The Officer and the Proper Lady

‘At least you know what you are doing,’ she said, nerves making her blurt out exactly what she was thinking.

There was a long silence, then he said, with what she could have sworn was irritation in his voice, ‘I do not know what I am doing with virgins.’

‘I should hope not,’ Julia said, trying to make a joke of it. Hal did not reply. Tentative, she reached out and touched his forearm, the left, uninjured, one, ‘Hal, I wasn’t frightened before, but you are scaring me now.’

Chapter Seventeen

Her confession brought Hal’s head round and he smiled, a rather rueful twist of his lips. Julia let out a breath as he moved his hand to catch hers. ‘Come here then, and let me see if I can soothe your nerves.’

‘I rather doubt that would be the result,’ she murmured, moving to perch cautiously on the edge of the bed.

‘You are going to have to do all the work,’ he pointed out and the cold knot inside her began to melt at the sight of the old, familiar laughter in his eyes.

‘Very well.’ Cautiously, she placed her right hand on the pillow by his shoulder and leant down, eyes closed, too shy to watch his eyes change colour from troubled grey to intense blue, as they had when he had kissed her at the ball.

Julia was very aware of the smell of him, an exciting maleness beneath the overlaying scents of clean skin, soap, a herbal salve. She leaned closer and smelled the coffee on his breath and felt the heat of his body as her breasts touched the thin white cotton of his night shirt.

And then she found his lips, warm and firm and smiling under hers and she hesitated, unsure what to do next, confused by the difference that being above him made.

‘Go on,’ he mouthed silently, and her lips read the words. He had not closed his mouth on that last syllable.

Dare she? Julia let her mouth press a little more, then, when he did not move, she let the tip of her tongue slide out, between her own lips, between his. She froze, shaken by her own daring, by the intensity of initiating such a simple thing, and then Hal opened to her and his tongue found hers and touched and teased, and his hand came up to cup her shoulder, and it was all she could do not to sink down onto his bandaged chest with the need to be closer, tighter, totally entwined.

It was too much, and she needed him to guide her. She needed to hold on to him, but she did not dare in case she hurt him. She was alarming herself with what she wanted, needed. And she had no idea what to do, except that his mouth angled under hers as though seeking something. Something she had no idea how to give.

Hal was not used to virgins and the thought did not seem to make him happy, she had realized that. She must be doing this all wrong. But if she asked him, he would be too kind to tell her.

Julia sat back, stumbled to her feet, knocked into the chair and backed away, her palm pressed to her lips. Her limbs seemed all over the place, not in her control at all. ‘Oh. Oh, I…’ Hal’s eyes were intense upon her, his body still, as it had been when he had been in such pain and stillness was the only way he could deal with it.

She felt wanton and confused, excited and ashamed of herself and humiliated by what must be a hopeless lack of natural instincts. Giving up on the struggle to find any words to express what she felt, Julia fled.

Hal put his right hand on the pew end and tried to take some of the weight off his leg. The resulting pain in his arm and side made him hiss, unable to say just what he felt under the very nose of the English chaplain.

‘Here she comes,’ Will said, turning from his scrutiny of the aisle and Hal forgot the pain. ‘The place looks like a hospital ward, there is so much bandaging and so many crutches on display.’

‘At least they are here,’ Hal murmured back. ‘We didn’t lose all our friends.’ It was not the thing to turn round and watch the bride coming up the aisle; Will, who was taking his role as groomsman seriously, had told him so. Then there was a murmur, a rustle of silk, and regard

less of instructions, he turned.

Julia was on the arm of the Baron vander Helvig, a slender figure in pale primrose, her hands full of yellow and white roses and the green filigree of ferns, her face hidden by a fall of cream Brussels lace that had been Lady Geraldine’s bride gift.

She looked pure and fragile and ex qui site, this girl who had defied her mother and convention, who had braved the horrors of the battlefield to save him. Hal felt like a criminal who had been rewarded for his crimes when he should have been hanged. Somehow, he vowed, he was going to make this up to her, be worthy of her. She faltered as she saw his face, then took the last few steps that brought her to his side and the baron laid her hand in his.

‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together…’

How many weddings had he sat through in the past few years? A dozen? The words and the meaning had flowed over his head, even when it had been his brother standing at his side, taking his vows. Shut in parson’s pound, parson’s mouse trap, yoked—all the slang expressions that had summed up how he had felt about marriage, and yet now it felt like a relief, an objective gained. It was very strange.

He repeated his vows, thinking about them properly for the first time, hearing Julia’s words spoken so steadily, directly to him as though they were alone. Then Will produced the ring, and Hal slipped it on her finger and listened with total concentration as the chaplain pronounced the words that bound him to this woman.

‘You may kiss the bride.’

The last time they had kissed, she had run from him, trembling and distressed. After that he had sent for Will, demanded to be taken to the Hôtel de Flandres where order was gradually being restored and he was able to have his old room back.

Mrs Tresilian had been relieved to have him at a respectable distance. Julia had been silent, except for an attempt to send George with him. But he had refused. The groom, given a comprehensive description of Hebden, the attempt on Hal’s life and the possible dangers to Julia, had settled down with his shotgun to keep guard at Place de Leuvan.

Now Julia turned to him as he took the edge of lace and lifted it care fully back over the crown of her bonnet. She was pale and her eyes were huge and soft with an emotion he hoped was happiness. Or at least contentment. Perhaps that was the most he could hope for at first, to make her content.

Then she smiled at him, and Hal found he could smile back as he bent to kiss her. A sentimental sigh went round the congregation, Julia became pink and rather charmingly flustered and he turned for the endless walk down the aisle.