He wore his usual black and his face looked bleak, as if he faced an unpleasant duty. Her heart sank. He was leaving. If the threat of her cuckolding him was not enough to keep him at her side, perhaps another weapon would work.
She smiled and reached out. ‘It is too early. Come back to bed.’
‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’ He leaned over her and kissed her almost absently. ‘I will return.’ He moved towards the door.
‘It is dark.’ Panic laced her voice, but she didn’t care. ‘Stay until morning at least.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He turned the handle.
He did sound sorry. A small victory. ‘You are going to France, aren’t you?’ she said, her voice rising, sounding shrill to her own ears. ‘It is true what they say? You have changed your allegiance?’
He didn’t look at her. Just opened the door. Finally he spoke in flat tones. ‘I will not tolerate another man in your bed, Eleanor. If you so much as look at a man, I will kill him. You do understand, don’t you?’
He shut the door behind him.
A hysterical laugh escaped her. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. As if she would ever want anyone else. How little he understood. Less than a day married and he’d left.
The tightness in her chest made it hard to breathe. If he really was a spy and he was caught, he would be shot.
A tear slipped over her lower lashes and made its way down her cheek. She swiped it away.
No, she would not believe such a thing of him. Betraying his country was dishonourable, and whatever Garrick was, he had never been that.
Wherever he was going, he had to return, because she hadn’t said goodbye.
Waiting in the drawing room for Sissy to call as usual, Eleanor pressed her hand flat to her stomach. She still could not believe it. She and Garrick has made a baby on their final night together. After all the years of assuming she would never marry, she was going to be a mother. How she longed for Garrick to share her joy.
A contentment filled her, the thought of the future a bright shining horizon. Her and Garrick and their babe.
This news would bring him home now the war was over. Napoleon was finally defeated at Waterloo. All the reports spoke of a great victory.
Nidd knocked on the door. ‘Lady Hadley,’ he announced in solemn tones, as if Sissy did not arrive at the same time every day. Bless her, she’d ignored William’s admonition to stay away and had visited almost daily these past few weeks.
‘Have the papers arrived yet, Nidd?’ Sissy asked with a jaunty smile.
Poor old Nidd could not resist her. ‘I’ll bring them directly, my lady.’ He scuttled away.
‘Len, don’t think of getting up,’ Sissy said, leaning over her. ‘You need to be careful in your condition.’
‘I’m not an invalid,’ Eleanor said, kissing the soft cheek presented at her level.
A moment later, Nidd returned with a freshly ironed newspaper. ‘The Times, my lady,’ Nidd said, offering it to Eleanor.
Sissy whisked it out of his hand. ‘Thank you.’
‘Will that be all, my lady?’ Nidd asked.
‘Tea, please, Nidd. And cake. And perhaps some of those cucumber sandwiches Cook makes.’ The butler disappeared.
‘Good Lord, Len, it is barely ten o’clock. You can’t have finished breakfast more than an hour ago.’
‘I feel nauseous if I don’t eat,’ Eleanor said.
‘Oh, poor you. It must be simply dreadful.’
Eleanor smiled at her sister. ‘No. It is wonderful.’
With much rattling and cursing, Sissy opened the paper. Everyone in London was doing it. Looking at the endless lists of the fallen. There was not a family among the ton who had not lost a brother, a son or a close friend.
Dark head bent over the paper, Sissy ran her finger down the columns of names. Her finger stopped its downward course a few lines down. She looked away, blinking, as if trying to clear her sight.
Eleanor snatched the sheet from her hand.
‘Captain Lord Castlefield,’ she read slowly. ‘Missing.’
Sissy flung herself at Eleanor’s chest, hugged her tight. ‘Missing. It says missing, not dead.’
Eleanor took a deep breath, tried to keep the shake from her voice. ‘He might well be wounded and not yet recognised.’ Surely she would know if her twin was dead? A breath seemed to catch on a lump in her throat. So many of those listed as missing at the beginning of the week had more recently been reported among the dead. And what about Garrick? There had been no word. No information about those killed or wounded on the French side.
‘I will write to Captain Smith,’ Cecilia said, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘He will search the hospitals.’ She ran to the writing table.
Dan Smith, now a captain, had sent word immediately after the battle by way of a friend ordered to London with dispatches.
‘Good idea,’ Eleanor said, though why Captain Smith, so vilified by her brother, would feel obligated to seek him out wasn’t clear. And what if he found him dead? She gulped a painful breath. ‘Cecilia, we must prepare for the worst.’
Sissy looked up from sharpening her pen. ‘No. William is all right. He has to be. And your Marquess, too.’
Eleanor swallowed what felt like a handful of pins. ‘I am sure you are right.’
If that was so, why hadn’t she heard? She held her hands to her waist for a second. Would his child ever see its father?
A week later, Sissy dashed into her drawing room, laughing and crying at once and waving a letter. ‘He’s safe! Oh, Len, William is safe. I received a letter from him this morning. He was unconscious for a while, but is recovered now. Captain Smith found him in a field hospital with other men from his regiment. They were at Hougoumont. Here, see for yourself.’ She pressed the crumpled paper into Eleanor’s hand.
Relief washed through her in a torrent. As Eleanor read William’s letter, tears stole down her face, for his last lines touched her deeply.
Tell Len I send my love. I have had a great deal of time to think, lying here in hospital, with so many other good and brave fellows dying around me. I could not have borne it if I had left this world without a chance to beg her forgiveness. I have enclosed a letter for her eyes only.
‘See,’ Cecilia said triumphantly, ‘I knew he could not be angry at you forever.’ Four years had felt like a lifetime. ‘Did you see where he mentioned Captain Smith? Not a word of censure. In fact, he says he’s a good sort of chap and very brave. Oh, Len, everything is going to be all right.’
William sounded like a changed man. Eleanor smiled at her sister through her tears. ‘I do hope so,’ she whispered. ‘Sissy, is there another letter for me?’
‘Oh, yes, I’m so sorry, I almost forgot.’ She pulled out a fold of paper from her reticule. While Sissy once more pored over the part of William’s letter that spoke of Captain Smith, Eleanor went to the window where the light was better. Fingers trembling, she broke the seal. Her heart felt too large for her chest. William had forgiven her.
My Dearest Len,
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I feel it is my duty. One of the men who died here yesterday told me he saw Beauworth just before the battle started. He had been captured by a company of Dutch. He was being held at their headquarters. No doubt, by now he has been executed.
A