Chapter Fourteen
T essa bounced up into the Greysmere town carriage and dropped onto the seat opposite Chase. The tiger promptly closed the door after her and flipped up the step, then swung up onto the rear seat as the carriage jerked into motion, rolling away from Lord Foxmoor’s house at a quick clip.
She breathed deeply to calm her racing heart as the excitement of the moment sizzled though her. She’d had to sneak out the rear of the house and circle around to the side street where Chase’s carriage had been waiting for her, as planned. Thank God no one saw her, or they would have stared at her…
The same way Chase stared at her now in the shadows of the passing gas lamps.
“Quite the costume,” he drawled, finally breaking the silence.
“I didn’t have time to change out of my dress,” she explained with a wave of her hand to indicate the large greatcoat draped over her from ankles to chin and the floppy hat that capped her hair.
“So you accosted the gardener instead?”
Her lips twisted into a self-pleased smirk. “I’m thinking of wearing it to Mrs. Kearn’s garden party on Thursday. Or do you think I might clash with the flower arrangements?”
“I think you might clash with everything,” he drawled.
She gave a small laugh, too excited at their adventure to suppress it. “Do you think your tiger recognized me?”
“I think my tiger knows better than to gossip about anything I do.”
Tessa thought that, too. Chase demanded loyalty from his servants, along with their complete silence about his affairs, business or otherwise. It was one of the things that had made keeping tabs on him during the past three years so difficult. And would make it even more difficult once he left England again.
But she didn’t let that sobering thought quell her excitement about tonight, or her hope that new information about Genappe would be uncovered.
They fell into silence as the coach drove north, away from the waterfront and out of the city, leaving behind the safety of the gas-lit streets and the company of other carriages. Soon, they were alone on the dark road leading to Upwey that was lit only by the full moon and the lamps on the front of the carriage. The only noise was the faint creaking of the carriage and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves on the hard-packed dirt road.
Chase kept his gaze focused out the window, although Tessa wasn’t certain how he could see anything at all interesting in the darkness. And Tessa kept her gaze focused on Chase, contemplating his profile and how his large presence made the rather roomy compartment seem so much smaller.
He wasn’t the easiest of men, she would admit, most likely because he had never cared what other gentlemen and ladies thought of him. Anyone looking at his life from outside the ton would never suspect he was a duke, which was fitting, she supposed, because he never cared about titles or rank, except for those in the military, and only then for men who had earned their positions instead of buying them. Likewise, any woman who met him in a crowded ball would never claim he was particularly handsome or attractive compared to others; they might even say he cared so little about his appearance as to be unfashionable and the furthest thing from a dandy a man could be.
Which was why Tessa liked him so much.
Chase preferred to surround himself with men who had proven themselves through hard work and capability. Like them, he was a man who had managed to make his own way in the world, apart from the titles and benefits his privileged birth had brought. And for that…
She loved him.
As he stared out the window, watching the dark night beyond, one of his hands slipped down to the side of the bench. She narrowed her eyes on the dark form beside him. A pistol. She knew immediately without having to ask that it was loaded.
“Why do you have that gun?” she asked quietly.
“For protection.” His attention never left the window, and she realized he wasn’t simply gazing at the passing darkness; he was keeping watch. “We’re traveling alone at night on country roads, and I don’t trust us not to come across a highwayman.”
Her heart skipped. “You’re prepared to kill a man if he tries to stop our carriage?”
“Yes.”
With that single word, she clearly saw the soldier in him, the disciplined mercenary who fought with the Prussians because his mother would never have allowed her duke son to fight with the British army. Dukes who had inherited their titles didn’t engage in wars. They stayed behind in Whitehall and filled government positions that supported the soldiers and sailors through provisions and payroll, all done safely from behind a desk.
Not Chase. He could never have stood by while other men risked their lives.
Oh, she’d always had fleeting impressions of his soldierly bearing…the way he carried himself with his back ramrod straight, how he often stood with his fist pressed to the small of his back and his legs spread shoulder-width apart as if just ordered to stand at ease, the way he so expertly handled the pistols and fencing foils he had used for Winnie’s lessons. But she had never seen him like this before.
