Virtue

4

It hardly seemed possible that Napoleon and his army were gathered a stone's throw from the city, Judith thought, as she and Sebastian joined the receiving line that night, slowly progressing up the wide shallow staircase, to be announced to the Duchess of Richmond standing at the head.

There were more men in uniform than in civilian evening dress. The women glittered under the brilliant chandeliers-a swarm of jeweled butterflies in gowns every shade of the rainbow. But something lurked beneath the gaiety-a feverishness to the conversations, a slightly shrill pitch to the laughter, the distracted darting of eyes around the room, on the watch for a sign, a hint of new information. The world contained in the Duchess of Richmond's salons this hot June night was in waiting.

The Marquis of Carrington was speaking with the Duke of Wellington and General Karl von Clausewitz across the salon from the double entrance doors as Judith and Sebastian entered the room. Judith glanced sideways into the massive gilt-framed mirror on the wall, checking her reflection. She was abruptly annoyed with herself After this morning's debacle, Carrington was unlikely to approach her, and why did she want him to? The man had offered her the most offensive insult imaginable. She turned to her brother. "Dance with me, Sebastian."

"If you wish." He looked at her quizzically. "But since when have you been dependent on your brother for a partner?"

"My card is filled from the third cotillion," she said, taking his arm. "I refused partners until then because I didn't think I'd want to dance immediately. But I find that I do."

Sebastian said nothing, merely clasped her waist lightly and whirled her into the dance.

They were a strikingly handsome couple, Carrington reflected, watching them, his mind wandering from the discussion of the need for latitudinal support for the Prussians behind the Sambre. Copper-haired and with those fine golden-brown eyes, flecked with green, they could almost be twins. There must be barely a year between them. Judith's chin was slightly more rounded than her brother's, but they both had straight, well-pro-portioned noses and generous mouths, slanting cheekbones and firm jawlines. An elegant pair of disreputable adventurers. Who were they? And where the devil had they sprung from?

Would she refuse to dance with him after the morning's fiasco? A man's pride could take only so many defeats at the hands of an impudent, though admittedly clever, baggage.

After excusing himself from his companions, he moved around the dance floor until the Davenports were abreast of him. Then he weaved his way deftly between dancing couples and lightly tapped Sebastian's shoulder. It was a most unorthodox procedure, but sometimes a man must be creative.

"Will you yield your sister, Davenport? It seems a crying shame that you should keep her to yourself when you have the advantage of her company at all other times."

Sebastian grinned. "Well, as to that, Carrington, it's for Judith to say."

"Ma'am?" Carrington bowed with a self-mocking gallantry. His eyes smiled, both colluding and conciliatory.

Judith glanced around, well aware of the notice the byplay was attracting. Marcus Devlin had rather cleverly cornered her.

"I suppose a woman must grow accustomed to being passed from hand to hand like a parcel," she said, gracefully moving out of Sebastian's encircling arm and turning into her new partner's hold.

"Baggages are usually handled in such fashion," Marcus murmured, savoring the feel or her. She was light and compact… and as sleek and dangerous as a lynx.

Judith drew a sharp breath. "I suppose, after this morning, I must expect such an insult from you, sir."

"Is that the best you can do?" His eyebrows lifted quizzically. "You disappoint me, Judith.''

"Unfortunately, I don't have my pistol with me," she returned. "I trust you've recovered your equilibrium, sir."

"It took awhile," he admitted. "I've never had dealings with a lynx before, you see."

"A lynx?" She was betrayed into looking up at him.

His black eyes laughed down at her, rich with enjoyment.

"Yes, my lynx, exactly so."

A tinge of pink appeared on her high cheekbones. It seemed sensible to ignore such a statement. "You received the payment of my debt of honor, I trust, sir."

"I did indeed. I am grateful for the improvement in my financial state."

She caught her lip between her teeth and resolutely fixed her gaze in the middle distance over his shoulder. But it was impossible, and finally she chuckled and he felt the tension leave her body.

"Am I forgiven?" he asked, suddenly serious.

"For what, my lord?"

"I'm not playing games now, Judith. I have begged your pardon for this morning. I should like to know if my apology is accepted."

