Light to Valhalla (16 page)

Absently she nodded
.
Ale
x
stepped behind her and stripped
the uni
form jacket from her
shoulders before continuing on down the hall.

Charley
shivered
, and rubbed her palms over her arms to erase the chill
.
“A
lex?
”

“Yes?
”
He stopped and turned back to her.

“A
ren’t you going to ask
why I was here with Sidney?”

A
flint
mask flipped over his
eyes
.
“There is no need.
”
He performed a crisp about face a
nd marched down the hall
.

Charley collapsed against the wall
.
“I’m such a fool,” she muttered
.
All the man need do is look at her and she was putty in his hands, but dare she trust him?  Dare she put her life in his hands
?  Better than even odds predicted she would find
herself pregnant, alone, and second to the army yet again
if she did
.

*
             
*
             
*

The bay gelding
swept down the snow covered road with ground eating strides
.
Alex hunched over the animals
shoulders, urging him faster
.
The
horse
stretched out, finding
another
burst
of energy
and increased the pace yet again
.
Alex reveled in the speed, relishing
the brown blur of the trees lining the road
and the cool sting of the wind in his face, but
no matter how the
animal
flew over the earth t
he sight of
Charley
pinned
provocatively against the wall
beneath Sid
refused to fall behind
.

He careened around a bend in the road
.

Over and again he told himself it didn’t matter
.
He’d been gone for three years, and anything that may or may not have happened between Sidney and his wife
lay
in the past
.
His marriage started now
.
Conquering Charl
e
y
started now
.
But doubts plagued his mind
.
Doubts and miserable jealousy
.
He ground his teeth
.

Jealous?

Like hell
.
He’d be damned before admitting the fact
.
Jealous men turned to fools, and he’d not be made a fool by a woman
.
Not like his father who
’d been made a fool by any pretty face passing by
.
Alex refused to be compared to or resemble that bastard in any measure
.
He’d spent his entire life proving he was better than all of them
—his parents, his brothers
.

A battered wagon rattled down the road just ahead, Alex jogged to the side, tightly rounding the conveyance
.
The nag pulling the vehicle
start
l
ed and half reared
.
Alex peered
under his arm
.
The driver shook an angr
y fist at
Alex
and his rapidly departing mount
.

Reluctantly Alex reigned in
.
His display of
reckless
ness
was
hardly
becoming of
an officer in the king’s army.

He finally stopped
warring
the perpetual circle of his mind back to Charlotte and allowed his mind to dwell on the situation at hand
.
If his wife could in fact be considered a
situation
.
The word hardly seemed appropriate
.
Charley
was an entity
.
Vivid, brilliant and consuming his world
.
Christ, help him
.

W
hen had
the concept of
jealousy
and
Charley
Trent
become synonymous?
 
He’d wanted her for
some time now, years,
in fact,
but
the emotions had taken on a life of their
own
after his dream on the battlefield
, and
the memory of the haunting apparition of his wife
was dragging his
entire existence
out of control
.
Now h
e
could not banish the weight of
her
in his arms, or the cinnamon scent wafting around her
strawberry
hair
.
By the devil s
he
reminded
him
o
f strawberries dipped in whipped
cream, and in a word—
if
a single word could truly sum up the crazed desire he felt for her—
she
possessed
him
.
Here he was lusting after his own wife—
his wife—
and at total odds as to what to do about it
.

Did she love him?

At one time he’d believed so
.
Known the fact to be true in the purest sort of certainty, but now…

Did
she
love Sidney?
 
Acrid bile rose in his throat at the possibility
.
He clinched the reins until his knuckles turned white
.

Once he waded through all the reasons—mostly selfish—that he needed Charley at his side, the simple truth of the matter was that he was
ready to be married, have
a family,
children
.
The army
humbled him
.
Nay, that was a falsehood
.
The army disciplined him
.
Battle humbled him
.
The sight of death and suffering… the bloated bodies of the comrades he’d played cards or
shared drinks
with the night before
.
He’d
more than
seen death and suffering
, he knew what it was, had smelled it, breathed it,
and no longer had the immortal mental
ity of most twenty-six year old men
.
In short he’d lost the drive to take risks and claw his way to the top
.
Death did not frighten him, but the prospect of dying with no one to grieve or care scared
the
living hell out of him.

If he died toda
y would anyone be truly sorry?

The
question loomed in the shadows of his mind
.
P
lagued him
.
Ate at his soul
.

His mother would
lament the loss of the
Coverstone
title to
Sidney
far
more than
the death of
a son, and
a
fter the Witherspoon debacle his superiors wou
ld be just as soon rid of him
.
Sidney might miss him, but Alex had been absent so long the loss would hardly disrupt his cousin’s day to day routine
.

And what of Charley?

How many times had he dreamed of her garbed all in black, standing beside a fresh dug grave—his grave
.
Would she grieve?  Perhaps,
but more than likely she’d be relieved to shed the bonds of unwanted marriage
.
In his visions a veil always covered her face, blocking the truth of her emotions from his view, but deep down… he knew the truth, and the truth terrified him.

Despair settled in his chest, a hollow
empty
ache
.
He couldn’t die that way
.
Alone
.
Without a soul on this earth to care that he was gone
.
He just
…
couldn’t.

And
w
hat had
his wife and cousin b
een speaking about in the hall?  Not how Charlotte was faring, of that Alex was certain
.
Planning their next romantic
tryst
perhaps?

Alex ground his teeth and, seething, hunched back over the horse’s withers
.
Appearances be damned, his career was over anyway
.
Soon his entire life would be up in smoke
.
When the
debris settled Charley
may be all he had left
, and he
’d
be damned before
he lost
her too
.
Alex
would woo her
with
every charm in his repertoire
—granted he was a little rusty in the arts of seduction, but t
he next time his wife saw Sidney
she would hardly recall the
rake’s
name.

A few minutes
l
ater he thundered
over a picturesque stone bridge, past a sheer white field littered with
brown and
black
herds of cows and sheep, into the sleepy village bordering the extensive Grayson lands
.
Curls of smoke
rose
lazily from
a mismatched array of stone chimneys
—
some short, some tall, all cozy and inviting
.
An overwhelming sense of weariness overcame Alex
.
What he wouldn’t give to collapse before a hearth and sleep without a care in the w
or
ld
.
When was the last time he’d had t
he luxury of being carefree?  Heaven help him…
he couldn’t quite remember.

The
lone road wending through town stretched before him, completely deserted
.
C
urious eyes
peered from behi
nd window
panes and the few
daring enough to brave the cold
waved in greeting
.
Finding the magistrate was of next to no difficulty in a town so small
, and
Alex dismounted
before the quaint cottage
, abs
ently rubbing his injured thigh—the cold never fail
ed to aggravate the muscles
.
He
tethered the bay gelding
and strode toward the little house
.

The wooden
door swung open before Alex reached the first step
.
“
Top of the
morning, M
ajor
.
What can I do for you this fine day?
”
A short, squat
Irish
man
of middling years smiled jovially from the doorway
.
Wiry gray hair sprouted in patches
from a balding head
and sharp blue
eyes sparkled behind
round spectacles
.
The
plaid vest barely covering his protruding middle completed the
scene and in all
the man bore striking resemblance to a leprechaun
.

A hint of amusement tugged Alex’
s lips
.
He swallowed it back and cleared his throat
.
“Good morning, sir
.
I am in search of the magistrate.”

“Then search no longer me
lad,
Archibald Reilly
at your service.
”

Alex half expected the man to click his heels and
pop a cork
pipe in his mouth
.
“Excellent.
”
He ascended the stairs
.
“I am Major
Rawlings
.”