Temptation (6 page)

Her forehead creased into a frown and she crinkled her freckled nose with puzzlement. “But how?”

Beatrice sighed. Lenora did not have a single coquettish bone in her body. Everything about her was completely open and honest. Which was all very well except when it came to the male sex. They liked a little mystery in their women—it added to the allure. “Maybe just a little hint of how lonely you are without him. How you lie awake in bed at night thinking of him.”

“But I don’t. Not of him,” she added, giving away her ill-kept secret all over again.

“I didn’t say you had to write him the truth. Embellish it a little. Be just a little bit saucy and see how he responds.” It wouldn’t hurt to give Lenora a few tips on how to flirt with a young man. If anyone needed them, Lenora did.

Lenora worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “I am not sure that I know how to be saucy. I’m not sure I even want to know.”

“Of course you do. Every woman does. That’s how we get men to be interested in us. They like to be led on just a little, and then have us draw back. Show them that we want to be caught, but refuse to come to their bait. It’s the not knowing whether we are serious or not that keeps them dangling.”

“Is that how you attracted Dr. Hyde?”

Beatrice nodded. One of these days she would have to hint to Lenora that her interest in the doctor was horribly, painfully, obvious. She wasn’t in the slightest jealous of the doctor’s attention, but she did not want anyone poking fun at her friend for her undisguised adoration of a man who was so clearly indifferent to her. “Of course.”

Lenora squared her shoulders. “I shall try, then. But what shall I say?”

Beatrice turned to the rest of the girls in the room. “Ideas, please. What should Lenora say to entice her soldier?”

“Not too much,” Lenora added hastily. “Just a little bit. So he doesn’t think I am a dry stick.”

“Pretend you are in love with him and say what comes naturally.”

“But I am not in love with him. Not at all.”

“That’s why I said
pretend
, silly.”

Lenora’s face splotched with fiery red. “Oh, I see,” she mumbled. “But even if I were in love with him, which I’m not, I still don’t know what I should say.”

“Oh heavens, have you never whispered silly nothings into a man’s ear at night, after he has taken you to a show? Nonsense stuff that you don’t mean and which means nothing, but which he wants to hear?”

“Like what?”

“Like how his nearness makes your heart beat faster.”

“Or how his kiss makes you go weak at the knees.”

“That you will count every second until you can see him again.”

“And if you live to be one hundred, you will not forget him.”

“He’ll be eating out of your hand and begging you for more in no time.”

Still Lenora hesitated. “It hardly seems fair to the poor man, writing words that I do not mean.”

Myrtle, a hard-bitten woman who wore a look of perpetual disappointment like a badge of honor, let out a burst of bitter laughter. “What’s sauce for the goose, dearie. What’s sauce for the goose. You don’t think that any of them mean a word of what they write to us, now?”

Just then the other girls came back, photographer in tow. “Photograph time,” they cried in unison. “Line up for a photograph to send to your sweetheart.”

The photographer set up his camera and tripod at one end of the bay window, where the light was best, and placed a chair at the other end. “Now then, ladies,” he called out in his cheerful salesman patter, “who’s first?”

Myrtle was the first to plump herself down in the chair. “Now then, dearie,” she said to the photographer, “make me look pretty, or I shan’t pay up.” There was enough steel in her voice to make the threat real.

The photographer opened his eyes wide in mock horror. “How could I make you look anything else,” he exclaimed, quickly taking an exposure while Myrtle’s mouth was still curved in a genuine smile.

She looked critically at the image as it appeared on the thin sheet of japanned iron. “I like it. Take another one.”

As he varnished the first print with a few deft brushes, Myrtle removed the black fichu from her bodice and tugged it down to expose her ample bosom. Then she arranged herself in the chair, artfully pulled up her skirts to show her petticoats and more than a hint of ankle, and leaned forward with a pout.

The photographer took another exposure, and the grinning Myrtle gave her place to the next in line.

“You’re not going to send that one to your soldier friend, are you?” Mrs. Bettina asked anxiously as the photograph was developed.

“Never you mind what I want it for,” Myrtle snapped back. “That’s my business.”

Beatrice and the others peeped at the image to see what Mrs. Bettina was fussing about. There was a chorus of oohs and aahs as they saw the finished tintype. Myrtle, hard-faced Myrtle, looked like a siren.

“You look so glamorous,” Lenora breathed. “So worldly and sophisticated. Do you think he could take one of me looking like that?”