Chase, the soldier, was deadly.
“What was it like for you during the wars?” she asked, her voice barely louder than the rumble of the carriage around them.
He didn’t look away from the window, and his hand didn’t move from the pistol. “Cold, when it wasn’t boiling hot. Uncomfortable. Exhausting. Boring. Terrifying. Murderous.” He paused before adding, “Anyone who says that war is anything else is a damned liar.”
Her father had told her the same, on those rare visits when he was able to spend time with Tessa and Winnie, who was so young when they went off to live with cousins John and Mary that she barely knew her father.
“But I was an officer, so my circumstances should have been better than those of the enlisted men.”
Her father had told her that, too. Officers stayed within built structures to protect them from the elements, even if it meant commandeering a house or having the men construct one for them, while enlisted men mostly slept in tents. Even then, when officers had no choice but to sleep in tents, theirs were spacious affairs with furniture and rugs.
But Chase’s words caught her attention, and she repeated, “ Should have been?”
“I stayed among the enlisted men. I couldn’t ask them to fight beside me in battle if I wasn’t willing to share the same hard ground and cold mud as they did, the same terrible food.”
“You must have won your men over,” she murmured.
His mouth twisted, and she knew he wasn’t seeing the dark night outside but an army encampment on the Continent. “During my first year, the officers called me der Verrückte Herzog …the Mad Duke.”
Fitting, she supposed. An English peer and officer who wanted to live in enlisted conditions must have seemed insane to them. “And what did the enlisted men call you?”
“ Der Graue Wolf .” He slid her a look through the shadows. “The Grey Wolf.”
A faint chill swept through her. Very fitting.
Instead of turning back to the window, he kicked out his long legs across the compartment and leaned back against the squabs, doing his best to resemble a lord at leisure. But Tessa knew the truth. His hand still rested on the gun, and every muscle in his body would have sprung instantly into motion at the slightest provocation.
“I was in charge of light cavalry,” he told her quietly. “My job was to send my men around the battlefield to learn where the enemy was and what battle plans they seemed to have, based upon where their guns and lines were located. Sometimes, that meant going behind the lines—far behind them—dressed like ordinary villagers or farmers, traveling on foot.”
“That’s not cavalry,” she corrected quietly, knowing the ramifications of what he was telling her. Soldiers who were out of uniform were considered spies and could be shot dead where they stood, without any quarter. “That’s espionage.”
“And sometimes it was sabotage, whenever I had the opportunity. God only knows how many rifles and artilery I damaged so they killed the men who fired them, how much poison I poured into food provisions.” His dark eyes never left hers. “I did whatever I had to, and I was damned good at it. I was twenty-one and no longer allowed to fight in the fray because my talents were too valuable. And that was when the officers stopped calling me the Mad Duke and began to call me der Graue Geist …the Grey Ghost.” He added quietly, “Because I haunted the enemy.”
The irony was chilling. Tessa had never known a man whose own past haunted him the way Chase’s did, in every way. “Do you regret what you did?”
He took a moment to consider the question before answering. “I regret bringing the war home with me after I returned to England. No one here understood what I’d been through, including most of the British soldiers and officers. Their fights had been honest.”
“So were yours,” she corrected with resolve.
“No. Mine were the devil’s own creations, meant to terrify the enemy into making mistakes. By then, Boney had conscripted and killed so many Frenchmen in his war of attrition that he was fighting with mere boys who were already terrified just to be in uniform, and I made their lives a deeper hell.” He turned back toward the window. “What I did in the wars changed those boys, and it changed me. I suppose that when I came home expected the people around me to understand that. But they didn’t. And I didn’t understand how they couldn’t.” His voice lowered so much that she could barely hear him. “Everyone expected me to be same man I was before, outgoing and jocular. But I only wanted to be left alone.”
Tessa’s heart tore for him. “The same happened to my father. No one could understand what he’d been through either.”
