The Wallflowers To Wives Collection

‘All the more reason for me to go.’ His brother’s jaw was set and Jonathon recognised intractability when he saw it. ‘There are officers waiting for what’s in that bag.’

‘Headquarters didn’t know the road would be blocked when they sent us out. Those officers are capable of making their own decisions.’ Another cannon fired and Jonathon struggled with his horse. ‘We will not make it through, Thomas, don’t you understand? We have to retreat.’ He was angry now. He was not risking the lives of his men for a dispatch bag. But this was classic Thomas, the stubborn hero, and Jonathon worried that war was still very much a game to his younger brother.

Thomas wheeled his horse around, a big, strong bay gelding, and peered down the road. ‘A single man could do it. A good rider could make it through. Of the two of us, I’m the better rider.’ That was debatable, depending on one’s definition of ‘good’, Jonathon thought. If one defined it as reckless, then Thomas had the right of it.

‘Let me go, Jonathon.’ Steely grey eyes met his, reminding him that while his brother was younger than he by two years, his brother was no longer a child. ‘Dithering with me any longer puts the lot of you at risk and it diminishes my chances.’

‘We can’t wait here.’ Jonathon prevaricated one last time. The ride might take only an hour, but an hour was an eternity in battle.

‘I know.’

‘You know the meeting point? We’ll stay there as long as we can.’ He reached over and gripped his brother’s arm. ‘No heroics. You come straight back and meet us there.’

Thomas laughed. ‘I’ll probably beat you there, slowcoach.’ He wheeled his horse around one last time in a brave circle and was gone.

‘Thomas, no!’

Jonathon woke up in a sweat, heart pounding. Even in his own dream, he couldn’t change the outcome, couldn’t stop Thomas from riding off into the unknown.

Thomas hadn’t met them at the checkpoint even though Jonathon had held it far longer than anyone required. It had been bloody work, too. How would Thomas find them if they left that last point of contact? Even when they were forced to move out, he hadn’t been ready to give up. There were so many reasons Thomas was late. The most harmless reasons were delays—the roads were full of fighting, he couldn’t get through, someone else had needed a rider and Thomas had volunteered. Or perhaps the big bay had thrown a shoe, or taken lame on the road and couldn’t ride. Thomas loved that horse. He’d never leave him behind.

But there were darker explanations, too. The longer Thomas was gone, the more seriously Jonathon had to contemplate them: the big bay had been shot down, Thomas thrown, as absurd as that seemed. It was impossible to throw Thomas. Knowing how improbable that was only made the other scenarios worse: Thomas shot from the saddle, wounded in a ditch without help. Thomas dead.

Jonathon got out of bed and poured himself a brandy. He poked up the fire in the grate, any activity to keep the black thoughts at bay. His body was starting to recover from the dream; his pulse slowing, but his mind was still racing. To this day he couldn’t bring himself to believe Thomas was dead.

He took a seat in the chair closest to the fire. There was no point in going back to bed. He wouldn’t sleep now for a while. Even if he did, he’d only dream again. He knew this routine well. The farewell dream was always accompanied by the searching dream—the one where he wandered the battlefield looking for Thomas. He’d done it, too, in real life. The dream was no fantasy.

He’d combed the fields afterwards, looking at body after body, hoping each one he turned over wouldn’t be Thomas. He hauled wounded men to the surgeries, asking them if they’d seen a tall brown-haired man who looked like him. When those efforts had failed, he turned his attentions further out to the woods and roads near the fighting, to places where a rider on a long-distance mission might have met with trouble. There was carnage there, too, in the ditches and in the trees, but none of it was Thomas.

There was danger in those places still and that danger gave him hope. Perhaps Thomas had been captured and was being held for ransom. He took his searches further and into more treacherous places. He’d been warned not to stray from English protection for fear of French renegades or deserters. He’d been warned to wait. But he had no patience for waiting when his brother might be out there hurt and minutes, let alone a day, could make a difference.

