One Night for Love Page 3

  And then she stepped through the doorway into the view of those gathered inside the church. Except that she was alone. And not dressed as a bride but as beggar woman. And she was not Lauren. She took a few hurried steps forward along the nave before stopping.

  It was a hallucination brought on by the occasion, some remote part of his mind told Neville. She looked startlingly, achingly familiar. But she was not Lauren. His vision darkened about the edges and sharpened down the center. He looked along the nave of the church as down a long tunnel—or as through the eyepiece of a telescope—at the illusion standing there. His mind refused to function normally.

  Someone—two men actually, he observed almost dispassionately—grabbed her arms and would have dragged her back out of sight. But the sudden terror that she would disappear, never to be seen again, released him from the paralysis that had held him in its grip. He held up one staying arm He did not hear himself speak, but everyone turned sharply to look at him and he was aware of the echo of someone’s voice saying something.

  He took two steps forward.

  “Lily?” he whispered. He tried to restore reality and passed a hand swiftly over his eyes, but she was still there, a man holding to each of her arms and looking his way as if for instructions. There was a coldness in his head, in his nostrils.

  “Lily?” he said again, louder this time.

  “Yes,” she said in the soft, melodic voice that had haunted his dreams and his conscience for many months after her—

  “Lify,” he said, and he felt curiously detached from the scene. He heard his words over the buzzing in his ears as if someone else were speaking them. “Lily, you are dead!”

  “No,” she said, “I did not die.”

  He was still seeing her down the tunnel of his hallucination. Only her. Only Lily. He was unaware of the church, unaware of the people stirring uneasily in the pews, of the vicar clearing his throat, of Joseph setting a hand on his sleeve, of Lauren standing in the doorway behind Lily, her eyes wide with the dawning premonition of disaster. He clung to the vision. He would not let it go. Not again. He would not let her go again. He took another step forward.

  The vicar cleared his throat once more and Neville finally comprehended that he was in All Souls Church, Upper Newbury, on his wedding day. With Lily standing in the aisle between him and his bride.

  “My lord,” the vicar said, addressing him, “do you know this woman? Is it your wish that she be removed so that we may proceed with the wedding service?”

  Did he know her?

  Did he know her?

  “Yes, I know her,” he said, his voice quiet, though he was fully aware now that every single wedding guest hung upon his words and heard him clearly. “She is my wife.”

  The silence, though total, lasted only a very few seconds.

  “My lord?” The vicar was the first to break it.

  There was a swell of sound as half the people present, it seemed, tried to talk at once while the other half tried just as loudly to shush them so that they would not miss anything of significance. The Countess of Kilbourne was on her feet in the front pew. Her brother, the Duke of Anburey, rose too and set a hand on her arm.

  “Neville?” the countess said in a shaking voice, which nevertheless was distinctly audible above the general buzz of sound. “What is this? Who is this woman?”

  “I should have had her taken up for vagrancy last night,” the duke said in his usual authoritative voice, trying to take charge of the situation. “Calm yourself, Clara. Gentlemen, remove the woman, if you please. Neville, return to your place so that this wedding may proceed.”

  But no one paid his grace any heed, except the vicar. Everyone had heard what Neville had said. There had been no ambiguity in his words.

  “With all due respect, your grace,” the Reverend Beckford said, “this wedding may not proceed when his lordship has just acknowledged this woman as his wife.”

  “I married Lily Doyle in Portugal,” Neville said, never taking his eyes from the beggar woman. The shushing voices became more insistent and a hush so total that it was almost loud fell again on the congregation. “I watched her die less than twenty-four hours later. I reached her side no more than a few minutes after that. I stood over her dead body—you were dead, Lily. And then I was shot in the head.”

  Everyone knew that for over a month before his return to England Neville had lain in a hospital in Lisbon, suffering from a head wound sustained during an ambush among the hills of central Portugal when he had been leading a winter scouting party. Amnesia and persistent dizziness and headaches had prevented his return to his regiment even after the wound itself had healed. And then news of his father’s death had reached him and brought him home.

