When dawn broke Helene made love to Rhys again. This time was unlike any before and she knew it was because her emotions were high and raw. He was caught in the same mood and kissed her roughly. She returned his kiss in kind, her body instantly aroused and yearning for him. When he turned her on her back and entered her, it was with one hard thrust. Her fingernails raked his back as he moved, pushing deeper and harder than before. Still, the pain was in her heart; her body was glorying in his drive to their ultimate ecstasy. When her pleasure exploded inside her, she felt a momentary exhilaration, as if she’d proved once and for all that they belonged together. After he cried out in his own release and collapsed on top of her, she realised it was all illusion. Their bodies separated and he lifted himself off her.
She stared at him, her body trembling and he met her eye as he held himself away from her, giving them both room to breathe. Neither of them spoke but Helene sensed this was the last time she would see into his eyes, and he, hers.
He slowly moved to her side, and, as a clock struck the hour to mark the time, she could mark this as the first moment of separation.
‘I need to dress,’ she said.
They might as well proceed with the day. Perhaps doing the ordinary things would make the day tolerable.
She climbed off the bed and walked naked to the pitcher and basin on the chest of drawers. She poured water into the basin and began to wash herself. When she washed away evidence of their lovemaking, the cloth came back red. At first she thought it was because they’d been rough, then her heart sank. All it meant was there would be no baby growing inside her, no precious consolation for parting from Rhys.
She glanced over at Rhys, but he was seated on the bed, his back turned to her. Should she tell him?
No. She could not see inflicting such pain if he’d grieve this loss as she did. If he met the news with relief, Helene did not think she could bear it. She took care of herself and put on her shift and positioned her corset.
She turned to him. ‘Would you help me with my corset?’
‘Of course.’ He rose from the bed, gloriously naked.
She could not help but watch him, so muscular, so masculine as he moved towards her. When he came close, she turned her back so he could tie her laces. His warmth, his scent and the gentleness of his fingers made her body come alive again. She closed her eyes to help her remember this feeling; she would never feel it again. After he tied the laces, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, his chin resting on her shoulder. How could she endure this? It hurt so much!
Rhys had to help her again when she needed her dress laced. While Rhys washed and shaved, she sat at the dressing table and arranged her hair. On other mornings he might have brushed her hair for her, a pleasure second only to lovemaking.
She was dressed before him. ‘I’ll see if Louise needs help with breakfast.’
She left the room. As she descended the stairs, she pictured her heart as that mended vase so carefully glued back together. One piece broke off again. Helene suspected the day would crack off the other pieces until nothing was left but jagged shards.
The carriage arrived at quarter past ten. David’s new valet, Marston, came at the same time and Rhys introduced the man to everyone. Marston jumped right in to assist David, doing so with much deference and solicitude, as if David were not half his age and a world less experienced. He freed Helene to bid farewell to the people who had meant so much to her during these dramatic weeks.
Mrs Jacobs had come to see her off. After deluging Marston with detailed instructions for David’s care, Mrs Jacobs burst into tears and embraced Helene.
‘I will never see you again!’ Mrs Jacobs wailed. ‘I will never see my mademoiselle and her Captain!’
Helene feared that was true. She tried to blink away her own tears. She’d become very fond of Mrs Jacobs. ‘Thank you, Mrs Jacobs. Thank you for everything you have done for me and Wilson and David. I will miss you terribly.’ The nurse held her tight and was reluctant to let go.
Next goodbyes were with Louise and Wilson. She embraced Louise but could not speak through her tears which now fell in earnest.
‘Write to us,’ Louise managed to say, wiping her eyes.
Helene nodded. She turned to Wilson. Wilson, who had been a constant presence her whole life, someone she always could depend upon, someone incredibly dear to her.
She hugged him like she used to when she was a small girl and he comforted her for some hurt.
‘I feel I am forsaking my duty to you, m’lady,’ Wilson said, his voice rough.
‘Nonsense,’ she responded. ‘It is your time to be happy. You have waited long enough for it.’
Rhys had supervised the loading of the luggage, Helene’s portmanteau and David’s trunk. That accomplished, he stood apart from the others.
He was her last goodbye.
She walked over to him and they faced each other. His expression was impassive and she wanted to flail at him. Did he not care? How could he let them part without a promise of being together again? She tried to tell herself she’d many times weathered this fear that they would never see each other again, surely she could do so one more time.
