Slightly Tempted (12 page)

IT BEGAN TO RAIN DURING THE AFTERNOON.THEREwas a dreadful thunderstorm through the night-a real one this time-and the rain was torrential for hours on end. It was impossible to know exactly where the armies were or what the meaning of yesterday's distant guns was. But as Morgan lay curled up in bed, resisting the urge to cover her head with the blankets and try to block out the sound, she found that it was not difficult to imagine the misery of thousands of men trying to find shelter and rest where there was none to be had.

At least, Lord Caddick announced cheerfully at breakfast, the rain would have made travel and easy maneuvering impossible. The roads would be quite impassable. There could be no possibility of a battle today.

Besides, Lady Caddick added, it was Sunday.

Morgan was worried about Alleyne. She was also concerned about Rosamond, who was still suffering miserably with her migraine attack. Lady Caddick was almost beside herself with distress, partly over her daughter's indisposition, partly over the threat to her own safety, but mainly over the uncertainty of Lord Gordon's fate. Lord Caddick ventured out to find what news was available, though there seemed to be far more rumor making the rounds than hard fact.

The rain had finally stopped, and Morgan, obtaining permission from a distracted countess again, took her maid and went to Mrs. Clark's house once more. The wives of the regiment's officers often gathered there, she had discovered, and on the whole they tended to be far more sensible than most other people, much less given to panic and belief in every sensational story that presented itself in place of reliable news. They were all gathered together on this particular morning. Morgan was relieved to find that they received her warmly as if she were one of them, not as an unwelcome intruder.

Shortly after midday the guns of the heavy artillery began firing again. They were closer than they had been the day before yesterday. It was impossible, after the first startled moment, to mistake their constant pounding for thunder.

The ladies spent a couple of hours sorting the medicines and other supplies they had gathered during the past day and a half, and rolling bandages. They talked quietly and even laughed as they worked, but Morgan, who joined in as busily as anyone else, could feel the tension and the taut fear that pulsed beneath the cheerfulness as they all tried to ignore the significance of what they did.

How difficult it must be, she thought, to be a wife who followed the drum year after year.

They were interrupted partway through the afternoon by a commotion on the street outside. Several of them crowded to the windows while Mrs. Clark and Morgan rushed outdoors. Foam-flecked horses galloped past, bearing cavalry with drawn swords. They were coming from the direction of the Namur Gates at the southern end of the city-from the direction of the battle.

"They are Hanoverians," Mrs. Clark said. "Not the Life Guards."

If they were galloping through other streets in as large numbers as they were doing in this one, Morgan thought, there must surely be a whole regiment of them. They were yelling in German, a language she did not speak. But there were plenty of people on the street willing to interpret.

"All is lost!" one man shouted.

"The French are on their heels," someone else reported.

Panic seized many of the other spectators. But Mrs. Clark took Morgan firmly by the arm and led her back inside the house. She shut the door behind them.

"The wounded will be arriving soon," she told the other ladies. "If the report is correct, the battle is lost and the French will be here soon too. But they will have wounded as well. We can either cower here and panic, or we can go out there and do what we can to help those who will need our help, regardless of the color of their uniform or what side they fought on."

Morgan looked at her with renewed respect and admiration and drew a deep, steadying breath. She had not been so far from panic herself just a few minutes before, she admitted to herself.

"I would rather go out there," she said.

Mrs. Clark swung toward her.

"Butyou really ought not, Lady Morgan," she said. "You should return to the Rue de Bellevue. The Countess of Caddick will be worried about you. What we are about to do is dangerous. More than that, it will be horrifying and distasteful. The sights will not be pretty."

"I do not expect them to be," Morgan said. "And I am not a hothouse plant merely because I am the daughter of a duke and unmarried. I will do my part. Please don't argue with me. I believe you are going to need every pair of hands available within a short time. As for Lady Caddick, she has Rosamond to tend and Captain Gordon to worry about. She knows I am with you."

Mrs. Clark did not waste more time on words. She simply nodded briskly and reached out one hand to squeeze Morgan's.

"We will go as far as the Namur Gates, then," she said.

IT WAS THERE THATLORDALLEYNEBEDWYN FOUNDMorgan an hour or so later. Not that he was searching for her. He had imagined her far away from Brussels by now. All the way back from Antwerp he had looked for her among the crowds of people moving in the opposite direction. But he had not worried when he did not see her. She was probably on a ship bound for England by now, he had convinced himself.

He had reported to Sir Charles Stuart without even thinking to call first at the house on the Rue de Bellevue that the Earl of Caddick had rented. He was now on his way south with a message for the Duke of Wellington. He had volunteered for the task. It might be a dangerous mission, Sir Charles had warned him, if the sounds of heavy artillery were any indication of the ferocity of the battle that was raging. But Alleyne had a hankering to see for himself what was going on. Besides, his elder brother, Aidan, had fought throughout the Peninsular Wars. Washe to shy away from merely delivering a letter to the battlefront?

Wounded from the past few days were beginning to straggle into Brussels on foot, some with bandaged heads or arms in slings, most without any covering for their bloody wounds beyond some torn and grubby rags. Alleyne looked with sympathy at the men as he approached the Namur Gates on his way south, and with admiration at the group of ladies who had already set up a makeshift bandaging station there.

One of the wounded was explaining to the lady who was holding a glass of water to his lips that today's fighting-a desperate and deadly battle-was taking place just south of the Forest of Soignés, not far from the village of Waterloo.

The lady was Morgan.

Alleyne swung down from the saddle at the same moment as she set down the glass and looked up and spotted him. She came rushing into his arms.

"Alleyne!"she cried. "Wherever have you been? I was worried about you."

He held her by the shoulders and shook her none too gently.

"What the devil areyou doing here?" he asked her. "Why are you not in Antwerp by now, or on your way to England?"

"You told me you would come for me the morning after the Richmond ball," she reminded him.

"Devil take it, Morg," he said, exasperated, "I was delayed in Antwerp. Never tell me you did not have the sense to leave with the Caddicks. I'll have a word or two-"

"They are still here too," she said. "You do not imagine they would leave without me, do you? Lady Caddick takes her responsibility toward me very seriously." She explained to him the series of events that had kept them in Brussels.

"Devil take it," he said again. "I am going to have to get you out of here myself, Morg. We will be on our way as soon as I have completed this little bit of embassy business."

"I am needed here," she protested. "I am going tobe needed for some time to come. I will do my part, Alleyne, even if I cannot actually fight the French as Aidan did. You must not worry about me."

He grasped her shoulders more tightly. "Wulf will have my head," he said, "and I can hardly blame him. I'll be back before nightfall. Then I'll be taking you away from here."