Carola Dunn (9 page)

“Waterloo, m’sieur. A village of no importance.”

“How far is it to Ninove?”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “By road it is best to go into Brussels. Perhaps thirty miles. As the crow flies, twenty or less.”

Felix considered the unknown quality of his horse, the chance of losing his way, the possibility of missing the picnic site by the Dendre, the probability of the Ingrams leaving before he arrived. He, too, shrugged his shoulders. He had nothing better to do. He’d prove to Fanny that he wasn’t too toplofty to enjoy the company of her friends.

The tapster described landmarks along the way--a winding lane to Hal, church steeples, a hill-top spinney--shaking his head at the curious behavior of the English. Felix found his way with ease. Crossing a canal and river at Hal, he skirted fields of red and white clover, purple-blue flax, wheat and rye already shoulder-high in the fertile soil. Splashes of blood-red poppies brightened the hedgerows.

However, as he had half expected, the showy chestnut went lame. Fortunately, he had reached the banks of the Dendre by that time. He dismounted, checked the hoof for stones, found none, and walked on along the riverside path leading the limping beast.

The Horse Artillery picnic announced itself from a distance. Plodding round a bend of the river, Felix heard male voices upraised in song, the singers hidden from him by a row of willows. Next came the squeals of children, then a female voice called to Billy to stop pulling his sister’s hair. A girl with blond pigtails dashed around the nearest tree, skidded to a halt, and regarded him thoughtfully.

“I’ve seen you before. Aren’t you Anita’s Uncle Felix?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“You’re a lord, aren’t you? I’m Jane Prynne. Horrid name, isn’t it!” She wrinkled a freckled nose. “Do you want to see Aunt Fanny?”

Felix felt a slow, inexplicable flush rising in his cheeks. “Or Captain Ingram,” he said indifferently. “My horse has gone lame.”

“I expect you can go back to Brussels with us in the wagon.” She turned and ran back along the muddy path, calling, “Uncle Frank, Uncle Frank, guess who’s here!”

Following, Felix came to a water meadow tinted palest pink by lady’s smock, with a few late marsh-marigolds adding touches of brilliant yellow. A pair of dedicated anglers sat on the bank with their backs to the gathering. On the grass nearby sprawled the male chorus, tankards in their hands, their dark blue uniform jackets unbuttoned. He recognized the dark, stocky Captain Lloyd, but Frank was not among them. Beyond, young Jane Prynne, pigtails flying, raced towards a group of women sitting in the shade at the edge of a copse of oak and alder.

Fanny wasn’t with the women, as far as Felix could see, but one of them held a sleeping Anita on her lap, and Frank stood close by talking to two other officers. Felix recognized one as Major Prynne. The other was an older man, with a colonel’s insignia.

Jane Prynne tugged on her father’s sleeve, then bobbed a curtsy to the colonel, said something, and pointed at Felix. Frank came to meet him.

“My lord, what an unexpected pleasure. Fanny thought you were going in the opposite direction. You know Major Prynne, do you not? Let me present...” He looked from Felix to the colonel and back and laughed. “Dashed if I know aught of precedence. Lord Roworth, Colonel Sir Augustus Frazer.”

They shook hands. “I just dropped by to see how my lads are doing,” said the colonel, “and to admire the pretty girls.” He chucked Jane under the chin and she giggled.

“My horse is gone lame.” Felix gestured disgustedly at the chestnut, standing behind him with drooping head. “I hope your lads will take pity on me, colonel, and somehow convey me back to Brussels.” He made no attempt to explain what he was doing in the environs of Ninove when he had set out for a picnic in the Forest of Soignes.

“We’ll get you home, never fear,” said Major Prynne.

“In the wagon with the women and children,” Frank added, grinning.

“It’s fun,” Jane assured him.

Felix looked back at the main group of officers, who seemed to be having a difference of opinion as to which tune to strike up next. “I daresay one or two of your fellows will be more fit to travel by cart than on horseback,” he said.

The men laughed. “Let them have their spree,” said Colonel Frazer indulgently. “There’ll be time enough for sobriety when we go after Boney. I must be on my way. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lord.” He returned Frank’s and the major’s salutes and went off towards the road, where a mounted trooper held the reins of his horse.

Captain Cavalié Mercer joined them, a fishing pole over his shoulder, his face mournful. “Not a bite,” he said. “Fresh fish would have made a nice change from my landlady’s everlasting
carbonnade
. Where’s your sister, Frank?”