Helene mustered all her strength to remain composed. ‘Goodbye, Rhys,’ she whispered.
‘Goodbye, Helene,’ he responded.
Before the pain of this moment totally overwhelmed her, she turned away to walk to the carriage.
She took no more than two steps when Rhys seized her arm, spun her around and captured her in a fierce embrace. She melted into him.
‘I am sorry, Helene,’ Rhys rasped. ‘I am so sorry.’
He loosened his grip on her and she reached up to touch his face. ‘I’ll never stop loving you, Rhys,’ she whispered to him before pulling away and hurrying towards the carriage.
The drivers were on the box and David and the valet were seated inside the carriage. Wilson helped her to climb in and shut the door.
As the carriage drove off, Helene turned to look out the back window. She watched Rhys standing in the road becoming smaller and smaller as the distance between them grew greater.
Until she could see him no longer.
The first hour of the trip found David restless and in a near panic.
‘The sound of the horses,’ he cried. ‘I cannot take the sound of the horses.’
Helene tried to comfort him, but her own misery made it difficult to even speak.
Marston, in an un-valet-like manner, unexpectedly made conversation with David. ‘The Captain said you got caught in the cavalry charge. Bad business, that.’
‘Yes,’ agreed David. ‘Very bad.’
‘Did you get as far as the French cannon?’ Marston asked.
David nodded.
‘Ah, the horses were blown by then.’
The valet sat on the rear-facing seat. David looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time. ‘Were you at the battle?’
‘I was,’ Marston said. ‘My officer was a cavalry man. With the Horse Guards. I was on a hill watching the whole thing.’ He leaned towards David. ‘You must be some sort of fellow to survive that charge.’
David just stared at him.
‘How did you do it?’ Marston asked.
To Helene’s knowledge, David had never spoken of the battle. He became upset if the battle was even mentioned. Helene almost reached over to silence the valet, but to her surprise, David answered him. ‘When I was knocked off my horse, I rolled away as far as I could and pretended to be dead.’
‘Quite smart of you.’ The valet’s voice was admiring. ‘But you got through the whole night, the Captain said.’
David blinked. ‘I didn’t want to remember this until Rhys—the Captain—talked to me. After the French cavalry left, I hid among the bodies. I could not walk. Night was frightening. They came and stripped off our clothes.’
‘You played dead then, too?’ Marston asked.
‘I did not know what else to do.’ David’s voice turned small.
‘You must have done right, because you made it out of there,’ Marston responded.
Helene’s astonishment must have shown on her face. The valet glanced at her and nodded, as if telling her he had her brother all figured out. He never implied any criticism of David for riding off with the cavalry. His tone was admiring or matter of fact. David was the calmest she’d seen him since Rhys rescued him.
Marston actually got David interested in how the entire battle proceeded. He must have witnessed it all. For Helene, it brought back the bleeding and dying men she’d cared for, so she stopped attending to the conversation.
But not listening to the valet only led her thoughts back to Rhys and thinking of Rhys only intensified her misery.
She tried to distract herself by looking out the window. They passed through Alost with its lovely churches and Gothic buildings, but those only reminded her of the buildings of Brussels she’d seen with Rhys.
The carriage continued for another hour or so before stopping at a coaching inn in Melle to change horses.
Marston was the first to climb out of the carriage. ‘Let me help you, m’lord,’ he said to David.
‘Thank you, Marston,’ David responded.
Helene climbed out after them.
The coachmen who had been conversing with the ostlers also climbed down. ‘We’ll be here at least half an hour, they say,’ one told them.
‘We could get some refreshment,’ the valet suggested.
‘An excellent idea,’ David piped up.
‘Shall I help you with your private needs first, m’lord?’ Marston asked him diplomatically.
‘Oh, yes.’ David turned to Helene. ‘We will meet you in the inn.’
After taking care of her own needs, Helene entered the inn and found the tavern. Marston stood and showed her where he and David were seated.
Helene sipped her tea and nibbled on a cinnamon biscuit, while Marston continued his masterful managing of the conversation with David. David was well in hand and Helene was not needed at all. It was a good thing. Helene was too overwhelmed with sadness to even think at the moment. She, only half listening, sipped her tea while the valet and her brother continued to talk.
‘The thing is,’ Marston was saying, ‘you were helpless then. You didn’t have any good choices.’