"It would be ungenerous of me to refuse to do so, my lord."

"And you are not, of course, ungenerous."

She met his eye then. "No, I am not. It's not the Davenport way. Any more than it's our way to be dishonorable."

"Card sharping is honorable then?" It was not a playful question and she bit her lip again, but not this time to hide her laughter.

"I can't explain about that."

"No, I should imagine it's very difficult to explain."

"We don't make a habit of it," she said stiffly.

"I'm relieved to hear it."

"When we win at the tables, we win on skill and experience," she said. "What you saw… or thought you saw-"

"I saw it."

"We were merely practicing for a couple of hands. The money involved was insignificant."

"You'll forgive me if I remain unconvinced of the scrupulous purity of your play."

Judith was silent. There seemed nothing more to say.

When he spoke again, the hard edge had left his voice. "I might, however, be induced to understand why you were obliged to learn such dubious arts."

Her chin went up and for the first time he saw the shadows in the lynx eyes. "Would you, my lord?" she said coldly. "That's really too kind of you. But I hope you won't consider me discourteous if I tell you my business is my own. Your understanding is a matter of complete indifference to me."

Marcus drew breath in sharp anger. His hand tightened around hers, crushing the slender fingers. Then the dance ended and she had pulled free of him. Fighting his anger, he watched her walk off the floor, her gown of ivory spider gauze over deep cream satin setting off the rich burnished copper hair falling in delicate ringlets to her shoulders. He wondered whether the topaz necklace and earrings were paste. If they were, they were remarkably good copies. But then he couldn't fault the skill with which the Davenports conducted their masquerade.

Who the devil were they? And why did she arouse in him this savage hunger?

He shook his head impatiently and stalked off the dance floor. An image of Martha drifted into his head: soft, brown-haired, doe-eyed Martha, who wouldn't say boo to a goose. Gentle, simple Martha… the perfect prey. A lamb on the one hand and an untamed lynx on the other. There must be a middle course.

Judith retreated to the retiring room. She was more shaken than she cared to admit by the intimacy of Car-rington's questions. They trespassed on the darkness, the

darkness that only Sebastian could ever truly know and understand, because he shared it. She confided only in her brother. It was the way it had to be. Their secrets and their griefs and their plans were their own. They knew no other way of living.

She bent to the mirror, adjusting a pin in her hair. The room was filled with chattering women, making repairs to dress or countenance. The talk was all of what they would do when the battle was joined.

"I'm not staying here to be raped by a horde of Frenchmen," one lady declaimed, fanning herself vigorously as she sat on a velvet stool in front of a mirror.

"Oh, dear countess, how could you imagine such a thing happening?" squeaked a dim, brown mouse of a woman, dropping a comb to the floor. "The duke would never leave us to the mercies of the ogre."

"Once our own men have left the city, those Frenchies will be here, you mark my words," the countess said with an almost salacious dread as she brushed a haresfoot across her rouged cheeks.

"Well, they do have to defeat our own armies first," Judith pointed out demurely. "One mustn't presume disaster too quickly."

"Indeed not," the stout wife of a colonel put in. "You're quite right, Miss Davenport. Our men need our support, not whining snivels. Of course they'll defeat Boney."

"Of course," Judith agreed. "No purpose is served by panic."

Thus chastised, the countess and the brown mouse fell into an injured silence.

"There'll.be a run on horses once the battle's joined," another woman remarked calmly. "Alfred's hidden away our carriage horses in a stable outside the city. Once he's left for the front, he's instructed me to leave the city. Just in case," she added, with a smile at Judith and the colonel's wife. "Sensible people make provision for every eventuality."

"You wouldn't find me leaving Colonel Douglas in the heat of battle," Colonel Douglas's wife declared, disappearing behind the commode screen, her voice rising above the stiff rustlings of her taffeta skirts. "It's the duty of a soldier's wife to wait behind the lines and the heartbreak of a soldier's wife to wait in fear. I've been at the colonel's side through every battle on the Peninsula and I'm not running shy now… damned Frenchies or not. I'd like to see them try their tricks with me."

Judith chuckled, her composure restored, and left the retiring room. As she was making her way back to the ballroom she ran into Charlie.