“You look quite improper,” Mrs. Bettina said with a sniff. “You don’t look like the sort of lady who works as a nurse in London’s best hospital.”

Myrtle tucked the finished tintypes away in her pocketbook with a smug look on her face. “Good. I don’t want to look like a nurse.”

Neither did Beatrice, if the alternative was looking as good as Myrtle. She vowed to show off as much bosom and ankle as Myrtle had, or more. If Captain Carterton was going to get an illicit thrill out of looking at her, she may as well give him an eyeful.

One by one, all the girls copied Myrtle’s pose, getting more and more outrageous with every photograph that was taken, until Myrtle crowned the joke by pulling her skirts so high to show off her garter, and her bodice so low as to expose one dusky nipple.

“That’s quite enough.” Mrs. Bettina clapped her hands together and shoed the photographer out the front door as soon as the last tintype was developed and varnished. “You have gone too far.”

Myrtle just gave her a saucy wink. “I did this one especially for you, dearie. To send to your sergeant-major. You can pretend it’s you, and he’ll never know the difference. See if he doesn’t write back to you a hundred times over with that sort of promise to keep him dangling.”

“I shall do no such thing,” Mrs. Bettina huffed. “It would be quite scandalous.”

But Beatrice was almost certain she could see the glint of excited temptation lurking in the corner of their landlady’s eye.

Nancy Bettina stayed in the parlor long after the younger girls had gone to bed. The coal fire had long since died down into a heap of embers. Though the glowing red coals had dulled into a mass of crumbling gray, they still gave off a pleasant warmth. She drew her chair closer to the fire, pulled up her skirts a little ways and stuck her toes close to the fire to catch every last bit of heat.

From her pocket she drew out the letter she had received from Sergeant-Major Tofts. She had not shared it with the other girls. They were so much younger than she was, and might look oddly at her if they knew how strongly a woman’s heart beat under her bodice.

She put it aside again with a sigh. Though she had been widowed for the better part of a decade, she was only thirty-eight. She still had so much life to live, and it made her weep to think she would spend it all alone. It wasn’t fair that the sergeant-major was considered in the prime of his life, ripe for marriage and a family, while she was considered too old. And she and her first husband had never been blessed with children of their own.

She wiped a melancholy tear away. It was too late for her now. Best that she simply accept it and move on with her life. The young nurses that boarded with her were her family. They would have to suffice her.

In a letter, though, she could pretend she was still a young woman. She could pretend that the sergeant-major was her sweetheart and that he was courting her. His letters gave her something to look forward to, something extra to live for, a reason to keep on with the struggle instead of giving up and letting the cares of the world overwhelm her.

They had so much in common, and he wrote so sensibly of matters. Sometimes he reminded her quite forcibly of her late husband. He had the same forthright spirit. The same manly strength and the same uncomplaining nature.

Or maybe it was the loneliness of her heart that made her cling to the first respectable man who had shown any interest in her for a very long time.

She had had her fair share of offers from less than respectable men. The young rag-and-bone man who tried his best to flirt with her every week was one such. Dirty and ill-educated, he clearly saw her—an older woman presumably desperate for a husband—as an easy route to a comfortable bed every night and plenty of hot water.

The sergeant-major wasn’t interested in her comfortable boardinghouse or the nest egg she had saved for her later years. He didn’t know she was comfortably off, that her dear George had left her so. He wrote to her because he enjoyed her conversation.

If he were to lose interest in their correspondence, her heart would be shattered all over again.

Myrtle’s naughty tintype lay on the side table where she had deliberately left it to tempt Mrs. Bettina into sending it to her sergeant-major.

She picked it up and examined it carefully. Myrtle looked very enticing, but she was clearly not in the first flush of youth. Would the sergeant-major be more tempted to carry on their correspondence if he thought she looked like young Myrtle?

It would be a deception if she were to send it to him, but a harmless one. They would never meet in person for him to find her out. He would never know that her hair was not raven black but a soft brown just starting to go gray at the edges, that her waist was no longer quite as slender as it was, and her bosom was far more rounded than it had a right to be. He would not see that she was shy about her no-longer-youthful body, but would think she was brave and bold like Myrtle. Bold enough to show the man she fancied what she wanted, and to lead him on to give it to her.

