Her heart broke for him. She swore she could feel it break.
“Rian?” Fanny said at last, as the grass was wet, and her rump was getting cold. That was the difference between them—he felt his own torment, while she, more pragmatic, mostly felt the damp. “I said I was wrong. I said I’d be willing to go to Brussels.”
Rian swore sharply and leapt to his feet. “Well, Fanny, isn’t that above all things marvelous? You’ll go to Brussels. You’ll do us all this great favor—after making a bloody mess and having the family out of their minds, worrying about you. Hell, they’ll probably all be here by morning, looking for you. Why, we’ll have us a party, won’t we? Jesus!”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. They won’t do that. Will they? Come here? Not Papa, surely. He never goes anywhere.”
Rian beat his fists against his chest, reminding Fanny of her mother rhythmically beating her fist against her chest just before the sky fell in on them all. “This is my time, Fanny! My turn, damn you. I’m not some infant who needs caring for, and I damn well don’t want to be caring about you. Not now. This is war, Fanny—not some bloody adventure.”
“You always said it was an adventure,” Fanny said, then quickly bit her lip. She should keep her mouth shut, Sergeant-Major Hart had warned her. Take all he throws at you and don’t argue with him. “I…I’m sorry. Go on.”
“Go on?” Rian looked around the small clearing, the same clearing he had stood in only days earlier with the Earl of Brede as that man offered him a place on Wellington’s staff. Well, Fanny had put paid to that, hadn’t she? “Damn you, Fanny! We’re not children anymore. We’re not on the island. We’re not even at Becket Hall, chasing across the Marsh together. And hear this, Fanny—you’re my sister. You’re my bloody sister!”
“No, I’m not,” Fanny whispered. “I was never your sister, and you were never my brother. You were my friend. And…and I love you.”
Rian turned his back on her, his chest stabbed by a very real, physical pain. “Sweet Jesus,” he said, looking up at the trees, seeing the sun almost straight above his head through the leaves. He’d seen this coming, for years, Fanny’s infatuation with him. He wasn’t an idiot. Or maybe he was, but was this the time for that most important conversation? No, damn it all, it wasn’t. Not with Brede showing up at any moment.
He turned back to her, held out his hand to pull her to her feet. “There’s no time for this now, Fanny. The Sergeant-Major said he’d make arrangements for you to ride to Brussels with the other women tomorrow or the next day—three at the most. Did you bring a gown with you in that pack you’re carrying? You’re not staying in uniform. I won’t allow it.”
Predictably, Fanny’s despair flashed into anger. They’d often fought, growing up together. Fought together, as well as laughed together, cried together. “You won’t allow it? And who are you, Rian Becket? You said you’re my brother, you’re not Papa. You can’t tell me what to do. I won’t allow it!”
Rian felt his own anger drain out of him, to make more room for the fear—fear for Fanny that she didn’t seem to understand. “You do have a gown. You wouldn’t be so angry, if you didn’t have a gown rolled up in here,” he said, grabbing the pack before she could move toward it. He unbuttoned it and dumped the contents onto the grass. “And there it is. I don’t suppose you thought to bring a brush—and some soap.” He picked up the gown, tossed it at her. “Go back into the trees and put this on.”
“No.”
“Fanny…”
She held the rolled-up sprigged muslin against her chest and glared at him through slitted eyelids. “I hate you.”
“Oh, dear me. Have I somehow stumbled over a lovers’ quarrel? A thousand pardons, Lieutenant Becket, I’m sure.”
Rian swore under his breath. Brede. You’d think the man had rags wrapped round his boots, muffling his steps, he moved so quietly.
Fanny whirled about to see a man standing behind her, negligently leaning against a tree trunk. He was dressed all in dark gray, a long white scarf carelessly looped around his throat, his mussed, sun-lightened tawny hair falling from a ragged center part to the middle of his cheeks. His brows were low over amused hazel eyes and he had a straight, faintly wide nose; a slight growth of beard smudged those cheeks. The unlit cheroot trapped in the corner of his wide, full-lipped mouth made him seem rakish. Dangerous.
And he was looking at her in a way that made her wish herself back at Becket Hall. In her bed, under the covers. Behind a locked door.
“Lieutenant?” he said, pushing himself away from the tree trunk, and he advanced on them both with a slow, almost insolent grace. “You’ll not be introducing me to the…lady?”
Fanny smacked her palms against the sides of her head in frustration. “Have I fooled no one? I cut my hair. I’m wearing a uniform. I’m filthy.”
The man removed the cheroot from his mouth and leaned close to her ear. “And you most unfortunately smell very like a horse. There’s also that, my dear. Becket? An explanation, if you please. Quickly. I’ll be in Brussels by nightfall, with or without you. We are at war, if you’ll recall the matter? There’s no time for private skirmishes.”
Fanny looked to Rian to see the telltale flush of anger in his cheeks. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew she’d ruined something for him, and it was up to her to make it right again.
She held out her hand in her forthright way. “My name is Fanny Becket. I’m afraid, sir, that I’m at fault here, entirely. I gave in to impulse and donned this…masquerade, in order to follow my brother. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll—”
“Your sister, Becket?” Brede said, ignoring her hand. “And I imagine Jack has an affection for her, as well? Christ. He should have just let them shoot me. It would have been a mercy compared to this. I was not fashioned to run herd on an unruly nursery. Becket?”
“Sir! Arrangements have been made for her, my lord. I’m free to go whenever you wish.”
Free to go, was it? Oh, Rian would pay for this! But she understood his eagerness. Then Fanny frowned as she looked at the strange man once more. My lord? My lord what? My lord Ratcatcher? And yet there were those eyes, and that cultured voice. And, again, those eyes…
“You’d leave your sister, Becket? Perhaps you’re not the man Wellington needs.”
“No! No!” Fanny raced into speech at the sound of the name. Wellington? Rian all but worshipped the Iron Duke. She went to her knees, hastily stuffing her belongings back into the pack. “Truly, my lord, this is all my fault, and Rian has already made arrangements for me. I’ll be quite safe. Please take him with you.”
Rian bent down, put his hands on her shoulders, gently pulling her to her feet even as she was hastily pushing a decidedly feminine undergarment back into the pack. “No, Fanny. Beckets don’t grovel, not even to the Earl of Brede. You’re my responsibility. My lord, I thank you for your intervention on my behalf, the trouble you’ve gone to, but I’ll be staying here until I know my sister is safely on her way to Brussels with the other women in less than three days time.”
Brede stuck the cheroot back into the corner of his mouth and clapped his hands together in mocking applause. “Bravo, Lieutenant Becket. A belated self-sacrifice, but not unappreciated by your sister, I’m sure. Miss Becket, the uniform will suffice for now, but not for long. The two of you—be ready to leave here in twenty minutes, not a moment more.”
“But, sir—”
“Becket, don’t make me regret this bit of charity even more than I do now, which is considerably, by the way. We go to Brussels, where your sister will be placed in the house I’ve taken there—locked inside a room there if she protests—and you and I will continue