Kindred Hearts (43 page)

“Why not? I’m happiest when I’m working with a partner.”

Tristan leaned against Charles’s shoulder and let his thoughts wander. After a moment something occurred to him and he asked, “Who was he, Charlie? A partner?”

“Who?”

“The one you said you loved, that was afraid and shut you out. That you lost.”

“Ah. Gregory. Gregory Winstead. We were cornets together, back at the beginning of our careers. He was about my age.” Charles fell silent, then added quietly, “We were friends, once.”

“But no longer?”

“He’s dead. Died in Spain, oh, nearly five years ago now.” Charles drew Tristan’s head down onto his shoulder and rubbed his cheek against the tousled dark hair. “He was… sweet. A good soldier, a good officer; solid in the saddle and well-liked by his men. Firm, but fair, as the good ones try to be.”

“Was he killed in battle?”

“No.” Charles took a breath and rubbed his cheek against Tristan’s hair again, as if the gesture gave him courage. “I’m not sure I can talk about this.”

“You don’t have to.”

There was a faint rumble beneath Tristan’s ear, a wry chuckle that was less about humor and more about surrender. “No, I suppose not. But you want to hear.”

“I want to understand. I know that he broke it off with you because he was frightened; I suppose I can understand that, it being a hanging offense and all.”

“I don’t know what it was that frightened him.” Charles was quiet for a few minutes, then said, “We were in the same company from the beginning. The regiment spent most of the beginning of the century in England; we didn’t ship for the Peninsula until 1808. That was the last time I was home until this past January.

“There wasn’t much opportunity for advancement while we were still posted in England, but that changed once we arrived in Portugal. We made lieutenant within days of each other, right after Talavera, on the spoils of that battle.

“We’d been friends since we met in Trowbridge, and I always knew that what I felt for him was more than just liking, and suspected he felt the same. But we didn’t act on it; we both knew the consequences of being caught. But Spain was different. I don’t know if it was because we felt so lost—it was the first time away from England for both of us—or if it was the fact that we were really fighting now, not just performing maneuvers, or what it was. But whatever it was, being in Spain changed things. Made everything feel so much more urgent. And it was—we never knew whether we’d survive a battle. I suppose it was inevitable that we would end up….”

He trailed off. His fingers stroked Tristan’s shoulder, gently, endlessly, but when Tristan glanced up, he saw that Charles’s eyes were seeing something far different from the tall grasses shifting in the breeze, or the faint puffs of white cloud far overhead. When he resumed, his voice was rough. “Two days of leave, spent together in bed. I’d never known such bliss, and thought Greg felt the same. Then I left to lead a reconnaissance mission for Craufurd’s Light Division, to whom we were attached. When I got back it was to find that Greg had transferred to another cavalry regiment. It was one we’d always felt sorry for; their colonel was a brute, not a gentleman like Hawker. It took me a couple of days to get the opportunity to find Greg, and when I did, he only said that our… connection had been a mistake, and that he no longer wished to be associated with me.

“I won my captaincy in the same action at Ciudad Rodrigo that killed Lieutenant Colonel Talbot—a great loss for the regiment, though Hervey did a fine enough job as his second. Greg wasn’t with me that time; his colonel, a bastard named Warren, wasn’t so generous with promotions. And if he had been, it wouldn’t have been given to Greg; he hated Greg passionately. I sometimes wonder if he didn’t hate him so badly because he wanted him, and didn’t have the guts to act on it. Whatever the reason, he was a colonel, and Greg a mere lieutenant, and under his command. And I was nothing to Greg any more. I could only stand by and watch while Warren did everything in his power to undermine Greg with his men and other officers, and in general make his life a misery.

“It was perhaps a year later that we were billeted in this beastly little village in Extremadura—if you ever go to Spain, Tris, avoid that region like you’d avoid a leper. It’s miserable. I don’t know what happened. Greg was sitting outside this horrible little shack mending some harness, I think, and Warren passed by and said something to him. I don’t even know what he said. Greg went…. All I could think of was the berserkers from the old German tales my nanny told us. He wasn’t quite foaming at the mouth, but I’d never seen him so enraged. He attacked Warren and tried to strangle him with the piece of harness. It took four men to pull him off, and he was fighting them still as they dragged him off to the one building in the pathetic place that would hold a man as strong and determined as Greg. The local madhouse.”