‘I didn’t!’ David agreed.
‘But now,’ the valet went on, ‘you are not helpless. In fact, who is it who can tell you what to do? You are the Earl now. You decide.’
‘I am,’ David said, as if realising it for the first time.
Helene smiled to herself. This stranger, this new servant, was able to get David to accept his role as Earl when she had repeatedly failed. Marston had pointed out the advantages. No one could tell David what to do. He would decide.
She started to raise her cup to her lips but stopped midway. Who really could tell her what to do? Not her father. Not David, certainly. Not even Rhys. She was no longer helpless. She was of age. She could decide her own fate.
No one could tell her what to do. Not any more. She could decide.
She reached across the table and put her hand on David’s arm.
He gave her an annoyed look. ‘What is it, Helene?’
This time her own excitement made it hard for her to speak. ‘I am not going with you.’ She took a breath. ‘I am not going on to Ostend with you. Or to England. Or to Yarford. I am going back to Brussels.’
‘Back to Brussels!’ David cried. ‘Why?’
‘To be with Rhys!’ Though she did not know if he would even be there when she returned. If not, she’d find a way to travel to Paris and see him there. There was a risk he would not want her, but it was her risk to take.
‘You can’t go back to Brussels!’ David whined like a little boy. ‘I need you!’
‘No, you don’t, David,’ Helene insisted. ‘Marston can help you even in ways I cannot. You don’t need me to travel home, and you don’t need me at home.’
‘Yes, I do!’ he cried.
‘Father trained you,’ she said. ‘You know what to do. But you don’t even have to do it Father’s way. You are the Earl now. You decide, like Marston said. I want to be with Rhys. I need to be with him.’
David lowered his head for a moment, then raised it again. ‘You need to?’ He glanced away as if thinking. ‘Rhys said I should think about what you need.’
‘He did?’ She was surprised Rhys had talked with David about her.
‘Rhys told me you were going to elope once.’ His brows twisted. ‘Are you going to marry him now?’
Her heart pounded. ‘I don’t know. But I need to find out.’
David gave her an exasperated look, more typical of the brother she knew. ‘Oh, very well, then. I do not agree that you should marry him. An earl’s daughter should not marry the vicar’s son, but if that is what you need to do, we’ll go to Yarford without you.’
She squeezed his hand and turned to Marston, a question in her gaze.
‘I’ve no doubt we can get to Yarford without you.’ Marston winked. ‘The Earl knows the way.’
She smiled at him and rose from her chair. ‘Would you ask the coachman to leave my portmanteau here?’
‘As you wish, m’lady.’ Marston bowed.
She gave David a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ll write to you.’
Five years ago she’d done what her father wanted her to do, what she thought would be best for Rhys. This time she’d risk doing what she wanted to do, what she thought would be best for her.
She hurried off to find the innkeeper to arrange passage back to Brussels.
Once Helene left Brussels, Rhys saw no reason to delay re-joining his regiment. He’d packed his trunk and arranged to have it shipped to his regiment in Paris. Louise and Wilson begged him to stay one more day, to not hurry off, but Rhys suspected they were eager to be alone. They’d waited twenty-five years for it, after all. Besides, seeing the devotion between the older couple merely reminded Rhys of what he’d given up.
He’d been right, had he not? The army was no place for an earl’s daughter. Her life would be nothing but hardship with him.
Rhys collected his horse from the stable and rode one last time through the streets of Brussels. A light rain started to fall. Rhys stopped briefly to put on his topcoat and to put some coins in the hand of a wounded soldier seated in a doorway. Other wounded men lay on the pavement or leaned against buildings, but in fewer numbers than even a week ago. Some might have recovered; others died. Or perhaps they merely found shelter from the rain. Had Helene tended any of these men? The enormity of their problems overwhelmed Rhys now; how much worse for Helene when, during the battle, their numbers must have seemed endless.
He approached the cathedral, which only brought more memories of Helene, so he urged his horse to go faster.
Rhys could have chosen two other routes out of Brussels, but he automatically chose the road that led to Waterloo and Quatre Bras. When he was still some distance from the battlefield, the putrid odour of death and rot reached his nostrils. Though a month after the battle, the stench lingered in the blood-soaked ground and the hastily dug mounds of buried men and horses. Several carriages waited at the side of the road by the battle site while their passengers, mostly English, toured the battlefield. Some were in groups led by a local man or an injured soldier; others walked the area alone, heads bowed to the ground, not in reverence, but in the hopes of finding a souvenir. Rhys passed by several urchins who were selling torn epaulets, bloody pieces of cloth, shards of scabbards or piles of musket balls. Visitors were eagerly buying whatever was for sale.
