The Wedding Wager

“Admit it, Sergeant. You haven’t the nerve to try.”

“I never heard such confounded rot.”

“It isn’t rot.”

“’Tis.”

“Then you’re up to the challenge?”

“Bloody right.” The words were out of his mouth before Morse realized what he’d said. He saw a flicker of triumph in his opponent’s striking eyes. “I mean, no. I can’t. I could, but I won’t.”

“Now, now, Archer,” interjected Sir Hugo. “Don’t tell me a Rifleman would go back on his word. You accepted. Heard it with my own two ears. I mean to hold you to it.”

Part of Morse longed to call back the acceptance he’d flung at Leonora Freemantle during their childish tit for tat. The greater part surrendered to a wave of relief that she had galled him into doing what he’d wanted to do all along.

“Since you’ve left me no choice, how soon can we start?”

Sir Hugo appeared to rouse himself from his amazement at Morse’s abrupt turnabout. “If the sawbones at Bramleigh will pronounce you fit enough, we can load your gear and be back to Laurelwood in time for tea.”

Morse stared at Leonora Freemantle with a gaze that held its own challenge. “That suits me.”

His stomach growled just then, though the others politely ignored the sound. The notion of tea at Laurelwood set his mouth watering, and his stiff muscles yearned for the luxurious embrace of a feather bed. After a hard decade of soldiering, surely this Rifleman deserved a soft billet. Then he noticed Leonora Freemantle eyeing him with the speculative gaze of a drill sergeant sizing up a raw recruit. A shiver of apprehension ran through him.

Or was it excitement?

Chapter Three

A soft billet?

For the hundredth time in the past fortnight, Morse gave an ironic groan at the thought of that rose-colored dream. Rolling onto his stomach, he clamped the feather bolster over his head almost tight enough to suffocate him. It still wasn’t enough to drown out the persistent tapping on his door.

“G’way, Dickon!” he hollered at the young footman. “Give me a few more minutes’ sleep.”

His plea was futile, and Morse knew it.

The tapping stopped, but that only meant Dickon had let himself in. As he’d been ordered to by that she-devil. Morse clamped his fingers onto the thick linen of the pillowcase.

It was no use.

Dickon, who must have weighed twenty stone, had fingers the size of country sausages. He removed the pillow from Morse’s head with a restrained but irresistible force.

“Time to get up, sir,” he rumbled in an apologetic tone. “Don’t make me douse ye with the cold water, like yisterday.”

With a growl of resignation Morse struggled out of bed and let the footman help ready him for the day. It was a ritual he detested. More than ever, at this frigid hour long before dawn. However, Leonora Freemantle insisted he become accustomed to dealing with servants. Morse had discovered that, in all matters pertaining to him, Miss Free-mantle’s word was law.

Law be damned—it was tyranny!

“Dunno why you take on so, sir.” Steaming water splashed into the washbasin from the kettle Dickon had brought with him. “When you was a Rifleman, didn’t you have to be up at dawn?”

“Well…yes.” Morse muttered the grudging admission as he took a chair and let Dickon lather him up for his morning shave.

An hour before dawn to be precise. Sir John Moore—God rest his soul—had drilled that habit into his Riflemen. Daybreak was often a time the enemy chose to attack, hoping to gain the advantage of surprise.

“But that’s not the point.”

As the big footman shaved him, employing an unexpectedly deft touch with the razor, Morse mulled over his grievances against Leonora Freemantle.

Contrary to what he’d expected, meals at Laurelwood were tortured affairs involving the proper deployment of a bewildering array of cutlery and crystal. If he made so much as one hapless mistake in the choice of his fork, Miss Freemantle was not above depriving him of whatever dish he was about to eat. Worse yet were the endless hours each day sitting at a desk, staring at a book until his eyes fairly crossed. Laboring over a piece of written work with his pen clenched almost to the breaking point.

“It all comes down to this, Dickon.” Morse rinsed the residue of soap from his face. “I’m not much good at taking orders.”

“G’way, sir.” The footman handed Morse a pair of buff-colored breeches. “Soldiering all those years and no good at taking orders?”

A piece at a time, Morse donned the articles of clothing Dickon held out for him. The apparel was all well tailored in the finest quality fabrics. When he glanced in the mirror, Morse grudged a fleeting grin at the fashionable dandy who stared back at him.

Still, his body itched for the old green jacket that had once marked him as a member of the elite Rifle Brigade.

“A green jacket’s different, Dickon. The redcoats are drilled to follow orders without a second’s thought, but a Rifleman’s trained to think for himself. For all that, I was still a bit too independent for the Rifles. It landed me in trouble more than once. I’m well enough off if I respect the ability of my superiors and see the sense in what they’re asking me to do. To take senseless orders from a fool who ranks me, though—that’s my notion of hell.”

Sticking a finger under the edge of his stock, he tugged in vain to loosen the wrapping of linen that hugged his throat like a noose.

“Buck up, sir.” Dickon nudged him, flashing a broad wink. “It’s Wednesday night, remember?”

“Wednesday night.” Morse savored the words. The tension that bunched his shoulder muscles began to ebb.

Wednesday and Saturday nights were his only respite from the tyranny of General Freemantle. Without them, Morse was certain he’d have chucked the whole business, in spite of his debt to Sir Hugo.

True to his word, the old man had managed to dissuade the Board of Inquiry from pursuing charges against Morse, letting him muster out with no fuss.

“Think you can liberate us another few pints of that fine ale?” Morse asked the footman.

When Miss Freemantle went into the village on Wednesday and Saturday evenings, he took the opportunity to sneak off with Dickon for a pint or two in some deserted cranny of the house. While they drank and ate whatever cold collation Dickon could forage from the pantry, Morse told stories of his adventures as a Rifleman in the Fourth Somerset Regiment. It felt good to bask in the footman’s soldier-struck admiration. In fact, it was almost enough to buttress Morse against Leonora Freemantle’s persistent assault on his self-assurance.

“Better’n that sir. Do ye fancy a drop of hard cider?”

“Don’t I just! Could do with a drop this very minute.”

Dickon nodded his massive head in sympathy. “Be off, now, sir. Miss Leonora will be waitin’ on ye. I’m apt to catch the edge of her tongue if yer late. It’s the oddest thing. Before you came to the house I never heard a cross word from her. T’was all Would ye be so kind and Might I trouble ye for this or that. This past fortnight, though, she’s been as cranky as a badger sow.”

An involuntary smile rippled across Morse’s lips. He was certain it would be his last before nightfall. No doubt, Leonora Freemantle could badger with the best of them. Not to mention carp, reproach and downright bully.

Army life had been hard and dangerous by times, Morse admitted to himself. Apart from the pitiful pay, it had not been entirely thankless. He’d earned his promotions, won the affection and respect of the men in his command, gained the trust of his superiors—at least those superiors whose opinion mattered to him.

At Camp Laurelwood, however, he was reminded day and night that he could do nothing right.

Morse forced his feet down each step of the darkened staircase toward the library. Every soldier’s instinct in him shrank from tardiness. For ten years it had been dunned into him that he must be where he was expected, when he was expected, no matter what. The lives of his comrades might hang in the balance. He couldn’t make himself believe it was of any consequence whether he started lessons now, or two hours from now. It was all a pack of nonsense anyhow.

With a grunt of disgust, he thrust open the library door.