Page 78 of The General's Gift
“They never are. That’s why you take them. I’ve heard you say it a dozen times. Glory-seekers, the lot of them. Until they march in blood, and stand in reserve for the veterans.”
Hawk gritted his teeth. “Not this time.”
Every green recruit arrived at the regiment with romantic notions of honor and glory. He trained them. Shaped them. Made them strong enough to survive.
And then the first skirmish came. Hardly anyone looked like dreamers afterwards. Part of the workings of war was watching the light drain out of them. But then he had seen Celeste in that tent, her gaze lifeless, like one of his new officers after a blood baptism—Hawk shut his eyes, willing the image away.
He was tired of it. By God, he was fucking tired of it.
Graves’s brow furrowed. “What’s changed?”
He suspected Hawk’s feelings for his ward. Of course. Who knew him better than Graves?
“Do you know what changed? My orders used to be obeyed. I found Lady Cecilia at the surgeon’s tent. Instead of questioning my judgment, I would appreciate it if you enforced it.”
Graves choked on his wine. “That girl is impossible to contain, I—”
“I took her there,” Mrs. Archer announced as she dropped into her chair. “You may lower your flogging hand, my lord. Unless you plan to drag me to the pillory before I eat my meal.”
Hawk forced himself to loosen the death grip on the wine glass. “Where is she?”
Mrs. Archer lifted a brow. “Lady Cecilia won’t be joining us for dinner, my lord. She’s taken to her bed, feeling indisposed.”
“What’s wrong with her? Is she ill? Have you sent for the doctor?”
Rue exchanged a look with Graves. Then she faced Hawk and squared her shoulders like she was delivering a casualty report. “Her condition, my lord, isn’t one the physician can mend.”
The hell it didn’t. First, Graves with his questions and innuendos, and now this woman with her assumptions. Hawk was surrounded by metaphysical savants.
Hawk’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood. “I’ll see it for myself.”
He crossed the house to her room. At the door, he willed the pounding of his heart to dim so he could hear what she was doing. Only a quiet murmur of fabric paid for his efforts.
If she were still wearing that lifeless dress, he would order her to change into her tulle. If she were melancholy, he would shake her and feed her and cajole her to recite Shakespeare and do whatever it took to light her light again.
The door creaked softly as Hawk stepped inside, the hush of her bedroom folding around him. What was he doing here? Invading her privacy? He was not thinking clearly.
She stood before the mirror, framed in lamplight, still as a painting and twice as haunting. Her back was to him, pale shoulders bare beneath the whisper of a white camisole—tulle so fine it seemed spun from mist.
She wasn’t moving. Just gazing at herself, her head tilted slightly, red hair falling in loose waves down her back. She had the look of a girl who had climbed atop a cliff and didn’t know how to come down.
She shimmered, but not with the brilliance of fireworks, but of moonlight shining over the ocean. The light of a Turner painting, ephemeral and flimsy, something that could be dimmed and disappear.
Hawk didn’t speak. Couldn’t.
She shifted, and the gown bared the dusky flush of her nipples, the shadowed curve of her sex beneath the tulle. How could a man ache with such tenderness, feel this sacred pull toward a woman—while at the same time burning with the thrill of desire, scheming like a spy, plotting the ruin of his own resolve?
“Celeste?”
Her shoulders tensed, and she lifted her gaze, finding him in the mirror. “This cloth, it’s so precious. Diaphanous, Louiseused to say. I always wanted one of these. But alas, it was too expensive for ballerinas.”
The wavering candlelight shadowed her downcast eyes. He didn’t like any part of her being hidden from him.
“Tulle illusion. I had hoped to wear it the night I gave myself to my husband… Foolish me. Papillon’s place is not above the bed, but hiding under it.”
His chest tightened, and he twisted the door handle as if it were the bastard who had scared her. “I don’t like it when you call yourself that name.”
“I don’t like it either,” she whispered.
