The Officer and the Proper Lady

Bless her, he thought, as he glanced down at the brim of her bonnet. The tip of her nose was all he could see of his wife’s face. She doesn’t fuss, or suggest we go out of the side door; she just lets me set the pace as though I wasn’t half-crippled.

Faces on either side smiled at them, a few sentimental ladies sniffed into dainty handkerchiefs. Many of the men there had bandaged heads and arms in slings, but they were, thank God, all there. Or almost all. Major Jameson was still in his bed, but they thought he would survive the loss of his leg. Young Lieu tenant Hayden was dead, never to reduce the regimental dinner to gales of laughter with his female impersonation, never again to scrounge everyone else’s second helping of pudding.

Six of his surviving sergeants and troopers were outside, sabres lifting in a flash of steel as he and Julia came out onto the steps. They walked through the arch of blades and he realized that what he was feeling—the strange, intense pressure in his chest—was happiness. Which was unexpected.

The baron’s newest barouche was there at the foot of the steps, George grinning as he held the door. Hal helped Julia in, then sank down with a sigh of relief on the soft squabs beside her.

‘I thought I might feel different,’ she said, half laughing at herself as George climbed back onto the box. Rose petals floated in on top of them, Hal was hit by a painful shower of rice. ‘Oh, my bouquet.’ She stood up, turned her back and threw it so that it vanished into the press of laughing girls on the steps. ‘I meant it for Felicity,’ she said, sitting down again with rather a bump as the carriage moved off. ‘Did she catch it?’

‘I have no idea,’ Hal confessed. ‘I was watching you. You look beautiful, Mrs Carlow.’

‘Oh.’ Julia blushed. ‘Thank you. I have to say, you look very handsome, Major Carlow.’ She sent him a speculative look from under her lashes. ‘How on earth did you get into that tight uniform with all the bandages?’

‘I’ve lost weight and I bribed the surgeon to come and bandage me at the same time as I was getting into my uniform. So the bandages are tight and as thin as possible and my batman—who has turned up un scathed, I’m glad to say—inched me into my breeches.’

‘I am glad he is coming with us,’ Julia remarked, ‘or I would have to cut them off you.’

‘That would almost be worth sacrificing the breeches for,’ Hal murmured, then could have bitten his tongue as the pretty pink blush became red-cheeked embarrassment.

‘I hope the hotel in Gent is a good one,’ she remarked after a pause, her voice con strained. ‘The baron recommended it, but goodness knows what it is like after all the people who fled there have been crammed in.’

‘I am sure it will be perfect,’ Hal said. ‘And it is only for one night, after all.’ Lord, there he went again. Mentioning the wedding night for one thing, then speaking as though it were a matter of in difference what their accommodation would be like for such a significant occasion. ‘The barge to Ostend will be very pleasant,’ he promised, pushing on rather desperately. ‘I have travelled by them before. There’s a large public salon, and the food is excellent. And Phillip will enjoy it.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Julia was recovering her poise a little. ‘It is kind of the baron to take Mama and Phillip to Gent. We are quite a grand cavalcade, are we not? This carriage and then the baron’s and then the luggage with our maid and your batman. Oh yes, and the groom with the horses.’

‘He’ll go direct to Ostend and wait for us.’ Hal gave some thought to that. Trooper Godfrey, who had been so sick, had recovered suspiciously fast once Harris was dead. The man was unable to account for his violent stomach pains, but Hal had his suspicions that Harris had poisoned him in order to take over the care of Chiltern Lad and get closer to his target. Godfrey had jumped at the chance to accompany Hal as groom and Hal had felt a responsibility to him, so at least he did not have to worry about the horses.

‘I am glad Mama has decided to go straight to my aunt and uncle,’ Julia said after a few miles of silent travel. ‘Your poor family will be surprised enough to have me arrive.’

‘They will be de lighted to see you,’ Hal said warmly, convinced of that, at least. ‘Mama has been nagging me to get married for years, and she and Verity will be missing Honoria, I am sure. And Nell, Marcus’s wife, is increasing again, so she will be glad of the company of another married woman of her own age. My father is not in very good health, so you will find him a trifle quiet and retiring, but you must not take that as any reflection of his feelings towards you.’

‘You are close to him?’ Julia asked, with a faint air of self-consciousness that had him wondering how he had betrayed the constant edge to the relationship with his father.

‘No, not very,’ he admitted. ‘I am not, as you may imagine, the ideal son. But he will be pleased with me for finding you and will feel I have done something right for once.’

‘I hope so,’ she said with what he could only interpret as a brave smile. ‘I have to confess that I am glad we will be going into the country almost immediately. I think I will find London rather overpowering.’

‘We’ll just break our journey in town. They are sure to be at Stanegate Court,’ Hal said reassuringly.

‘But you haven’t heard from them?’

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Not since just before the battle. I expect the mails are clogged with all the traffic, or a bag went astray.’ But either scenario left the possibility that something had gone very wrong at home, or that his family had no idea whether he had survived the battle or not. He had dictated letters, but no response had come. It was possible that he was going to surprise his family—not just by appearing on the doorstep, but with a new wife into the bargain.

‘I see,’ Julia said. ‘We could be quite a shock then.’ Hal tried to interpret her expression, but all he could read was polite interest.

Julia’s stomach lurched. She tried to tell herself it was simply the effect of not having eaten since just before the ceremony so they could make an immediate start, but she knew it was not. She was here in a strange hotel, alone with her new husband. It did not matter that somewhere else in the building Mama and Philip were settling into their rooms.

‘Thank you, Maria.’ The maid finished fastening the row of buttons on the evening dress and patted a loose hairpin into place. Julia regarded her reflection in the long glass. Her neckline was lower than she was used to, more suitable for a married lady. She resisted the temptation to tug it upwards and then caught a glimpse of the bed in the glass. If Hal came to her tonight, then in a few hours…

The wonderful glow that had seemed to fill her through out the wedding ceremony had all gone now. A long carriage ride with the man who was now her husband had replaced that romantic haze with so many sources for apprehension that she could hardly manage to worry about them all at once.

It seemed there was a strong possibility that Hal was going to turn up and introduce his bride to his parents when they had no idea she even existed, or before they had the opportunity to become resigned to the fact that she had neither wealth nor grand connections to bring to the match. Perhaps, she tried to console herself, they would be so happy to have Hal home, alive, even if wounded, that they would pay her no attention.

Then there was her anxiety about Hal. Was he wrong to under take this journey so soon? She was his wife, and she felt she had failed in her responsibility to care for her husband—but the wretched man would not let her so much as ask about his wounds, let alone fuss over them

. He wouldn’t even wear a sling.

And then there was the prospect of the rest of the evening, of the wedding night, stretching in front of her. That bed. Before the duchess’s ball, she had felt she could speak to Hal about anything; now her tongue seemed to freeze in her mouth before she could get out the simplest sentence, let alone ask him where he was going to sleep tonight.