat and read aloud. “‘We have hitherto delayed giving accounts of Bonaparte’s landing on the coast of Provence...’” As the import of what he was reading dawned on him, he stopped, breathless. “Wait...
what?
”

“Exactly what it says. Boney has escaped from Elba and landed in France.”

Elizabeth snatched the paper with shaking hands. “This says,” she said after a moment’s skimming, “that his men are few and are already deserting him, that no one has taken his part and that the people in Grenoble are wearing the white cockade and crying
Vive le Roi!
”

Jack looked at Lang and saw the same dubiousness he felt reflected on his friend’s face. “No. He wouldn’t have chanced the escape if he didn’t expect a better welcome than that.”

“Perhaps he expected wrongly, then!” she cried.

“We shall see what happens next,” Lang said gently, “but this is from the
Moniteur,
in Paris, where the king still reigns. Naturally they’ll make everything sound as hopeful as possible for the royalist cause. If Bonaparte is gaining followers by the day and what people are crying is in fact
Vive l’Impereur,
they won’t reveal it till they’ve no choice.”

“And perhaps the paper doesn’t say that because it isn’t true!”

Jack blinked at his wife. He’d seen her cold and implacable in anger before, but never like this, red-faced and frantic—not unless he counted the first day he met her, when she’d been terrified with the knowledge that Giles was dying. “What’s amiss, my dear?” he asked.

“What’s
amiss?
” She actually stamped her foot. “Bonaparte is back, ready to cause who knows how much more ruin and death, and both of you
want
him to succeed, you
want
him to drive the poor king out of Paris, all so you can go and fight some more.”

As one, he and George shook their heads in mute denial.

“Yes, you do, or you wouldn’t be so—so
exalted
by this. Men!” She flung the paper in Jack’s face and ran inside. He heard her footsteps flying up the stairs.

Jack stared after her, speechless.

“Louisa said much the same thing,” Lang said ruefully. “Only she wasn’t so...vehement about it. To think I’d thought your Elizabeth was quiet.”

Jack shook his head. “Not quiet. Only reserved.”

“I suppose they aren’t quite wrong. I’d rather see Europe remain at peace, but if Boney is back, I don’t want to live at peace myself while others go to war. I was sure you’d feel the same, so I galloped straight over here.”

“Thank you, my friend. I must write Horse Guards this very morning. Perhaps our wives’ fondest hopes will be realized and Bonaparte will be shot dead or dragged to Paris in chains, but I want to assure Torrens that I’m still eager for employment, in case more opportunities now arise.”

“I knew you wouldn’t want to waste an hour.”

“And I will not. But do come inside. You cannot ride straight back, and your chestnut will be in no fit condition until tomorrow. I’ll lend you Menelaus, on the condition you take a more sedate pace on your way home. He’s the best suited of all our horses here to be my charger, should it come to war.”

“Thank you, and of course I’ll take care. I shouldn’t have ridden poor Trooper so hard, only the news went to my head so much that I tore over here as if I might capture Bonaparte myself.”

“My grooms will see to him.”

Jack led the way into the house and, upon learning Lang had leaped onto his horse before finishing his breakfast, made him sit down at the breakfast table and fed him coffee and rolls while, he, Jack, penned a hasty letter to Major-General Torrens assuring him of his eagerness to serve in whatever capacity he was most needed should Bonaparte again prove disruptive to the peace of Europe. Then he quickly read the remainder the paper had to say about the situation in France. It was impossible, under the circumstances, to take any note of the other news—of the price of stocks, the fact the queen and the princesses had dined with Princess Charlotte, or the front page with its lists of properties, horses and carriages for sale and servants seeking situations.

When Lang left, Jack accompanied him to the stables, had another horse saddled and rode to Selyhaugh to post his letter. He shared the news of Bonaparte with everyone he met, from his own grooms, to Mr. Elting on his way to visit a patient, to the Ilderton housemaid who entered the post office just ahead of him. All were aghast, and Jack reflected ruefully that there was a guilty excitement in being the bearer of such shocking news. It added to one’s sense of consequence, the simple fact of knowing before another did. He even felt faint, illogical disappointment upon meeting anyone who already knew, like the vicar, who, when Jack began the tale, only shook his head and said, “I had it of Tom Gibson a quarter hour ago. Sad business! What shall become of us all?”

Jack returned home, full of trepidation. It had been badly done of him to leave Elizabeth alone with her anger and fears. But he found her in the parlor, outwardly calm and quiet, mending one of his shirts as if her whole soul was focused on her needle and thread.

“How did you find them in Selyhaugh?” she asked.

“The news is beginning to spread there.”

“Mmm.”

“Elizabeth...I hope we have peace, but if not, I must do my duty.”

“Yes, you must. But I hope you understand I will be praying my hardest for peace. I don’t want to lose you now that I’ve finally found you.”

“I have no intentions of dying.”

“I know. But I don’t think French cannon or muskets or bayonets care about your intentions.”

Jack shook his head. “I could die in battle. Or I could fall from a horse, like poor Ned, or catch a fever, like—”

He broke off, but Elizabeth finished for him. “Like Giles.”

“Yes, or a wasting sickness, like my father. There are any number of ways to die. But do you want to know the only one that frightens me?”

“What is it?”

“That I might die like my mother. That my mind might leak away and leave me with no memory of you, or my friends, or the children and grandchildren I may have by then.
That
can keep me awake nights, shuddering with the horror of it. The sudden deaths and the mildly lingering ones hold no terrors.”

She bit her lip and nodded understanding. “I’ll be terrified for you, then. I can’t help it.”

