Lord of Ice (36 page)

MacHugh swung up onto his horse and threw him a crisp salute. “It’ll be just like old times, Winterley!”

“I so hope not,” he replied, folding his arms across his chest, yet he could feel the drumbeat in his pulse, summoning him to battle. He glanced at the half-rebuilt house behind him, then scanned the fields, ripe for the sowing.

No, it was beyond his power to languish here when his country needed him.

His gaze wandered to the almond orchard, where Miranda was walking among the trees, clouds of white petals scattering around her, catching in her dark hair. He watched her as she held up her Paisley scarf over her head, letting the wind play with it like a kite. He exhaled slowly, quietly.

Then he went to tell her.

Miranda saw Damien walking toward her across the wet, marshy grass and moved to the brow of the ridge to wait for him. The wind whipped through her skirts and her hair and her Paisley scarf, but the sun warmed her. The afternoon light fell at a sharp angle; the sky behind him was the color of his eyes; tall, piled clouds with silver linings, pierced by silver beams of light.

“Can we have our salon out here?” she called playfully, sweeping a gesture toward the trees. “I cannot think of a prettier setting in which to receive our callers.”

He flashed her an even, white smile, his complexion glowing a vibrant bronzed hue as the sunbeams lit his face; the wind ran rampant through his silky black hair. He was dressed with rustic simplicity in buff leather breeches and a short leather coat with a handsome plaid wool scarf wrapped around his neck. His high boots were flecked with mud. He came toward her, drawing off his thick leather work gloves.

“We can put the couch there.” She pointed. “And the table there—and hang two swings from those branches instead of boring old chairs. What say you?”

“Where is your coat?”

“I’m not cold. I have a strong constitution,” she boasted; then her grin faded as she noticed the troubled look in his gray eyes. “What is it, darling?” She danced over to him and touched his forearms gently, glancing up into his face.

He tucked his gloves in his coat pockets and took her hand in his, pausing to pluck a flower petal out of her hair. He let the wind take it, his gaze turning faraway as he watched the white petal fly.

Miranda touched his chest. “Damien?”

He lifted his chin, still avoiding her gaze. He stared toward the river. “MacHugh and Sutherland have been here,” he said in a stiff voice that she had not heard him use in weeks. She noticed the tension in the broad line of his shoulders.

“Are they staying for supper? We shall have to take them to the inn at Littlewick—”

“They’ve gone.”

“So quickly?”

“Yes.”

“What did they want?”

He looked at her at last with anger and sorrow churning in his eyes. “They brought news from London.”

“Bad news?” she murmured, sobering.

He nodded.

“What is it?”

“Napoleon has escaped the island of Elba,” he said hesitantly. “He is marching on Paris. Wellington will be assembling an army—”

“No!” she gasped, pulling out of his light hold, backing away, the color draining from her cheeks. “No, Damien. No.”

Anguish flitted over his elegantly chiseled face. “I must go,” he forced out. “You know they need me.”

“I need you!” The wind carried her wail across the river.

He took a step toward her, pain in his eyes. “Miranda.”

“You’re not going, Damien! No! I forbid it!”

He said nothing.

She knew that his mind was already made up. Her mouth went dry with fear, her heart pounding. Her distress was so acute it dizzied her. She struggled for clarity. “Damien, I can’t let you do this,” she said with forced calm, though her voice trembled. “I cannot lose you. It took all of your strength and my love to help you find your way out of the darkness the last time. I almost lost you to it. If you go back and expose yourself to all of that violence and bloodshed again, it might happen all over again, and this time I may not be able to save you.”

“It is my duty.”

“I am your duty! I am your wife! You are my husband, and I need you here!”

“I have to finish this, Miranda. I fought too hard, sacrificed too much to see that Corsican monster once more on his throne.”

“It’s France! What do you care? It’s not your country—”

“It’s not that simple, my love,” he whispered. “If we do not act to remove him at once, he will dig in his heels, become entrenched, and the whole damned thing will start all over again. Is that what you want for our children?”

“I want our children to know their father!” She whirled around and ran away from him, unable to bear another word.

She ran as far as the edge of the river, crying, blinded with tears. She slumped down by the reeds and stared at the rushing water, betrayed and terrified. He was leaving her. That was all she knew.

Damien walked up behind her, his step uncertain. “Miranda, be strong.”

“Why?” she cried. “Why must I be strong when my husband of less than two months is abandoning me?”

“I’m not abandoning you,” he whispered helplessly.

“Then stay.” She turned to him on her knees, tears pouring down her face. “Promise me you will stay no matter what. Those were your vows, weren’t they? You are finally healing, Damien. Look at the life we are building here. What of your horses? Our children? Our family? Doesn’t it mean anything to you?”

He swallowed hard. “Miranda, my men will be lost in the field without me. They will be fighting for the security of England and their own lives. I cannot abandon them.”

“And what of me?” she wailed. “You’re abandoning me!”

“You’re strong,” he whispered pleadingly. “I need you to be strong, as only my Miranda can be.”

She grabbed onto that strength within her and hardened it willfully to anger, staring at him. “If you go, I shall no longer be 'your' Miranda.”

He paled. “What do you mean?”

“If you abandon me for the sake of your filthy war, I will never forgive you. Never.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, his voice dark with warning. “I will never grant you a divorce.”

