A Reckless Beauty

That’s where the man later to christen himself Ainsley Becket had found her, still half-crushed beneath her mother’s lifeless body. There were others, other survivors of the Spanish pirate’s attack that had come from the sea without warning, Rian among them. Three of the women still lived in Becket Village, but other mothers and their children, and the four other orphans of that day, had survived only to die several months later, when Edmund Beales attacked their island.

Pirates. Brigands. Warm white sands and clear blue waters. Death. Death everywhere; once, and then again. Fanny barely remembered any of it. Just watching her mother beat at her breast as the bell rang, calling down the roof onto their heads…and Rian, only a few years her senior, but always there, always holding her hand, protecting her, swooping her up into his own thin arms that last day and carrying her deep into the trees, away from Edmund Beales’s treachery.

She’d do anything to protect him, as well.

Even see if he was right, that she was pretty. A pretty girl.

Fanny tested the knot holding the colored scarf around her head, hiding her badly butchered blond hair, and flipped the edges of her cloak back over her shoulders, the better to display the rumpled gown she’d donned over her breeches once reaching Dover.

“Don’t follow me, Molly,” she admonished the mare that hung her head as if she understood, and she probably did, for Molly was very intelligent, and Fanny had trained her well.

Then Fanny stepped out of the shadows, heading directly toward the slim young boy in the scarlet uniform of the 13th Regiment cavalry. She’d chosen him for his regiment, for his youth, for his size.

“You’re to be sailin’ off tonight, is it, you pretty thing?” she asked him, circling around both him and his horse, effectively cutting the youth from the herd of his fellow soldiers, all of them exhausted after sailing from Cove, their ship damaged enough that they’d had to put in at Dover for both repairs and provisions before following their two other ships to Ostend.

It had been unbelievable good luck, an omen, Odette would have said, that she’d found some of the 13th here, on this overcrowded dock. Rian’s own regiment; fine, brave Irishmen from County Cork, and beyond. It had seemed fitting to Rian that he fight with the Irish, even if the only thing still Irish about him was his blood, and his name. For the past seventeen years, since the age of nine, since that bell had rung a third time, he had been a Becket.

The young boy Fanny had singled out—he seemed such a child—dipped his head at Fanny’s question, swallowing down so hard that his Adam’s apple seemed ready to collide with his chin. “And that we are, Miss. Off to chase Boney back where he belongs, give him what for.”

Fanny measured him with her eyes. Yes, this was good. He topped her own not inconsiderable height by only a few inches. “Well, God bless you then, boyo,” she said, pushing even more of a lilt into her voice. “And would you be wanting somethin’ to take with you then? A last kiss from a grateful lass late of County Clare? Mayhap a bit more than a kiss?”

The young soldier looked about him, wetting his lips. “I’m not supposin’ you’d be offerin’ such a thing for free.”

Fanny smiled. “And what are you takin’ me for, boyo? One of them loose wimmen?” She reached up, stroked his smooth cheek that had only a hint of peach fuzz. What was he? Sixteen? “No brave man should be goin’ off to fight without first bein’ with a willin’ lass, now should he?”

“I been,” the soldier protested, his cheeks going red. “I been plenty.” He clasped his rifle with one hand and took her elbow with the other, even as she deftly grabbed on to his mount’s bridle, steering her toward the alleyway, which was right where she wanted to go. “But it’s quick we’ll be, a’fore the Sergeant-Major misses me, you hear?”

Fanny felt herself pushed rather roughly against the wet brick as the boy fumbled, one hand holding her still even as he propped his rifle against the wall and began unbuttoning his breeches.

That was helpful. He was giving her a head start, in a way, or so Fanny thought as she closed her eyes, whispered a quick “I’m so sorry” and brought the heel of the pistol she’d extracted from the pocket of her cloak down hard on the soldier’s temple.

Fanny might be young, and slim, but she was also tall, and fairly strong. Bending only slightly beneath the dead weight of the soldier, she dragged him deeper into the alleyway and lowered him gently to the ground.

She worked quickly, stripping the boy to his last little bit of clothing, for she was wearing Rian’s underclothes, and didn’t much care to exchange them for drawers that looked, even in this dim light, capable of standing up by themselves.

Five minutes later, leaving behind a small purse of coins, as well as a rough pair of trousers and a shirt for the boy to cover himself with when he awoke, and with her white braces in place across her now red-coated chest, the rifle slung over her shoulder, as well as the heavy pack containing the best of the soldier’s gear and her own, Fanny emerged from the alleyway once more, leading Molly and the black gelding by the reins of their bridles.

She stayed between the two horses and kept her head down as she joined the men just now being formed up to go aboard, wondering if she’d just saved one young Irish life, but never doubting her own fate.

Ostend awaited. Brussels awaited.

Rian, although he didn’t know it yet, awaited.

CHAPTER THREE

RIAN BECKET sat alone at a back table in a small roadside tavern in an area he believed was called something akin to Scendelbeck, the top button of his uniform opened, his overlong black hair damp and plastered against his forehead above bright blue eyes that hadn’t seen more than a few hours of sleep in several weeks.

So much for the romance and glory of war.

Thus far, that war consisted of a prodigious amount of parading under a hot sun or a drenching downpour, a good deal of tending to his horse, a measure of drinking, and much too much sitting and waiting.

At least at long last Rian had seen the man he’d been cheated out of meeting last year in London, as the Duke of Wellington himself had just today inspected their forces, along with the Prince of Orange, the Duc de Berri, the Duke of Brunswick and even Field Marshal Blücher, the man, it was said, who had drunk half of London under the table when there last August for, it turned out now, the premature Peace Celebrations.

“Lieutenant Rian Becket?”