He should have listened to cooler heads. If his first mistake had been letting Thomas go, this was his second. A single man absorbed in a task made an easy target and that was what he became. Jonathon took a long swallow of his brandy, remembering. He’d gone back to the road where he’d last seen Thomas and walked every inch of it again and been shot for his troubles—a nasty wound in the shoulder courtesy of a bullet with enough rust on it to give him an infection and a fever that got him shipped home in the midst of his delirium.

He remembered nothing of the trip home or even that the trip was being made. His men told him he raved two days straight in fluent French. It was the last time he’d been able to speak French with the same acumen with which he wrote it—yet another secret he kept. It was too embarrassing to admit to.

He’d woken up, lucid and aware, back home in England, and he’d been furious. How dare someone send him home, send him away from Thomas? How dare he be safe when Thomas wasn’t? But he knew the answer. He was the heir. Perhaps Thomas had known the answer, too, when he’d yanked that dispatch bag out of his hands on the road. His parents would survive losing Thomas, but not him.

Jonathon pushed a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. Seven years gone and he wasn’t sure he would survive losing Thomas. He couldn’t even accept Thomas was lost to begin with, a thought he only voiced to Owen and to Preston these days.

He finished his drink, thought about pouring another and decided against it. Brandy this late would only make the morning worse. It was going to be hard enough as it was. He checked the mantel clock, squinting in the half-light. On top of a sleepless night, in just six hours, he’d have to find a way to casually speak French with a woman who’d run from a ball after he’d kissed her. Having no past experience with such a thing, he had no plan for how he’d deal with that.

He toyed with the idea of skipping the lesson off and on for the next three hours until he dozed in his chair. It would be easy to send a note with his excuse, but it would also be cowardly and Claire would know it. He didn’t want her thinking it was because he regretted the kiss. No woman wanted to think a man would rather not have kissed them.

* * *

When he woke shortly before nine o’clock with a crick in his neck and sore muscles, he knew there was no getting around it. He’d go and face the awkward consequences. Besides, he’d eventually have to go back. For whatever reason, whether it was the unique teaching methods, he was making progress. He could hear his fluency and pronunciation growing stronger each day. He couldn’t quit now that he was finding success after all these years.

Fate had other ideas. Jonathon had just made his decision and rung for his valet when the urgent note arrived from Owen Danvers, giving him his reprieve.

Chapter Ten (#ulink_efcd80a7-e9f4-5875-a5dd-01c09c62ad68)

Owen Danvers stood before his long windows, hands clasped behind his back in classic military stance. Jonathon recognised the posture, a sure sign there was trouble or, if not trouble, at the very least, a situation. ‘I trust I didn’t disrupt your morning?’ Owen enquired without turning from the window.

‘No, I was already up,’ Jonathon answered just as tersely. He didn’t need small talk any more than Owen needed to give it. ‘If something’s happened, just get to it. You needn’t dress it up for me,’ Jonathon encouraged.

Owen finally turned to face him. ‘How are your French lessons progressing? Is your fluency coming back?’ His face was haggard as if he, too, had been up all night plagued with worries. There was desperation in Owen’s face, too, as if he could will the right answer from him.

‘Yes, I believe it is.’ Jonathon fought his own nerves. Was this about Vienna? Had the post already been decided?

‘Good.’ Some of the desperation seemed to ebb from Owen’s pale features. ‘Will you tell me who the instructor is? I would like to congratulate them.’

‘No.’ Jonathon moved his attention to a paperweight on the desk. ‘My instructor would prefer to remain anonymous.’ He hadn’t told anyone he was seeing Claire Welton for lessons. At first, he’d done it to protect his pride. He’d been too embarrassed. But now, he wanted to protect her. Perhaps she wouldn’t like it to be known. Claire might have certain qualms about drawing attention to herself, especially if there was a suitor to impress.