  But no one had heard of any marriage.

  Until now.

  And clearly the woman he had married was not dead.

  Someone in the church had already realized the full implications of the fact. There was a strangled cry from the back of the church, and those who looked back saw Lauren standing there, her face as pale now as the veil that covered it, her hands clawing at the sides of her gown and sweeping up the train behind it before she turned and fled, followed closely by Gwendoline. The church doors opened and then closed again rather noisily.

  “I am sorry,” Lily said. “I am so very sorry. I was not dead.”

  “Neville!” Lady Kilbourne was clinging with both gloved hands to the back of the pew.

  Sound swelled again.

  But Neville held up both hands, palm out.

  “I beg your pardon, all of you,” he said, “but clearly this is not a matter for public airing. Not yet at least. I hope to offer a full explanation before the day is out. In the meantime, it is obvious that there is to be no wedding here this morning. I invite you all to return to the abbey for breakfast.”

  He lowered his arms and strode down the aisle, his right hand reaching out toward Lily. His eyes were on hers.

  “Lily?” he said. “Come.”

  His hand closed on hers and clamped hard about it. He scarcely broke stride, but continued on his way toward the outer door, Lily at his side.

  Neville threw the doors wide, and they stepped out into blinding sunshine and were met by a sea of faces and a chorus of excited, curious voices.

  He ignored them. Indeed, he did not even see or hear them. He strode down the churchyard path, through the gateway, between crowds of people who opened a way for him by hastily stepping back upon one another, and around to the gates into the park of Newbury Abbey.

  He said nothing to the woman at his side. He could not yet trust the reality of what had happened, of what was happening, even though he held tightly to the apparition and could feel her small hand in his own.

  He was remembering …

  PART II

  Memory: One Night for Love

  3

  Lily Doyle is sitting alone on a small rocky promontory jutting out over a deep valley high in the barren hills of central Portugal. It is December and chilly.

  She is wrapped in a shabby old army cloak that she has cut down to size. But it cannot hide the fact that she has been transformed over the past year or so from a lithe, coltish girl into a heart-stoppingly beautiful woman. Her dark-blond hair waves loose down her back to below her waist. The wind is blowing it out behind her and hopelessly tangling it. Her slender arms, covered by the sleeves of her faded blue cotton dress, clasp her updrawn knees. Her feet, despite the cold, are bare. How can she feel the earth, how can she feel life, she once explained, if she is always shod?

  Neville Wyatt, Major Lord Newbury, is reclining at his ease on the ground some distance behind her, a tin mug of hot tea cupped in both hands. He is watching her. He cannot see her face, but he can imagine its expression as she gazes down over the valley below, up at the cloud-dotted sky and the lone bird wheeling there. It will be dreamy, serene. No, those descriptions are too passive. There will be a glow in her face, a light in her eyes.

  Lily s
ees beauty wherever she goes. While the men of the Ninety-fifth and the women who follow in its train curse the Iberian landscape, the weather, the endless marches, the dreary camps, the food, one another, Lily can always find something of beauty. But she is not resented for her eternal cheerfulness. She is a favorite with all who know her.

  Until recently she has been a girl. She is a girl no longer.

  Neville tosses the dregs of his tea onto the grass beside him and gets to his feet. He looks about, first at the company of men he has brought with him on a winter scouting expedition to make sure that the French are observing the unwritten truce of the season and are keeping behind their lines in Spain or else inside the border fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo, which the British forces will besiege as soon as spring conies.

  He squints across to the hills opposite and down into the valley. All is quiet. He has not expected otherwise. If there had been any real danger, he would never have allowed Corporal Geary to bring his wife or Sergeant Doyle to bring his daughter. It is a routine mission and has been unexpectedly pleasant—this is normally the rainy season. Tomorrow they will return to base camp. But tonight they will camp where they are.

