An Infamous Army Read online

Barbara gave a laugh. ‘Is anything else of consequence? I like him for that!’

  ‘You are made to be a soldier’s wife! I was put out of all patience! Oh, Bab, that message! What can he have meant by it?’

  Barbara looked at her with glinting eyes, and the lifting smile that meant danger. ‘I could take him away from that chit in a week. Less! A day!’

  ‘I daresay you might: indeed, I’ve no doubt of it. But I wish you would not talk so.’

  ‘Do not alarm yourself. I shan’t do it. If only he comes safe back he may have her—yes, and I’ll smile and be glad!’ Her face broke up; she cried out: ‘No, not that! but I won’t make mischief—I promise I won’t make mischief!’

  Twenty minutes later Worth re-entered the room to find both ladies seated on the sofa, in companionable silence. He said in his calm way: ‘Take my advice, and go to bed. There is no danger tonight, but I may be obliged to convey you to the coast tomorrow. So get what rest you can now.’

  ‘Has Charles gone?’ Judith asked.

  ‘Yes—and your Sunday dinner with him.’

  ‘Oh dear! But it does not signify. I wish it would stop raining! I do not like to think of him riding all that way in this downpour!’

  ‘He will do very well, I assure you. If you wish to be pitying anyone, pity the poor devils who are bivouacking out in the open tonight.’

  She rose. ‘I do pity them. Come, Bab! he is right; we should go to bed.’

  The words were hardly spoken when they heard a knock on the street door. Even Worth looked a little surprised, and raised his brows. The butler had not yet retired to bed; they heard him go to the door and open it; and a moment later the stairs creaked under his heavy tread. He entered the salon, but before he could announce the visitor, Lucy Devenish had rushed past him into the room.

  A wet cloak and hood enveloped her; she was pale, and evidently in great agitation. She looked wildly round the room, and then, fixing her eyes on Judith’s astonished countenance, faltered: ‘My uncle heard that Colonel Audley had been at Sir Charles Stuart’s!’

  ‘He has been there, and here, too, but I am afraid he has this moment gone,’ said Judith. ‘My dear child, surely you did not come alone, and in this shocking storm? Let me take your cloak! How imprudent this is of you!’

  ‘Oh, I know, I know! But I could not sleep without trying to get news! No one knows that I am not in my bed—it is wrong of me, but indeed, indeed I had to come!’

  Judith removed the dripping cloak from her shoulders. ‘Hush, Lucy! There is no need for this alarm. Charles is safe, and all is well, upon my honour!’

  Miss Devenish pushed the hair from her brow with one distracted hand. ‘I ran the whole way! I hoped to see him—but it is no matter!’ She made an effort to be calm, and sank down upon a chair, saying: ‘I am so glad he is safe! Did he tell you what had been happening? Was there any news? What did he say?’

  ‘Yes, indeed; he has been describing to us how our Army has been obliged to retreat to Mont St Jean. It appears there has been no very serious fighting today: nothing but some cavalry skirmishes, which he said were extremely pretty, if you please!’

  ‘Oh—! Please tell me! I—we have heard so little all day, you see,’ Lucy said, with a forced laugh.

  ‘There was nothing of any consequence, my dear. Indeed, from what he said I gathered that only some hussars and the Life Guards have been actually engaged with the enemy. Charles himself—’

  She stopped, for Lucy had sprung up, her face so ghastly and her manner so distraught that for a moment Judith almost feared that she had taken leave of her senses. ‘Charles? What is he to me?’ Lucy said hoarsely. ‘It is George—George! Was there no word? No message for me? Lady Barbara, for God’s sake tell me, or I shall go mad with this suspense!’

  ‘George?’ gasped Judith, grasping a chairback for support.

  ‘Yes, George!’ Lucy cried fiercely. ‘I can bear no more! I must know what has become of him, I tell you!’

  ‘He is perfectly safe,’ said Barbara coolly.

  Lucy gave a long sigh and dropped on to the sofa. ‘Oh, thank God, thank God!’ she sobbed. ‘What I have undergone—The torture! The suspense!’

  Across the room, Barbara’s eyes met Judith’s for a moment; then she glanced down at Lucy’s bowed head, and said: ‘Oh, confound you, must you cry because he is safe?’

  Judith stepped up to the sofa and laid her hand on Lucy’s shoulder. ‘Lucy, what is this folly?’ she asked. ‘What can Lord George be to you?’

  Lucy lifted her face from her hands. ‘He is my husband!’ she said.

  A dumbfounded silence fell. Barbara was staring at her with narrowed eyes, Judith in utter incredulity. With deliberation, the Earl polished his quizzing glass, and raised it, and gazed at Lucy in a dispassionately considering fashion.

  ‘George actually married you?’ said Barbara slowly. ‘When?’

  ‘Last year—in England!’ Lucy replied, covering her face with her hands.

  ‘Then all these months—!’ Judith ejaculated. ‘Good God, how is this possible?’

  ‘It is true. I am aware of what your feelings must be, but oh, if you knew how bitterly I have been punished, you would pity me!’

  ‘I do not know what to say! It is not for me to reproach you! But what can have prompted you to commit such an act of folly? Why this long secrecy? I am utterly at a loss!’

  ‘Ah, you are not acquainted with my grandfather!’ said Barbara. ‘The secrecy is easily explained. What, however, passes my comprehension is how the devil you persuaded George into marriage!’

  ‘He loves me!’ Lucy said, rearing up her head.

  ‘He must indeed do so. Odd! I should not have thought you the girl to catch his fancy.’

  ‘Oh, Bab, pray hush!’ besought Judith.

  ‘Nonsense! If Miss Devenish—I beg pardon!—if Lady George has become my sister the sooner she grows accustomed to the language I use the better it will be. So George was afraid to confess the whole to my grandfather, was he?’

  ‘Yes. I cannot tell you all, but you must not blame him! Mine was the fault. I allowed myself to be swept off my feet. The marriage took place in Sussex. George was in the expectation of gaining his promotion—’

  ‘Ah, I begin to understand you! My grandfather was to have given him the purchase money, eh? Instead he was obliged to spend in hushing up the Carroway affair, and was disinclined to assist George further.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘Everything went awry! That scandal—but all that is over now! Indeed, indeed, George loves me, and there can be no more such affairs!’

  ‘My poor innocent! But continue!’

  ‘He said we must wait. His circumstances were awkward: there were debts; and I was unhappily aware of my uncle’s dislike of him. I feared nothing but anger could be met with in that quarter. My uncle thinks him a spendthrift, and that, in his eyes, outweighs every consideration of birth or title. To have declared our marriage would have meant George’s ruin. But the misery of my position, the necessity of deceiving my uncle and my aunt, the wretchedness of stolen meetings with George—all these led to lowness of spirits in me, and in him the natural irritation of a man tied in such a way to one who—’ Her utterance was choked by sobs; she overcame them, and continued: ‘Misunderstandings, even quarrels, arose between us. I began to believe that he regretted a union entered into so wrongly. When my uncle and aunt decided to come to Brussels in January, I accompanied them willingly, feeling that nothing could be worse than the life I was then leading. But the separation seemed to draw us closer together! When George arrived in this country all the love which I thought had waned seemed in an instant to reanimate towards me! He would have declared our marriage then: it was I who insisted on the secret still being kept! Think me what you will! I deserve your censure, but my courage failed. Situated as I was, in the midst of this restricted society, believed by all to be a single woman, I could not face the scandal that such a declaration would have caused! I was even afraid to