A Reckless Beauty

“Fanny…”

She held the rolled-up sprigged muslin against her chest and glared at him through slitted eyelids. “I hate you.”

“Oh, dear me. Have I somehow stumbled over a lovers’ quarrel? A thousand pardons, Lieutenant Becket, I’m sure.”

Rian swore under his breath. Brede. You’d think the man had rags wrapped round his boots, muffling his steps, he moved so quietly.

Fanny whirled about to see a man standing behind her, negligently leaning against a tree trunk. He was dressed all in dark gray, a long white scarf carelessly looped around his throat, his mussed, sun-lightened tawny hair falling from a ragged center part to the middle of his cheeks. His brows were low over amused hazel eyes and he had a straight, faintly wide nose; a slight growth of beard smudged those cheeks. The unlit cheroot trapped in the corner of his wide, full-lipped mouth made him seem rakish. Dangerous.

And he was looking at her in a way that made her wish herself back at Becket Hall. In her bed, under the covers. Behind a locked door.

“Lieutenant?” he said, pushing himself away from the tree trunk, and he advanced on them both with a slow, almost insolent grace. “You’ll not be introducing me to the…lady?”

Fanny smacked her palms against the sides of her head in frustration. “Have I fooled no one? I cut my hair. I’m wearing a uniform. I’m filthy.”

The man removed the cheroot from his mouth and leaned close to her ear. “And you most unfortunately smell very like a horse. There’s also that, my dear. Becket? An explanation, if you please. Quickly. I’ll be in Brussels by nightfall, with or without you. We are at war, if you’ll recall the matter? There’s no time for private skirmishes.”

Fanny looked to Rian to see the telltale flush of anger in his cheeks. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew she’d ruined something for him, and it was up to her to make it right again.

She held out her hand in her forthright way. “My name is Fanny Becket. I’m afraid, sir, that I’m at fault here, entirely. I gave in to impulse and donned this…masquerade, in order to follow my brother. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll—”

“Your sister, Becket?” Brede said, ignoring her hand. “And I imagine Jack has an affection for her, as well? Christ. He should have just let them shoot me. It would have been a mercy compared to this. I was not fashioned to run herd on an unruly nursery. Becket?”

“Sir! Arrangements have been made for her, my lord. I’m free to go whenever you wish.”

Free to go, was it? Oh, Rian would pay for this! But she understood his eagerness. Then Fanny frowned as she looked at the strange man once more. My lord? My lord what? My lord Ratcatcher? And yet there were those eyes, and that cultured voice. And, again, those eyes…

“You’d leave your sister, Becket? Perhaps you’re not the man Wellington needs.”

“No! No!” Fanny raced into speech at the sound of the name. Wellington? Rian all but worshipped the Iron Duke. She went to her knees, hastily stuffing her belongings back into the pack. “Truly, my lord, this is all my fault, and Rian has already made arrangements for me. I’ll be quite safe. Please take him with you.”

Rian bent down, put his hands on her shoulders, gently pulling her to her feet even as she was hastily pushing a decidedly feminine undergarment back into the pack. “No, Fanny. Beckets don’t grovel, not even to the Earl of Brede. You’re my responsibility. My lord, I thank you for your intervention on my behalf, the trouble you’ve gone to, but I’ll be staying here until I know my sister is safely on her way to Brussels with the other women in less than three days time.”

Brede stuck the cheroot back into the corner of his mouth and clapped his hands together in mocking applause. “Bravo, Lieutenant Becket. A belated self-sacrifice, but not unappreciated by your sister, I’m sure. Miss Becket, the uniform will suffice for now, but not for long. The two of you—be ready to leave here in twenty minutes, not a moment more.”

“But, sir—”

“Becket, don’t make me regret this bit of charity even more than I do now, which is considerably, by the way. We go to Brussels, where your sister will be placed in the house I’ve taken there—locked inside a room there if she protests—and you and I will continue with our business.”

Fanny would have hugged the man’s neck, except that she’d also rather die than do anything so foolish. “Thank you, my lord.”

Brede removed the cheroot once more, smiled down at her—my, he was tall. “Oh, no, Miss Becket. Don’t thank me. You’ll only regret it later.”

CHAPTER SIX

THEY RODE INTO Brussels with the sun just sliding behind the Gothic buildings at the heart of the teeming city filled beyond overflowing with, Valentine thought, imbeciles.

Had half of fashionable London gotten together to say, “Here’s a brilliant thought. Bonaparte has escaped, he’s marching somewhere on the Continent with a reformed Grande Armeé, there will be a terrible battle, perhaps a terrible war—what say we all go watch? What fun! Jolly good time, what?”

Idiots. Fools. Did they plan to ride out in their fine open carriages, picnic on some grassy hill overlooking whatever battlefield might present the best view of the carnage?

There were times Valentine Clement heartily despised his fellow Englishman. Or perhaps he was tired, weary to the heart. Of war. Of the things he had witnessed, things he had done.

He’d not spoken above a few words to young Lieutenant Rian Becket, and less to his sister, in the past several hours, but had turned inward, considering what he’d learned on his last foray into French territory, and how best to present that knowledge to Wellington and the others.

Everyone was so sure the battle was still weeks away, and the Russians and Austrians would have by then swelled the ranks of the British and Prussians, turning that battle into a rout.