"I saw you dancing with Marcus," he said accusingly. "You said you wouldn't agree to dance until the third cotillion."

"I wasn't intending to," she replied with a reassuring smile. "But my brother persuaded me to waltz and your cousin cut in on us."

"Marcus can be rather high-handed," Charlie said, slightly mollified. "Though I've noticed that women seem to like that sort of thing."

"My dear Charlie," she said with asperity. "We're not all accepting of the yoke."

Charlie looked startled at such a novel thought. His tentative laugh was unconvincing. "You're always funning."

"Oh, make no mistake, Charlie, I was not funning." She tapped his arm lightly with her fan. "You haven't known many women yet, but that'll change."

"You think me a mere greenhorn." Disconsolately he remembered his cousin's words over the breakfast table.

Judith smiled to herself and made haste to bolster his wounded self-esteem. "No, of course I don't. But a soldier has little time for dalliance."

"Yes, that's certainly so." Charlie brightened. "We have other things on our minds. The duke is wonderfully calm, don't you think? He says he's made his dispositions and is perfectly certain of how things will develop."

Judith glanced thoughtfully across the room to where Wellington was laughing with a group of his officers in the midst of an admiring circle of ladies. He had a glass of champagne in his hand and certainly didn't appear a man whose mortal enemy was drawing up battle lines a few miles away. Was he a fool or a genius? The latter, it was to be hoped. Otherwise Brussels could become rather uncomfortable.

"Miss Davenport, have you been introduced to the Duke of Wellington?"

The Marquis of Carrington's voice at her shoulder startled Judith into a betraying flush. "No," she said, fanning herself vigorously. "Must you creep up on me like that?"

Marcus glanced around the crowded salon and raised his eyebrows. "Creep up on you in this crowd? Come now, Miss Davenport, I didn't intend anything so theatrical." He drew her arm through his. "Allow me to introduce you to the duke. He flirts outrageously with all pretty women, but he appreciates a nimble wit as well as a pretty face."

Judith allowed herself to be swept off. The introduction was a great honor, and perhaps Carrington intended it as a peace offering of some sort. It would be churlish to reject it. Her escort cleared a path for them through the crowd with a touch on a shoulder, a soft excuse, an occasional bow, until they reached the corner where the duke was holding court.

"May I introduce Miss Davenport, Duke." Marcus drew Judith forward.

"Delighted, ma'am." The duke bowed over her hand, his eyes twinkling appreciatively over his prominent nose. "Quite charming… I have been watching you all evening and wondering how to effect an introduction. Fortunately, my friend Carrington tells me he has the great good fortune to be a friend of yours."

So it wasn't a peace offering at all. She'd been commandeered-if not procured-for the great man's entertainment.

"It's the barest acquaintanceship, sir," Judith said, smiling brilliantly at the duke over her fan. "But I'm honored his lordship considered it sufficient to bring me to you. I stand in his debt."

"No, no, ma'am, it's I who stand in his debt," the duke said expansively. "A glass of champagne now. And we shall have a good talk." Linking his arm in hers, he drew her out of the circle, gesturing with his free hand to a servant bearing a tray of glasses.

Barest acquaintanceship indeed! The insolent baggage had made him out to be a coxcomb who fancied an intimacy that didn't exist. Torn between amusement and annoyance, Marcus watched her walk off on the duke's arm.

It was almost three o'clock in the morning when the Duchess of Richmond's grand ball disintegrated into a confusion of panicked civilians and galvanized officers. An equerry had entered the ballroom and stood for a minute with his gaze raking the glittering throng in search of the commander-in-chief. Then he hurried through the crowd to where the duke was sitting on a window seat beside Judith.

Wellington was delighted with his companion, who was not in the least prudish and quite prepared to flirt as openly and outrageously as he was.

"I do enjoy women of the world, my dear," he said, patting her hand. "None of these die-away airs and touch-me-nots about you, Miss Davenport."

"Shame on you, Duke." Judith laughingly chided without moving her hand from his. "You'll ruin my reputation."

"Not so, ma'am. Your reputation's safe enough with me."

Judith put her head on one side and gave him an arch smile. "More's the pity."

Wellington roared with laughter. He was still laughing when the equerry reached him.

