Free The Sergeant's Lady by Susanna Fraser Page A

in midafternoon rather than pushing on through the worst of the heat.
    Until they stopped, Will avoided Mrs. Arrington simply by staying at his post at the front of the column. But it was impossible not to catch frequent glimpses of her in such a small camp. He saw her laugh at some joke Bailey made as he set up the tent she shared with Mrs. Kent. Resentment stabbed through him. If he hadn’t been a fool the night before, he could’ve been the one who got to help her, to enjoy, however briefly, the pleasure of her company.
    At twilight he almost ran into her when he walked around the side of a wagon and she was there , scrambling to catch up with Mrs. Kent a few strides ahead. Neither smiled or spoke, though their eyes met and held. She broke the spell first, dipping into a slight curtsey as though he were a gentleman acquaintance before hurrying to join her companion.
    That night he stayed with the group around the fire after dinner, leaving Dan to see to the sentries. Instead of songs, the riflemen turned to storytelling over their ale ration. Men traded tales of battles, told jokes that had been heard a thousand times over the course of the campaign but still earned a chuckle or two and teased each other about successful and failed love.
    After a time a lull fell over the conversation. “Sergeant,” Bailey said, “have you got a book with you?”
    Several voices murmured in approval. Since it was well-known that Captain Matheson loaned him books, he was often asked to read by the fire.
    “I’ve got Shakespeare’s sonnets,” he said.
    “Read us a bit, then.”
    He fetched the slim volume from his haversack and paged through it until he found a poem that exactly suited his frame of mind. He shifted so that the firelight shone clearly on the page. “Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know’st thy estimate.” He poured his heart into it, reading as though Mrs. Arrington were there to hear it. The rhythm of the words wove its spell and despite his unhappiness, he felt a certain satisfaction in holding his audience rapt. As he reached the final couplet, the night was silent but for his voice and the crackle of the fire. “Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter, In sleep a king, but, waking, no such matter.” He gave the last lines a bitter twist as he looked up.
    Opposite him at the edge of the firelight stood four new figures—Lieutenant O’Brian with Mrs. Kent on his arm, and Lieutenant Montmorency, escorting her . Mrs. Arrington’s lips were parted, her eyes shone like a cat’s, and she stared straight at him.
    “That’s beautiful, Sergeant,” Flaherty said. “But what does it mean?”
    Montmorency spoke before Will could find his voice. “It means,” he said with a slight sneer, “that the poet loved a lady above his deserts, and soon they both regretted it.”
    Flaherty looked to Will inquiringly. “Something like that, yes,” he admitted.
    “Do read another, Sergeant,” Mrs. Kent said. “I should like to hear the one about the marriage of true minds.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” At that moment he wished himself, not illiterate exactly, but one of those slow, stumbling readers no one ever begged to read aloud. But there was no good way to refuse, so he found the correct page and began. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments.” He didn’t dare look up from the book as he read. If Mrs. Arrington watched him, he didn’t want to know it. He stumbled a little over the last lines. “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”
    He snapped the book shut, hoping that Mrs. Kent and everyone else around would take the hint that he was ready to have done.
    “Bravo, Sergeant,” Mrs. Kent said. “Very well read indeed.”
    “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, striving for the proper deferential tone. Mrs. Arrington had