An Infamous Marriage (22 page)

Wellington leaned forward slightly, one eyebrow cocked. “And what did that misinterpretation entail?”

“Sir, the captain’s idea of unloading with all possible haste would have led to the injury and loss of a great many horses, not to mention soaking and fouling our powder and stranding cannon in shallow waters with no ready means of retrieval. His kind of haste would have led to loss and delays far greater than spending an hour or two unloading the ships properly, so I took it upon myself to see that we delivered you cannons with horses fit to pull them and dry powder to fire them.”

“Sir John, I desire that my orders shall be obeyed without question.” Wellington held his face expressionless for a few breaths longer, then broke into a smile. “But you did exactly as you ought. God spare us from many fools like that captain. One wonders how the navy does as well as they do.”

Jack smiled back. “Doubtless there is a reason he is commanding a transport rather than a frigate or a ship of the line.”

“Indeed.” Wellington waved his hand at a chair opposite him. “Do sit, Sir John. I’ve had two letters about you this morning.”

Jack took the chair. “You have, sir?”

“Yes.” He picked them up from the top of his stack, one in each hand. “One from your friend the transport captain, most indignant at his treatment, and wasting my time with the extent and volubility of his complaints, and another from Colonel Hastings, commending you for your good management of the landing.”

“I’m greatly obliged to him, I’m sure.”

“He considers himself greatly obliged to
you,
for saving him from just the sort of trouble and loss you mentioned.” He set the letters down and regarded Jack levelly. There was none of the forbidding chill from a few minutes earlier, but neither was it precisely a welcoming look. “You acquitted yourself well, but you have the least experience of any of the brigade commanders Horse Guards in its wisdom has sent out to me.”

“I am aware of that, sir.” There was no use in trying to pretend otherwise. “But I had the great honor to serve under Sir Isaac Brock for many years, and I hope and believe I learned from his example.”

“Ah, yes. I know his reputation. I understand you assumed command after he fell at Queenston Heights and secured our victory there, though you were injured in the action yourself.”

“Yes. My only regret is that I did not heal from those injuries sooner, or that the war did not last longer, to allow me to resume command.”

“Hmph. I cannot regret that the war ended when it did. Would that it have ended earlier, so that we would have more of our regiments here where they are needed, and that sad business outside New Orleans might’ve been avoided.”

Belatedly Jack remembered that the commander who’d lost both his life and the battle there had been Wellington’s own brother-in-law. He bit the inside of his cheek and wished he could take back his words.

“But I am sorry for your injuries,” the duke continued. “You are healed enough now to withstand the rigors of campaign, I trust? If not, there would be no shame in stepping aside.”

Was that what Wellington wanted him to do, complain of his leg so he could return to England and be replaced? If so, he’d be obliged to push far harder. “Almost a month has passed since I left Northumberland,” he said, “and but for a single day in London and two in Ramsgate awaiting our convoy, I’ve spent every day either on horseback or aboard a ship or barge, and I am as you see me. I’ll never win a footrace, and my dancing days are over. But on horseback I’m the equal of any man, and on my own feet I manage well enough. Let me serve, sir. I won’t disappoint you.”

Wellington smiled, a little sourly. “It isn’t a matter of
letting,
Sir John. I must employ those who are sent to me, and at least I’ve nothing to say against you beyond wishing you’d fought in another dozen battles or so. As to disappointment—do your duty and follow my orders. You’ll have a veteran brigade, with good officers.”

A veteran brigade for an untried commander was a mixed blessing. Jack would have reliable soldiers who would have the courage and experience to follow his orders even if they proved foolish and officers who, like those he had shared the transport with, might look askance at a stranger who had only fought in Canada.

Wellington spoke a little longer, telling him of the regiments in his brigade and recommending that he take one of the lieutenants of the Seventy-Ninth who was a nephew of a friend as his aide-de-camp. Jack said he would—when one’s commander, especially this commander, suggested that one direct one’s patronage to a friend, it amounted to an order.

