A CONFRONTATION
The fire crackled in the grate.
“Lieutenant Osborne,” a voice inquired, breaking in on Richard's thoughts.
He was standing outside the officer's mess, trying to get some fresh air into his lungs. Half the officers smoked – a habit Richard found uncomfortable – and the other half were wearing on his nerves with their talk. Though it was cold out here, he'd had to go outside.
Now, he turned, hearing a familiar voice.
“Yes, Major?” he asked, heart sinking as his eyes met those of Major Rowell. Of all his fellow officers, he wanted to see him the least.
“Osborne. I was told you led a successful foray yesterday?” he inquired mildly.
“I did,” Richard shrugged. Armed with the information he had about Duncliffe, he'd taken five troops with him and they'd checked the defenses. He knew the plan was to assault the place and he couldn't help but agree with it. By his own involvement, he hoped to avoid harm to the noble family within. They were Arabella's own, and, though the men would wish bloody retribution on the Earl, he'd be a noble prisoner – if he yielded – and beyond danger.
“And?” he continued, that smooth, drawling voice grating on Richard's shattered nerves, “you say that we will be ready to assault the place the night after tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir,” Richard mumbled. This was the most important part of his plan. “If,” he reminded the major, “I can go in alone the night before.”
That was the one thing he was relying on. If he could enter alone the night before and take Arabella to a safe place first, he would be able to return and lead the assault. He had considered doing both – helping Arabella to escape and leading the battle – together. However, that wouldn't work.
If I leave the battle in the heat of it, my men might fail. And I will not be responsible for their deaths. However, if he was encamped in the trees nearby, sneaked out during the night and returned the next morning, who would know?
It was the only way it would work.
“Well, if you must,” Major Rowell shrugged. “I say, fellow. What is it you're so set on in there? Something in the fortress caught your eye, eh?” he grinned and Richard felt his stomach turn over as he considered what Rowell might be meaning.
He knows as well as I do that Arabella lives there.
He found himself stepping back as he spoke, moving to a place with a wall behind him, where he could fight if necessary.
“I saw nothing there, save vengeance,” he said tightly. “I might ask you the same question, sir. Have you seen aught from Duncliffe that, well, excited your interest?”
He meant it as a challenge, and it was evidently taken as one, for the major chuckled harshly. “Well, we both know of some sweetness walled up in that mews, sir,” he said with a smile. “But as it is, she's wed. So no use for either of us to go seeking in the wreckage for her after. She'll be at Grayling by then.”
“She's wed?” Richard stared at him, his stomach clenched painfully suddenly. When had that happened? It was meant to be in two days' time. Had she told him something false? Hurt warred with disbelief inside of him.
Richard shrugged. “Today, tomorrow, what matters it? I commend you on your choice of assault times. If I reckon it aright, you will arrive the day after the feast. Couldn't hope to do better than catch them in a post-celebratory stupor.”
Richard nodded curtly. Tried to conceal the relief that flooded his body. He didn't want him to see just how pleased he was that all seemed as he'd planned it. It hadn't been his intention, but the man was right. He did have a far higher chance of succeeding that way. He swallowed.
“Yes, sir.”
“See to it the place is razed, if you can,” the major said tightly. “I take assaults against my troops most seriously.”
Richard felt his guts twist. He had no intention whatsoever of razing Arabella's home! All he meant to do was have a reason to be in the woods the night before her wedding feast. And, he thought grimly, the possibility of taking a shot at her intended wasn't any bad thing.
He shook himself crossly. It wasn't the man's fault. Yet all the same, the fear on Arabella's face made him imagine the fellow to be an almost-demon. He would take some satisfaction in finishing him off if he had the chance.
“So,” the major said briskly. “I'll let you get back to your tasks, Lieutenant. I, for one, am off to the woods for an excursion. My men have need of quarry and I intend to give them a chase.”
“Sir,” Richard said, frowning. That did not sound good to him and a warning started to sound in the back of his brain, though he couldn't have said why exactly. The man's words seemed innocent enough.
Why would he take the men out to exercise the horses today? It was raining again, the same slow, insistent drizzle that soaked insistently through his coat and boots and left him shivering by the evening.
“They won't thank him for the ride,” Richard murmured to himself. He wondered about where they were going and he had the horrible thought that he might know.
It's not possible, he thought, dismissing it as wild conjecture. Why would the major be so obsessed that he would make an attempt to harm Arabella even now?
“Well, you're not exactly indifferent, Richard,” he told himself.