Rian looked up at the tall man standing in front of the table, about to rise if that man had been wearing a uniform. But as he wasn’t, and looked very much as if the clothes he did stand up in were the same clothes he’d laid down in several nights in a row, Rian only slipped lower on his spine in the wooden chair and motioned for the fellow to join him.

“I’d offer you some of my wine,” Rian said, hefting the dark blue bottle in front of him, “but as you can see, alas, I’ve finished the last of it. You know my name. If you’d now return the favor, perhaps we can then split a new bottle.”

The sandy-haired ruffian—he did, truly, look the ruffian—smiled as he sat down and extended his hand. “Valentine Clement, Mr. Becket, at your service. Jack Eastwood wrote to me, asked that I—”

“Jack? Oh, bloody hell,” Rian swore, sitting up straight while ignoring the man’s outstretched hand. “My brother-in-law thinks I need a nursemaid? No, thank you. And if you’re applying for the role of batman, Clement, it should have occurred to you to first clean up your dirt before presenting yourself.”

The man withdrew his hand, his light hazel eyes twinkling in amusement. “A thousand pardons, Lieutenant Becket. I’ll inform your brother-in-law of your so polite refusal.” He pushed back his chair and got to his feet before making a damned graceful bow for a ruffian, a small smile on his face. “Good day to you, sir.”

Feeling as if he might have made some sort of mistake, Rian called for another bottle. But, instead of the barmaid, one of his superiors from the 13th Light Dragoons delivered the wine, as well as a second glass clearly meant for himself.

“Remain seated, Lieutenant. That conversation was a mite short,” Captain Moray commented, pulling the cork from the bottle and pouring them each a full tumbler of surprisingly good wine. “What did his lordship want? He say anything about what’s going on with Boney?”

Rian looked at the older man, the quick flip of his stomach telling him he probably didn’t want to hear anything Moray might say next. “His lordship? You’re not mistaken? His lordship?”

Moray nodded, and then drank deeply from his glass before setting it down again. “I still hate this part, the waiting. One more bloody parade, Becket, and we’ll all be busy reshoeing our horses while Boney is driving over us with his cannon. And, right you are, his lordship. That was himself, Valentine Clement. Earl of Brede, you know. Haven’t seen him in a while, and us that know are never supposed to let on who he is, but I’ve been down this road before, and that was him, I’m sure of it. The great bloody Brede himself.”

Rian jammed his fingers through his hair, feeling young and stupid. “Oh, well…hell,” he said, disgusted, and then slumped back against his chair. “I just turned him down for the position of my batman. And all but told him he smelled, needed a bath. Which he did, damn it all anyway, on both counts.”

Moray’s braying laugh had heads turning in the tavern. “Cheeky young pup. But he knew you, didn’t he, called you by name? Brede’s one of Wellington’s own, you know, and been with him forever. Handpicked for being sneaky. Flits around wherever he wants, his ear always to the ground. Odds are his lordship supped with Boney at that fancy Versailles of his three nights ago, and then flirted into the mornin’ with all the prettiest mam-selles. And you all but served the man his notice? There’s bollocks for you, I’ll give you that. I think that calls for another bottle, I do.” And he leaned back in his chair, snapping his fingers at the barmaid.

Rian drank silently, mentally kicking himself for his own arrogance. Elly’s husband had written a letter, sent Brede to him. Jack never spoke much about what he’d done years ago, but they all knew he’d acted as a spy on the Peninsula, among other things. A spy like Brede. So did Jack then break both his hands affixing a seal to the letter to Brede, so that he couldn’t send another to his brother-in-law, warning him as to what he’d done?

“That man—Brede—he looked as tired as old death itself, didn’t he?” Rian asked his Captain, feeling young and damned foolish. “He’s seen things I shouldn’t want to see, I think. I thought this all would be…different somehow. Good. Noble.”

Moray lifted his head, smacked his lips together a time or two, as the wine, far from his first bottle of the evening, had begun to make his tongue numb and thick. He peered across the tabletop at Rian. “Noble, is it? Then that’s your mistake, boy. You never should have set foot from home, not a dreamer like you. Put that dreaming away. If you don’t, you’ll end up dead, mark my words.”

“Then I’ll put away the dreams, if that’s what it takes. I want to fight, Captain Moray,” Rian said, bristling. “And I’m damn good at it.”

The captain grinned, his head sort of sliding down between his palms as one cheek made slow, gentle contact with the tabletop. “You can ride like the very devil, I’ll give you that. Never miss the straw with your saber, either. But a heap of straw ain’t flesh, boy, and that fine, light-footed bay of yours will probably be shot from under you in the first minute of the charge. When you’re knee deep in blood and mud, tripping over pieces of the men you drank with the night before, and the Froggies are screaming, running at you—then we’ll see how damn good you are. Enough. Jesus, I hate this…I hate this. Too much waiting…too much thinking. Too much remembering the last time. Cursed Boney, he was supposed to be gone….”

CHAPTER FOUR

FANNY SAT WITH her back against the raw wood planks that made up the hold of the small ship, her knees bent as she braced herself against the storm raging in the Channel. Molly, her lead tied to a hook like the other sixty-five horses jammed in together in the cramped space, kept trying to nuzzle Fanny’s shoulder, her huge brown eyes wide and frightened.

“It’s all right, Molly,” Fanny told the mare, reaching up to stroke the horse’s velvety muzzle. “Just a little wind, just a little rain.”

Her eyelids heavy, Fanny continued to comfort Molly, but the black gelding was becoming anxious, rolling its red-rimmed eyes and jerking back its head, trying to be free of the rope, the dark hold, the ship itself, most probably.

“Shamus Reilly! Control that damn horse before it sets the others off, or I’ll have your skinny guts for garters!”

“Yes, sir!” Fanny said, jumping to her feet.