Evidently the duke noticed his surreptitious stretching of his sore leg, for as soon as he’d finished giving Jack the young lieutenant’s name and current direction, he abruptly remarked, “Stiffens up when you sit for too long, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought so. I’ve been fortunate in avoiding such injuries myself, but I’ve often observed them in others. Take a turn about the room if it will help.”

Jack did, standing carefully lest he stumble upon rising.

His commander and host rose as well, and they walked together to the windows and gazed out over the park. “You’re quartered near the park, too, I understand,” Wellington said.

Jack smiled. “Not so near as this, but yes.”

They contemplated what would have been a peaceful prospect had fewer of the strolling figures been in uniform. Jack spotted Elizabeth and Mrs. Lang walking slowly past the house, arm in arm, clearly in the midst of some comfortable, confidential conversation. He was so glad Elizabeth had come with him on this campaign. Now that he’d discovered her, he didn’t know how he’d ever got by without her smiles, her laughter—especially when she laughed
at
him; he couldn’t bear mockery from anyone else, but hers was a delight—and her cleverness. And he treasured his secret knowledge that the demure, correct, modest lady walking there in the park was none of those things in bed.

“Do you know those two ladies in blue and green, or are you only admiring them?”

The duke was admiring them, Jack saw as he looked sidelong at his chief. Gossip painted Wellington as—well, at least as bad as Jack himself had been before he had fallen in love with his own wife and vowed to be a reformed character from now on. Jack strove to keep any offended possessiveness out of his voice as he replied. “The lady in green is my wife, and her friend is Mrs. Lang, wife of Colonel Lang of the Fifty-First. They are our neighbors in Northumberland, and we are lodging together here.”

“So you brought your wife with you. Did she go to Canada, too?”

“No, sir. She stayed behind in Northumberland and managed my lands. Did a splendid job of it, too. Brought in sheep, and she saved my favorite mare’s life a few months ago when her foaling went badly. But this time we decided we’d been apart too long to immediately separate again.” Abruptly aware that he was babbling his wife’s praises, he stared out the window at Elizabeth.

“You’re a fortunate man, for she must be a remarkable woman. Will you introduce us?”

Jack agreed. He could hardly refuse. At least Wellington seemed to have taken a liking to him, of a sort, and he couldn’t spoil that over the suspicion that the duke might attempt to flirt with his wife.

Elizabeth and Mrs. Lang were walking slowly enough that Jack and the duke easily caught up with them. Jack took the exercise as something of a test to prove that his injuries didn’t hinder him, and made a point of walking with all the speed and confidence he could manage.

He performed the introductions, worrying that Elizabeth might be overawed on her first morning in Brussels to meet not just any duke, but the most famous peer in all England. But she rose to the occasion, making her curtsey with calm grace, and in response to Wellington’s inquiry, pronouncing herself pleased with what she had seen of the city thus far.

“Your husband is quick to speak your praises, ma’am,” Wellington said. “He tells me you saved his favorite mare’s life.”

Elizabeth favored Jack with a smile that assured him she was remembering the morning after that memorable night, then turned a cooler, more reserved smile upon the duke. “One does what one must. I was simply glad all ended well.”

After a few more commonplaces, Wellington asked the ladies if they danced. Mrs. Lang responded in the affirmative, and Elizabeth colored a little before replying, “I haven’t had the opportunity in quite some time.”

With that, they were promised cards for a ball to be held the next week. Jack blinked a little at the invitation’s suddenness. Wellington was a different man, here in the park in the company of ladies, than the cool, rather ruthless general Jack had met a quarter of an hour before. The duke caught his look and raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Don’t look startled, Sir John. In Brussels, dancing—and dinners, and horse races and any number of other amusements—are serious business. I’m sure Bonaparte’s spies think us a frivolous army indeed.”

With that, he took his leave of them. “That went well, I think,” Jack commented as soon as he was sure they were out of earshot.

“I have nothing to wear to a ball,” Elizabeth said, her voice gone hollow, “and I’m by no means certain I even remember how to dance.”

“Why,
that’s
easily remedied,” Mrs. Lang assured her, and the two ladies began to talk of modistes and music.

