Chapter 42
Vitoria, Spain
“Father, are you paying attention?”
Hawk dragged a palm over his face, trying to banish the image of Celeste’s hair spilled across his chest, of her body arching beneath his.
God help him, he could still hear her whispering his name, soft as surrender.
A battlefield was no place for daydreams, and yet his mind clung to her as stubbornly as ivy to stone.
Nicki’s voice intruded again. “The men are complaining. You cut the wine rations, you order the soldiers to keep the time for two hours a day, and this posca—”
“They will thank me when they are sober and alive.”
His tone was sharp, final. He had no patience for grumbles. Wine dulled discipline. Posca—a soldier’s vinegar-water—honed it. Let them curse him. Better curses than coffins.
He pressed the spyglass to his brow. Through the narrow lens, he saw the enemy camp.
The French had bled themselves thin—overstretched, underfed, demoralized.
Jourdan was no Bonaparte, and Joseph had no business wearing a crown or commanding men.
Their lines were swollen with stolen baggage, not discipline.
If they were broken here, at Vitoria, the war on the Peninsula would be done.
No more backpedaling across Spain, no more ruined towns or shattered columns.
Then his gaze shifted. North of the main line, a shallow incline rolled into a grove of olive trees. Between them, just past the gully—a corridor. A natural funnel.
Hawk passed Nicki the glass. “Look there. Between the olives.”
Nicki peered through it, silent for a long moment. “That’s a defile.”
“A defile that leads straight into their flank,” Hawk said. “If we hit it before sunrise, we can roll the cavalry through before they even know we’re in motion.”
Nicki’s breath misted faintly in the air. “Could give us the field.”
“It will.” Hawk’s voice came low, almost savage.
He needed the certainty of a plan, the clean logic of maneuvers. Not the chaos of a girl who had undone him with a single smile. “Summon the officers. We meet in my tent within the hour.”
Nicki sat proudly on his warhorse. He looked forward to his first battle. Too young. Too bloody young. Celeste’s age. How had he dared to touch her?
“Listen to me,” Hawk began, then faltered.
He wanted to tell him to ride behind the lines. But cavalry officers didn’t cower in the rear. They rode in front, sabers raised, into the jaws of hell. He forced the words through a locked jaw. “Just… be careful.”
As Nicki wheeled his horse away, Hawk turned back to the defile. He could see the charge that would lead them to victory. And still, the ghost of her touch lingered, whispering that he had already lost his life’s most important battle.
***
Hawk rode through the lines, his mount steady beneath him, men snapping to salute. This was where he belonged—among soldiers, not silk. Orders, not laughter. Duty, not love.
His hands tightened on the reins. Scarred, calloused—made for sabers and maps, not for holding softness in the night. Here, everything had its place. Every object a function, every man a purpose. No ribbons draped across his desk. No midnight songs. No tulle haunting his halls.
Her smile struck anyway, unbidden.
He had to keep his head clear. Mastery over the field, the men, the chaos.
Only when he was in command did the world make sense.
But even as he reined in, images ambushed him—her confession of love, the shattering joy that had carried him to her bed, the way his body had betrayed him, surrendering without a fight.
Slowly, he shoved his sleeve to the elbow.
The braid of copper hair clung to his wrist, a ribbon of fire against sun-darkened skin.
His chest seized, stealing his breath. He shut his eyes.
No. Damn it. He yanked the fabric down again, sealing the ache beneath the cuff.
She was young—she would move on. Someday she would thank him.
When he ducked into his tent, the flaps scraped his coat. He bent over the war chest and dug through the papers for Vitoria’s map. His fingers struck something unexpected—an old tome, its binding cracked with age. A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
His hand stalled. He should have buried it beneath orders and reports.
Instead, he drew it free. For a moment he only stared, thumb tracing the frayed edge, breath locked in his chest. Then, against every instinct, he set it on the makeshift table, lowered himself onto the stool, and lifted the cover.
For you, my Alexander—
When you are preoccupied (not sad), read aloud, and remember—the world might feel too heavy, but mischief and magic can help you lift the burden. You don’t have to carry it all by yourself.
I will cry less, if I know you are laughing more.
Please return to me,
Celeste
Ache bloomed in his chest, slow, grinding, every inhale scraped raw. He laid both palms over the page, pressing down hard, as if pressure alone might hold her there, might keep her from slipping away.
A ribbon marked Scene 2, Act 3—the same she had played for him in the library. He shut his eyes. Celeste’s voice spilled into his memory: the accents, the shrill falsetto, her laughter ringing off the shelves. Ridiculous. Chaotic. Entirely illogical.
And still, the corner of his mouth twitched, traitorous. Even in memory, she unmoored him. He pressed his fist against his chest, but the hurt only spread, blooming sharp as shrapnel beneath his ribs.
He had fought to keep her from breaching his walls.
Yet here she was—seated in his tent, imprinted in his hands, written in his thoughts with some indelible ink.
He was no general. He was Lysander and Demetrius, Helena and Hermia all in one—blind with desire, struck dumb by a flower he hadn’t even noticed blooming.
She had turned his fortress into a ballroom. Made his orders sound like flirtation. Brought chaos, and with it, life. And he, fool that he was, had called it weakness when it was strength.
He traced the last line, the one she had brandished from atop his desk, and dared to mock him for not understanding.
“Lord, what fools these mortals be?”
His mouth twisted, and something broke out before he could stop it. It came in waves, first a twitch of his brow, then a low, odd ache in his gut, until laughter shook his chest, spilled down his face in tears.
The aide-de-camp burst in. “Are you all right, General?”
Hawk swiped at his eyes, reached for the nearest glass, and took a pull. He gagged. “What the devil is this?”
“Posca, sir.”
“Throw it away. Reinstate the wine ration. Half.”
“Half, sir?”
“Half. And if I catch a drunk man tomorrow, it’ll be court martial.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alone again, Hawk passed his hand over the play. Celeste had looked at him with those promise-colored eyes and believed he could be more than a general. A man who could laugh. A man who could be loved.
He wanted it with a hunger that left him unsteady. Yes, he was older, half his life spent under canvas roofs, marching through mud, sleeping with a saber for warmth. But Christ, he was tired of it.
He craved her chaos. The mischief in her smile, the unruly music of her laughter. Not order. Not silence. Noise, color, madness—all of it.
His chest clenched, pressure swelling until his breath came shallow. Outside, the cannons spoke—low growls rolling across the hills like thunder stalking its prey. The battle was coming. If he lived through it, he would return. To her. To the color she carried.
Now all he had to do was survive. One last time.