And it gave her a secret thrill to think she would be fueling his fantasies, that he would be thinking of her as he lay in his tent at night, all alone save for the night birds and insects. For sure the rag-and-bone man didn’t think of her at night. Doubtless he spent his evenings in a dark alley with a drunken sixpenny whore, shoving his hands down her bodice and up her skirts, taking his pleasure from her roughly, little caring whether he hurt her or no.

The sergeant-major would have more class than that. He would treat his woman with love and tenderness.

Not that she would ever find out, of course. Still, it would do no harm to pretend for a while longer.

Shaking her skirts back down over her ankles, she moved over to the writing table and picked up pen and paper. She would send him a short note to go with the tintype, and hope for the best.

Percy Carterton sat in his tent, writing as hastily as he could. They had received the orders at dinner, shortly after the last packets had arrived, that they were to move out in the morning. To his delight, there had been another letter for him from England, along with a precious photograph of the woman he adored.

In the haste to get mobilized, he’d barely had the time to skim read the letter he carried in his pocket, but the few stolen minutes had been enough to put a bright song into his heart.

His darling Beatrice had replied to his last letters, and with words as warm as any lover could desire. With every line they exchanged, he fell more deeply in love with her—with her courage, her dedication to those in need, and her passion. Especially with her passion. Her latest letter was burning a hole in his pocket, it was so hot.

Though their mobilization orders had been urgent, he stole enough time from his preparations to reply. He could not have her thinking that he did not care for her, or that he had been shocked by the warmth of her words. Quite the opposite. They had given him heart for the battle that was to come.

His commanding officer was shouting orders outside. He scrawled a loving farewell to his Beatrice, sealed the letter, and made for the officers’ mess. Darkness had already fallen, but the full moon lit up the campsite better than a dozen lanterns. “See this gets to England,” he said to the officers’ batman, thrusting the letter into his hand.

The batman stopped in his tracks and gave him an alarmed look. “But—?”

“Don’t ask me how. Just do it.” And he strode off again, his boot heels clacking together. Willis was a resourceful fellow. If anyone could see that his letter got to its destination, Willis was the man.

The following morning, Percy marched across the dusty ground at the head of his company of men. His stride was as jaunty as a cock robin’s. After months of simmering tensions since England had annexed the Transvaal, the Boers had finally responded by coming out in open rebellion against the new government. It was finally time to show these upstart Boers who was really in charge.

The sooner they engaged with the enemy, the better he would like it. He would fight this war and win it, and return to England as the proud victor, the captain of a brave troop of soldiers. As soon as he returned to England, he would find his angel and claim her as his own. She would be powerless to resist him, indeed, she would have no will to resist him, longing for him as ardently as he longed for her.

He could tell from her letters that she would be a passionate mistress, bolder and more inventive in bed than many women with more experience than she had. Their hot natures would mesh perfectly together, creating a fiery explosion of desire.

What did he care for the dust turning his white cork hat a dull, muddy brown, and staining the dark blue trousers of his regimentals? The early summer sun was on his back and the wind was in his hair, and he was off to fight for merry England.

The pipe band played merrily as they marched, their cheerful tunes piercing the clear air and carrying across the countryside in a show of defiance. The spirits of all the men in the column were high. Their months of inaction through the winter had told heavily on them, and even the prospect of a new place to camp broke the monotony of their dreary days of waiting.

Three hours later, when the regiment had moved barely a mile down the road, he was less sanguine. The summer sun beat down hot on the dark fabric of his uniform, and his sweat prickled his underarms. Early in the day his horse had taken lame, and he had been forced to dismount and walk at the head of his troops. His boots, better suited for riding than for long marches, had rubbed his heels into blisters. He had even sunk so low as to feel a moment of envy for the uncivilized Boers, who had no uniform but wore clothes of an indeterminate mid brown or gray—light enough to reflect the worst of the sun, and loose enough to breathe.

The pipe band had long since given up playing, and the band members marched along as dully as the rest of the company with their instruments at their sides.

The supply wagons were the worst of their problems. Poorly maintained and worked hard, they were now showing their age. More heavily laden than usual, their lightweight axles could not stand up to the hard ground over which they had to travel. Every time another one broke, the whole column had to stop and cool their heels, standing around in the hot sun, until the wagon was repaired.

When the sun finally went down, they had traveled maybe half of the distance to the small encampment they were charged with fortifying. The wagons were brought together into a defensive circle. Inside the circle, the men ate cold rations then unrolled their bedrolls and lay down in the open, without even bothering to pitch a tent. Despite the difficulties of the day, their mood was still light, and snatches of song and ribald laughter carried out over the veld.