“Not quite the same,” he countered, his eyes not leaving the darkness outside the window. “Your father was a widower before he went to the wars and never remarried.”
She knew what he meant. A widower didn’t have to let his wife into his thoughts, didn’t have to share the worst details of what he’d done in battle…didn’t have to admit his vulnerability or acknowledge any weaknesses. But a wife was exposed to all that. And a new wife, even one married to a soldier after he’d stopped fighting, like Chase, wouldn’t understand how he’d changed, and so wouldn’t know what to do to help him find himself again. Especially a wife who had no connection to the wars, no knowledge about what a soldier’s experience was truly like.
A wife like Eleanor.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered.
“Yes, it was.” He picked up the pistol and slipped it in the holster beneath his coat. “We’ve arrived.”
The cocoon of understanding that had formed around them during the ride dissolved as the carriage slowed to a stop, and the lamps of the tavern cast a faint light inside the compartment, enough that she could see the emotionless mask that had slid into place over his face. He didn’t wait for the tiger’s assistance before flinging open the door and jumping to the ground, then turning back to help Tessa. He held her arm as he escorted her toward the inn’s narrow door.
“You have to do what I tell you tonight,” Chase warned as he shoved open the door for her. “No arguing. Understand?”
She gaped at him, offended. “When have I ever?”
He slid her a narrowed look, giving that the chastisement it deserved. “Don’t leave my side, and try to keep your silence.”
“I’ll try not to draw attention,” she promised.
“You could never not draw a room’s attention,” he murmured, not at all pleased.
But Tessa’s chest warmed at the unintended compliment as he led her forward through the smoky room.
She saw him scan the tables they passed, noting the faces of the men sitting at each, until he stopped in front of a small table in the corner near the stairs. A lone man in plain working clothes sat nursing a tankard of ale.
When the man looked up, finally showing his face, Chase stiffened as if he recognized him, and a surprised expression momentarily darkened his face before he hid behind that same stoic mask again.
“Serjeant Healey?” Chase asked.
“Used to be.” The man leaned back in his chair. “Are you Major Maddox?”
“Used to be,” Chase repeated.
Healey raked a glance over Tessa, surely noting how odd she looked.
“My bodyguard,” Chase commented dryly. Her absurd clothing deserved that absurd explanation. “You don’t mind if she joins us, do you?”
Healey said nothing but gestured for the two of them to sit down. Then he held up two fingers to the barmaid to bring them ale.
Chase helped Tessa onto her chair and took the one next to hers. His back was turned toward the wall, she knew, because a soldier’s old habits died hard. Especially a soldier who had done the things he had.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” Chase began. “As my man Bates explained, I want to learn the truth about Major General Albright’s actions at Genappe. I’m a family friend, and the general’s reputation is important to me.”
Tessa understood that Chase would give no more explanation for the meeting than that. She silently agreed. The less Healey knew, the better.
“Bates said you were there under Albright’s command.”
Healey gave a firm nod. “In his light regiment.”
Chase tossed the barmaid a coin as she set two tankards on the table in front of them, then waited for her to sashay away before asking, “What happened?” He leaned back on his chair, settling in for a long conversation. “Start with the morning and tell me everything you can.”
Healey took a slow swallow of ale, then paused to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, as if he needed a moment to gather his thoughts and find the words to begin. “We were on a strategic retreat toward Waterloo. Wellington had found a piece of ground he thought would give us the advantage for a decisive victory against Boney, so he’d ordered us to make our way there. The foot regiments had marched ahead, with our mounted forces protecting the rear. Our job was to keep the French too preoccupied to flank the infantry, so we hit at them in turns…the main cavalry, the hussars, and Albright’s light dragoons. Each one was ordered to hit, then fall back through the others, leaving the next regiment to hit and fall back, in a long, rolling retreat.”
“Where was Albright?”
“At the front of the brigade. Not one to lead from behind, that one.”
Tessa couldn’t help the swell of pride at the mention of her father’s bravery, yet her fingers dug nervously into the sides of the wooden seat beneath her. She dreaded what else she might learn. She barely breathed, hanging on every word the two men exchanged as Healey leaned across the table on his forearms and shared his version of the day’s events.
