“Yes, but as you probably have noticed, I have my father’s eyes and his black hair. My mother’s hair was incredible, all gold and blond.” She paused a moment, then said easily, “I know what you’re thinking. A man has the same mistress for twenty years—it boggles the mind. My mother was always beautiful, always charming, always here for him. She never carped at him, never demanded. She loved him, you see.”
“Yes, I see,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, Duchess.”
“Your apple tarts,” Badger said, coming quietly into the small room. Marcus wondered if he’d overheard their conversation and picked his moment of entry. If he had, it wasn’t badly done.
“Thank you, Badger. They look delicious,” she said, smiling up at him. She said to Marcus, “You will be quite prepared to give up all your wealth after you have tasted Badger’s apple tarts.”
Marcus smiled, and forked down a bite. He closed his eyes. “My tongue couldn’t offer an insult if it tried,” he said, grinning. The Duchess merely nodded, saying, “It’s difficult to believe that you really didn’t care, that you didn’t want the title and all the wealth that goes along with it.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t care, it’s true. I was quite content with my life as it was. I didn’t want to sell out. I was only the son of a second son, but I was needed. I like to think that I made a difference, that my judgments affected the outcome of at least a few events. At least I pray I saved some lives and didn’t stupidly waste any.”
“Did you spend all your years in the Peninsula?”
He nodded. “I joined up in August of 1808, right after Charlie and Mark drowned. The Spanish refused to have us help them in Spain so we went directly to Portugal, to Figueria de Foz, near Coimbra. My commander was Wellington.” He paused, then looked a bit embarrassed. “Sorry for boring on about it.”
“Please continue,” she said, and nothing more.
He looked at her askance because no woman before in his life, including his mother, had ever wanted to know what he’d done. He leaned forward, saying slowly, “Napoleon subdued Spain then headed to Lisbon, traveling through Talavera and Elvas.”
Suddenly the Duchess said, “Didn’t Napoleon say, ‘I shall hunt the English out of the Peninsula. Nothing can for long withstand the fulfillment of my wishes’?”
“I believe he said something like that,” Marcus said, frowning at her.
“Do go on.”
He winced, remembering, saying to her, “There was this awful mid-winter crossing, led by Sir John Moore through the Galician mountains, but we managed to outrun the French. There was little food, the animals—” He shook his head, looking at her now, hating those damned memories, seeing the faces of his men, of officers he’d called friend, so many of them dead now, and he’d not been able to do anything to help. “No,” he said, “that is quite enough tonight.”
“What do you think of the armistice made by Napoleon after he beat the Prussian armies at Lützen and Bautzen?”
Marcus shrugged. “We will see how long it lasts. None of the men I know think it will go much beyond the summer, if that.”
“Is it true that Wellington wishes all his generals to avoid fighting Napoleon directly, that Wellington always tries to go up against his marshals?”
He was truly surprised, for few people knew of it. “How do you know of this?”
“I read,” she said flatly, and he knew that he’d insulted her, treating her like a lady, in other words, like a bit of fluff with nothing noteworthy between her beautifully shaped ears.
“Yes, you’re quite right. Wellington has said that Napoleon’s presence on a battlefield is worth forty thousand men, not just men, soldiers.”
She sat forward, resting her elbows on the table. The candlelight was soft, the room quiet, the apple tarts sitting unnoticed on their plates. “That is excellent. I’d never heard that. Is it also true that it wasn’t the Russian winter that defeated Napoleon but rather the Russians themselves?”
“Yes, but there are arguments about that. Needless to say, all who deem Napoleon the greatest military leader of all time blame the vicious Russian winter. I have heard it said that the Russians learned from Napoleon’s victories and copied him, thus defeating him at his own game.”
“And don’t forget that his supply lines broke down. Imagine the distances from the West all the way to Moscow! It quite boggles the mind to imagine how much food would be necessary, and clothing and equipment.”
“Yes,” Marcus said, “imagine.” He couldn’t help himself, he was staring at her and continued to stare at her. Did she have a protector who was in the army or navy? Is this how she knew so much? He said abruptly, “How long will it take you to be ready to leave?”
“Leave? I beg your pardon?”
“You are coming back with me to Chase Park, naturally.”
“There is nothing natural about it that I can see,” she said, and to his surprise, he saw her hand clench into a fist. The Duchess making a bloody fist? No, surely he was seeing things, not something so violent as a fist, not the bloody Duchess. Whatever had he said to ru
ffle her serene feathers? He couldn’t imagine that bloodless, elegant hand fisting.
“You should have been living at Chase Park for the past six months. I have apologized for what happened. There is nothing more I can say. I’ve spent the past months trying to find you. Now that I have, I’m here to offer you a home, proper chaperonage, and if you wish to go to London for a Season, you will certainly go. I will also see that you have a sufficient dowry. With your looks and your show of interest in military matters, I daresay that you will have many offers of marriage, at least from lonely officers home on leave.”
She merely looked at him, still again, her hands smoothed out on the white tablecloth. He noticed ink stains on her fingers, and said, “If marriage is what you want. But what else is there for a lady?”