He needs someone like Hal who would take him on ad ventures and who listens to him, Julia thought mutinously as Phillip walked off and began to kick his ball. He did not appear to like the clergyman very much.
‘…of course, we poor males all need a steadying influence in our lives.’ Mr Smyth was saying something; Julia hastened to murmur agreement. ‘I am glad you think so,’ he said warmly, as her brain caught up with his last few sentences.
He is going to make a declaration at any moment. He is perfect, really he is. Mama would be so pleased. I ought to say Yes if he asks. She met his eyes and saw the intent in them. Oh dear, not if, but when.
She should either say something encouraging, and precipitate matters, or snub him now, before this got any further.
‘Disgraceful!’
‘What?’ Julia thought for a startled moment that he was reading her thoughts, then saw his gaze was fixed on a group of blue-jacketed officers on one of the paths crossing at right angles to where they sat. Her heart sank as she recognized them. They were Hal’s friends from the theatre, and in the middle, laughing as the others slapped him on the back and teased him loudly about something, was Hal.
She pulled her veil down without thinking, then saw Phillip. Hal would recognize him and look for her and then…
‘Do not worry,’ Mr Smyth said. ‘Should one of those young bucks so much as glance in your direction, I will know what to do.’
‘Oh good,’ Julia said faintly, imagining the clergyman squaring up to the group who looked as though they had all break fasted from the brandy bottle. But they were almost at the end of the path now, their backs to Phillip who was running over to her.
‘Drunk, I have no doubt—and at this hour!’
‘Perhaps not drunk exactly—they seemed to be celebrating,’ Julia ventured, scooping up the ball and throwing it for Phillip before he said anything about Major Carlow and his big horse. ‘It is only eleven in the morning.’
‘They will have been at the Literary Institute all night,’ the reverend said in a tone of voice that would not have been un suitable if he had said they had been in Sodom and Gomorrah.
‘I thought that was a very respectable club,’ Julia said, tearing her gaze from the retreating group.
‘It is, upstairs. Down stairs is a gaming hell. Those rake shames will have been playing cards and drinking all night.’
‘Shocking.’ And of course it was. But they had all looked and sounded so happy and cheerful. Was it really doing any harm if they did not gamble more than they could afford to lose, or so long as they did not win money from someone who would then be ruined? Hal said he rarely lost: perhaps those he played with stumbled out of the card rooms destitute and desperate. She had to stop thinking about him, wanting him.
Julia put up her veil again and turned a bright, determined smile on Mr Smyth. He was a kind, decent man. She must do the right thing, even if it broke her heart. ‘Do tell me more about your living. Is it in a pretty part of the county?’
Hal walked into his hotel room and let the door bang behind him. He’d been feeling good. Better than good. His men had turned out so well at the review that both the duke and Marshal Blücher had stopped to comment favourably. The atmosphere back at their quarters had been better than he could ever remember it, the men itching for the fight, morale sky-high.
And then there were those few moments in the meadow with Julia, her voice soft and breath less when she had asked him if he would worry about her. Moments like clear, still waters in the midst of a maelstrom. He did not dare think about what her emotions might be, because he was not sure he could live with his conscience if he broke her heart, even if all she felt was an illusion of first love.
And young Phillip. Hal grinned as he thought of the boy’s excitement, of his courage when he found himself alone on top of the mountain that was Max. The smile faded as he recalled him moments ago in the Parc. The child had not seen him, thank God, and neither, he thought, had Julia.
Those officers who were off duty had got back from their bases in the small hours, too stimulated after the day’s hard work to sleep. And there, in the Institute’s card rooms, had been a Prussian count whom they all suspected at fuzzing the cards. It had been too much of a temptation not to take him for every franc in his pockets, matching Hal’s skill against the count’s sleight of hand, and all too natural to drink solidly while he was doing it.
Julia had been sitting demurely with her clergyman as they’d passed, high as kites on success and wine. He had been almost past them when he first recognized Phillip and then saw her. For her sake, he dared not risk scandalising another of her worthy suitors: he was sober enough to remember his good resolutions—just.
There were letters on the table with one in Marcus’s hand on top. Hal slit the seal and opened it one handed while reaching for the decanter with the other. He did not want to sober up. Sober, he thought too much about Julia Tresilian.
The news started soothingly enough. Marcus had an idea about an ideal man for their younger sister, Verity. Mama had sprained her ankle, but only mildly and she was on the mend. Nell, his wife, was six months gone with child. Half a sheet was filled with domestic details by a man in love with his wife, besotted with his baby son and torn between anxiety and joy over the next arrival.
Hal dropped the letter, hating the twist of jealousy that he felt for his brother. He had burned his own boats. Married bliss—with its ties and terrors—was not for him. He was a career soldier and, of his free choice, had made himself unfit for any decent girl. He had decided his own fate, and it was too late to regret it now, just because of one brown-eyed girl who was too good for him.
Cursing his sentimental weakness, he picked up the letter and made himself focus.
I could wish this French business over and you safely home, Marcus wrote. The letter from Mildenhall confirmed the rumours I have been hearing. Someone is stirring matters and, although I have no proof, I cannot believe that this time it is entirely down to Hebden, or Beshaley, or what ever the damned man is calling him self this week. Or not him alone, at any rate. He was certainly to blame for the attack on Nell, for that appalling episode with Honoria. And I could wring his neck, the bastard, for the anxiety he put Nell through so recently, worrying about her sister Rosalind. But this feels different, not like his direct attacks or the confounded silk en ropes he leaves to alarm us.
The rumours are at too high a level in government. Men of our father’s generation stop me to have a quiet word in my ear. They do not believe something is seriously amiss, of course, but they are uneasy.
You recall that three pages were torn from Father’s journal for ’94 when we finally got it back? I still cannot get Father to talk about what is in them. He says he does not recall, that there can be nothing he has not told us. Sooner or later he is going to hear these rumours too, and then the rats will be out of the bag with a vengeance.
Take care of your self. I am oppressed by a feeling of danger for you—which is a damn fool thing to worry about with a soldier, I know!
Nell sends her love…