“And then,” Healey said on a long, haggard breath, his shoulders slumping beneath his course wool jacket, “we reached the village of Genappe, where the retreat went to hell. All because of the Earl of Hambledon.”
Tessa listened closely as Healey explained what happened that day, what regiments moved where, how the French countered with brief attacks and retreats of their own, and how both sides were hemmed in by the narrow defile of Genappe. She didn’t understand the strategy for why certain regiments advanced while others purposefully fell back, couldn’t keep up with what regiments fought where around the little village that seemed more hindrance than help, but she knew from Chase’s somber face that he did.
“You never had orders to make a full advance?” Chase asked quietly.
“Never. Hit, retreat, and move on. That was all.”
“Are you absolutely certain?”
Healey’s eyes bore into Chase’s. “I would stake my life on it.”
Tessa swung her attention between the two men, who now sat in grim silence. “But there were orders,” she said quietly. “The War Department said that the general was given orders to advance on the French in a full assault but didn’t.”
“What happened,” Healey explained pointedly to her, his eyes black and cold as ice, “was that Hambledon didn’t follow his orders. Instead of continuing the retreat as planned, that glory-hungry bastard led a charge. He rode his hussars straight through Genappe to engage the French head on.”
“Why would he do something like that?” Tessa asked, confused.
“Pride, resentment…” Healey shrugged. “Hambledon never liked Wellington. Hated him, in fact. Saw the retreat to Waterloo as a cowardly failure of leadership. Thought he’d seize the moment to win glory for himself.”
His jaw worked with anger at the memory. He glanced over the room, but Tessa knew he wasn’t seeing the tavern but the village of Genappe.
“Hambledon’s charge was a disaster,” Healey continued, setting down his ale. “His men were hit from three sides with no way to escape because the village funneled to a narrow end. Their only way out was a retreat straight into a bottleneck. His men were pinned up against the buildings with no room to maneuver their horses, no place to hide, slaughtered—with some of them still attempting an advance and Hambledon in the middle of the fight, slashing his sword all about.”
Chase prompted, “And Major General Albright?”
“Raced into the fray to make certain Hambledon survived.” He added in a mutter, “Although I would have taken my own bayonet to the bastard if I’d had a chance. Perhaps that’s why Albright stayed at his side until we were all clear of the village, to save the earl from his own men…what was left of them.” He let out a curse and spat on the floor. “And what happened to the general for his effort? Hambledon was declared the hero of Genappe for a charge he was never supposed to have made, and the general received the blame.”
“But…why would the War Department do that?” Tessa asked, confused.
“Because Henry Paget, Earl of Hambledon, is now the first Marquess of Rolvenden,” Chase told her. “And a close friend of the Duke of York who stood by the duke’s side during the commission scandals in 1809.”
“York…the so-called commander-in-chief of the army during the wars with Boney,” Healey added with a sneer. “A man who had the influence necessary to save Hambledon’s reputation by destroying Albright’s.”
“By claiming both men had instructions to advance but that Albright didn’t give his men the order the way Hambledon did,” Chase clarified quietly. “That way, they could blame Hambledon’s failed charge on not having assistance from Albright’s regiment. They saved Hambledon from being court-martialed and blamed the general for the losses instead.”
“Dereliction of duty,” Tessa whispered the exact wording of the charges against her father.
Chase rested his hand reassuringly on her knee beneath the table.
She interlaced her fingers with his, needing to draw from his strength. “You said the general never received orders to advance,” Tessa reminded Healey. “How do you know that for certain? You were part of his regiment, but you wouldn’t have known what orders the general command sent or didn’t.”
Healey said nothing and silently took a long drink of ale.
“Because his name isn’t Healey,” Chase finally answered for him, not taking his eyes off the man. “It’s Arthur Williamson. I recognized him when we arrived.”
The man straightened on his chair but didn’t deny it.