Chapter Sixteen

Elizabeth stood on the threshold of her very first ball and tried not to succumb to an attack of nerves. Had it not been for her father’s crimes she would have passed this milestone half a lifetime ago.

“All well?” Jack murmured in her ear.

She turned her head to admire him. He was dressed in the most glittering possible version of his uniform, the gold lace sparkling on his scarlet coat, his usual plain boots replaced by elegant dancing slippers. He would not dance tonight, but still he must look the part.

“I feel,” she whispered back, “as if I were sixteen and sixty at the same time.”

He blinked quizzically at her. “You certainly look thirty to me—no, if I didn’t know your age I might take you for five-and-twenty, but certainly not sixteen.”

“Five-and-twenty? You flatter me.”

“Hardly. You’ll dance every dance, see if you don’t. But what do you mean, you feel sixteen and sixty all at once?”

She tried to explain, though she doubted it was something a man could truly understand. “I feel just as I imagined I would when I dreamed of balls, before...before Father. Terrified and joyful all at once, as if I were sixteen. But then I tell myself how absurd it is to feel like a young girl, and I suddenly feel twice my age.”

“You look splendid, and I think you should feel as much like a girl at her first ball as you like, since it
is
your first. Though it sounds as if you may get the chance to make up for a lifetime’s missed balls within a month.”

Elizabeth smoothed an invisible wrinkle out of her white muslin skirts and hoped she was fine enough for the company. There was nothing elaborate about the dress. The modiste she had found willing to make her a gown in time for the Duke of Wellington’s ball hadn’t had time to do more than sew a band of green-and-yellow rosettes above the hem and trim the high waist and sleeves with green ribbon in the shade Jack liked best on her. Glancing around at the other ladies waiting to enter the ballroom, she thought she would do, but if she received praise it certainly wouldn’t be as the best-dressed woman in the room.

She was still startled by the constant whirl of gaiety that was life in Brussels on the edge of war. Though this was her first ball, she and Jack had had only one quiet evening at home since their arrival. There had been three dinners, two musical evenings and a card party, and Elizabeth would be giving her own first dinner, an intimate gathering for the senior regimental officers of Jack’s brigade, the night after next.

When she had expressed her surprise to Jack, he had laughed and asked her what she had expected.

“Less dancing and more drill,” she’d replied.

“Ah, but we drill all day. Don’t let all this fool you into thinking we don’t take Boney seriously, all of us from the duke on down. But it does no good to give up
all
pleasures. You wouldn’t like that in any case,” he’d added, trailing a suggestive fingertip along the neckline of her gown.

“I take your point.”

“I thought you might. Surely you wouldn’t want to deny men who might die tomorrow the joys of today.”

“No talk of dying!” she’d chided him.

At last their turn came to enter the ballroom, and all thoughts but the present were swept from her mind. Lieutenant Beckett, Jack’s young aide-de-camp, claimed her hand for the opening cotillion, and she discovered she remembered how to dance after all.

“It was kind of you to ask me to begin,” she said when a brief pause allowed them time for conversation, “even if Sir John ordered you to do so.” She caught Jack’s eye where he stood along the wall, chatting with the Duke of Richmond, and smiled.

“Nonsense,” Lieutenant Beckett said cheerfully. “Your husband isn’t my commander when it comes to balls, and I have the pleasure of knowing that all the gentlemen who haven’t yet met you are looking at me with envy and wondering who my partner is.”

She laughed. “You flatter me too much.”

But as the evening went on, it almost seemed that he had spoken truth. She found herself partnered with a succession of young captains and older colonels and generals, culminating in a country dance with the young Prince of Orange and a reel with the Duke of Wellington. From what her partners told her, she gathered her husband had been praising her to anyone who would listen, and that Wellington had been heard to mention General Armstrong’s pretty wife, and that was enough to secure her popularity.

The next dance was a waltz, and since Elizabeth had never had the opportunity to learn it—such a thing would never have been imaginable in York when she was a girl learning to dance—she found Jack and sat beside him.

“This must be a sad bore for you,” she said.

“Not at all. I’m watching you be happy, and that is enough for me.”

