Virginia Henley (20 page)

Alex looked up at him with an impish look on her face. “Really,
Your Grace
? I cannot imagine why,
Your Grace
.”

“You are a terrible tease, Alex. Since we’re in the ballroom, I imagine you would like to dance,
mam’selle
?”

“And I imagine you are only asking because you think it your duty. I much prefer we finish the tour of the house,
Your Grace
.”

They were about to ascend the sweeping staircase to the gallery, when Hart’s sister Dorothy rushed up and clutched his arm. “The Regent’s carriage just pulled up at the curb,” the Countess of Carlisle said, all aflutter. “I had no idea he would attend tonight; please help me greet him, Hart.”

Alex released him. “Go quickly; I see Dottie over there.” But instead of joining her grandmother, Alex headed to the gaming room, seeking the one person with whom she longed to spend time. Her heart began to hammer as she saw the familiar tall, dark figure ahead of her in the hallway. “Nick,” she called, hurrying her steps to catch up with him.

He turned with a welcoming smile that reached all the way to his gray eyes. “Alex, it’s Kit. But you won’t be mistaking us again anytime soon. Nick left yesterday.”

“Left?” Alex caught her breath.

“Left England to join his regiment. Surely he told you, Alex?”

He gave me his word. “On my sacred honor, Alexandra, I have no such intent,” he said when I asked if he had joined the army. You bastard, Nick Hatton, you deliberately lied to me!
“No, actually he didn’t say a word. He told me he would see me here at Burlington House tonight.” Her head began to pound painfully.

“He deliberately lied to you? What a scurvy thing to do! Nick was in such a hurry; it was almost as if he was running away from something. Couldn’t talk him out of it, though I tried my utmost.”

“You look exceptionally lovely tonight, Alex. I’d like to paint you in that gown. . . . Its subtle color changes with the light and shadow whenever you move.”

He was being gallant and paying her compliments, yet she could hardly respond; all she could think of was Nicholas.
What he told me when I suggested we marry was true. He said, “I have always thought of you as my little sister, Alex. It would be impossible for me to think of you in any other way.” I didn’t believe him until this minute. What a blind, stupid little fool I’ve been. God, how I hate you, Nick Hatton!

Rupert joined them. “There you are, Kit. His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, has arrived. Oh, Alex, have you heard the astonishing news? Nick has joined the Royal Horse Artillery! How I envy him his courage.”

“Some men cannot live without vainglory!” she said dismissively. “I must get a look at the Prince Regent, I hear that he is heavy as a hippopotamus these days. Do show me where he is, Rupert.”

“I’ll see you in the card room, Rupert, and perhaps I’ll have the pleasure of seeing you later in the supper room, Alex.” As Kit watched her leave, the smile on his face was most satisfied.

When Christopher passed the library on his way to the card room, he saw Olivia Harding, hovering just inside the doorway, beckon to him. “Hello, Olivia. Your family came up to London early, I see.”

“Would you step inside, Kit? I have something I must tell you.”

He was warned immediately by the hushed, pleading quality he heard in her voice, a marked contrast from her usual assured tone.

Her blue eyes were wide with anxiety as he took a tentative step across the library threshold. “Kit, I’m in trouble,” she blurted.

He stiffened immediately. “What sort of trouble?”

“You know . . . oh, please, don’t make me say it.” She touched her belly. “We . . . I think I’m going to have a—”

“What the devil does that have to do with me, Olivia? Oh, I see: Nick has gone to fight the French, and this no doubt explains the reason why he ran off in such a bloody hurry!”

Olivia was aghast. “It wasn’t Nick . . . it was you, Kit!”

“You are quite mistaken, Olivia,” he said coldly. “We are often mistaken for each other.”

“I did not mistake you, though obviously I did make a terrible mistake.” The anguish in her voice was palpable. “If you won’t offer for me, Kit, whatever am I going to do?”