“No need, when I will likely be a widow before the year is out.” She shoved him out of her way as she marched past him toward the house on legs that shook beneath her.

They returned to their London townhouse, but Miranda refused to speak to him during the four-hour coach ride and for the entire week that followed. Four days into her silent treatment, Damien roared at her to stop it, but her only answer was an icy stare. Seeing it, he slammed out of the house and commenced returning her silence in kind. At night, she locked the door that joined their bedrooms, but he did not try to enter. Napoleon had caused their first fight as husband and wife, and it was a huge one, with equal stubbornness arrayed on both sides, each one absolutely certain that he or she was right.

On Thursday the sixteenth, he received the urgent request for his service by special dispatch from the War Office. They wanted him in Brussels by the third of April. Knowing that the orders would be coming, he had already sent out messages to gather up his men, who had scattered to the four corners of Britain. He had also begun ordering supplies and materiel for them, such as tents and canteens.

“You had better not use one penny of my inheritance to outfit your regiment,” she had warned him bitterly.

“It’s not your money anymore, wife, and I shall spend it however I damn well please,” he had answered bitterly before going out the door to meet with his captains at the Guards’ Club.

She sat in the parlor that overlooked the street, listening to the silence of the house. The dull sounds of the occasional traffic below were deafening in the newly furnished parlor. Was this how it would be when he was gone? she thought. The silence would drive her mad. Unable to stand another moment of it, she pulled on her bonnet and gloves, draped her Paisley shawl around her shoulders, and went out walking, brooding with every step. Perhaps she would not speak to Damien, but he was all she thought about, constantly. How would she survive his desertion?

I shall take lovers,
she thought in defiance. Why, she would enjoy herself so heartily in his absence she would make the Hawkscliffe Harlot, his mother, look like a nun. It would serve him right. . . .

But her bold thoughts drained away, and her shoulders slumped in misery as she trailed her hand along the black wrought-iron bars of the fences that girded the elegant townhouses in her neighborhood. She didn’t want anybody else. She would
never
want anybody else. She only wanted that cruel barbarian. Why didn’t he love her enough to stay? Lucien wasn’t going, she thought sullenly. Lucien was staying home with Alice, so why must Damien go?

Maybe if she were pregnant, as Alice was, he would stay home, too. But she knew she was fooling herself. The man she had married, the man she loved still, was no more capable of turning his back on his men or ignoring his country’s call to arms than she was capable of staying angry at him much longer. It was hard being a military wife, she thought. Vaguely ashamed of herself for handling this so poorly, she felt as though she did not even know herself anymore. She had never felt such deadening depression and despair. She knew she was making it all harder on him, but he was everything to her—her best friend, her guardian, her lover, and mate—and he was leaving her, probably to die. She knew he was not trying to betray her, but it still felt like it.

As she walked down the street, heavy-hearted and lonely, all around her the bustling city was abuzz. The mood in the streets was one of excitement over the coming war. For an hour, she meandered, letting her feet take her wherever they would. When she looked up, she found herself in front of Lucien and Alice’s house on Upper Brooke Street. She stared at it for a long moment, then took a deep breath and shook off her self-pity for good. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, then went up the three front steps and banged the knocker.

To her surprise, Lucien answered the door himself instead of their butler.

“Why, Lady Winterley,” he said, lifting his eyebrows in surprise. “Do come in.”

She did, wandering restlessly into the entrance hall.

“Where is your carriage?”

“I walked.”

“No footman? No maid?”

She gave him a warning look.

“I take it the domestic squabble is still going strong,” he remarked, taking in her glum, introspective expression as he closed the door behind her.

As she turned to him, she caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror: a poor, homeless waif no more, but a countess, elegantly dressed, a woman of rank and position, who had a duty to her husband, just as her husband had a duty to his king.

She looked Lucien squarely in his eyes. “I need a favor,” she said. “Tell me what I need to bring with me to the war.”

A hearty smile spread slowly across his face. “Dare I ask you’ve decided to follow the drum?”

She tossed her head in a short, angry nod. “He gives me little choice, that blackguard.”

“Brava, Lady Winterley. Brava,
bella,
” he murmured, crossing the hall to enfold her in a brotherly hug.

“I still hate him for this,” she muttered with a sniffle, grateful for his affection.

He chuckled fondly. “I knew you’d come around. Somebody’s got to look after him over there.”

“Don’t tell him I’ve decided to come,” she warned, her eyes misting briefly as she pulled back and glanced at him. “He’ll never allow it if he knows in advance.”

Lucien gave her shoulders a bracing squeeze. “Never fear, sister. I know how to keep a secret. Now, then. Let’s think about what you’ll need. . . .”

The days rolled by in hectic preparation, but Miranda gave Damien no sign that she had made up her mind to come with him for fear that if he caught wind of her plan, he would say it was too dangerous and forbid her to go.

Meanwhile, on Lucien’s advice, she was amassing provisions of her own, stocking up on the appropriate clothing, getting her identification papers drawn up, and putting her affairs in order. She practiced riding her mare, Fancy, for long hours in the park to improve her equestrian skills; bought a pair of dueling pistols for self-protection; hired a servant woman who had followed the army before to act as her maid; and said private good-byes to the women of the Knight family, who regarded her decision in mingled awe and dread.