Page 31 of Lord Ramsey's Red-Headed Ruin
He nodded, dismal at the prospect. “We’re producing new guns for fresh soldiers so they can go off and kill and maim each other.”
She wished she could conjure a comment to soothe him.
“All our guns are going to Sedan, where conscripts from here will train.”
Is that right? Sedan, eh?She took a sip of her cider. She must tell Ram. He would love to know that news.
“The government is fortifying the border for war. Word is they sent the last shipment of muskets to Sedan, too. They must expect an invasion from the German states that don’t yet ally with Bonaparte.”
The boy was very smart, very attuned to the news that many German princes and margraves of small territories were signing treaties with the French, breaking with Austria.
“You may be right,” she prevaricated. Better to agree with him and appear an addlepated woman than tell him all she knewof rulers like those of Baden and Württemberg, who conscripted their citizens for the French and even taxed them to give the proceeds to Bonaparte as a gift.
“Would you like to dance again, madame?” Allard had finished his wine.
“No,merci,Allard. Go ask a nice young girl to go to the floor with you. I await my husband.”
Ram was dancing with yet another older lady of the town.
And Amber waited, her mind racing.
Bonaparte. What does he plan?
He already had hundreds of thousands under arms. Conscription numbers had been high since the directorate began. Each family had at least one male in uniform. To outfit each of them with one musket was one thing, but if weapons numbers were also increased at Mauberge and the other armory of St. Etienne in the south, that meant someone predicted a use for them.
Since the country was not at war, the new guns were ostensibly to replace those lost to mishap. That number had to be minimal.
If Bonaparte’s government had ordered an increase in numbers of muskets, the consulate had ambitions to use those muskets.
The first consul was going to war.
She stood, bursting to tell Ram.
*
Ram watched herdance with Georges, and later with the man’s son. Then he seemed to have lost her for a long while. He liked watching her, agile and elegant Amber. The country sets Ram usually pranced to at Almack’s were more sedate than these French roundelays. He seethed with ridiculous jealousy. Theirhands on her should be his hands. Their smile should be his. Their joy all his.
Christ, he was quite mad.
He left the edge of the makeshift floor that the local folk and he had assembled on the grass. Seeking out a strong, good red wine, he put coin on the rough bar of the local vintner. The mug he got was tall and full. He drank far too quickly to taste it.
“You must sip it, monsieur.” A comely brunette glided up next to him. Her long lashes fluttering in dismay, she reprimanded him with a tsk. “Thevindoes not run away.”
He had no reason to be rude, so he smiled at her, even if his effort was halfhearted.
“Your wife enjoys herself. You should, too.”
He regarded the young with knitted brows. “She deserves to do it.”
“Are you so hard to live with?”
“Oui,mademoiselle.” He noted she wore no rings and then drained the remains of his wine. “I am terrible.”
“Do you not make her happy?”
“Nor myself.”
“Regrettable. What is life for, if you do not seize the day…or the night?”
