Highest Stakes (20 page)

  Thankfully it was two o'clock, the traditional teatime at Heathstead Hall. He was unlikely to be seen by anyone at this time of day, outside of a groom or possibly Charles, his friend from boyhood, whose discretion he could trust. With relative confidence he could escape detection, he cautiously circled the house, sneaking to the backside of the stables where he hoped to find a champion for his cause in his old friend, Jeffries. But as fortune—or he thought more aptly,
misfortune—would
have it, he was startled by a familiar voice crooning in hypnotic tones to her mare.

  "And how goes it today, my lovely? I will have you know I risked a capital offense on your behalf by absconding with sugar cubes from the teacart. I fear Beatrix will be exceedingly vexed to have no sugar for her tea today." Charlotte giggled at her mischief while Amoret eagerly devoured the contraband.

  Drawn to her voice, Robert slunk into the adjacent stall. Even awareness of his scruff appearance could not keep him from her. "Charlotte," he whispered.

  Startled, she spun around, spying no one. "Who's there?" she cried.

  "It's me, Robert," answered a low voice. "Is anyone else about?"

  "Robert!" she exclaimed breathlessly, her eyes searching the stable. "Robert! Where are you?"

  "I'm in the next box. Is anyone else about?" he asked cautiously.

  "Why, no. B-but why are you hiding in the stables? You have not deserted!"

  "No, Charlotte." He spoke in a louder whisper. "'Tis nothing like that; I simply need to speak privily with you."

  "We are alone at present," she reassured him. "I have dismissed the groom. There is none here but me, but I haven't long before I am missed for tea. Pray show yourself. I
must
see you!"

  He rose cautiously. "If we don't have much time, I must come directly to my purpose. I have need of your assistance, Char—" Stupefied, he gained his first vision of Charlotte in nearly two years. He gaped at the young woman standing before him.

  Gone were the girlish braids and boy's breeches to which he was accustomed. Instead, there stood a vision before him. Her golden brown hair was elegantly coiffed under a frilled bonnet, and her cousin's ill- fitting garb had been exchanged for the snugly fit gown that revealed the transformation of his reedy little waif into a curvaceous young woman.

  As incredulous as Robert was at Charlotte's metamorphosis, she was equally thunderstruck at her first sight of this scruffily handsome captain. She stared back at him with luminous eyes.

  "Robert." She breathed his name, breaking the silence that held them. He, however, still gaped, to her increasing discomfiture. "You needn't look so surprised." She blushed furiously. "It was bound to happen, sooner or later—becoming a lady, that is. I had no choice," she protested. "Aunt Felicia and Beatrix…," she rambled on breathily.

  Robert took her face in his hands, and her babbling abruptly ceased.

  His kiss, swift and fierce, was unexpected and unnerving. His lips, simultaneously hard and soft, moved over hers and created ineffable sensations. Initially shocked to her core, Charlotte's response had been unschooled, but ardent. With growing understanding, she parted her lips and entwined her arms tightly about his neck.

  Robert responded by deepening their kiss, and with this first real taste of her, experienced a quickening of desire. Charlotte sighed and leaned intimately closer, her soft curves now hugging his aroused body. Robert's mind ran rampant; he was becoming more lost to rational thought with every stroke of their tongues. They were alone and perilously near a large pile of clean straw... He shook the fog rapidly filling his brain and abruptly broke the embrace.

  Weak-kneed, breathless, and bewildered, Charlotte regarded him with wounded, wide-eyed disappointment.

  He took her hands in response to her unspoken question and raised them tenderly to his lips. "My love, I am come with an
honorable
proposition."

Cautiously quitting the stables, Charlotte scurried to the house for tea, and afterwards, waylaid Charles. Robert had judged his boyhood friend correctly. Charles was eagerly conscripted to play his part.

  Next, after escaping to her room, Charlotte called for Letty and breathlessly divulged their plot.

  Once enlisted, Letty snuck off to Jeffries's cottage to prepare Robert a bath. Jemmy was only too keen to join the conspirators and served as sentry over the stable yard.

  After undressing and handing off his boots and less-than-pristine uniform, Robert bathed and shaved while Letty and Charlotte sponged, pressed, and polished all back to its former glory.

  By five of the clock, bedecked in scarlet regimentals, adorned with the blue cuffs and facings designating the King's Horse, and with the gleaming captain's gorget adorning his neck, Robert Devington was every bit the resplendent officer. Mounting his charger, he decamped the stable via a hidden path and circled around to the front drive. Thence he reentered the gate and cued the eager gray into a springing piaffe. Dancing up the drive with proudly arched neck, the stallion carried the captain to the great house.

  Charles, as planned, espied his erstwhile friend and alerted the remaining household of the hero's arrival. "Mother, Father, Beatrix," he said, summoning them, "'tis Devington returned, and a Captain of the Horse, no less!"

  Charlotte, her aunt, and Beatrix swiftly quit the parlor, with the ensuing commotion interrupting Sir Garfield's afternoon coze. The baronet grumbled a diatribe on why a man could never find peace in his own home, only to be startled to full wakefulness by feminine exclamations of admiration and wonderment.

  Hefting his ponderous bulk from his favorite chair, Sir Garfield threw his wig on askew and grabbed his silver-handled cane before lumbering out to investigate the hullabaloo that had his household in a tumult. He was stunned to see Devington on his prancing charger.

  "What? Devington a captain? How is this possible?" Sir Garfield exclaimed in disgruntled astonishment that was soon overcome by fascination with the captain's horse.