Captain Carterton chose a relatively isolated spot for his bedroll right at the edge of the laager, almost under the wagon wheels. Hoping for any measure of privacy was too much, but at least here he had a few yards of space to call his own, and could read over his letter without fear of someone looking over his shoulder.

He unfolded the pages, smoothing out each wrinkle with a careful hand. The moon was nearly full, and bright enough to read by.

He could almost hear her voice speaking to him through the night, the voice that had helped him to keep his sanity through these long, lonely days in South Africa. Soft and sweet, it had called to him like no other.

How he wished he was alone in his tent and could reach down into his bedroll to stroke the erection that her letter had provoked in him, to think of her standing in the flesh before him, to dream of her sweet body until he massaged himself into a temporary oblivion. But his neighbors were too close for comfort, and he had no wish to be caught out like a schoolboy. Instead, he gritted his teeth and willed his rampant body to subside.

Despite his tiredness, and the prospect of another long and frustrating march in the morning, it was a long time before he could settled down comfortably enough on his bedroll to go to sleep. Even when he finally dropped off, it was only to dream of Beatrice.

He woke with the sun, feeling washed out and wretched after a night of fruitless fantasies. It was easier to dream of Beatrice and to imagine that she was close by him when the sun was gone from the sky and all was dark around him. In the harsh glare of the day, he could not conjure up her image so easily. The illusion that he could almost reach out and touch her faded in the heat and the sunshine.

The trumpeter played a drowsy reveille, and all around him the men started to wake up, turning over in their bedrolls and rubbing sleep out of their eyes. He was already up and had shaken the worst of the dust off his bright red jacket and pulled it on over his rather crumpled linen. He made a face at the sweat and grime that already dirtied it. There would be no clean clothes until they reached the new campsite, and at their slow pace it could take them another day or more.

He splashed a little water on his face and hands from his canteen just to refresh himself. Thank heavens Beatrice could not see him now, unwashed and covered in dust. She might change her mind about him and decide that a rough-and-ready soldier was not to her taste after all.

The fleeting thought brought a smile to his face. He was not worried about Beatrice’s fidelity—hadn’t she stayed his faithful correspondent these many months?

Breakfast was cold rations again. The company commander did not want to linger to make a fire to heat their food. The men grumbled a little, but subsided when Percy reminded them that the sooner they left, the sooner they would make it to the camp, where there would be hot food aplenty and decent lodgings once more.

This time the pipe band didn’t play quite so jauntily as they set off once more. Cold beef jerky and a lump of bread for dinner at night and then again for breakfast the next morning would dampen anyone’s enthusiasm for music-making.

Percy felt no more like singing than the rest of the company. Though he had padded his feet with strips of linen torn off a spare shirt, still the blisters on his heels smarted with every step he took. And with every step that he took, his rage against the Boers, who had dragged them into this conflict with their refusal to accept British sovereignty, grew. Had it not been for their intransigence, he would be home in England, with Beatrice as his wife and a brood of children on the way.

A home. A family of his own. It was strange how the attraction for such things had grown on him over the last year. Eighteen months ago he would have run screaming from the prospect of a wife and children. Now it was all he wanted out of life.

Just before noon there was a commotion in the ranks ahead of them. Squinting into the distance, Percy caught sight of a plume of dust rising from the veld. It wasn’t large enough for a column of men, just half a dozen riders riding toward them.

As they came closer, Sergeant-Major Tofts turned to him with a sniff. “Boers, by the look of them. I’d recognize their slouch hats anywhere.” He patted his own cork hat with a measure of self-satisfaction. “You can always recognize the quality of your opponent by the quality of his headgear.”

Percy narrowed his eyes against the sun. “What do they think they are doing, riding up to the column of English troops in broad daylight?” Surely the six of them could not be thinking of mounting some kind of resistance. It would be little more than suicide for a handful of lone men to pit themselves against the might of an English regiment.

The sergeant-major shrugged. His bushy moustache was thick with dust, the same dust that had stuck to the sweat on his face and made him look almost as brown as a Zulu. “Damned if I can read their mind. They’re not Englishmen. They don’t think like we do.”

The regiment kept on marching as the men approached. The lone riders did not stop until they were directly in the regiment’s path, blocking their way. Awkwardly, the regiment shuffled to a halt.