Page 69 of The Forbidden Love of an Officer
‘Ah, here is our tea.’ He turned to look at the maid as she carried it in. She was blushing as she set the tray down.
‘Will you pour, Ellen?’
She did so.
She had lived in a sheltered safe world in her father’s home, and then she had lived an ever-changing, unsettled life with Paul, but now… Now she did not know where she stood… What life should be, or could be…
25
PARIS, FOUR MONTHS LATER
Ellen had heard nothing from either her father or Paul’s, yet she still looked at the post that arrived for the lieutenant colonel daily.
The months since the battle of Waterloo had passed slowly. She still lived with the lieutenant colonel, because she had no money and nowhere else to go.
He had hired a private carriage for her when the regiment marched to Paris and paid for her lodgings so she need not live among the men.
She supposed the lieutenant colonel paid for her keep out of the sum he had made by obligingly disposing of all of hers and Paul’s possessions, before she had been sound enough of mind to even think about what to do with Paul’s belongings. Perhaps if she had sold them, she could have paid for a passage home.
But some of his things she would have kept.
She missed the dress coat he had removed and left behind on the last evening most. The one which he’d worn to the Richmond ball. It would have held his scent.
Tears came into her eyes; they still did every time she thought of him, and she thought of Paul a dozen times a day. But how could she forget?
Paris was just as mad as Brussels had been before the war; flooded with British tourists. They had flocked to the city as though everyone wanted to claim it for themselves, as though they were the ones who had won the battle.
Ellen had no patience or time for any of them, and of course she had no husband to escort her to events, so she did not attend any of their lavish entertainments, not even the theatre.
She was uncomfortable about Lieutenant Colonel Hillier keeping her, but what other option did she have? Paul had been owed his wages too, so there must be money that was hers by right too. Was the lieutenant colonel also spending the salary Paul was owed to keep her here?
She looked left and right along the street, waited for a carriage to pass, then crossed. Megan followed.
Ellen had not seen Jennifer, her former maid, in Paris. Nor any of the women she had met in Brussels.
Unlike in Brussels, Lieutenant Colonel Hillier did not host dinners or entertainments, and at times, Ellen felt guilty because she thought it was in deference to her. But he had never spoken of dinners, or dances, or even card parties, and she had never asked why not.
In the evenings she dined with him, but beyond that she saw very little of him. More often than not, once they had eaten, he went out, and during the day he was out on business.
For many weeks he had been forever kissing her hand and offering compliments, but in the last few weeks, he had done so less. At times he even seemed to be impatient or angry, but he never said anything that implied his irritability was directed at her. His conversation had become more abrupt, though, and he seemed less tolerant of her desire to spend her time in her bedchamber and not downstairs.
‘Megan.’ Ellen turned and waited for her maid to catch her up as she reached the gates of the Tuileries Gardens.
They walked out every day, sometimes twice a day, because sitting in the house became too oppressive, and she would reach a point she wished to escape the silence and the walls about her.
She lived for her child. For Paul’s child. She was only eating and breathing for his son or daughter. Between her thoughts of Paul, her mind filled with images of what his child might look like, and she longed for it to be a boy who would look like him.
She walked a full circle about the gardens. Though shrubberies looked bleak now the December frosts had withered the last of the greenery.
It was nearly a year since she had married Paul. It seemed a lifetime ago. Had she ever been that naïve girl? She’d been little more than a child then, so sheltered from the real world.
After an hour, Ellen walked back to Lieutenant Colonel Hillier’s house. She could never call it home. It would never feel like home. Nowhere would ever feel like a home again without Paul.
As she neared the house, two of the officers from the regiment came out… Paul’s comrades! She hurried to reach them, her heart leaping with an odd sense of being close to Paul again. They wore the same uniform he had worn.
‘Captain Smith!’ she called out, lifting her hand and waving a greeting. ‘Captain Vickers!’
Captain Smith looked at her first. She was about fifteen or so yards away from them. He stared at her for a moment, his eyes widening, but then he turned to Captain Vickers and said something without acknowledging her. Captain Vickers looked over and his expression twisted with a look of disgust.