“Truly?”

He tucked her hand into his elbow and gave it a squeeze with his other hand. “Truly. Now, I wish I could dance a waltz with you, and hold you in my arms like that for all the world to see.”

Elizabeth glanced at the swirling couples. “It seems shocking, though, for couples who aren’t intimate, to engage in such public embraces.”

“Are you sure some of those couples aren’t intimate?” he asked, turning a glance of cool disapproval upon their host, who whirled by with Lady Frances Wedderburn-Webster. Both the duke’s wife and Lady Frances’s husband were back in England, and neither of the dancers seemed to consider their absent spouses any impediment to their pleasures.

“I love to hear you censure other men for their affairs.”

“I suppose it is hypocritical of me.”

“Not at all,” she assured him. “It is most delightful.”

He bent to whisper in her ear. “Later tonight,” he murmured, “I will show you the one place where I can dance as well as any gentleman out there.”

Entering into the spirit of the thing, she snapped her fan open and gazed at him over its edge. “Oh, la, Sir John! And where might that be? On the battlefield?”

He grinned. “In your bed, Lady Armstrong.”

She felt her face heat, and they laughed together. “I hope that is a promise,” she said as soon as she was calm enough to speak archly.

“A certainty, unless you’d rather stay here till four o’clock in the morning so you can dance every dance.”

It was indeed already midnight, and the ball showed no signs of breaking up. “I suppose we must at least stay to supper,” she said, “but I see no need of lingering long after.”

“I hope you’re enjoying your first ball,” he said earnestly.

“Oh, I am indeed. And I can hardly wait to write Eugenia Ilderton and Augusta Rafferty tomorrow, that they may tell Lady Dryden I danced with a prince and a duke.”

He laughed. “I wish I could see her face when she learns of it.”

“Oh, but I can imagine it perfectly well, can’t you?”

“I can. And I’m glad to see you so happy. You deserve it, after all you’ve done.”

“I am enjoying it. But I enjoy you more.”

And enjoy him more she did, as soon as they made it back to their own temporary home, a little after two in the morning.

* * *

From that night onward, Elizabeth found herself popular in the social whirl of Brussels. The last thing she had expected when she had chosen to accompany Jack on campaign was
fun,
but May in Brussels became the debut she had never got the chance to have, only she doubted even a highborn heiress in the London Season could have gone to as many dinners and balls over such a few short weeks.

“Do you regret that you missed your chance for this at seventeen or eighteen?” Jack asked one morning about a fortnight after they’d arrived as they strolled together in the park.

“Not at all,” she assured him.

“But you would have been single, with all these gentlemen to choose among.”

“Then? No, I would’ve been shy, and gauche, and just as awkward as you were at that age. Besides, all this popularity of mine is due to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, all I hear, especially from those few men who knew you when the Forty-Ninth was last in Europe, is that everyone wants to meet the woman who brought Jack Armstrong to heel.” She glanced at him sidelong from beneath her bonnet’s brim to see how he took it, and was delighted by his half-embarrassed grin. “And I don’t want any of these other gentlemen, you know. I have you.”

He drew her closer to his side as they walked, and Elizabeth thought he would have kissed her had they been anywhere but a public promenade. But her bliss was spoiled by a creeping sensation that they were being watched, and by no friendly eyes. She turned her head to the left and saw a man of fifty or so seated on a bench about twenty feet away. She had never seen him before, but he was dressed like an English country squire and he stared at her and Jack with undisguised loathing.

“Jack,” she murmured.

“What is it?” he asked, alert to her changed tone.

“Who is that man on the bench there, staring at us?”

She’d looked away—she didn’t want to see more of the hate on his face—but Jack peered over the top of her head for a moment. “Is he wearing a brown coat?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I couldn’t see his face, I’m afraid. He’s walking away now. You say he was staring?”

“Yes, and with such hatred. I don’t know him, but perhaps he knows you?”

“Who knows? Perhaps one of us simply reminded him of someone he dislikes.”

