Helene sat on the bed in their bedchamber and stared out the window that looked on to the alley behind the house.
She and Rhys were to say goodbye tomorrow.
From the moment she saw him in the tavern that first night in Brussels, she knew this moment would come. But after these four weeks, it had become impossible for her to imagine being apart from him. How was she to bear another goodbye?
She thought of their first night together, after the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. She’d thought then it would be their last time together. Saying goodbye to him then filled her with fear as well as grief, because he could have been killed in battle.
But she did find him again, on the eve of Waterloo. After another night in his arms, she’d had to face another wrenching goodbye. They’d not spoken of a future both those times, not with Napoleon so ready to snatch it away from them, not when her only prayer was that Rhys might live.
Helene knew what a soldier’s death looked like from the countless maimed and bleeding soldiers who took their last breaths in her arms. She closed her eyes. Any one of them might have been Rhys.
It was an incredible gift that Rhys lived when all those thousands of men perished on the battlefield and in the hospitals. Goodness! They were still dying here in Brussels, from infection or other complications of their injuries. Rhys might have been one of them. He might have been lying among the bodies where he’d found David. If Rhys had died, then David would have died, too. No one would have known to look for him. God had been doubly good to her.
Perhaps it was too much to ask for what she wanted now. To stay with Rhys. To marry him. To spend the rest of her life with him.
At that moment Rhys entered the room. Helene could not bear to look at him, so she continued to stare out the window. He sat next to her on the bed, took her hand in his and raised it to his warm lips. The loving gesture pierced her heart and she fought to remain composed.
She turned and leaned her forehead against his. ‘I’m better now. I—I simply was not prepared for the idea of leaving Brussels—leaving you—so soon.’
He lifted his head and stared directly into her eyes. ‘I also found out I am expected back with my regiment within two weeks’ time.’
There was no denying it, then. Parting was inevitable. Unless...
Rhys took both her hands in his. ‘Helene, I have been remiss. I should have talked with you about the future, about what we should do. I fear you have long expected that of me.’
She placed a quick kiss on his lips. ‘Rhys. Do you not remember? I said I would ask nothing of you but that you would live. I received my wish. You owe me nothing more.’
But she wanted so much more!
He tightened his grip. ‘I owe you more. I vowed to myself that I would not repeat the errors of the past. Five years ago, I did not seek you out to explain why I had to leave. I will not repeat that mistake.’
Helene drew back, unsure she wanted to hear what he would say.
‘Ethically I should marry you,’ he began. ‘I have compromised you, so marrying you would be the honourable thing to do—’
She cared nothing about that.
He glanced away as if a thought just occurred to him. ‘Although if you are with child, I would do the honourable thing—’
‘You should. You would.’ His words wounded her. ‘But you do not want to marry me.’
‘It is not that.’ He released her and ran a ragged hand though his hair. ‘I love you, Helene. My heart wants to marry you, even more strongly than five years ago. But I am not that foolish young man any more.’
Foolish? He’d be foolish to marry her? Is that what he thought?
‘I must use my head.’ Now he seemed to be arguing with himself. He looked at her earnestly. ‘My life, my livelihood, is with the army and my men, my superior officers, are expecting me in Paris.’
He wanted the army. Not her.
She lifted her chin. ‘You could ask me to come with you.’
‘And leave David?’ He shook his head. ‘I would not ask that of you. We both know he needs you now.’
‘Then I could join you later,’ she persisted.
‘An Englishwoman travelling alone into France? You cannot.’
He would not escape this argument so easily. ‘Perhaps Wilson and Louise would come with me.’
For a moment he seemed to be actually contemplating this possibility. But he shook his head again. ‘No. We do not know what dangers we will find in Paris. Napoleon was instantly welcomed back. The people will not so welcome the British army in their midst.’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘Not only that. I do not know where I might be sent after Paris. If the peace holds, it will become even more difficult to advance to a higher rank. I may have to take posts that are far more unpleasant than Paris.’