“She spotted anemones growing in the wood and went to look. You know how she is about flowers.”

“The devil! I was afraid of that. I saw Barnstaple heading--or rather stumbling--towards the trees a few minutes ago. You know how he is with a few pints in him.”

“Don’t worry, Cav. Fanny can deal with Barnstaple, drunk or sober. Oh, very well, if you will look at me like that, I’ll go and find them.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Felix grimly. “We can split up and search quicker.”

“I assure you it’s unnecessary, Roworth,” Frank’s insouciant voice followed him as he plunged into the copse, “but if you insist...”

A narrow, winding path, one of a maze of rabbit tracks, led to his right between slender alders, gnarled oaks, and a tangle of stumps and underbrush. A woodpecker’s rat-a-tat-tat rang through the green stillness. Scattered clumps of fragile, purple-veined wood anemones suggested he was on the right track, then he saw the imprint of a small foot in a patch of soft earth. He hurried on. Where was she? Was she even now struggling in the brutal embrace of a drunken soldier?

He quickened his pace, his heart thundering with dread and fury. Ahead a shaft of sunlight struck down where a tree had fallen, and there was a flash of pink...He frowned; surely Fanny had been wearing blue, like Anita.

Flaunting across the fallen trunk, an exuberance of dog-roses raised their pink petals and golden centers to the sun, scenting the moist air. Loving flowers as she did, the sight must have drawn her like a bee to honey. And there she was, just beyond, a small, supple figure writhing in the arms of the tall, fair lieutenant.

In two long strides, Felix reached the tree trunk and leapt atop it, his fists clenched, silent rage screaming in his head. As he sprang down, Fanny made some quick move he couldn’t follow. Barnstaple toppled backwards into the briars, doubled up, gasping in pain and clutching his groin.

“I’m sorry, James,” said Fanny sadly. “I wish you will learn to take no for an answer.”

By that time, Felix’s sympathies were divided. “Are you all right?” he asked her, but his gaze was on the unhappy, squirming lieutenant.

“Fe...Lord Roworth! What are you doing here?” Hurriedly she smoothed her tousled curls. “Yes, I am perfectly all right. The silly boy has torn my lace a little but it will mend.”

“You are not going to swoon?”

“Swoon! I haven’t the least idea how to go about it. Since you are here, pray give James what aid you can. He is a trifle green in the face. Perhaps he will swoon.”

Felix thought the unfortunate young man a great deal more likely to shoot the cat, the ultimate humiliation before the woman he loved. “Frank’s looking for you,” he said. “You’d better go and call him off.”

“You won’t abandon him? No, I know you will not. I daresay he will feel the better for my absence.”

“I daresay he might,” he told her retreating back. Any properly brought up young lady would have fainted dead away, but he had to admit her reaction was a good deal more practical. What an extraordinary creature she was, mingling courage and compassion! He knelt beside her victim.

Some time passed before Lieutenant Barnstaple was able to rise groggily to his feet, and then he sank to a seat on a stump, head in hands. Casting up his accounts had sobered him somewhat and he was very hangdog.

“You probably think I’m a loose fish,” he muttered, “but I love her! I want to marry her, even if she won’t give up the child.”

“I take it you have offered and she has refused you?”

“A dozen times. Half the fellows have asked her to marry them...”

“You mean half the officers in your regiment want to marry Miss Ingram?” Felix asked, incredulous. He had never given the matter much consideration. If asked he would have supposed that a female with neither dowry nor useful connections, nor the kind of beauty to make a man forget the lack, was unlikely to suffer from an excess of suitors.

Of course, in character Fanny was no ordinary female. He frowned. She was too good to marry one of these rough-and-ready artillerymen.

“Most of ‘em gave up when she took on the baby. I mean, a by-blow, even if her father was one of ours. But I don’t care,” the lieutenant went on with stubborn determination. “I’ll keep on trying.”

“Not when you are pot-valiant!” His fury re-awoke. Fanny had proved able to take care of herself, but she should not need to. This was one of the hazards of following the drum that she had not mentioned.

“N-no, my lord...It’s just that when I’m top-heavy I just can’t seem to...Oh lord, here comes the captain.”