Rhys was glad Helene would not see this.
He closed his eyes. How long would it take for him to stop imagining the world through her eyes? As he rode the same path as he’d done the day of the battle, sadness engulfed him. He didn’t need this reminder of her or of the battle. At a fork in the road there was a sign pointing to Nivelles. He could ride to Paris through Nivelles instead of Quatre Bras and avoid the agonising memories. He should have thought of that route in the first place.
From the outskirts of Nivelles, Rhys could see a huge white stone church towering above the other redbrick buildings. He found an inn where he could rest his horse and get something to eat.
Even this far from the battlefield, there were English in the tavern, waiting for their coaches to take them to see where Wellington defeated Napoleon. Rhys sat in a booth.
The tavern maid approached him. ‘Bonjour, monsieur. May I bring you some tarte al d’jote? It is our specialty.’
What the devil was tarte al d’jote? He was too tired to care. ‘Very well. And some beer.’
He leaned against the back of the booth.
Every step of this journey so far felt laborious, as if he were straining against a tether that tried to pull him back. This was the right thing to do, was it not? To leave Helene?
He remembered five years ago, leaving Yarford, believing he’d never see her or the place he called home ever again. Then he’d been fuelled by anger and his anger made him glad to be away. This day he only felt regret.
The tavern maid brought his food. It looked as if tarte al d’jote was an egg dish.
She gestured towards his uniform coat. ‘Were you in the battle?’
He nodded, not very interested in conversation.
But she went on. ‘My cousin lives in Mont Saint Jean. She said it was pretty terrible.’
‘It was,’ he agreed.
She continued, ‘They hid most of the day. Then after, mon dieu, so many wounded. They even came here.’
‘Must have been very hard on everyone,’ he said.
‘I wish it had never happened.’ She placed his beer in front of him. ‘Don’t you?’
Did he wish the battle never happened? He greatly regretted the catastrophic loss of life, but it had been the battle that brought Helene to Brussels and back to him, not to mention vanquishing Napoleon. There had been good in all that horrific hardship.
He looked up at the maid, but she did not wait for an answer. ‘A lot of the soldiers who recuperated here said they wanted to quit the army after this. They said they didn’t care what happened; they just never wanted to endure a battle again.’
Before Rhys could respond, she left to attend to another patron.
He took a drink of his beer.
Did he want to endure another battle? No, but he never wanted to endure another battle after surviving one. It was unlikely, though, that he—or anyone—would ever again experience the likes of the Battle of Waterloo.
Still, it had brought him Helene. The good with the terrible. They had each survived their particular hell of the battle. Against all odds. What could be worse? Good God, could leaving the army be worse than enduring Waterloo?
Apparently the soldiers the maid spoke of had not thought so.
Rhys faced other challenges now, other ways that could kill him. Certainly these challenges would not be as difficult as what he’d already endured. Would they be worse than leaving the army? He’d have some money from the sale of his commission. Helene had some money. How bad would it be, really, to leave the army?
He’d be jumping into the unknown, as he’d done when he left Yarford for the army.
He finished his beer and was suddenly hungry for this egg dish set before him.
Rhys had been thinking that the crucial issue was whether he could provide a good enough life for Helene and any children they might have, but maybe that was not the proper question. Maybe the proper question was, which was the bigger risk—facing the desolation of giving up a future with Helene or taking the chance that they could be happy together, no matter what they faced?
Her words returned to him... We are repeating the same mistake...
‘Not this time, Helene,’ he whispered to himself.
Rhys finished the last of his very satisfying meal and threw some coins on the table.
The maid came over and picked up the money. ‘Anything else, sir?’
‘May I see a map?’ he asked. ‘One showing the way to Ostend?’
The map showed he’d have to ride back to Brussels to reach the road to Ostend. He’d be on the same road as Helene’s carriage, but several hours behind. He knew what inn Helene and David would stay in when reaching Ostend, though, and the packet they had passage on to England. He stood a good chance to catch up to her by then.
Make no mistake, though. He’d reach her even if he had to follow her all the way to Yarford.