“Olivia,” he said stiffly, “you must know that when I take a wife it will be Alexandra Sheffield. It was Father’s last wish before his tragic accident. It is common knowledge that it was arranged when we were children.”

Olivia’s face was no longer pale but flushed with the humiliation of Christopher Hatton’s cold rejection. Her shoulders slumped, but she managed to lift her chin as she walked past him.

As Kit watched her depart, the satisfied smile on his face had been wiped away. All he felt was panic as he nervously brushed the hair back from his forehead.
Christ Almighty, Nick. You’ve only been gone a day and already the vultures are attacking their prey. First that bastard Eaton, and now Olivia-fucking-Harding! You have left me vulnerable to every scheming swine who sees easy pickings!

 

Alexandra’s flaming anger at Nick Hatton made her head pound and her mouth go bone dry. She lifted a glass of champagne from the silver tray offered her by a liveried footman and drained it. She put her hand to her head and knew the champagne had only made it feel worse. She decided what she needed was fresh air and went out onto the ballroom’s balcony. She saw a lone female figure standing in the darkness.

“Oh, Olivia, you startled me. I have such a pounding head, I had to seek a refuge.”

“I too have a terrible headache, Alexandra.” She could not keep the sound of tears from her voice. “I feel quite ill.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you going to be sick?” Alex asked, her hot anger suddenly replaced with sympathy.

“Of course not!” Olivia snapped. “Why would you think such a thing?”

Alex could hear the fear in her voice and guessed that what Olivia feared was gossip. She was hurt that Olivia thought her capable of starting rumors. “It was just a figure of speech. I feel like going home, but with the Regent here, it might be thought rude.”

“None would ever think badly of
you,
Alexandra Sheffield!”

Alex could clearly hear the resentment in her voice, and she wondered what the devil she had done to Olivia to deserve it. “Perhaps if I have something to eat, I’ll feel better. Excuse me.” Food was the last thing Alex wanted, so she left the balcony and returned to the ballroom. It wasn’t long before Hart came searching for her. She pasted a bright smile on her face and wondered how much longer she could endure the dreadful evening.

An hour later when Hart took her to the supper room, they found his two sisters and their husbands flanking His Royal Highness, Prince George. The food and drink with which they had plied him had obviously put him in a sentimental state of mind, for the moment he saw Alexandra’s red-gold curls, he became weepy over memories of his beloved Georgiana.

“He may drown in bathos,” Hart murmured to Alex.

“No such luck,” she murmured back tartly. “If he sheds any more crocodile tears, it is we who may drown.”

Christopher strolled into the supper room and approached Alex and Hart. “I had hoped you would favor
me
with your company for supper, Alexandra.” His tone was proprietary.

Alex frowned as the pain in her head increased. What the devil had suddenly made Kit so possessive? Her glance went from him to Hart, and she thought they resembled two dogs with raised hackles.

“I refuse to be a bloody bone,” she muttered,
or a bitch,
she added silently, and went to find her grandmother.

She wrapped the violet cashmere about her shoulders and turned to see Hart. He smiled at her and spoke to Dottie. “I would like your permission to give Alexandra a ride home, Lady Longford.”

“By all means, my boy. And may I say how very gallant you are to offer a ride home to a young lady with her grandmother in tow.”

In spite of the pain in her temples, Alex couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that rose to her lips. When the carriage with the ducal Devonshire crest arrived in Berkeley Square, Hart dutifully escorted both ladies to the door and bade them a warm but circumspect good night.

Dottie and Alex ascended the stairs together. “Men are all alike, darling; they just have different faces so we can tell them apart,” Dottie said, laughing.

Alex reflected miserably that that wasn’t quite true. The Hatton twins were not at all alike yet had the same face, and it was almost impossible to tell them apart!

Nicholas Hatton watched the Port of Plymouth and then the coastline of England disappear from the horizon. Though he deeply regretted the things he was leaving behind that would never be his—Hatton Grange and Alexandra Sheffield—he was determined to face facts and let them go. With deliberate steps, he moved forward to the bow of the frigate, symbolically turning his back upon the past and welcoming the future, no matter what it held.

