The Officer and the Proper Lady

‘Do you believe it?’ she asked, shocked at Hal’s dispassionate tone.

‘No, of course not. But he isn’t helping. He won’t talk about it. Pages are missing from his diaries and he won’t say what they contained. He’s a stubborn devil.’

There is something in the way he speaks of his father, she thought, watching the long lashes come down to hide the thoughts in Hal’s expressive eyes. He doesn’t hate him, or dislike him—but there is a wariness, a distance. Perhaps Hal is the black sheep of the family.

‘And why are the rumours spreading now?’ Julia asked. ‘Is Hebden in such a position that he could start them amongst such influential people?’

Before Hal could reply, George put his head round the door of the hovel. ‘Someone’s coming.’

They were so tucked away that the activity on the main road and in the village was hardly audible most of the time. Julia shivered: if they had not seen Rick Bredon, she would never have found Hal. If she had not fled from Thomas Smyth at the party, she would never have met Bredon. If Hal had not taken her back in the carriage, she would not have given him her notebook and that sabre-thrust would have pierced his chest. On such chances lives hung.

‘Good morning, Miss Tresilian. Carlow, I have brought you a shirt and some loose trousers,’ Captain Grey announced, striding into the hovel, a mass of white cloth flapping over his arm. ‘And I’ve got a cart and a horse with four legs—and that, my friend was harder than taking a French gun, believe me.’

‘I do.’ Hal grinned back at him, then they both looked pointedly at Julia.

‘Yes?’ She stared back, then realized. ‘Oh, yes. You get dressed, I’ll just go and do something outside.’ Honestly, the pair of them will have had their clothes off in front of more women than I have had hot dinners and yet Hal won’t risk me catching sight of an inch of flesh! ‘We need to pack up, George.’

Julia spread straw and then hay, then threw over blankets until the floor of the old farm cart was as soft and cushioned as she could make it, then busied herself collecting up their things while Will Grey and George brought Hal out on a make shift stretcher. She didn’t think he was going to enjoy that and he would probably swear more com fort ably if she wasn’t in sight. As it was, her vocabulary was considerably enriched. He must be feeling better, she thought, smiling. Yesterday he hardly had the strength to curse.

The scene, as their little procession made its way out to what had been the main road from Brussels to Charleroi, was in some ways more orderly, and in others, more shocking, than it had been on the day after the battle.

Broken-down carts, dead horses, splintered trees had all been dragged to the side so that traffic could lurch up and down the deeply rutted road. Every where she looked, there were freshly turned heaps of earth, some of them scarcely covering the bodies that lay beneath. In the distance, great fires burned, giving off oily smoke; Julia could only be thankful the light breeze took the smell of it away from them. The stagnant pools of foul liquid by the roadside were bad enough.

Will Grey drove the cart, George and Julia followed in the gig and Max walked beside the cart with no need to hitch his reins to it. From time to time he poked his big head over the side and blew slobbery breaths at Hal, who only laughed and rubbed the hairy nose pushing anxiously at his cheek.

Julia lost track of time as they moved slowly on, having to turn off the road into the trees from time to time to avoid a deeply mired stretch or to allow faster-moving vehicles through. They were still finding men alive, Julia saw, thankful that those hideous, greedy pyres were not taking everything.

The clocks were striking four when they finally turned into the court yard in Place de Leuvan. Hal’s eyes had been closed for miles and Will had kept turning in his seat to check on him. But as they came to a halt in the shadowed yard, he woke and took a deep breath.

‘Coffee, wood smoke, food cooking and nothing, thank God, rotting,’ he said. ‘Julia—’

‘Julia! You wicked, wicked child!’ Mrs Tresilian almost tumbled out of the kitchen door, her cap awry, her face flushed. ‘Madame has told me what you have been doing! You’re ruined, ruined…’

‘Mrs Tresilian.’ Hal’s voice cut through her words with their rising note of hysteria. ‘We have not been introduced. I am Hal Carlow, second son of the Earl of Narborough.’ Julia saw her mother go very still at the magic word, Earl. ‘Miss Tresilian has done me the honour to accept my proposal of marriage. I trust you have no objection.’

For a moment Hal thought Mrs Tresilian had fainted. His future mother in law’s face simply vanished. Then he realized she had sat down on the step and burst into tears. Julia scram bled from the gig, sent him a rueful smile and ran to calm her mother.

‘Mama, it is quite all right, I am safe. Are you and Phillip all right? We must go in; Major Carlow is wounded and we have to get him to bed right away.’

‘Where?’ Mrs Tresilian demanded, rising into sight again, a handkerchief clutched in her hand. ‘Oh my goodness, of all the things…’

‘In my bedroom, Mama,’ Julia said firmly. ‘And I will sleep with you. Captain Grey, I will make up the bed, if you and George can bring Major Carlow in a few moments. The first floor—Madame will show you the way. Come, Mama.’

In the silence that followed their disappearance, Will began to let down the sides of the cart. ‘Masterly,’ he observed. ‘By the time Miss Tresilian has waved the smelling salts about and repeated your father’s title a few more times, her mother is going to be killing the fatted calf for you.’

A voice from somewhere at the foot of the cart piped up, ‘Is he dead?’

‘No,’ Hal retorted. ‘I’m not, young Phillip. Just a bit battered.’

‘Oh, good. Did you kill any French with your sabre? Has it got blood on it?’

‘Yes and no, and will you take Max into the stable for me? I’ve got to go upstairs and I need George to help me.’ Will raised startled eyebrows, but Hal added, ‘Go, Max. Friend,’ and the horse turned and plodded away. ‘The boy’s been up on him, Max will remember his scent,’ he reassured Will who had been on the receiving end of Max’s teeth before now. ‘And I don’t want to give him a vocabulary of military oaths or his mother will add that to the list of sins my pa rent age has to counterbalance.’

Getting upstairs tried both the other men’s ingenuity and strength and his own endurance. Hal felt decidedly wan by the time they staggered through the door into a simple bed chamber with sprigged wall pa per and a narrow white bed next to the window. His bearers laid him down onto the clean, yielding softness, and he realized that his nostrils were full of the scent of Julia. The sensation of coming home to somewhere familiar and safe washed through him, leaving him calm and strangely light headed, as though he were floating.

Perhaps marriage would be like this, he thought vaguely.

‘He must be exhausted,’ he heard Julia murmur, and a cool hand stroked the hair back from his forehead. ‘Try and sleep, Hal.’ The hand stroked down to his cheek, and eyes closed, he turned his face into it and sighed as sound and sensation slipped away, leaving only the hazy awareness of her presence as he slept.