Free Slightly Tempted by Mary Balogh Page A

side, a little apart from Lady Rosamond and the officers, who were all talking rather loudly and laughing heartily. The two grooms, Gervase noticed when he glanced back, were proceeding along in their wake.
    "I find it frustrating, even insulting," Lady Morgan said, "to be told twenty times each day not to worry mypretty head about such matters though they clearly concern me and all my countrymen and certain military acquaintances of mine in particular."
    "It is in the nature of a gentleman," he explained, "to wish to protect ladies from harm and even from anxiety."
    "It really is going to happen, then, is it not?" she said. "There really is going to be war again."
    "Undoubtedly," he said, deciding instantly upon the sort of honesty with which he would reply if it were a man who had asked. "Any faint hope that the French will simply refuse to rally around their fallen emperor has been dashed. The French army is said to be very large indeed and very formidable. All of Bonaparte's most famous marshals have come dashing to his side, doubtless in the hope that he will restore all their lost prestige and glory. Yes, at least one more pitched battle seems inevitable. One must simply hope thatone battle will suffice. If Bonaparte is the victor, there is no predicting the future."
    "But what has happened was thoroughly predictable," she told him. "I said so from the start. People call Napoléon BonaparteOld Boney and then make the assumption that a man with such a nickname must be a buffoon. But in order to have had the success he has enjoyed over the years he must be a man of genius and great charisma, must he not?"
    "The coming battle will be a deadly one," he said, "and its outcome is far from certain, else Wellington would not be so openly worried about it. But I firmly believe there is no imminent danger to Brussels. The borders are strongly defended. If there were any real threat, most of the British visitors and all the ladies would by now be on their way home."
    "Lord Caddick wishes us to go without further delay," she said, "and my brother Alleyne came yesterday to find out why we were not already on our way. But Lady Caddick refuses to leave until it becomes impossible to stay. She insists upon remaining close to Lord Gordon, and I can only applaud her resolve. There is so little that women are allowed to do, Lord Rosthorn. At least we can stand by our men."
    "And Lord Gordon is the one by whom you will stand?" he asked her.
    She leveled a straight look at him.
    "That is an impertinent question, Lord Rosthorn," she said.
    He smiled at her.
    But she was not bent upon quarreling with him, it seemed.
    "It is not Brussels and my own safety that worry me," she said. "I suppose that when the time comes I will be hurried away to safety long before there is any real danger to my person. But the men of the armies cannot be whisked away, can they? They must remain and fight. And die."
    "Not all soldiers die in battle," he said gently. "Consider all the veterans in Brussels. They fought in numerous ferocious battles in the Peninsula-and many of them in India before that-and have lived to tell the tale."
    "My brother Aidan among them," she said. "He did not relinquish his commission until after the Battle of Toulouse last year. But consider, Lord Rosthorn, all the countless thousands of veterans who arenot in Brussels because theyare dead-my sister-in-law Eve's brother, for example."
    Her friend was laughing gaily with the officers, but Lady Morgan seemed not to notice them.
    "Perhaps Bonapartewill be stopped at the border," she said, "but he will not simply turn meekly and go back home, will he?"
    "It would seem very unlikely," he agreed.
    "What exactly will he do, then?" She gave him a very direct look again.
    "As a matter of pride," he said, "he will have to attempt to force a way through to Brussels itself. The Duke of Wellington's armies will not make it easy for him-or even possible, it is to be hoped. But he will, of course, try.