That was different, though. Yes, his body caught fire every time he so much as remembered her vaguely. However, it wasn't like the expression he'd read in the major's eyes. That was something more akin to cruelty than ever to love. He shivered.
“We're going to be there soon,” he reminded himself. He would take the men up there tomorrow morning.
The next day dawned as wet as the previous had been. Richard, sitting his horse in the misty grayness, wanted to curse the rain. It was, however, a massive blessing. In this shifting fog, they would sneak up almost to the door of Duncliffe without notice.
“We could be under their noses and they'd miss us in this.”
“Who's under whose nose, sir?” Bromley asked. He was riding beside Richard as they headed in together.
“Well, right now, you're under mine. And until we reach camp this evening, it's probably best if you stay there,” he said.
“Aye, sir,” Bromley nodded with a dazzling grin.
Richard laughed. “I'm glad you came along,” he said reflectively. His usual companion, Stower, was in front, surrounded by troops he was going to direct toward the site he and Richard had reconnoitered as a camp the previous day.
“I am too, sir,” Bromley commented. “The roof leaks in our billet, had you noticed?”
Richard shook his head, grinning with surprise. “I hadn't, actually, Bromley.”
“Well it does,” he commented succinctly. “And I, for one, am glad to be away from it, if only for a few nights.”
Richard laughed. “Better to be out here in the rain?”
“The sky never pretended to keep my head dry, sir,” Bromley said seriously. “The roof, however, has played me false, sir. It's supposed to, and I won't stand for it doing otherwise.”
They both laughed and Richard felt his spirits lighten. He was glad Bromley was with him – the man's comments would lighten almost anything.
As they marched, the day cleared a little, though the thick mist persisted. That, he thought with grim satisfaction, was perfect. If it only stayed there until the evening, he could slip away and fetch Arabella from the castle without anyone on either side being any the wiser.
He frowned. The plan seemed simple, but really it was probably fraught with peril. How he was actually going to steal a woman on the night of her wedding, possibly from the feast, and walk out undetected?
“Bromley,” he asked as they rode, an idea forming in his mind.
“Yes, sir?”
“You know the local customs, eh?”
“I know something,” Bromley said cautiously. “I've been here a good fifteen years, sir. I've seen a fair bit in my time. What did you want to ask about?”
“Well, can just anyone attend a wedding? I mean, all the folk of a particular clan?”
“For the most part, yes,” Bromley nodded. “Far as I know, anyways. The Laird's family and household – his servants, grooms and guardsmen – will come first, of course. However, everyone falling under his protection would doubtless be there if they would fit. Not near the top table, but somewhere. Why, sir?”
Richard shrugged. “Just thinking, Bromley,” he said. “That gathering I went to...what was it?”
“Oh! Not a wedding, sir,” Bromley said with a grin. “Or if it was, there never was an odder one.”
“Quite,” Richard commented.
“No disrespect to our dead meant,” Bromley commented.
“Quite, Bromley,” Richard said crisply. In that massacre, he had lost companions as well as colleagues. It was not something he wished to recall now. Especially not when they were fast approaching the chance to avenge them, and he was going to step away from it.
If I step away, no one will be there to give the order. It will never happen.
As much as he wanted to avenge the fallen men, another plan was starting to form in his mind. A plan which would take him elsewhere besides the assault on the fort.
They rode in silence awhile. In the early afternoon, they reached the site he and Bromley had identified earlier as a prospective camp.
“Alright, lads,” he called out to the thirty-four men who'd come with him and Bromley. “Let's get settled. And keep it quiet, eh?” he inclined his head toward the fortress, indicating that he wanted no noise to reach them there.
“Yes, sir.”
They set to work with a will, and while he supervised the setting up of the small, temporary camp, Richard selected four men to make a reconnaissance toward the fort.
“Just go in, see what you can see – count sentries, watch their habits, observe. And, one more thing.”
“Yes, sir?”
He gave them his instructions and they frowned at him in utter bewilderment. When he'd finished, though, they were nodding with some excitement.
“Yes, sir,” they nodded in unison.
“We'll be right back, sir.”
Richard waited until his men had disappeared and then headed toward where his own temporary shelter was being erected by his man, his head full of thoughts. Where was Arabella, and what was happening now?
He shook himself, not wanting to let himself get distracted. Wherever she was, he had things he had to plan. He couldn't afford to concern himself with the major or what he was doing or where he'd got to.
He had his own arrangements to make. He also had to get them into place soon. Arabella would be lost to him soon.