He crossed to stand by her chair and smoothed her hair. She smiled up at him, wistfully, and then leaned against his chest. They stayed so for several minutes. Jack swore to himself that he would remember this moment—the quiet peace of it, with no sound but their breathing and the slow crackle of the fire, Elizabeth’s sleek hair soft under his hand, the love and trust she’d given him that he by no means deserved. Whenever he did lie dying—and he hoped that moment was long decades away—he wanted to hold this stillness, this peace, this
love
as he crossed the great barrier.

* * *

All through the rest of the day Jack and Elizabeth were quieter with each other than they had been since his return. Even when she’d barred him from her bed, they’d talked, sparring and testing their way to an accord that had blossomed into love. But Jack didn’t fear this silence. Elizabeth needed it, he thought, to consider this change from peace to war, this delay of their cherished plans. As for himself, as long as he had her on his side, and by his side, it was more than sufficient.

“If it does come to war,” he said as they lingered over the remains of a light supper, “and Horse Guards does find a brigade for me, do you want to come with me or stay here?”

She stared at him, her eyes gone wide. “I’m coming with you. You said, from now on, when you were posted abroad, you would take me.”

He hastened to soothe her unexpected doubts. “And I keep my word. Of course you will come, since you wish it. Only, I wasn’t certain. I thought you might not find Europe at war as appealing as Canada at peace, or some plum of a diplomatic posting.”

Now her eyes flashed. “It isn’t a matter of
appealing.
I don’t want to be parted so long from you again, for any cause. And if you are wounded or—God forbid—
killed,
I don’t want to be hundreds of miles away, where I cannot go to you. It was hard enough wondering about your fate before, when I was furious with you. Now I couldn’t bear it at all.”

He smiled at her. Many a wife would have wanted to stay behind in England’s assured peace, and many a husband would have preferred it that way, but Jack was glad to know he and Elizabeth would not face another separation. “Then come with me you shall. And I don’t doubt that you’ll have the strength to face whatever comes.”

When they went upstairs to bed, Jack expected that their coupling would be slow and tender, or even that they would only lie in each other’s arms and breathe together, as they had in the parlor that afternoon. But his wife had other ideas. He found her sitting up in bed, her hair tumbling unbraided over her shoulders, her eyes bright with challenges.

Never taking his eyes off of her, he untied his banyan, draped it over a chair and approached the bed. He stopped at the little table by the bed, ready to snuff out the candles, but she shook her head. “Leave them. All of them.”

Wordlessly he nodded. Before he could climb into bed beside her, she rose to her knees and met him, pulling at his nightshirt. He helped, and when he stood before her fully naked, rather than leaning in for a kiss, she ran a possessive hand down his chest and stomach. He gasped when she got to his cock, her small, deft hand stroking its length from root to tip before settling around him with a firm grip.

She let go, rocking back on her heels. “Lie down,” she commanded.

“Yes, ma’am.” Never taking his eyes off her face, he hurried to sprawl flat on his back across the bed.

She nodded satisfaction and shed her own nightclothes, confident and unashamed in the candlelight. Before tonight Jack thought he had seen his wife in all her range of passion. She’d been a quick learner in bed, after very little prompting, eager to tell him what pleased her best and ask what he enjoyed in return. It had given him no little pleasure to think that he, and only he, knew how sensual and abandoned his outwardly reserved and self-contained wife could become where she loved and trusted.

But he had never seen this side of her before, fierce and commanding—at least, he’d never seen it in bed, he amended, as she straddled him. He reached up to caress her, to take her by the hips and guide her down onto him, but she caught his hands and held him still.

“You won’t die,” she said, in the same tone of command.

“I’ll do my best.”

She shook her head. “You won’t die, you won’t leave me here alone, and we will grow old together.”

He nodded, surrendering, making a promise no man had any right to make. Then she rose up over him again, guided his cock to her entrance and ground down onto him, enveloping him in her slick heat. Only then did she free his hands, and he dug his fingers into her hips, urging her to a hard, fast rhythm.

Without breaking that rhythm, she leaned forward until they were nose to nose. “You. Won’t. Die.” Each word was punctuated by a gasp.

“Why—would I? And lose—all this?” He found her seat of pleasure and stroked it with his thumb, hard, until she stilled and cried out. He came with her, blessed mindless sweet release, but he didn’t let that stop him. Now he nudged her to lie on her back, languid and sated, while he explored all those parts of her that had gone un-caressed in their frantic first mating. He kissed her, a long, leisurely tasting, nibbled at her earlobes and paid special attention to the smooth column of her neck and the dip of her collarbone. He licked and suckled her breasts in turn, spurred on by her soft cries and murmurs of encouragement. All the while he stroked between her legs, teasing the silken-soft skin of her inner thighs and resting his hand over her mound—it was his turn to be possessive now—until she made an impatient noise and thrust her hips up. Then he yielded, spreading her sensitive folds open with his fingertips, thrusting two fingers deep inside her.

By her second spend he was hard again, and as she watched him with eyes gone soft and dreamy in the flickering candlelight, he pushed her legs farther apart and came into her again. “I love you too much to die,” he said, and it no longer seemed like an impossible promise.

She hooked her legs around his back and drew him down for a kiss.

* * *

From Elizabeth’s perspective, the news grew worse and worse over the next few days. Though the reports from the Paris papers continued to claim that all was well and the people loyal to their king, the London papers asserted that matters were not quite so rosy, that Bonaparte was advancing rapidly, his force growing as his veterans deserted
en masse
to his banner. The Duke of Wellington had already been appointed to command a force of British and allied soldiers in Belgium as soon as he could arrive there from Vienna.