But if they were all wrong and he was right? What then? If he was right, even Blücher’s Prussians might not arrive in time, leaving Wellington’s depleted force alone to face what could be more than seventy thousand Frenchmen. All those French soldiers and, much worse, the most gifted, charismatic commander the world had seen in a long time.

And, while he should be thinking—gathering the right words, the most convincing arguments—Valentine was instead playing nursemaid to a foolish young girl whom he’d deem as having more hair than wit, if it weren’t for the fact that she’d damned near shorn herself like a spring sheep in a ludicrous attempt to pretend she was a man.

With eyes like that? Granted, her brother was a shade too handsome to be taken seriously, but at least he was obviously male. This Fanny Becket, with her catlike, tilt-tipped green eyes, could no more conceal her sex than she could climb to the top of that bell tower over there and hang from the steeple while singing verses of “God Save the King.”

The coach traffic on the streets had slowed them, and Valentine kept his slouch hat pulled down low over his face to lessen the chance that anyone would recognize him, try to stop him. He needed his house, his valet, a hot tub and a hot meal. He had no time to be corralled by some curious peer who wanted nothing more than a fine bit of gossip with which to regale his companions at tonight’s dinner party, tonight’s ball.

Valentine heard a muffled giggle from behind him, and turned back sharply to remind Miss Becket that someone in her tenuous position should have precious little to laugh at. But then he smiled, for the young woman who seemed completely at ease in her uniform, riding astride, was pointing toward the public fountain featuring the figure of a small boy urinating into the water.

“The Mannekin-Pis, Miss Becket,” he told her, and watched as she blushed furiously and dipped her head so that he couldn’t see her face. “Very famous. It amuses you?”

“No, my lord,” she muttered, and for the first time since Valentine had met with him today, Rian Becket grinned, looking young and eager, and more than happy to join in the joke at his sister’s expense.

Good God, Valentine thought, turning front on his mount once more, I am a nursemaid. Jack, my friend, we are even, more than even. He touched his heels to the gray’s sides and pushed ahead through the congestion, and a few minutes later they arrived at the narrow house he’d rented.

Not waiting for the other two to dismount, he tied Shadow to the black iron railing fronting the street, and bounded up the full flight of stone steps to the bright red door, banging down three times with the knocker.

The door opened to reveal his man, Wiggins, looking comfortable in shirtsleeves, two buttons open at his neck, his usual lace cravat nowhere in place. “My lord! You…you were not expected.”

“I should never have guessed,” Valentine drawled, stepping past the short, red-haired man and into the infinitesimally small foyer. “Rouse the cook, Wiggins, as I’m starving. Oh,” he added, turning back to look at his two charges, “and…do something with these, if you please.”

“Do something, my lord?” Wiggins asked, but he’d asked it of his lordship’s back, as the man had already bounded up the stairs. “Um…” the servant said, turning to smile rather weakly at Fanny and Rian. “Would…um…would you two gentlemen care to follow me?”

“The one gentleman might, Wiggins,” Fanny said, used to the free and easy way of the Becket servants—actually referred to as the crew by the Becket family, who had all been raised to lend a hand whenever one was needed. The protocol between London society master and servant was totally lost on her. She looked up the empty staircase, longing to know if this small household boasted more than one bathing tub. “However, I, lady that I am beneath this dirt and uniform, would much rather be pointed in the direction of my chamber so I can wash off this dirt. Would that be possible, please, Wiggins?”

The servant pushed his head forward on his short neck and goggled at her. “A lady, sir? Never say so.”

Fanny looked to her brother. “At last, Rian, someone who believes my deception. And at entirely the wrong time.”

Rian stepped forward, taking the servant by the elbow and walking him to the other end of the foyer—not a large distance. “My sister, Miss Becket, is in dire need of food, a bath and a change of clothing. Mostly, Wiggins, that change of clothing. Now, how do you suppose two intelligent gentlemen like ourselves are going to manage that, hmm?”

While Fanny kept her head lowered, pretending not to hear, Wiggins said worriedly, “Why, sir, I surely don’t know. Your sister, you say?”

“Wiggins!”

All three people in the foyer lifted their heads to look toward the upstairs landing where the Earl of Brede stood, stripped to trousers and shirt. He tossed a folded square of paper over the railing. “Take this to my sister in the Rue De La Fourche, if you please, and fetch her back here with you. Don’t allow her to say no or I may have you flogged. And where in bloody hell is my supper?”

He disappeared again, that disappearance followed quickly by the sound of a slamming door, and Fanny rolled her eyes in disgust. “What a monster he is,” she told Wiggins, who was in the process of hastily rebuttoning his shirt. “Wiggins, do as he says or else he’ll most likely bite your head off. My brother and I will find our own way to the kitchens, as we’re able to more than bellow to fill our bellies. We’ll even fill his for him before he tears down the house.”

Wiggins looked caught between loyalty to the Earl and his need to take the note he clutched in both his hands to the man’s sister. “I…um, that is…thank you, miss. I’d say I shouldn’t be a minute, but the good Lord knows Lady Lucie can’t so much as say good day to a person in less than ten, so I don’t know when I’ll be back.” He pulled a plain brown jacket out from behind a small marble statue of some Greek goddess and slipped his arms into it. “Did his lordship say anything about…That is, he’s not usually so…so in his altitudes. The battle comes soon?”