“He wasn’t just one of the serjeants in Albright’s light regiment,” Chase continued. “He was a captain and the general’s aide-de-camp, and he knows what orders came in from general command because all orders went through him.” Chase leveled a hard look on the man. “Isn’t that so, Williamson?”
The man’s jaw worked as he considered Chase’s revelation, then gave a curt nod and sliced a glance at Tessa. “Miss Albright, I presume. You have the look of your father about you.”
She reassessed his appearance. His plain clothes and rough jacket were his disguise, just as the greatcoat and hat were hers, and he wasn’t at all an ordinary soldier. He had to possess an education and a gentleman’s background to reach the rank of captain, and his manner of speech confirmed it.
Her blood boiled at his deceit. “If we can’t trust you to tell us your real name, how can we trust anything you have to say?”
“Because I owe my life to your father,” Williamson answered. “And I knew that if the Mad Duke was asking around about Albright, that it had to be for good reason.”
Tessa felt Chase stiffen at the mention of that terrible nickname.
“I wasn’t certain how much truth I wanted to share until I saw you walk into the tavern with him.” He paused, and both his voice and expression softened. “I was sorry to hear about the general’s passing. He was a good man—a very good man—and he didn’t deserve what those bastards in Whitehall did to him.”
Her eyes stung, and she swallowed hard as she nodded. “And you’ll be willing to attest to the true events of that day, so we can properly clear his name?”
The sympathy that had been in Williamson’s eyes vanished instantaneously, replaced by the same icy cold darkness she’d seen before. “No.”
She slumped back in her chair as if he’d struck her. “I don’t understand… If you have no intention of helping, then why meet with us?”
“I wanted you to know what kind of man your father was. That’s all. I have no intention of publicly revealing what I know about Genappe.”
“You were his aide. You owe him your loyalty and—”
“He’s dead. My loyalty died with him.”
Her lips parted, stunned. She barely felt Chase’s hand tighten on her knee. “But you’re the only person who can provide testimony about what actually happened, not just for the general but for all the men who died that day. Don’t they also deserve justice?”
“And what justice to the living?” Williamson leaned back in his chair, his casual posture belying the tension radiating from him. “That battle happened years ago, a forgotten skirmish on the way to Waterloo—and while British forces were on the retreat, no less. Do you really think anyone cares anymore about what happened, except you? Will the truth help any of the widows, mothers, or children of the men who died that day?”
Tessa rasped out hoarsely, “Yes, it will.”
A flash of pity crossed his face, but he shook his head. “Only for you, perhaps, and even then not a lot. People would rather spurn than forgive, and they’d rather keep blaming your father than open their arms to you. Reopening old wounds will help no one.”
She pressed her fist to her chest as if to will her heart to keep beating. She simply couldn’t fathom the selfishness of what he was saying. “You won’t help me…because I’m the only one who might benefit?”
“Because I know Whitehall and how those men protect their own. They won’t take kindly to what I have to say and will find a way to keep the truth hidden, no matter what they have to do to ensure it.” He leveled his black gaze on her. “I have a family to protect, my own children to look after. I won’t put them in danger just to save a dead man’s reputation.”
Red-hot anger flamed through her, and she put her hands flat on the table to lean toward him as she rose to her feet, barely aware that Chase did the same next to her.
“You horrible man,” she seethed. “You are a disgrace to your uniform and to the British army. You are nothing like a good soldier should be.” All of her shook so fiercely that her breath came in jerking waves. “No wonder you were nothing more than an aide-de-camp. You haven’t got the guts to be anything more than the shadow of a great man like my father. You are nothing like him!”
Chase firmly took her arm to lead her away. “Tessa, let’s go.”
When she refused to move, he looped his arm around her waist and pulled her away.
“You are a coward!” she shouted back over her shoulder as he pulled her toward the door. “Coward!”
By the time they reached the door, Chase had such a strong hold on her that her feet barely touched the floor as he hurried her out into the courtyard. When they reached his carriage, he grabbed her up into his arms and placed her inside the compartment as if swinging a sack of oats. He didn’t wait for the door to close before he shouted at the driver to go.