  He can no longer resist. He strolls toward the promontory on which Lily sits and makes a show when he is standing beside her of shielding his eyes and sweeping his gaze over the valley again. She looks up and smiles. He is not quite sure when her looks and smiles started to make his heart skip a beat. He has tried to continue seeing her as the young daughter—the too-young daughter—of his sergeant. But he has been failing miserably of late. She is eighteen, after all.

  “You have observed no French regiment tiptoeing stealthily along the valley floor, Lily?” he asks without looking down at her.

  She laughs. “Two of them actually, sir,” she says. “One cavalry and one infantry. Was I supposed to have said something?”

  “No, no.” He grins down at her, and there—it happens again. His heart turns over when he sees the eager delight in her face. “It is not important. Not unless old Boney was with them.”

  She laughs again. He wonders as he seats himself beside her, one leg stretched out, one arm draped over the raised knee of the other, if she knows the effect she has on men—on him. He is not by any means the only one who has noticed that she has become a woman.

  “I suppose, Lily,” Neville says, “you can see some beauty in this godforsaken place?”

  “Oh, not godforsaken,” she says earnestly, as he knew she would. “Even bare rocks have a certain majesty that inspires awe. But see?” She lifts one slender arm and points. “There is grass. There are even a few trees. Nature cannot be repressed. It will burst through.”

  “They are sorry apologies for trees.” He looks to where she is pointing. “And the gardener at Newbury Abbey would consign that grass to the rubbish heap without a second thought.”

  When she turns toward him and her eyes focus on his, he finds himself drawing a slow breath, half of him wanting to edge farther back away from her, the other half wanting to close the distance until …

  “What is the garden like there?” she asks him, an unmistakable wistfulness in her voice. “Papa says there is nothing so lovely as an English garden.”

  “Green,” he says. “A lush, vibrant green that cannot be adequately described in words, Lily. Grass and trees and flowers of every color and description. Masses of them. Especially roses. The air is heavy with their perfume in summer.”

  He rarely feels nostalgia for home. Sometimes the realization makes him feel guilty. It is not that he does not love his mother and father. He does. But he was brought up to take over his father’s role as earl one day, and he was brought up to marry Lauren, his stepcousin, who was raised at Newbury Abbey with him and was as dear to him as his sister Gwen was. The time came when he was stifled by his father’s loving plans for him, desperate for a life of his own, for action, adventure, freedom …

  He has hurt his parents by becoming a military man. He suspects he has done more than hurt Lauren, having informed her as tactfully as he could when he left that he would not promise to be back soon, that he would not expect her to wait for him.

  “How I would love to see them and smell them.” Lily has closed her eyes and is inhaling slowly as if she actually can smell the roses at Newbury.

  “You will one day.” Without thinking, he reaches out to draw free with one finger a strand of her hair that has blown into the corner of her mouth. Her skin is smooth—and warm. The hair is wet. He feels raw desire stab into his groin and withdraws the finger hastily.

  She smiles at him. But then she does something Lily rarely does. She; blushes and her eyes waver and then look away rather jerkily to the valley again.

  She knows.

  He is saddened by the thought. Lily has always been his friend, ever since Doyle became his sergeant four years ago. She has a lively mind and a delightful sense of humor and a natural refinement of manner despite the fact that she is illiterate. She has talked to him about her life, especially her years in India, where her mother died, and about people and experiences they have in common. She once argued with him when he found her on a battlefield after the fighting was over and scolded her for tending a wounded and dying French soldier. A man is simply a man, a person, she told him. She has always been uncowed by his rank even though, like her father and all the men, she calls him “sir.” He knelt beside her and gave the Frenchman a drink from his own canteen.