A jaunty whistle preceded Frank into the little clearing. “So there you are. I was going to leave you to take your medicine but Cav persuaded me to rush to the rescue.” He scrutinized the lieutenant. “By the look of things, Lord Roworth didn’t arrive quite in time.” Turning to Felix, he asked, “I must have just missed Fanny when I went back to the others. Was she upset?”

“Cool as a cucumber,” he said, with more than a hint of irony. “Truth to tell, I was under the impression it was her rescue I was rushing to. I felt it unnecessary to punish the lieutenant further.”

“She hates having to use that little trick I taught her. What a confounded bacon-brained nodcock you are, Barnstaple! Come on, old chap, let’s get you back to the river. It looks like rain and everyone’s packing up to leave.”

As he gingerly stood up, the lieutenant moaned. “I can’t ride back to Brussels!”

Dispassionately, Frank surveyed the hunched figure. “It would serve you bloody well right, but I suppose it’s too much to ask.”

“You can go in the wagon with the ladies,” said Felix smugly. “I engage to return your horse safely to Brussels.”

Frank set off down the narrow path and Barnstaple stumbled after him. Felix paused, something niggling at the back of his mind. He glanced around the clearing, no longer bright with sunlight. Ah, that was it.

He bent to pick up Fanny’s straw hat. A military boot had demolished the crown, completing the extinction of the drooping plume. Never more than passable headgear, it was now the sorriest of sights. He tossed it into the bushes. Perhaps some day a bird would nest in it.

As he turned, a briar caught at his sleeve. On a sudden impulse he picked one of the roses, carefully broke off the thorns, and stuck it in his buttonhole to take to Fanny.

By the time he reached the riverbank, the petals had fallen off. A pointless gesture anyway, he thought moodily, dropping the remains on the path.

In the south-west, over France, towering storm clouds loomed black.

Chapter 7

Lady Sophia was “not at home.” That the phrase deserved quotation marks Felix knew, because he saw Garforth’s superb Thoroughbred being walked by a groom up the Rue de Belle Vue. She was still miffed, whether by his solicitation on Fanny’s behalf or by his departure from the picnic. With the rest of her suitors constantly dancing attendance, she was unused to being deserted.

Disconsolate, his pride hurt by her denial, he strolled to Headquarters and dropped in to chat with the officers on duty. The latest rumour, according to Gordon, was that Boney had reached Maubeuge, on the frontier.

“Grant can’t confirm it and the Beau don’t believe it,” the plump colonel added, “but De Lancey’s talking of sending Lady Magdalen to Antwerp. I suppose you haven’t heard anything definite?”

“Not since Wednesday, when the border was closed.”

“Pity. I half expect your couriers to take wing and fly over the border. By the way, some of us are having a little dinner at the Hôtel d’Angleterre this evening. Join us, if you’re not otherwise engaged.”

“A little dinner?” drawled Lord Fitzroy, entering the room at that moment. “Come now, when did you ever eat a
little
dinner, Gordon?”

“I expect he meant there’ll be devilish little dinner for the rest of the company once he’s been served,” Felix suggested. “Still, feast or famine, I’m delighted to accept.” The musicale he’d been invited to held no charms if Lady Sophia was going to give him the cold shoulder. He’d send his regrets.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Fitzroy, “Emily’s been complaining that she hasn’t seen you this age. Why don’t you call in around four o’clock and she’ll feed you up in preparation for an evening of starvation.”

“Confound it, you fellows, can’t a chap put on a spot of weight in peace?” complained Colonel Gordon.

“A spot of peace is what I’m waiting for,” Fitzroy punned. “I’ve letters to write. See you later, Roworth.”

Felix took his leave and headed homeward at a leisurely pace to add a word about Maubeuge to his latest report. The rumour was too vague for urgency, just as well since he had no courier on hand at present. Certainly it did not call for him to speed to England.

Crossing the Grand’ Place, his eye was caught by a stall in the market opposite the magnificent medieval pile of the Hôtel de Ville. The counter was heaped with straw hats of every conceivable size and shape, while bundles of feathers, ribbons, bows, and silk flowers dangled from the awning. A trio of giggling Flemish girls clustered about a fourth who was directing the stall-holder in the placement on one of the hats of a huge rose in an unlikely shade of purple.

Felix watched as, satisfied, she tried it on, admired herself in a square of mirror nailed to an upright, and paid the woman. The girls moved away and he took their place.