"Duke?"

"What is it, man?" he demanded testily.

"Dispatches, sir." The equerry looked around the room. "In private, my lord."

Wellington stood up immediately. "Excuse me, Miss Davenport." He was suddenly a different man, his face as somber as if it had never known laughter.

Judith rose with quick understanding, holding out her hand. "I'll leave you to your business, Duke."

He took her hand and kissed it, then strode off, beckoning to members of his staff as he made his way to a small room off the ballroom. "Ask Lord Carrington to join us," he said to an aide.

Marcus entered the salon a few minutes later, closing the double doors behind him. "Quatre Bras?" he said immediately.

"You were damned right, Marcus. Boney's left has swung round to the north. The Prince of Orange has him checked at Quatre Bras, but Napoleon's preparing to open the attack."

"And with his right, simultaneously attack the Prussians at Ligny," Marcus said.

"Ligny to the east and Quatre Bras to the west," Wellington agreed, bending over a chart. "Sound general quarters. We'll make our stand at Quatre Bras."

Outside the small salon, the ballroom buzzed. The musicians continued to play, but dancers were few as knots of people gathered in corners and the officers discreetly melted away. Judith was searching for Sebastian when Charlie approached her, his expression radiating excitement.

"Judith, I must go and join my regiment."

"What's happened?"

"General quarters has been sounded and we're to march to Quatre Bras."

He couldn't conceal his eagerness and Judith felt a great surge of affection for him, followed by apprehension. So many young men all so ready to find a bloody death on the battlefield.

"My first battle," he said.

"Yes, and you will be brave as a lion," she said, smiling with a great effort. "Come, I'll see you off."

She walked with him downstairs. Men in uniform milled around the hall. Orders were hastily and quietly given. Groups of soldiers took their leave, trying to appear as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened as they went through the great doors standing open to the stone steps outside. Once outside, however, discretion went to the four winds and they were off and running, calling for carriages, yelling orders and information.

Judith reached up and kissed Charlie lightly on the corner of his mouth. "Be safe."

"Oh, yes, of course I shall." He was impatient to be off, his eyes chasing?round the hall. "Oh, there's Larson. He's in my company."

"Off you go, then." She gave him a friendly little push. He gave her a rueful, slightly guilty smile, then ducked his head and kissed her with a jerky bob.

"I do think you're wonderful, Judith."

"Of course you do," she said. "Be off with you. You have more important things on your mind now than dalliance."

"Yes, yes I have. That's quite true."

She waggled her fingers at him as he backed away into the crowd. He grinned suddenly, blew her a kiss, and then turned and plunged into the melee, calling for his friend.

Feeling stricken, Judith turned and went back up the stairs. Sebastian was looking for her. He held her cloak, his own already around his shoulders. "Judith, I must take you home."

She glanced around at the emptying salons. "Yes, there seems little point remaining. Although maybe we might hear some more news."

"There'll be no more news to be had here." Her brother draped the gold taffeta cloak around her shoulders. "Wellington and Clausewitz have left with their entourages. They're to set out for Quatre Bras within the half hour." He urged her down the stairs with an impatient hand under her elbow.

"What's your hurry, Sebastian?"

"Oh, come on, Ju." He looked anxiously around. "I don't want to miss anything."

"Miss what?"

"The battle," he said, again propelling her down the stairs.

"You're going?" But she knew the answer. It would be impossible for Sebastian to kick his heels in Brussels while the fate of Europe was being decided such a short distance away.

He gave her the same rueful, slightly guilty smile she had received from Charlie. "I'd give my eye teeth to have a crack at Boney myself, Ju. Since I can't do that, I must at least be there."

She made no attempt to dissuade him. If their lives had been different-had been as they should have been -her brother's birthright would have included a pair of colors in the Scots Greys, the regiment that had seen the service of generations of Devereux. It must be torment for him to be forced to stand on the sidelines while his peers in their brilliant regimentals plunged into the fray.

But soon it would be put right. Soon Sebastian would reclaim his birthright. She linked her arm through his and squeezed it tightly. He returned the squeeze ab-sentmindedly and she knew that for once his thoughts were a great distance away from her own.