  But things have changed. Lily has grown up. And he desires her. She knows it. He will have to withdraw from the friendship because Lily is off limits to him as anything more than a friend. She is Sergeant Doyle’s daughter, and he respects Doyle even though they are from different social classes. But besides that, Lily is an innocent, and it is his duty to protect her honor, not take it. And she too, of course, is of a different class from his own. Such things do matter in the real world, unfortunately. Rebel as he still is, he has nevertheless not broken with his own world and never will. He has too much of a sense of duty for that. He is a gentleman, an officer, a viscount, a future earl.

  He can never be Lily’s lover.

  “Lily,” he asks, trying to cling to the friendship, to suppress the other, unwelcome feelings, “what do you look forward to? What will you do with your life? What are your dreams?”

  She cannot stay with her father forever. What does the future hold for her? Marriage to a soldier chosen carefully for her by her father? No. He wishes he has not thought it.

  She does not immediately answer. But when he turns his head to look at her again, he sees that she is gazing upward and that her wonderful dreamy smile is lighting her face again.

  “Do you see that bird, sir?” He turns his head and glances at it. “I want to be like that. Soaring high. Strong. Free. Borne by the wind and friend of the sky. I do not know what will become of me. One day you will be gone, and one day …”

  But her words trail off and her smile fades and what she has just said hangs in the air before them like a tangible thing.

  Then the silence is broken by the crack of a single gunshot.

  One of the pickets has caught sight of a rabbit out of the corner of his eye and has imagined a ravenous French host. That is Neville’s first thought. But he cannot take a chance. His years as an officer have trained him to act from instinct as much as from reason. It works faster, and sometimes it saves lives.

  He jumps to his feet and hauls Lily to hers. They are running back to the company, Neville protectively hunched over her from behind, even as Sergeant Doyle bellows to her and everyone else is grabbing rifles and ammunition. Neville checks for his sword at his side even as he runs. He yells orders to his men, Lily forgotten as soon as he has her back in the relative safety of the makeshift camp.

  He has misjudged the picket. It is not a rabbit that has caught his attention; it is a French scouting party. But the warning shot was a mistake. Without it, the French probably would have gone peacefully on their way even if they had s
potted the British soldiers. Nothing can be gained for either side by engaging in a fight. But the shot has been fired.

  The ensuing skirmish is short and sharp but relatively harmless. It would have been entirely so if a new recruit in Neville’s company had not frozen with terror on the bare hillside, a motionless, open target for the French. Sergeant Doyle, cursing foully, goes to his assistance and takes the bullet intended for the boy through his own chest.

  The fighting is all over five minutes after it has started. With a derisive cheer the French go on their way.

  “Leave him where he is!” Neville shouts, racing across the slope of the hill toward his felled sergeant. “Fetch the first-aid box.”

  But it will be useless. He sees that as soon as he is close. There is only a small spot of blood on the dark-green fabric of his sergeant’s coat, but there is death in his face. Neville hits seen it in too many faces to be mistaken. And Doyle knows it too.

  “I am done for, sir,” he says faintly.

  “Fetch the damned first-aid box!” Neville goes down on one knee beside the dying man. “We will have you patched up in no time at all, Sergeant.”

  “No, sir.” Doyle clutches at his hand with fingers that are already cold and feeble. “Lily.”

  “She is safe. She is unhurt,” Neville assures him.

  “I should not have brought her out here.” The man’s eyes are losing focus. His breath is coming in rasping gasps. “If they attack again …”

  “They will not.” Neville’s fingers close about those of his sergeant. He gives up the pretense. “I will see Lily safely back to camp tomorrow.”

  “If she is taken prisoner …”

  It is highly unlikely even on the remote chance that there will be another encounter, another skirmish. The French will surely be as little eager for a confrontation at this time of year as the British. But if she is, of course, her fate will be dreadful indeed. Rape …

  “I will see that she is safe.” Neville leans over the man who has been his respected comrade, even his friend, despite the differences in their rank. His heart is involved in this death more than his head. “She will not be harmed even if she is taken prisoner. You have my word as a gentleman on it. I will marry her today.”