He snorted humorlessly. “That tiny village didn’t even have a church, but it had a madhouse. That was the reason for the village, apparently; it had been built to serve the managers of the place. Apparently some bureaucrat or other determined that the best place to put crazy people was in the most godforsaken spot in that godforsaken country. As it was, it was where they put Greg until they’d decided when to hang him for mutiny. Mutiny. Greg!”

Tristan put his hand on Charles’s chest, feeling the sweat-damp linen and the solid warmth of the skin beneath.

“They didn’t have to hang him,” Charles said heavily. “He did that himself.”

Tristan froze. “He killed himself?”

“He was there three days. I went to Hervey and Warren and tried to intercede for him. Warren was impossible, of course; I was merely a captain and not even of the same company. Hervey was more sympathetic, but there were witnesses and a clear case against him. Even Mac interceded; he was a staff physician at the time. But it didn’t matter in the end. Three days after the incident, they went to fetch him, and he was dead, hung by his own belt in the cell.”

“My God,” Tristan breathed. “Oh, Charlie.”

“I should have done more,” Charles said. “I keep wracking my brain trying to think of what I could have done, but there’s always this feeling in the back of my skull that I should have done more. If I had only had the courage to walk across the street, I would have been talking to Greg when Warren went by, and nothing would have happened. Or if I’d been faster, I could have caught Greg when he went after Warren, and stopped him. But I was slow off the mark.”

“And if you had stopped him that time, there would have been another time,” Tristan said. “Bullies like Warren don’t stop, Charlie. I saw enough of that at school. I was lucky to have met Gibson the first day, but Berkeley was hazed mercilessly for the whole first term. Bullies only back down from a greater show of force. Neither you nor Winstead were in the position to stand up to him.”

“Perhaps,” Charles said. He was quiet a long moment, then said, “But you see why it distressed me so much when you were contemplating suicide? I had just found you, was just learning to love you, and hoping that perhaps you weren’t indifferent to me, and then I find out you’re in the same position as poor Greg—at the end of your rope. When I read that letter to Lottie I thought I would go mad myself. I couldn’t bear to lose you when I’d just found you, Tris.”

“I’m sorry,” Tristan said.

“I need to know that I can depend on you. That you’ll
be
my partner, my lover, my friend. That you’ll be there for me. I swear I will be there for you.”

“After the war,” Tristan said. “After the war, I will swear anything you like. But for now, Charlie, I just want you to love me.”

“I think,” Charles said, “I can manage that.”

There
was a pawnshop across the street from the bookstore; Tristan tucked his purchase beneath his arm and wandered over. He thought Charles would be amused by his find: an old copy of Walter Scott’s translations of German fairy tales. He was sure Charles was familiar with the originals from his old German nurse, and it would be interesting to see if Scott’s translations were true to the tales. But he wanted to get Charles something else; the fifteenth was his birthday, and if their evening was to be tied up with the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, afterward they would be able to have their own private celebration.

The shop had the usual in the window: brass vases, the odd watch, enameled snuffboxes, a silver-backed hairbrush, a miniature of a bilious-looking woman…. Tristan pushed open the door and went in. A small, dark-haired man looked up from his assiduous polishing of a set of silver serving utensils and welcomed him in French; Tristan responded politely and went back to looking at the glass cases. The offerings might have seen better days, but the shop was scrupulously clean, the glass polished, bright and clear. He looked over the arrays of pocketknives, quizzing glasses, rings, watch fobs, and silver toothpicks, in among larger items: footstools, boots, reticules, even a sword or two. A case set back behind the counter held open boxes displaying pistols of all types: dueling, horse, even a dainty set that might have been made for a lady’s hand. Charles had his own pistols, as did Tris; each had a nice pair of Manton’s that Lottie had ordered for them at one time or another, Charles had his horse-pistols as a cavalryman, and Tris had several other pairs for traveling. So his interest in the pistols was academic; he glanced over them and found none that compared to the ones they already owned.