  Robert swiftly dismounted as Jemmy appeared to take charge of the captain's horse.

  "Just a moment, boy." Sir Garfield stayed the groom. "Let's have a better look at this horse."

  Sir Garfield ran his appraising eye over every line and muscle with grudging admiration, and the co-conspirators exchanged knowing looks.

  "A fine looking animal, Devington. Might I ask how you have come by such a specimen?"

  Devington nodded to Jemmy to take the charger off to the stables. "Spoils of war, one might say," he replied glibly.

  "Is he indeed? You've seen action, then?"

  "My Sixth Troop was among those at Dettingen."

  "Survived the battle, did you?" Sir Garfield asked rhetorically. "You intend to make a career of it, I presume."

  "Indeed, I do, sir."

  "Then what draws you back to Yorkshire?" He watched intently for any subtle exchange between the captain and his niece. "'Tis a long way from any garrison."

  "Homesick, one might say. I've been away for too long, and with a for'night's leave, I couldn't bear to spend the holidays in cramped London barracks."

  "Can't say I blame you, but I didn't expect to see you return. Leastwise not hale and whole," Sir Garfield said callously and cast another glance at his niece. Charlotte, playing her part, appeared dispassionate, the very picture of decorum.

  "Then I beg forgiveness for disappointing you, sir."

  "Sir Garfield," interrupted Lady Felicia, endeavoring to vitiate the growing tension, "you may continue to grill the poor boy after dinner. I
insist
he join us. After all, 'tis Christmas Eve, and Devington was
nearly
one of us for a number of years."

  "Indeed, madam, indeed," Sir Garfield grudgingly acceded. Lady Felicia called her housekeeper and cook to prepare another place.

  Robert considered the condescending tone of the invitation, meant to remind him of his station. It rankled.

  "Indeed, Mama!" Beatrix chimed with affected adulation. "How dashing our Robert is become! And a captain so quickly. Our own dearest Robert
must
recount all of the battle of Gettinden."

  "I believe that was
Dettingen
, Beatrix," her brother corrected.

  Unrebuffed, Beatrix cast a hand to her breast. "How stirring to have a war hero among us!"

  Though seething at her cousin's conduct, for her uncle's benefit, Charlotte displayed only polite interest in their exchange.

  Observing Charlotte's detachment, Sir Garfield heaved an inner sigh that the enforced time and distance between the would-be lovers had finally made the cure. He refocused, with growing alarm, on Beatrix's display of coquetry as she led Captain Devington by the arm to the drawing room.

  Surprisingly, conversation was far from stilted. The ladies desired to hear all about the sights and events in London. The gentlemen, having read several newspaper reports of Dettingen, were keen for a firsthand account.

   "I just don't countenance this war with the French," Sir Garfield remarked, "while we had every reason to make war with Spain, with those infernal Spanish boarding and seizing our ships and destroying our trade! Wars are necessary to protect our commerce, but what is the point in spilling English blood for Hanover?"

  Robert answered, "We entered the war to honor our treaty with Austria and protect her sovereignty. Without our deterring presence, Frederick of Prussia would have long since taken Silesia and Bohemia. And if the French resent our actions enough to threaten our king's Hanover, are we not as obligated to protect it?"

  "Hanover!" the baronet scoffed. "The King uses the French threat to strengthen his German Electorate with British resources. Englishmen are sick to death of Hanover!"

  "I confess your sentiments have permeated our army, sir," Robert said. "Field Marshal Stair and the Duke of Marlborough took umbrage to the King's preference for his German generals over his English counsel, and have both resigned."

  "If Stair and Marlborough have both resigned, who then is to command?" Charles asked.

  "At the moment, Lieutenant-general Honeywood is acting commander in chief, Colonel Churchill has the infantry, and Colonel Ligonier of the Black Horse Dragoons has overall command of the cavalry."

  "Ligonier, you say? Didn't he fight the last Spanish war under Marlborough?"

  "Indeed. He is a most able man. His Black Horse Dragoons were virtually surrounded by French and fought their way through the enemy lines at Dettingen. The colonel narrowly escaped capture. His Majesty later conferred upon him the honor of knight banneret, but the most compelling tale is that of Cornet Henry Richardson, who suffered thirty-seven wounds defending the company's standard."

  "Thirty-seven? Good God!" Charles exclaimed.

  "Incredibly, the man survived. He was presented the same bloodstained standard in honor of his exceptional valor."

  The captain then spoke of the ball the Austrian general D'Aremburg had taken in the shoulder, and the Duke of Cumberland's leg wound, received at the hands of his own Austrian infantryman who mistook him for a French officer. Lastly he spoke of those fallen in battle.

  Growing bored and truculent at the lack of attention, Beatrix lowered her napkin to her lap and reached under the table to stroke Robert's thigh.

  Robert choked on his wine.

  "Dear Robert, how overwrought you are," she exclaimed, all innocence. "And you are far too reticent about yourself. Pray recount how you earned your captaincy," she prettily appealed.

  Robert maintained a somewhat stilted flow of conversation while restoring Beatrix's roving hand to her own lap, and detailed the battle, but resisted the temptation to expound and boast of his heroics.

  Sir Garfield was keen to hear more of Cumberland, who at the tender age of one-and-twenty had so proven himself under fire.

  "He behaved as bravely as any man could have, and the men rallied just to have him so near. They even sing his praises." Grinning, Robert broke out in tuneless song: