Page 42 of The Forbidden Love of an Officer
She looked at the lieutenant colonel. She could judge nothing from his eyes. There was no warmth or depth in his expression.
Paul looked back too. ‘Is there anything else you need from me, Lieutenant Colonel?’
‘I think not, Captain Harding. You may go.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Paul saluted and then nodded to the other officers in parting. Ellen noticed a man standing across the room, wearing a different uniform from the 52nd. It was spattered with mud. He was clearly a messenger who’d been sent back to give the regiment direction.
Paul held her arm. ‘Ready?’
She smiled. ‘Yes.’ As they stepped outside, she added, ‘I am sorry, should I not have come? Was I intruding? Were you talking secrets?’
‘If we had been talking secrets you would not have been allowed in,’ Paul whispered in her ear in a teasing voice, his fingers still gently encircling her arm.
She looked up at him, engulfed by the joy of his proximity. Whenever he was close, heat ran within her blood and chased up her heartbeat. ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked him.
‘Starving. I wonder what the men have found to eat.’
‘When I left them,’ she said, ‘they were bargaining for a pig from a farmer, with a note that promised recompense.’
‘And as we know, Wellington is generous in that regard…’
She had seen the members of his regiment resort to begging and hunting on a daily basis, because no pay had come down the line. But the Duke of Wellington was insistent local people were refunded for any loss the army caused as they progressed. Money was always found for them so the soldiers did not incite unnecessary bitterness and create more enemies of the British. Meanwhile his soldiers marched on empty stomachs.
‘Well, I am remaining hopeful there is pork for dinner,’ she said.
He smiled. ‘Then I shall hope for your sake.’
No one was looking at them, so she stopped and hugged him briefly, slipping her arms about the sinuous muscle of his waist. His body had become leaner and firmer since he had been marching daily.
She let him go and walked on.
‘Your petticoats are filthy,’ he commented.
‘We had to stop the cart and walk so the horses could pull it through the mud.’
He caught her arm, stopped her and turned her back. Then he cradled her chin with one palm, lifting her gaze so she looked directly into the turquoise blue of his eyes. ‘Such a decline from the pretty parlour I found you in. Do you miss those comforts and playing your pianoforte to entertain visitors?’
How did he know she had just been doing so?She would not admit it to him; that would be disloyal, and she wished more than anything to be a dutiful wife so he need not worry over her. She merely rode in a cart all day and had to bear the lack of the friendship of others; he had to march for hours and prepare his men for war. And besides, she had hisfriendship, she was not completely lacking companionship.
She shook her head, lifting her chin from his touch. ‘Not when I would have to trade them for your presence.’
He smiled. ‘I would trade nothing to have it different. I wish you here.’ Then he said more gently. ‘I need you here…’
She wished to lift up on to her toes and kiss his lips but it would be wrong to do so here, and so instead she longed for privacy – for the time they would retire to their tent – their cocoon – the place where they could be private and express their love. The place where he always made her feel beautiful and happy. ‘And I need you…’
* * *
As Paul made love to Ellen, thoughts of war plagued him. The messenger who had come yesterday had said that since Napoleon had reclaimed Paris on the 20th of March, he had recruited even more men and begun training them to be his new army.
Meanwhile, Great Britain’s ambassadors sat with the representatives of other European countries, fighting their verbal battle in Vienna over who would own what land when this was done; their armies had not won the land yet.
The lieutenant colonel received new information daily from the spies the Allied army sent out. But the Duke of Wellington’s decision was not to race towards Napoleon, but to hold back and wait. That way, they could prepare and be ready, and they could pick their ground.
Damn it, focus.
He had begun this with Ellen to forget these things, to escape thoughts of war, if only for a short while, but it was becoming harder to – even though he had Ellen’s beauty to bathe in. Birdsong seeped through the canvas about them, increasing from odd chirps to a constant vibrant swelling sound. The morning chorus was the first true sign of spring. It was a time of rebirth. But for a soldier, time always held a measure of death.