These seemed like excuses to Helene. ‘You know I can take unpleasantness, Rhys. I did so at Waterloo. There were many women at the battlefield—’
He stopped her. ‘Those women, if married, were married to the soldiers. They live in terrible hardship. I will not have that for you.’
She continued undaunted. ‘I know some officers take their wives with them. When the army was marching to Quatre Bras, I saw a wife riding next to her husband, an officer. She stayed by his side. Why can I not be like her?’
‘Because the places I may have to go if I am to advance in rank—the West Indies, India—pose a great risk of disease and other dangers.’ His tone remained resolute. ‘Or if we married and you did not come with me, we’d spend years apart. I cannot want that for you either.’
‘Other women manage that,’ she told him, but she did not like the idea of years of separation either.
‘Helene.’ He looked directly into her eyes. ‘I cannot support you on my captain’s pay and I cannot guarantee I will advance in rank. You do not deserve to live in straitened circumstances—’
‘I have some money from my mother.’ Not much, though, actually. Her father had not provided for her beyond that inheritance. ‘Besides, have I not shown you I am able to endure hardship?’ She swept her arm around the room. ‘Look how humbly I can live. I can even cook.’
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘You are game for anything and I have always loved you for that, but what if we have children, which is very likely? How humbly would you wish them to live? How much hardship—and disease—are you willing for them to endure?’
Helene turned her face away. She had no counterargument for that.
He pressed on. ‘If I left the army I would be as your father said—fit for nothing. I am trained as a soldier, Helene. Nothing else. I have no other options.’ He made a helpless gesture. ‘We are in no better a place than five years ago.’
That was not true. Helene felt changed from five years ago. She was ready to take chances, to leap into an unknown future. Surely they could surmount any obstacle as long as they were together.
She rose and walked to the window. The alley below looked bleak, as alleys often do.
She turned back to Rhys, squaring her shoulders and lifting her head high. ‘I will not argue with you, Rhys. I wish only to point this out.’ She paused to take a breath. ‘If the issues that kept us apart five years ago are unchanged, as you say, so will be the fact that we are repeating the same mistake. We are parting.’
He stared back at her.
She suddenly could not stand to be in the room with him one moment more. She strode to the door. ‘I need to be away from you for a while. I’ll go downstairs and tell Louise and Wilson that David and I will be leaving tomorrow.’
She had thanked God that Rhys lived after the battle, but saying goodbye to him this time, as it had done before, killed any chance at her happiness.
Rhys saw little of Helene the rest of the day. She busied herself with packing or spending time with Louise or Wilson or David. Anyone but him. This would be their last night together and she wanted nothing to do with him.
If she only understood it had torn him apart to say those things to her, but her welfare was paramount in his mind. He would not risk her suffering again, not the way she’d suffered at Waterloo.
After a glum, uncomfortable dinner, the low spirits of which Rhys had no doubt were his fault, Wilson surprised him by inviting him out for beer at a nearby tavern while Helene and Louise served David dinner and cleaned up the kitchen.
As they walked out into the cool evening air, Wilson said, ‘I am glad you accepted my invitation. It is difficult for me to know what is proper and not in my situation.’
‘Proper?’ Rhys did not follow at all.
Wilson smiled wryly. ‘Am I servant or not? Am I acting out of place?’
Rhys laughed. ‘I was never so high as to consider you my servant. You were, though, one of the few men around who would allow me to pester you.’
‘You never pestered me, lad.’ Wilson touched his shoulder.
Rhys smiled inside. Wilson called him lad, as he had done when Rhys was a boy.
When they entered the tavern they were met by the familiar smells of hops, frites and men. There were almost as many men in the place as would be expected before the battle, and as great a variety of uniforms, but the men who wore them also wore bandages or carried crutches or wore that same vacant look that was often in David’s eyes. Gone was the air of bravado that had been present before the battle. Now the atmosphere was subdued, weary, pained.