Owen nodded and took the chair next to Jonathon, his expression serious as he dropped his voice. ‘There’s been news.’

Jonathon’s body went rigid. ‘News’, when said that way, could only mean one thing. ‘Thomas?’ It was almost too much to hope for.

‘Perhaps. I’ve prevaricated about saying anything too soon. But if it was me, if it was my brother, I’d want word, any sort of word as soon as possible. But I can’t take this to your father, not yet.’

‘Thank you.’ Jonathon understood. Nothing was confirmed. Whatever Owen was about to share was unverified. It wasn’t proof, he reminded himself. It would destroy his father to get his hopes up and it was likely of a confidential nature. Owen was sharing this out of respect for their longstanding friendship.

‘There’s word that a man meeting Thomas’s description has been located in a farming village near the River Leie.’

Also called the River Lys in French. Leie was the Dutch name. The river formed part of the north-eastern border between the two countries. Jonathon knew it and hope surged. Waterloo wasn’t far from the location. It was probable that if Thomas had been lost and wounded he could have ended up there either under his own power looking for shelter, or taken there to recover by a farmer in a cart.

‘Is that all we know?’ Jonathon tried to keep his voice calm, after all, it was hardly enough to go on. ‘What do you mean by description?’ Thomas looked like him, but that wasn’t saying much. Thomas shared general features with a lot of people: brown hair, grey eyes instead of brown, tall with broad shoulders. His height might stand out to some. He and Thomas were usually the taller men in any given room, just a little over six foot. But surely there were tallish men everywhere. It wasn’t necessarily extraordinary to be a taller man.

‘An Englishman,’ Owen said quietly. ‘The man in the report has your brother’s features and he’s English, or should I say he’s not native, neither French nor Dutch. That’s the part that isn’t quite verified. All anyone knows is that he showed up in the village seven years ago. The timing is right.’

Jonathon rose. ‘I want to go and see him. I can leave this afternoon.’ He would travel to the ends of the earth if there was the slightest of chances. Maybe his French would hold. Maybe Claire had taught him enough to break through his barriers so he could communicate. Maybe.

Owen put a hand on his arm. ‘The informant is coming here. He wants to arrange a meeting. There should be word within the next week.’ It would be the longest week of his life and it might be for naught. There’d been sightings before, some quickly smashed, others lingered with potent hope.

‘Jonathon, it’s been a long time,’ Owen began cautiously. ‘Perhaps I was wrong to tell you. So much time has passed.’

He didn’t have to say more. So much time. Either Thomas was dead, had always been dead, or he hadn’t come home. ‘Why wouldn’t he come back if he could?’ Jonathon voiced the question. Why would his brother stay away for years with no word when he knew how worried they’d all be, how devastated they’d all be?

‘We all wear masks, Jonathon. I do, you do. You put on that handsome smile of yours and no one guesses there might even be an ounce of darkness in you. Why should Thomas be any different?’

‘I just can’t imagine what reasons he’d have,’ Jonathon admitted. Thomas had everything: a family, money, social status. He was well liked.

Owen rose, signalling the conversation was over. ‘We’re getting ahead of ourselves. It might not be him.’ In fact, it was unlikely that it was after seven years. What it could be was dangerous. This could be a trap, an attempt at extortion that played on a family’s desperate hopes. It wouldn’t be the first time. There’d been earlier attempts right after the war to claim money in exchange for ‘information’ about Thomas. Those attempts had devastated his parents.

‘The best thing you can do is go brush up on your French.’ Because Vienna loomed, because if there was a chance this fellow was Thomas, Jonathon would have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

Jonathon stood, too. He knew what he needed to do. He needed to find Claire and step up the lessons. He needed to forget about kisses in the Rosedale garden, or lowered bodices, or sherry eyes that sparkled when she looked at him, or the feel of her dancing in his arms. He needed to concentrate all of his attention on the lessons as if his life depended on it, because it did—his and quite possibly Thomas’s.

* * *