Barely a Bride (Free Fellows League 1)

She knew only what she’d overheard at Almack’s, and Alyssa, Lady Abernathy, would never reveal her husband’s secret association, endanger the current work of the League, or keep her husband from seeking his destiny.

She would never bind Griff with the bonds of love. Not because she didn’t want to but because she had given her word. And she intended to honor it.

Griff was a Free Fellow for life, unless he chose otherwise, and Jarrod and Colin knew that Griffin would never choose otherwise. He had given his word and made a blood oath, and he intended to honor it.

* * *

The time passed. Alyssa continued to mark off the days on her calendar.

The war on the Peninsula raged on. The fighting lulled, but the troop movement did not. And through it all, there were minor skirmishes, raids and reconnoitering, baggage to guard, and pickets to man.

She learned the language of war from Griffin’s letters and the news he relayed.

She learned the nature of war by surviving as he survived each day.

The siege of Cuidad Rodrigo began in mid-June and ended in victory with surrender at six p.m. on the evening of July tenth. A few days later, Griffin’s regiment was on the march once more to begin the siege of Almeida in Portugal. When Almeida fell on the twenty-eighth of August, the Eleventh Blues began the march toward Bussaco.

Alyssa nearly worried herself sick at the news of a major engagement at Bussaco, but Griffin’s name didn’t appear on the casualty lists, and a letter from him soon confirmed that once again, his regiment was on the move.

They moved from Bussaco toward Badajoz.

Alyssa sent letters and small gifts of her soaps and lotions, stationery and ink, sewing kits, packets of buttons and playing cards for him to share with Eastman and the young Lieutenant Hughes—anything she thought might ease the hardships and the boredom of his life as a soldier. And she never made him wait for word of home. Alyssa responded without fail to Griffin’s missives with letters of her own, often two and three letters a day.

Autumn gave way to winter.

Alyssa spent half of the Christmas season with her family and half with Griffin’s. She knitted scarves and socks and mittens for him and Eastman and Lieutenant Hughes and sent new uniforms as Christmas gifts for Griffin and Eastman.

She returned to the manor after the new year and waited until winter eventually gave way to spring.

The early crocuses, tulips, and daffodils emerged from their winter beds at about the same time the members of the ton began leaving their winter homes, heading south toward London and the opening of parliament and the season.

Life at Abernathy Manor went on, the cycle seemingly unchanged. The gardens bloomed. The trees and shrubs grew taller. The swans and the peafowl bore young, trailing through the garden paths and across the surface of the pond with their hatchlings following close behind.

The dairy cows birthed calves, and the sheep bore lambs. The fields left fallow were planted in flax and hops, and Alyssa, Lady Abernathy, celebrated her first wedding anniversary alone.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“We’ve returned to the border village of Fuentes de Oñoro eight miles from the French garrison at Almeida and are preparing for battle. Our goal is to prevent the Prince of Essling from resupplying his forces there. Today is the first anniversary of my wedding to Alyssa. I hope I am alive to celebrate it when this is over.”

—Griffin, Lord Abernathy, journal entry, 02 May 1811

“Happy anniversary, my lord.” Eastman opened the pockmarked low wooden front door of the house to which he and Griffin had been billeted and ducked outside. He crossed the minuscule patch of ground separating the yard from the dirt street and walked to the line of cavalry officers’ cots surrounding the village well.

Dusk had fallen, and Griffin sat hunched over his writing desk on the cot. Like all his fellow cavalry officers who would lead charges at dawn, Griffin had moved his bed outside to the village square in order to sleep with his bridle in hand. A small lamp hung suspended from a pole above his cot, the pool of light barely bright enough to illuminate the surface of Griffin’s writing desk.

His favorite mount, Samson, fully recovered from his hip wound, stood quietly in full battle gear, his rein looped over Griffin’s arm.

“The mail pouch Lord Weymouth sent made it up from the back of the line,” Eastman announced. “A subaltern just delivered it” Griffin closed his journal and put it away, then straightened and stretched before he recapped the inkwell and set his writing desk aside.

The army had been on the march for two full days, and Griffin hadn’t slept in three nights except in snatches when he and Samson both managed to doze.

The cavalry had been kept at the ready, and this morning they would lead the charge into the enemy lines.

“There’s a bundle of letters and a package for you from Lady Abernathy.” Eastman reached for Samson’s reins at the same time he handed over the leather dispatch pouch containing the letters and the package.

Griffin accepted the pouch.

“Anything from Lady Abernathy?”