Rhys and Wilson found a table, sat and ordered tankards of beer.
When the maid placed the tankards on the table, Wilson took a sip and said to Rhys, ‘I suppose Lady Helene is not happy to be leaving you.’
Rhys recognised that as an invitation to speak, but he’d spent too many years pushing his emotions down to be able to confide in anyone. He’d not even been able to share with Helene the desolation he felt inside at parting from her.
He asked Wilson instead, ‘Tell me. Did you ever regret leaving Louise? Did you ever wish you would have stayed?’
‘Regret?’ Wilson looked pensive. He took another sip. ‘Not regret. I was sorry about it, to be sure. Grieved for the loss. Missed her, but we did the right thing. She had a good life and so did I.’
This should have made Rhys feel better about his decision, but it did not.
‘I take it you will not marry Lady Helene, then.’ Wilson persisted.
‘I cannot ask her to follow the drum,’ Rhys replied. ‘That’s a hard life and I have nothing else to offer. Very little money, as well.’
Wilson nodded. ‘Yes, lad. That was my situation, as well. Nothing to offer. No money.’
Rhys steered the conversation away from him and Helene and instead asked Wilson about other people at Yarford House and in the village. Rhys’s parents never mentioned anything to do with Helene or her family in their letters, so there was much to catch up on.
When they walked back to Louise’s house, Wilson talked about his and Louise’s plan to marry. Wilson had saved his money and had enough to make their lives easy.
‘That is what you should do, lad,’ Wilson said. ‘Save your money. When your fortunes change, come looking for her again. Might work out then, when it does not now.’
Wait twenty-five years like Wilson had? That prospect felt even worse.
Rhys loved Helene. It was shredding his insides to have to say goodbye to her, but he must stand firm. Above all else, no harm must come to her. No suffering. After the battle when she appeared in front of him covered in blood, he’d thought she’d been mortally injured. It shook him to the core. He would not risk that fear ever coming true.
Later that night Rhys helped David get ready for bed.
‘I will be so glad to be home and in my own bed,’ David said. ‘I never want to see this place again. Or any of these people.’
‘Wilson, Louise and Mrs Jacobs have been very good to you, David,’ Rhys chided him.
‘Oh, I know,’ admitted David as Rhys helped him into a clean night shirt. ‘They just remind me...’ His voice trailed off and his face contorted in pain.
‘Of the battle?’ Rhys guessed.
David shook his head. ‘Do not say the word. Do not speak of it! I hate thinking about it. It comes back. It all comes back!’
Rhys gave him a direct look. ‘I know, David. I’ve been through many a battle.’
‘Yes, but you wanted to be in the army,’ he protested. ‘You were supposed to be in battles. I was not.’
Rhys lowered his voice, as he helped David into the bed. ‘You chose to be in the battle, too, David. I saw you join the charge. Accept the fact that it was your choice to come to Brussels, to witness the battle, to join the cavalry charge. What you experienced was the consequence of your decisions.’
David’s eyes widened. ‘You saw me?’
David seemed to miss the point, but Rhys answered him. ‘I was too far away to stop you. Your friend Lennox told us he tried to stop you, but you didn’t heed him.’
David glanced away. ‘Odd. I did not remember that until now. My memory started with my horse galloping—’ His breaths came fast. ‘I wish I had never come here! I want to go home.’
Rhys put a hand on David’s shoulder. ‘Calm yourself, David. Get some sleep.’
David’s voice became more strident. ‘I hate to sleep! It all comes back when I sleep.’
Rhys firmed his grip. ‘Listen to me. You survived a battle when thousands did not. That counts for something.’
‘I was a coward!’ David cried. ‘I hid and played dead while they—while they—’
‘You were clever,’ Rhys said. ‘You did what you had to do to survive.’
David peered at him uncertainly. ‘Clever?’
