Page 75 of A Lady's Heart Deceived
The duke plucked the topmost piece of paper from the pile and brandished it at the major. “This document, Major Hall, was not among those in your submission.”
He flicked through another good inch of the stack, before lifting it, and then dropping it with great vigor onto the table. The papers scattered in all directions.
“I can only assume that all this correspondence, including a number of first-hand accounts of the battle was missed being sent to my office, purely due to an oversight on your part. Because there is no other reason, aside from pure malice, that I can think of as to why they were not included in the first place. I am surprised that an officer of the British Army would behave in such a manner.”
For a moment, Piers feared that his heart had stopped. He turned to the major, unable to hold his tongue any longer. “Do you hate me that much? That you would go to all that trouble just to ensure I faced a court-martial and imprisonment? What did I ever do to make you want to destroy me, or to deny me the justice to which I am entitled?”
“Justice? You don’t deserve it.” The major got to his feet and pointed at Piers. “You abandoned your responsibilities in the heat of battle and went running after that fancy man of a prince. The secretary is welcome to quote me in his notes. What you did, Captain Denford, was not only incompetent, but also the act of a coward. It’s exactly what I wrote in the dispatch report. The Duke of York and Albany may have all the piles of papers in the world, but nothing changes what you did.”
They had finally got to the heart of the matter. It had taken over two years and countless hours of bastardry, but the major had given voice to his hatred.
Piers quietly ran through his response in his head. He had waited a long time to be able to say his piece. He got to his feet, then bowed to the duke. “Your Highness, may I have the floor for a moment?”
“Yes, you may, Captain Denford.” The duke shot Major Hall another dark look. “Major Hall, resume your seat or resign your commission. I am fast running out of patience.”
Piers waited until the major had sat down, then cleared his throat. “The details of what happened that day on the battlefield at Waterloo are well known. We were in the heat of the conflict. Major Hall and his men were fighting close to where the Prince of Orange and his party were stationed. I was with the prince, acting as an extra aide-de-camp.”
“Is that what you call it?” replied the major.
Piers ignored the remark. He wasn’t going to give any ammunition to his foe. Up to the eve of the battle, there had been plenty of rumors about the prince and his sexual proclivities, but none of them had involved Piers.
“I was tasked with ensuring that the future King of the Netherlands survived. That was my sworn duty. And while I fought the skirmish alongside your troops, the moment the prince moved away and pressed into the thick of the battle, I was duty-bound to follow him,” said Piers.
“Were you and the prince close?” asked the duke. It didn’t need saying that the question had a double edge to it. Major Hall muttered a less than subtle, “Molly,” under his breath.
“Just because a man does not frequent the whorehouses does not mean he engages in acts of sodomy nor dresses as a woman. Some men are simply better at discretion,” snapped the duke.
Piers caught the anger in the duke’s voice. Major Hall was fast losing this battle.
Still, Piers paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully. The next few minutes could well determine the outcome of this hearing and his whole future.
“I was under the Prince of Orange’s command. As were others. I respected him as a soldier. The prince is a fierce warrior. It took a French musket ball to bring him and his horse, Vexey, down, but even then, he didn’t wish to retire from the battle. His Royal Highness had already lost a great deal of blood by the time I got to him. He was pale and unsteady on his feet, leaning against another officer’s horse. I was about to offer him my own mount when he suddenly collapsed.”
That moment was forever etched in his memory. The fear that the prince was about to die in his arms had given Piers many a nightmare over the past year or so.
“Then what happened?” asked the duke.
Piers shrugged. “Exactly what was written in the dispatches. We got the prince onto my horse, after which a number of his personal adjutants helped to lead him away to the nearby hamlet of Mont Saint Jean where a surgeon attended to his wounds.”
It was the truth. Nothing embellished. Exactly how things had happened that day. How it had gone from him simply doing his job as an aide-de-camp to being written up in the dispatches as being incompetent Piers had never fully understood. But the more he listened to the conversation, to its dark undertones, the clearer the picture became.
I can’t believe I was so naïve as to think they would judge a man on his contribution to the battle, to his bravery. Not his sexual appetites.
The Prince of Orange had been a solid commander, trusted and promoted by the British commander, the Duke of Wellington, but that wasn’t enough for men like Major Hall. Piers worried it might also not be enough for the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army.
The major cleared his throat. “What happened to your fiancée, Denford? Why aren’t you married?”
“I don’t see the relevance of my betrothal to this meeting,” replied Piers.
The duke glanced at his papers. “Answer the question.”
They weren’t even going to bother dancing around the subject any longer. If he didn’t deal with it here and now, the next step would be outright accusation.
Piers wasn’t going to take the bait; he was determined to keep his temper. If he didn’t control the situation, he stood in grave peril of having to defend himself against charges of sodomy. He wouldn’t put it past Major Hall not to have already thought of that option.
It was time to finally let the world know the truth of the women in his life.
Sorry, Dinah. I have to do this or else they will not stop until they see me hung.