* * *

Elizabeth tried to forget the incident, but for the next two mornings when she walked in the park with Louisa she caught further glimpses of the older man, always alone. He never looked at her with quite as much hatred as on that first day, but there was a speculative gleam in his eyes that she didn’t like. Louisa saw him, too, but he had a gift for melting into the crowd of strollers enjoying the verdant park before they could approach him too closely.

She had nothing to fear, Elizabeth tried to assure herself. She never went anywhere alone, and even if the man did try to attack her, she was almost certain she could fight him off or outrun him. He looked thin, wasted, the very reverse of robust. But the last time she had been stared at so was just after her father died, and it mixed a note of disturbance with her happiness.

At first she didn’t see him at any of her evening entertainments, which led her to conclude he was not part of the exalted circle of military society she and Jack had found a place among. Then one night as she was dancing a cotillion with the Duke of Wellington, she saw him again, standing by a potted palm.

“Sir, do you know that man in the green coat?” she asked with a slight nod in his direction during the first quiet interval in the dance.

Wellington followed her gaze. The stranger wasn’t looking at her any longer—she supposed he dare not look threateningly at her under the gaze of the duke himself—but the press of the crowd was too great for him to immediately slip away.

“Hm. It’s been several years since I last saw him, but I believe that is Henry Liddicott,” Wellington said as the man managed to take himself out of sight. “He was a lieutenant-colonel then, but sold out after his wife died, several years ago. He was in the Forty-Ninth with your husband, I believe, but exchanged into a different regiment before they went to Canada. Why do you ask?”

“It’s not important. I only thought he was looking at me oddly.”

“Impertinent of him, but he never had much address.”

Elizabeth didn’t want to mention that it wasn’t the first time she’d caught Liddicott staring at her, so she turned the subject to a light item of army gossip Lieutenant Beckett had reported to her and Jack over dinner, and the dance passed pleasantly enough.

But why should this Liddicott dislike her when he didn’t know her? Could Jack have made an enemy of him, somehow? Oh, no—was he the officer whose wife had seduced Jack when he was a young lieutenant, the lady Jack had told her she need not dread meeting because she was dead?

After much deliberation, she decided to confront Jack with her suspicions after they arrived home that night. It didn’t matter any longer, she assured herself. It was all past, and she’d long since forgiven him. But she wanted an explanation of Liddicott’s odd behavior for her own peace of mind.

Jack was behaving rather oddly himself. He didn’t gossip with her over what they had seen at the party or make any attempt to seduce her as they undressed for the night.

“May I ask you something?” she said as he climbed into bed beside her. He’d blown out the last candle, to her relief. This conversation would be easier to have in the dark.

“Of course,” he replied, but his voice sounded wary.

“Do you remember the other morning in the park, when I said I saw a man staring at us?”

“Yes. I didn’t see him, though.”

Elizabeth suspected he had, or he wouldn’t be making such a point of how he hadn’t. “He was at the ball tonight, too. I caught him staring at me while I danced with the duke, and he told me his name was Liddicott, that he’d been in the Forty-Ninth with you once, and that he’d left the army altogether after his wife died a few years ago.”

“Oh. I, ah, did think he looked familiar, from the little glimpse I saw of him.”

“Then why didn’t you say something? And did you not notice him at all tonight?”

“I was in the card room, except when I sat out the waltz with you.”

That wasn’t quite an answer, so Elizabeth took a deep breath and confronted him with her suspicions. “I wondered...was his wife the one who seduced you, when you were one-and-twenty?”

He didn’t speak for a moment, though his heavy sigh told everything. At last, he murmured, “You’re so quick. Yes. She was the one. Bella Liddicott.”

Why did he sound so worried, and why had he tried to hide his recognition of the man from her? It wasn’t as though this was some new secret. Elizabeth had known there was such a woman, after all. She shrugged. “There can’t have been many officers in the Forty-Ninth who exchanged into other regiments and had wives who died in the past few years. And why would he look at us—at
me
—with such particular dislike?” That was the part that most puzzled her. She could understand, easily, why a gentleman might resent a man who had made a cuckold of him, even many years later. But why would he hold a grudge against that man’s wife?