Free The General's Mistress by Jo Graham Page B

a dog barked. “I had a large dowry. Jan talked me into eloping with him, into running away to an inn over the border.” Victor’s hands were not still, moving softly against my hair. “You can guess what happened then. After that, I had to marry him, even though I no longer wanted to.”
    “And so you had that costume made up? Not to please me.”
    “No,” I said. I thought about it. For some reason, thinkingwas easier around him. If my passion was a spark to his, his thoughts were a spark to mine. “To change the past. To make it as it should have been. If I had married someone . . . different.”
    His arm tightened around me for a moment, but his voice was still light. “Marriage is a failed institution, my dear. People should stay together only as long as they wish, for whatever reasons they wish.”
    “That isn’t practical,” I said, “if women have no place to go, and no way to make their way in the world without men. There is no way not to belong to men.”
    “You don’t belong to me,” he said.
    “Don’t I?”
    Victor spread his hand on my naked hip. The rags of the chemise were bunched around my waist. “Do you? You could leave at any time. There are no walls or locks to stop you. You have ample funds and the ability to travel. There is nothing that prevents you from simply walking away. Except, of course, for your desire. There are no chains that are stronger than desire.”
    “Even desire wanes,” I said.
    “So it does.” His hand slid down my leg and around, into the warm cleft of my buttocks. “And whether yours or mine will cool first, I don’t know.” He lifted one of the shredded ribbons. “But you will not be the worse for having known me.”
    He sat up and lifted the torn chemise over my head and pitched it on the floor. “I don’t think I care for that game particularly. That is enough of that.”
    We never played that again.

    T hree months might have been the limit of my patience with this life, but just short of that time, war intervened. After all,Moreau had more to do than sit in garrison and enjoy his mistress. He was reckoned one of the Republic’s best generals, both decisive and brutally swift, and it was a reputation he richly deserved. Keeping the Austrian army on its toes was something at which he excelled.
    And so we moved. I did not then understand what he was doing, the continual movement and feints through the summer months, designed to keep the Austrian commanders busy and guessing, without allowing them to draw him into a decisive battle. I thought Moreau’s men were splendid. But he knew how outclassed they would be if the Austrians ever brought their numbers to bear. He knew how many more artillery pieces the Austrians had, and how little chance we had of taking any fortified place. But as long as he had a substantial army in the field, capable of bringing off controlled engagements, there would be no general Austrian advance.
    It was a very tricky chess game, and he was the person to play it. It was about nerve and discipline, knowing when to give ground and when to take it, knowing the measure of his officers and of the enemy. I simply enjoyed the freedom of the marches, of riding abroad in my man’s clothes, sticking with the column and the baggage train. I liked staying somewhere different each week, the loud, impolite company of the army, the revels and cheap company in each town. I did not mind the rain or the mud.
    Sleeping rough was of little consequence to me, or at least I thought it so. There was never a night when Moreau did not have a tent over his head or me to warm him. I rather preferred that, because in the camp he did not send me away when he was done. And if love was quicker and less elaborate than formerly, it was sharper too, seasoned with the scent of danger.

    O ne night at the end of the summer, we had won a fairly substantial skirmish. Some hundred prisoners had been taken, and several hundred of the enemy slain, while our