He went back to the case that held the knives; he’d only given them a cursory glance but had the feeling he’d seen something that hadn’t quite registered. He had: a slim blade of perhaps nine inches in length, the hilt wrapped in brass wire but lacking a crosspiece. It was tucked in a black leather sheath with a clip on the back, as if it were to be worn….

“In a boot-top,” a voice said from the other side of the counter. Tristan glanced up, frowning faintly. It was the shopkeeper, who had put down his polishing rag to attend his customer. “The knife goes in the boot and the clip outside, so that the knife is not seen,
n’est ce pas
? Only the little bit of the hilt, so the person can pull it out in dangerous moments.” He cocked his head. “It is very good for the dangerous places a man may go—they may take his sword or his pistol, but no one thinks to look at the boots.” He opened the case and withdrew the knife, laying it on the counter.

Tristan picked it up, noting the good quality of the leather. The clip was sturdy, bent metal covered with leather and stitched with suede inside so as not to scar the boot. He curled his fingers around the hilt and withdrew the blade.

“Steel,” the shopkeeper said. “Good steel.” And it was; Tristan tilted the blade and noted the telltale swirls of damascened metal illuminated in the sunlight from the shop window. The knife was well-balanced, too, the hilt small, but still large enough to feel comfortable in Tristan’s grip. Charles’s hands were a little bigger than Tristan’s, but not by enough to make a difference. “How much?” he asked.

The shopkeeper named a price; they haggled a bit and ended up with Tristan walking away with the knife and both of them feeling pleased. Especially Tris. It was a nice birthday gift for Charles, and it went a little ways toward easing some of the fear he was living with.
Tomorrow
, he thought, and tucked the knife in his pocket.

He’d
meant to wrap them both and give them to Charles before the ball, but Charles sent a hastily scribbled note around that afternoon to say that the Duke had word of a French advance on Mons, and that troops had been dispatched to deal with it. Charles was sent to assess the situation and report back; he would see Tristan later at the ball. Disappointed, Tristan left the book at home but put the knife back in his pocket.

He arrived timely at the ball, danced with several comtesses, Lady Elizabeth Conyngham, Miss Seymour, and Miss Arden, flirted with his hostess and her daughters, and glanced up, heart in his throat, every time a new arrival came through the door. Wellington arrived late and seemed distracted, but flirted and danced as was his habit at such events.

Later in the evening, he ended up at Tristan’s side after one set, and Tristan took the opportunity to say lightly, “So you have sent my brother-in-law off on one of his hey-go-mad errands again, have you, sir?”

Wellington laughed, but there was a strain behind his eyes. “I have, Northwood, and trust he will bring back nothing but good news. There was a bit of a to-do out on the Mons road this afternoon, but I expect it is nothing more than a few skirmishers out to see what they may find. We shall soon send them to the right-about.”

“I pray you’re right,” Tristan said, still in that light voice. “It would be a shame should Her Grace’s party be interrupted.”

“She would never forgive me,” Wellington replied with a strained smile, then he looked across the room. “Ah, there’s our wandering boy now. If you will excuse me, Northwood—I’ll get his report and turn him loose to enjoy what’s left of his birthday.” He nodded at Tristan, then moved purposefully across the room.

Tristan looked past him to see Charles at the door to the long building the Richmonds had turned into a ballroom for the evening. He was dusty, dirty, and exhausted-looking; as soon as he had seen the Duke coming his way, he stepped back out of the chamber, out of the sight of the rest of the guests. Tristan followed the Duke to the door, but he and Charles had already vanished.

He stood in the antechamber a moment, uncertain whether to pursue them outside, but His Grace reappeared in the door and went back into the ballroom alone. A moment later, Charles stuck his head inside the door. “There you are,” he rasped, his voice hoarse. “The Duke said you were here.”

“I am. Charlie….”

“Not here, Tris. Come on.” He gestured and Tristan obeyed.

He led Tris around the building to a shadowed part of the garden. “I’ve only a few minutes,” he said tiredly. “The attack on Mons was a feint. The French are moving on Quatre Bras; Perponcher and the Prince of Saxe-Weimar have been holding them for hours. I’ve just come from there. If they take the crossroads, they’ll split us off from Blucher.”