The ship was crowded with infantry soldiers who were going to various regiments to augment the troops fighting the French. He had safely stowed Slate belowdecks with the other horses that were replacements for those killed in battle. While waiting for supplies to be loaded, Nick had made the acquaintance of at least a dozen soldiers who had been posted to his regiment, the Royal Horse Artillery, as well as a sergeant, Tim O’Neil, who had served in India. O’Neil, originally from Cork, still spoke with an Irish brogue.

It took only three days to reach Bilboa because the Bay of Biscay, always unpredictable, was unusually calm. Nick took Slate from the hold, and when O’Neil helped him load his baggage on the packhorse, he realized that everything he owned in the world stood there before him on the dock. Though it was a sobering thought, he was given no more time for reflection. The recruits were gathered together and a Field Captain informed them that Wellington’s army was fighting and winning the battles of the Pyrenees against overwhelming odds. “In the last fortnight we have inflicted thirteen thousand casualties on Marshal Soult’s army and taken seventeen hundred prisoners.” A great cheer went up from the men standing on the dock. “However, when we took San Sebastian, we suffered two thousand casualties.”

The raw recruits suddenly sobered. “The troops behaved badly; drunkenness gave way to pillage, arson, and rape when the town fell. Several officers, who tried in vain to restore order, were murdered by their own men. Inevitably there is anti-British sentiment here, and the Spanish are blaming the generals, even Lord Wellington himself. Be warned now that such behavior will no longer be tolerated.” A blanket of silence descended.

“The Commander-in-Chief’s headquarters are in Lesaca; soldiers in the Life Guards will proceed there immediately. The recruits in General Thomas Graham’s divisions will proceed to San Sebastian, on the coast fifty miles east of here. Those men in General Rowland Hill’s artillery division have orders to proceed south of Lesaca to Pamplona. Hill has had the town under siege for the whole of August. Wellington refuses to sacrifice men in a direct assault on Pamplona because the fortress there is impregnable. But fighting is going on in the surrounding towns.”

Lieutenant Nicholas Hatton was given a map, as were the handful of other new officers, then each man who had disembarked was left to his own devices.

Nick Hatton, with the help of Sergeant O’Neil, immediately rounded up the new recruits assigned to the Royal Horse Artillery. He then organized the two dozen men into a troop, secured wagons and supplies, and set out for Pamplona, which Nick estimated would be a journey of eighty miles over hilly terrain.

Lieutenant Hatton decided to make camp early the first night. He assigned jobs to the men, and those not involved in making campfires, cooking food, or tending the horses were given a lesson in the use of their firearms and bayonets. Some of the younger men had never fired a gun in their lives, and Nick decided that they would hunt for food rather than wasting ammunition on fixed targets. Before dark descended they had bagged a small number of rabbits and game birds. By the time they were ready to move on at dawn, Lieutenant Hatton knew every man’s name and the basics of his background.

At dusk, two days later, near Ostiz, a handful of French Dragoons lay in wait for them. Lieutenant Hatton gave his first rapid-fire order. “Take cover!” He decided the enemy stragglers were looking for supplies, and when he saw that his men were reasonably safe behind the wagons, he crept along the line and asked for volunteers. Only three spoke up, but Nick was willing to bet that others would follow if he and O’Neil charged the dragoons without hesitation. They killed only four but the others fled, and it was a complete rout—with only one of Nick’s soldiers, young Jake Smith, catching a ball in his left arm.

They made camp immediately, and Nick had the pleasant duty of removing the ball with his knife. He washed and dressed the wound, then tore up one of his linen shirts to make the youth a sling. He took the first watch, till midnight, then bade O’Neil awaken him at four so he could also take the last watch before dawn. Already the men trusted and respected him as a leader who put their welfare before his own.