Let him think on that a while. ‘Tackle your nightmares like a man. Face them. Face the decisions you made and make amends.’
‘Oh, yes.’ David’s voice turned sarcastic. ‘Quite the easy thing for you to tell me to do.’
Rhys responded soberly, ‘On the contrary. Facing the results of one’s own decisions can be very, very difficult.’ He patted David’s shoulder. ‘I’ll say goodnight. Try to sleep. The travel tomorrow will be hard going for you.’
David relaxed against the pillows.
Rhys started to leave the room.
‘Rhys?’ David called him back.
He turned.
‘Thank you for saving me.’ His voice was small. ‘And thank Grantwell, too. I do not think I ever said thank you.’
Rhys nodded approvingly. Perhaps David did have a chance to grow from a boy into a man. Rhys gave him a wave and turned to leave again.
‘Rhys?’ David called again.
‘What?’
‘Are you going to marry my sister?’
Not that question again. ‘No, David.’
‘Good!’ The boy snuggled in the pillows again. ‘Because I need her.’
Rhys’s muscles tensed. David might be hopeless, after all.
Rhys started to walk away, but he whirled around to David and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Perhaps some day, David, you will be man enough to set aside what you need in order to consider what your sister needs.’
Rhys walked out.
When Rhys finally climbed the stairs to the bedchamber he shared with Helene, she was in a nightdress and was climbing into bed. She looked up at his entrance but did not speak.
‘David is settled for the night,’ he said.
She did not answer him.
He sat on a chair and pulled off his boots and stockings. He stood again and removed his coat. The other nights they’d shared together, undressing had been something they’d done in unison, like a dance with varied, but shared, steps. This night he undressed alone—at least down to his drawers. It appeared they would not lie naked in each other’s arms this night.
It might be for the best. Each night they made love he risked getting her with child. As extraordinary an idea as that was, Rhys could not offer a son or daughter anything but hardship.
He washed, cleaned his teeth and felt as if they’d already said goodbye to each other, the distance between them seemed so vast. When he turned and finally faced her, though, she sat cross-legged on the bed, watching him.
He approached the bed, but she lay down and turned away.
This was agonising. No matter the risk, Rhys longed to hold her one more time, make love to her one more time before they must part.
He lay there, despairing, unable to even conceive of sleep, when she turned and spooned against him, her soft curves pressing into his back. He inhaled a long breath and savoured her closeness. He remained as still as possible, assuming she had moved to him in her sleep. He had no wish to wake her.
Her lips touched his bare back in a deliberate kiss. He rolled over. Moonlight from the window illuminated her lovely face. Her eyes were open.
She sat up and lifted her nightdress over her head, all the while her gaze continuing to pierce into him. Once naked, she stilled again and he basked in the sight of her. He could no more resist her than resist breathing. How could he ever let this night be their last? How could he allow her to leave him?
She eased him on his back, straddling him and joining their bodies together. They moved together, still silent, eyes still locked. His hands grasped her waist. They created a slow rhythm together, as if they’d both agreed not to hurry on this terrible final night together. Nothing compared to the exquisite pleasure of this dance with Helene. No other woman could come close.
Rhys wanted this joining between them to never stop, this connection, when bodies, minds and souls made them one. His body, though, his damned body—hers as well—betrayed him, intensifying his arousal, forcing them to move faster and faster...until...until...until the explosion of their climax made their joining complete—and very quickly separated them again.
Helene slid off him and, although he held her close, they were no longer one. They were apart again.
When Rhys’s body recovered, he tried to recapture what he’d so recently possessed and lost. He rose above her as her body welcomed him again. This coupling, though, was more carnal, two bodies in need of each other, eager to get their fill while they were still able. When completed Rhys held her again and would not let her go. He fought sleep, wanting to remember each moment of the few hours he had left with Helene, but his body betrayed him again.
He almost instantly fell asleep.