“Dear God,” Tristan whispered. “We’ll not be able to stand without the Germans.”

“Wellington was expecting a pincers movement, but Napoleon’s foxed him. Damn it, Tris!” Charles was shaking with exhaustion and frustration.

“He can’t expect you to go back out there,” Tristan said in disbelief.

“No—he said for me to go back to my billet, that now was the time for infantry. Him and his damn infantry! He said he won’t be going out there himself for hours, so I’ll have time for a nap.”

“Come home with me. You need more than a nap….”

“Can’t.” Charles gave him a weary smile. “Have to be close to the Duke; when he goes, he’ll want me there with him. I just wanted to let you know I’m sorry for ruining your plans.”

“It’s your birthday,” Tristan said numbly. “You’ve got gifts waiting at home….”

“I’ll get them tomorrow, after this is all over,” Charles said. He smoothed a finger over Tristan’s cheek. “They’ll wait.” He leaned forward and rested his head on Tristan’s shoulder. Tristan put his arms around him, stroking his back and shoulder muscles gently. Charles’s arms came up and wrapped around Tristan tightly, as if he were an anchor in a storm. “Tomorrow,” he said hoarsely. “It will all be over tomorrow.” Then he released Tris and stepped back. Again, the tired smile. “I’d best be off; I’ve no time to waste.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Tristan said. “Where’s your mount?”

“Out front.” Charles had begun to walk toward the street, but paused and looked back at Tris. “It’s Paragon; he’s as exhausted as I am, but needs more than a few hours of sleep. I’ll ride Patch or Betsy tomorrow; it’s a battle, not a parade, and both of them are as wily as they are ugly. But I want you to take Paragon with you back to your stable and put him in with Brat. They’ll be trying to conscript extra horses, and once the word gets out that the French are on the move, there’ll be a rush to get out of the city. I don’t want to take the risk of losing him as I will if I leave him in with the other regimental cattle. I don’t care as much about the others. But Paragon… he’s only seven, Tris. He’ll make a good mount for Jamie when he’s older. I want Jamie to have him.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Tristan said fiercely. “Don’t talk so.”

“I’m not worried,” Charles said with a grin that more closely approximated his usual one. “Wellington’s not steered us wrong yet, and it’s not like I’m in a line regiment. I’m just an aide.”

“Yes, one he has riding all over God’s creation,” Tristan said. “And in that blue uniform you’re as likely to be shot by our own men as the French. Can’t you at least borrow a red jacket?”

Charles laughed and draped an arm over Tristan’s shoulder. “What, and be mistaken for one of the lobsterbacks? Not on your life, old man.”

“It’s more likely to be on yours.”

“’Fess up—you’re jealous. You’d like to be out there as much as anyone else, riding hell for leather from company to company, dodging skirmishers and cannonades, racing time to get the messages through, to come back to Wellington’s ‘well done’s and another mission. I’m exhausted, Tris, but even after a year of peace, there’s something in me that rises to that challenge. I don’t want another command position, but being one of the Duke’s errand boys….” His grin turned into a rueful, wry expression. “You’d love it as much as I do. I’m as right about that as I was about you and medicine. You’re all wrong for society, Tris. It’s most of your problems rolled into one.”

Tristan found one of the Richmonds’ grooms, giving him instructions to take Paragon to the house on the rue de Valois, and to tell his own grooms to guard the horses in the stables carefully, under the circumstances. Then, Paragon seen to, the two men walked off toward Charles’s billet. “You don’t have to escort me, Tris,” Charles said. “I’ll be all right.”

“I’m not escorting you,” Tristan said, “and I know you’ll be all right. I just want to spend a few more minutes with you.”

Charles nudged him gently with his shoulder, and Tristan nudged back. Then they went on in silence.

At the building that was housing Charles and a few of his fellow officers, Charles drew Tristan again into the shadows alongside the building. Unlike the Richmonds’, this made no attempt to appear as a garden or anything else; it was just a narrow alley between two houses, their walls windowless and blind. Behind the house in the mews came the sound of men and the jingle of harness as they prepared to move out. “They’ve got their orders already,” Charles said hoarsely, his voice fading from weariness. “We’ve got to get reinforcements out to Ligny and Quatre Bras.”